Chapter 8 - Wards - part 2

Hogwarts Castle, Somewhere in the Scottish Highlands

November 22nd, 1992, 8:20 PM

While the professors were investigating the wards, and Erik and Joan were snuggling, the fifteen minutes slowly passed.

With a final kiss behind Joan's ear, Erik lets go of the hug, and gives the woman a moment to recover.

Seeing that Joan recovered, Erik calls for the three Masters' attention.

"Okay! Time is up!"

The three professors seem to be called back to earth with the call, and reluctantly went back to where the couple were. Erik noticed their faces, just chuckled a little and said.

"Don't worry. I will give you guys another opportunity to study the room with more time available… So, tell me what you discovered."

The professors' mood took a turn for the better with the hope of another chance to visit the room. And Professor Babbling was the first to talk.

"It is all so amazing, the way that the wards seem to work, forming a net, reinforcing each other is incredible. No wonder Hogwarts is considered the safest place in the British Isles. And it's not even at full capacity!"

The other two professors agreed with the Rune's Master, and Professor Flitwick added to her.

"Exactly, it is a real masterpiece! But like Batsheda said, it's working at half of its full capacity. Half of the original work seems to have been deactivated."

Erik was nodding at their conclusions, and the Arithmancy Professor finalized.

"Yes, yes. And all because someone thought it was a good idea to add their own wards over the original work, destabilizing the system, and maybe, enabling others without full control to deactivate part of the original work."

Erik had a smile on his face, hearing their reports.

"Very good! You guys got almost everything! You guys just missed the malicious ward."

The professors looked confused. Indeed they have not seen any wards with malicious intent. But quickly they realized the intent behind his words. Someone planted a malicious ward in a school full of children!

"It's alright, here, let me show you. Stay behind me, please."

The professors, together with Joan, moved to stand behind Erik, who was standing out of the elevated platform. Erik opened his arms to the side, and brought his arms to his front with strength, generating a loud 'clap' sound.

*CLAP*

Then, he opened his arms again, slowly, returning to the initial position of open arms. But as he was opening his arms, a dark blue magic circle with a raven in the center started to grow from under the hearthstone, just above the elevated platform, until it encompassed all the platform and the stones at its borders.

When his arms went back to the initial position, the magic circle stabilized and a few dozen layers made of light seemed to materialize in the air above the platform, piling layer over layer, some of them pulsing in sync with the hearthstone, others 'dead' with none to no glow whatsoever. Erik's arms relaxed to his body's side, and he turned to see the professors with a grin on his face. And they were gobsmacked by the spell that was just used.

"This… This is amazing! I've never seen anything like this. A spell capable of materializing a visual representation of the wards linked to a hearthstone."

Said Professor Babbling. Erik nodded his head, and added.

"But it doesn't show just the wards linked to the hearthstone. It shows all wards in the area that is encompassed by the hearthstone."

The professors took that in and sucked a mouthful of air.

"Show off~"

Joan murmured to Erik, who smirked at her remark.

"Hey, I have the right to be proud of this one, I created it from scratch!"

Erik talked back to Joan.

*Sigh*

"It's a shame that it is a magecraft spell… It would help immensely to use it to teach the Advanced Runes class."

Sighed and said the runes professor.

"Who said that the effects couldn't be replicated by runework? Maybe not all of the spell effects, but the visualization of the wards linked to one wardstone or a group of them should be totally possible."

Erik said to the woman. Those words lit a fire inside Professor Babbling. She was determined to create an artifact capable of doing it.

Seeing the new found motivation inside the professor, Erik went up the platform and invited the professors.

"Come, let me show you the malicious ward."

He walked closer to the hearthstone, talking back to the group.

"Each pulsating layer indicates a working ward linked to the hearthstone, the 'dead' layers indicate the deactivated wards linked to the hearthstone, and the orange layers indicate the alien wards. Finally that red pulsating one over there, indicates our malicious ward."

Erik said, and finished pointing to a red pulsating layer hidden between the other layers. While the other layers encompassed the size of the platform, this one was way smaller, about ¼ of the size of the other layers. He continued explaining to them.

"Can you see how the malicious ward is represented way smaller than the other wards? That's why you couldn't see it. This ward is a balloon ward. It accumulates power over a period of time to discharge all it's power at once. If my math is correct, then if we came here near the end of may, you would probably find the ward because it would have been almost full."

"So the ward will charge during the period of a year, to discharge on a target?"

Professor Vector asked.

"Exactly. That is what makes it difficult to find. You would have to search for it when it's near full. Before that, it will be almost impossible to find it. It helps too, that the person who planted it, linked it to an anchor, so it could renew itself indefinitely. Meaning that every year, the ward would charge, and then discharge, just to restart the cycle. Like a balloon being slowly inflated, just to be deflated in seconds."

Fillius Flitwick's face brightened at that.

"So that may be the DADA curse?"

Batsheda and Septima nodded at that and added.

"Yes, it could."

"It makes sense."

Erik looked at them frowning, and asked.

"What 'DADA curse'?"

Professor Babbling was the one to answer that.

"It is a rumour of the school that the position of Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts is cursed. In the last forty years, no one lasted more than one year in the office. There's always something that impedes them from returning to return on the next term to teach. And most of the reasons are bad ones: scandals, grievous accidents, family accidents, and death. The dead ones were counted as fatal accidents, murder, or just plain old age. But one thing was certain, they never came back in the next term to continue to teach."

Erik sighed at that, and thought: 'One more black mark in Dumbledore's book…'

He then asks the professors and Joan to step out of the platform.

