Gold and Aplles

Gold was an expensive metal not only for ordinary people. The magical world also spun and worked often only thanks to the shine of the yellow coins.

This metal was used in a variety of areas of people's lives: from use in the creation of electronics, to rituals and artifacts created by skilled magicians. Gold has taken its place on the pedestal since ancient times and no one had the opportunity to throw it off. 

A book could be written on why gold was so important to the whole world, but right now for Danil it was important for a completely different reason. Standing over the crafting table, which he took out of his trusty bottomless backpack and placed next to his bed, he tested different combinations with gold.

"And what exactly are you trying to do? Minerva didn't tell me the details of why exactly you needed so much gold." Albus said with interest as he watched the teenager's movements.

Considering that no one had said exactly how much gold was needed, Albus only asked a hundred kilograms from his good friend Nicholas. It was simply rude to ask for more.

"I'm going to create a golden apple that can heal me up back to hundred percent. At the same time, I want to see if I can create a particularly crazy item that could theoretically resurrect a person on the verge of death." He answered distractedly. 

Seeing that it was best not to distract the teenager for now, Albus returned to observation.

To begin with, Danil broke one gold bar into nine nuggets – somehow; the old man didn't understand how this little table worked – and surrounded one normal red apple with eight of them. Nothing happened.

The monster boy frowned in displeasure, but didn't say anything, only returning the pieces of gold to their original state. Then he surrounded the same apple, this time with gold bars, and before Dumbledore even had time to blink, a golden apple was now shining in the boy's hand.

This apple looked unusual. It was as if someone very skilled had made a figurine of an apple and covered it with a layer of gold to show off his skill. Only the stem remained made of wood.

"Well, that works." Danil commented, taking the apple by the stem and eating the fruit of impossible origin in one bite.

Not having time to stop such an idiotic decision, Dumbledore could only watch, fascinated, as the monster boy grunted in pain and grabbed the table to stop himself from falling over. One could see his body was growing with new flesh, filling the space under the tightly wrapped bandages.

A moment – and they became too tight, so with a mental effort Danil sent out a wave of magic and cut off all the bandages that surrounded his body, leaving only the one on his head.

Now both of them had an incredible show ahead of them. New skin has yet to grow on his wounds, allowing them to see how the muscles grew in place of the missing ones and connected together. 

They couldn't take their eyes off this disgustingly beautiful show. His flesh was restored with incredible speed and after twenty seconds there was not a single wound left on him, there was not even a single scar on his new skin.

"Danil?" Dumbledore calmly scratched his beard. "Could you tell me what I just witnessed?"

"To begin with, it was extremely unpleasant." He admitted, standing up to his full height again. "This, my dear Albus, was the golden apple – the only food that can help a living being with regeneration. How it works, I confess, I have no idea, I'm just glad it does."

Stretching not unlike a cat, Danil began the second experiment, crafting one golden block after another, grunting with difficulty and placing them around the table.

Albus raised an eyebrow at this. He knew perfectly well that it was impossible to make a solid block of this size from nine kilograms of pure gold. Taking his wand out of his sleeve, he waved it over one of the blocks and felt his eyebrows rise to meet his hairline. In front of him stood a stable cubic meter of pure gold! It didn't make any sense!

"Danil, do you know that you have now created stable matter out of nothing?" Albus asked, feeling a headache coming on.

The boy stopped his manipulations with the gold, looking at the old man in surprise. "Did I?" He looked at all the gold that surrounded him and shrugged. "Good to know if I ever want to crash the world economy. Now on to the main show."

Taking the first block of gold in his hands, the boy compressed it in his hands, reducing the huge amount of gold to the size of his own fist. One by one, eight insanely expensive blocks of gold surrounded the second red apple and when the process was completed, Danil slowly lowered his hands to the crafting table and concentrated.

At first, nothing happened. But instead of backing away with a disappointed face, Danil clung even closer and froze, glaring at the table through the bandage around his eyes.

He felt the table reluctantly begin to take away his magic at first, as if he did not want to carry out the orders of his consent. Seeing this, Danil decided that this would not work and began to forcibly pour his magic into the tree. That's when the fun began.

The table, like an energy vampire, collected the magic of the boy's monster and, with its help, began to change objects on its surface according to the user's ideas. The gold flowed towards the apple, slowly enveloping it and penetrating the crisp skin, filling the flesh with cold metal.

But that's not all that happened inside the small apple. Something has changed in the metal itself, changing its essence to another, filling it with ideas of protection, healing and restoration.

Finally, when the last gram of gold fused with the apple, it glowed a soft purple hue, emitting a power that even Dumbledore had difficulty understanding.

"Here she is." Danil said with a smug smile and took the Enchanted Golden Apple in his hands. "Looks cool, huh?" He asked and slowly turned to Albus – the creation of the Apple had drained all his strength – but he only stood there, looking with wide eyes at the apple in the boy's hands.

The old magician took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes as if he had just been blinded by the sun. It was clear that Albus did not fully understand what exactly had happened.

"Danil, my young friend, did you know that my glasses are enchanted to see a limited range of magic? A useful skill if someone of my status wants to live a long life." Danil nodded, but any intelligent being would benefit from such an artifact. "So, right now this apple that you hold in your hands shines brighter than the midday sun." He looked at Danil expectantly, but he was already lost in his own thoughts.

This was understandable; if it worked even better than an ordinary golden apple, then there must be much more magic in it.

'Or is it not magic at all?' A thought suddenly flashed through his head.

"... Take this Apple away already, you'll have your time to admire it." Albus muttered exhaustedly, causing Danil to wake up and quickly put the Apple in his backpack. "Thank you. Would you mind if I asked you to study it later?"

"Yeah, go for it, but I want to join in." He easily agreed.

"Great. Now let's get back to pressing matters." The old man finally started talking about what was truly important right now.

But the problem was not small, especially for Danil. Right now, all the students' first impressions of him are negative. For them, he is just another terrible creature who wanted to tear off the head of Potter, the savior of all Britain.

"As I see it now, the secret of my existence is no longer a secret at all." Danil said. "The question remains of how much to tell the students? I rather not have the Ministry declare me a dangerous creature that's ought to be killed on sight, so we need to tell them that I'm a cursed human at the very least."

And oh, how he didn't want to do that. Life in secret suited him perfectly and attracted him with its comfort. As soon as his bald head appears in the sights of the Ministry, they will definitely have questions about his existence. And the Ministry will bring along the gazes of other interested people, that will try to use him in their own political agenda. 

Danil was ready to accept Shrek as his one and only God rather than go into politics. 

"Any reasonable person will see that you are just a victim of circumstances, my dear friend." Albus said with confidence, but Danil wasn't convinced.

"Don't lie to me. I spent enough time in the corridors listening to students' conversations. Most of the purebloods will see me as an animal, and those from the dark faction will consider me to me worse than dirt under their boots. And all the others who consider me their equal will be quickly silenced."

Shaking his head in disappointment, Dumbledore took a bag of lemon drops out of his pocket and popped one into his mouth. The professor just enjoyed the taste of sweetness for a while, thinking about their next move. Danil, meanwhile, wasn't even thinking about closing his mouth.

"The only chance to show that I am not a dangerous, insane creature driven only by instincts and a desire to kill is to use Luna as my main support."

Albus raised an eyebrow in a quiet question, but the explanation was interrupted by the appearance of the school matron.

"Why did I feel a huge magical release from here five minutes ago-? Mister Khromov, who allowed you to get out of bed?!"

Realizing that they owed Madam Pomfrey an explanation, Albus and Danil resigned themselves to their fate. For you don't piss off the white mage.