Chapter 6
The second year of study went on quietly and peacefully, in work and cares. In the morning classes, in the afternoon work in the greenhouse, dinner and homework, then reading books in the Room of Requirement, before going to bed I performed rituals in it and went to the living room of the faculty, in the bedroom, sitting on the bed, conjured, and in two times to the third brought myself to exhaustion. It was masochistic, of course, but I was developing at a seven-step pace, already at the level of the body's previous owner, and I hadn't had a power surge yet. John had one when he was eleven, but I'm not he. So this joyous event would not happen to me until I was thirteen. In fact, from the age of eleven up to and including seventeen, magicians experience a power surge every two years.
That's why, by the way, Hermione wasn't sent to school in the canon because her birthday was in the fall. She needs at least a little time to stabilize, and here she'd have to wand in a saturated environment right away. That's dangerous. Not that dangerous, but it's easier to eliminate the slightest risk than to deal with the consequences.
Also, because of the power surges in the third year, the load increases, forcing you to choose two additional subjects. Actually, even at fifteen years old, according to reason, they should add something, and at seventeen add something, but the older guys have nothing of the sort.
To be honest, the pace I took was exhausting, I saved myself with potions for the first few months, and then nothing, I got involved, adapted. In the days when I did not train spells to the point of magical exhaustion before going to bed, I trained my mind and worked with the mental layer of the aura. Some results, however, did not appear until spring, and these were on the level of sensations of recall, a kind of shadow of the echo of the reflected response.
Much better was the case with memory — not perfect, but very good. The first time, immediately after reading, it was possible to recount verbatim up to a dozen pages of text, a day later already quite close to the text, but in a free statement, and a month later only the detailed essence and if there are exceptions. True, not everything, only the most important and significant. No comparison with what I read with an artifact on my head, there the knowledge was unbreakable and verbatim, down to the page number and line.
February was marked by the great relocation of adult mandrakes to the ground. It was a very responsible and uncertain thing to do. For two weekends, under the supervision of Professor Pomona Sprout was engaged in this work and did it perfectly. Suddenly I had some free time, because the mandrakes that had been transplanted for final ripening did not need any special care. So, watering, loosening, fertilizing, renewing the charms — little things, literally created by a few not very complicated strokes of a magic wand. After some thought about where to spend my time, I decided to spend it practicing the Founder's methods.
It was unprofitable to spend energy on charms, because that would reduce the already not too great reading time with the artifact. Because of the noticeable decrease in pure physical effort, I began to stockpile own blood and steal some ingredients. I prepared to create a personal grimoire. By the way, I was well supplied with materials from the storeroom. Somehow, before the advent of paper, due to geographical peculiarities, British mages used hides and skins for writing. Which comes in handy now. It's even a pity that in those blessed times there were no idiots who wrote on the skins of dragons or unicorns. But never mind, we'll buy the missing parts in the summer.
At the end of spring it was time to harvest the mandrake. They grew, sprouted branches and safely turned into tubers, resembling an ugly parody of a man. The most difficult part was to carefully remove the "babies" from the ground and place them in small pots, a kind of womb, where they would come to life. Adult mandrakes were rapidly decomposing by this time, giving the seed panicles the rest of their strength.
After two weeks of painstaking work, I can proudly say that I did not lose a single root. I transplanted them all. For such a successful completion of the project, Madame Sprout rewarded me with a dozen additional tubers, a hundred galleons, thank you very much. I should at least give her a box of chocolates next school year.
There were three-meter-high piles of skins that had been cleaned of writing. But there was much more paper, a huge pile in the corner. I tried to photocopy the books for fun, but thanks to Magic, it was fine. The spell worked perfectly with the embodied illusion, transferring the text and image to the material medium without a hitch. True, no one overrode the Law of Conservation.
Of course, it was possible to cast the spell as if it were burning out, but if there was ink, it could be included in the spell, then the powers were consumed significantly less. This was not mentioned in the usual library books, but it was found in the textbook on spells for advanced courses, written by the founder of the Faculty of Wisdom. This gave me the idea to read a detailed description of how to make grimoires. There was one, and more than one. A few days of studying and a lot of things became clearer. At the same time, I felt the need to bang my forehead against the wall.
The amount of skin involved determines the maximum possible capacity of the book. Moreover, it does not mean the amount of information that can be placed in the artifact, which is almost infinite even if the creator is the most stunted magician possible, and the number of materials that can simultaneously produce a grimoire. So you can get by with a single skin. But what kind of skin you use is important. It was specifically recommended that dragon skin be used, as it is the most durable. It won't make any difference in terms of internal functionality, but it would be a shame to lose all the knowledge you've gained over the years.
The Grimoire was originally designed as a travel book, a kind of pocket library. The founder of Cogtevran was undoubtedly a clever woman and knew a lot, but as it turned out, she didn't know everything. It was a shame, of course, but I'll make myself a useful artifact next year.
The exams flew by, this year I got a slightly better result than last year. I'm making progress. Before I left on vacation, Sprout came by again, handed me a letter, and asked if I should put the distracted attention spell on my chest and last year's lanyard. I showed my skill and asked her to check how I was doing with these spells, which are useful for an ordinary mage. Madame nodded approvingly, approving the spell but recommending that it be renewed in August. I thanked her and assured her that I would definitely follow her advice.