"Let's start them, please, step out of the platform. I will dismantle and demolish the alien wards first. And I will let the spell up so you all can accompany the progress."

Joan and the professor quickly walked out of the platform. Erik then turned to the hearthstone and touched it with his palm, closing his eyes in concentration.

Within seconds the professors witnessed the first orange layer crumbling. Then one after another they crumbled. In less than two minutes, there were no more orange layers in the representation.

Erik opened his eyes, turned to the group and talked

"I will now drain the energy that the malicious ward accumulated. Joan, could you please purify the energy for us?"

Joan noded, and walked near Erik, on the platform. Erik closed his eyes and turned to the hearthstone again, while extending his other arm to Joan, with the palm turned up. He started to concentrate, and the effect was seen instantly. The red layer representing the malicious ward started to shrink at a rapid pace, while above the palm of the arm that was extended to Joan, a small ball of red energy started to form. Joan immediately got to work, unsheathing her sword and pointing it to the growing ball of red energy. When she touched the ball with the point of the sword, motes of yellow light began to separate from the red ball of energy, stopping its growth. The motes of light went up in the air, until they disappeared in the room's ceiling. The cycle continued until the red layer representing the malicious ward was at its minimal size, drained of its energy. And with that, the red ball of energy above Erik's palm started to diminish, until the last motes of light separated from it, erasing the red ball of energy completely. Erik opened his eyes and looked at Joan with a smile.

"Thank you for your help, Joan. You can go back now, I will start to kickstart the main wards."

Joan nods her head, sheaths her sword and exits the platform. Erik then turns back to the hearthstone and puts his second palm on it, closing his eyes in concentration. For the people looking from outside of the platform, the pulsating light in the hearthstone started to get brighter, and brighter. Few seconds later, the first 'dead' layer in the representation brightened and started to pulse in sync with the other layers, bringing on a previously deactivated ward. Fifteen seconds later, the next layer brightened and pulsated. More fifteen seconds, the next one was up again. The layers continued to be turned on indicating the reactivation of the wards, one after the other, until just a few one were deactivated. Most of the runes that were dimmed off through the room's stones were now pulsating brightly. Inside his head, Erik was picking each ward, one by one, checking its configurations, and powering their kickstart and charging with his own magic.

'Let's see… Anti-transport ones first… Let's whitelist all elves linked to Hogwarts' castle… Now let's make a whitelist for the elves of students with special needs… Boobtraped mail detector... Extra-dimensional beings repellent… Dark Creatures repellent… Oh, we have some boggarts… Anti-teleportation wards… whitelisting Hogwarts' and Ravenclaw's magic circle… Anti supernatural beings wards… Let's whitelist the Sitri clan… Corrupted magic detection… Damn, that's a lot of feedback, don't they do cleansing rituals more? Let's note it down to check later. Anti malicious artifacts wards… Wow, that's some heavy stuff. How can nobody notice it... Anti-thievery wards… Corridor magic monitoring wards… Ill intent magic wards… Harassment monitor wards… Anti-physical assault wards… Anti-sexual assault wards… Animagus detection wards… Two feedbacks? One is in the Great Hall. Must be the Transfiguration Mistress. The other one is in… Interesting… Transparency detection wards… Intruder wards… Let's add a temporary visitors whitelist, and a temporary guests whitelist… Broom interceptation wards... And done… The other ones are too heavy to activate right now.'

Slowly opening his eyes, Erik rested his arms down and let out a relieved sigh.

*sigh*

"That was tiring!"

Erik exclaims, turning to the group and walking to them while massaging the back of his neck with one of his hands. The other hand goes to a pocket inside the suit, and takes out a bottle of chilled water. Opening it with the help of his other hand, he gulps the chilled liquid greedly.

"Ahh… That hit the spot."

Closing the bottle, he returns it to his inside pocket.

The professors are just looking at him with open mouths at the sheer quantity of wards that he activated and the weight of some of them. If it was them, they would have to activate one per day at max, or risk dying of magic exhaustion. And some of them, they would need multiple people to kickstart it. Professor Flitwick just had to ask him.

"How… How can you charge and kickstart so many wards at once and not be dead tired after it?"

Erik just stops and answers his question with a big smile on his face.

"Because I'm strong!"

The professors are gaping at the simplicity of that answer, while Joan just rolls her eyes at Erik's 'humbleness', murmuring.

"Showoff~"

Batsheda seems to recover first from the shock, and asks Erik about the purification step.

"Lord Ravenclaw, can I ask you why you needed to drain and purify the magic of the malicious ward?"

"Sure you can, Professor. Because it's the safest way. With the magic drained from the ward, after turning back on the Anti malicious artifact ward I got the exact location of the anchor that was used for the malicious ward. With the location of it, and the magic drained, I can just go there and dismantle it without incurring the risk of a premature discharge. Now the need for purification is because of the intent of the magic. When the ward was charging, the magic on it was being stored already with the malicious intent behind it, and I couldn't just release it back to the ambient or it would try to complete the intent that it was designated for. Purifying it erased that intent and released the magic back safely to the ambient."

The professors nodded in understanding of his explanation. It made sense. Magic is mostly about intent. They were woken up from their daydream with a snap of Erik's fingers, which resulted in the layered representation spell crumbling and deactivating.

"Let's go back, shall we? I think we can get back in time to eat some dessert."

Erik said, rubbing one hand on the other, like he was a greed merchant. He then started walking to the room exit, guiding the group out. The hearthstone room door closed shut after then, and with a series of 'clicks', 'clacks' and 'slide' sounds, it got sealed again.

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