Bad News

Virgil walked in front of the female vampire's cell and crouched down to look her in the eye. "Did you know the more powerful the curse is, the bigger its weakness will be? It's a trade-off of sorts."

His finger pointed behind him towards one of the wolves. "Werewolves are so powerful because they can only transform once a month on the full moon."

"A curse with no weakness is like a mosquito bite, annoying." Virgil stood up and looked down at the female vampire.

"Aversion to sunlight and the need to drink blood? What kind of weaknesses are these? You vampires are trash." Virgil grabbed the cell bars and his lips parted to a smile.

"How much more powerful would you be if sunlight killed you? If silver burned your skin?"

Every word sent shivers down the vampire's spine. In her eyes, Virgil's bright blue eyes seemed so dark at this moment.

"But don't worry." A sunny smile returned to Virgil's face. "I don't need your curse to be that deadly. I plan to add it to myself after all."

He stepped in front of Charles' cell again and stretched out his hand. Blood was pulled from the vampire's wound and formed a ball above his palm.

Virgil grabbed the spellbook from his waist and opened it to the center page. Instead of a rune or sigil, there was an opening. Inside was Virgil's workshop.

Half-finished puppets lined the walls and the workbench was littered with different materials. A jar floated up and Virgil placed the blood inside.

He snapped the book shut and placed it back on his waist. "See you later, Victoria."

Virgil turned around and went back towards the lift.

Victoria watched him leave and breathed a sigh of relief when he was gone. She didn't care how he knew her name.

Virgil went back to the top floor and left the cabin. He had to walk outside the temple because even he couldn't apparate here.

The moment he left the temple a house elf wearing a toga appeared in front of him.

"Affey?" Virgil looked at the old house elf with sparse white hair and wrinkled skin.

"Master, your Hogwarts acceptance letter has arrived." Affey held out the yellowed envelope with both hands.

Virgil's brows rose with a bit of surprise. "Has it arrived?"

He grabbed the envelope and tore it open. His eyes glanced over the letter and didn't see anything interesting.

"Send someone to buy everything on the list, you should know what size robe I wear." He handed the letter back and Affey took it.

"Right away, Master." Affey disapparated to carry out Virgil's order.

A flame lit in Virgil's hand and burned the envelope to ash. "Hogwarts."

"A Lot of good things are hidden in that castle." The corners of his lips couldn't help curling.

"Hassan, will you go to Hogwarts with me?" His head turned towards the left and spoke to the air.

Hassan appeared standing a little bit behind Virgil. "I am your shadow, unless you send me on a mission I will always be by your side."

Virgil nodded with a look of understanding. "So you don't want to be a student, got it."

Virgil ignored Hassan and started walking down the steps. Hassan took a step forward and disappeared.

While walking back to the castle he couldn't help but think. As far as he knew, he was in the same year as the Marauders, Snape, and Lily.

"It seems like it's time for me to get a wand." As the head of the Shafiq family, he could have gotten a wand a long time ago.

While his family was small they still controlled a lot of power.

He never needed one to control his magic and his book could amplify his spells just by being near him.

"I can turn my wand into a mystic code as well, but it would be useless. Effects like amplifying magic don't stack, only the stronger one will take effect." Virgil shook his head and made his way back to the castle. 

His footsteps paused, in front of him wasn't the castle but a small grove of Yew trees. He stopped in front of the smallest tree and placed his hand on the trunk. "Don't worry Father, I will break the curse."

Vigril's eyes glanced over all the trees before he turned to leave. He wouldn't allow himself to be buried here.

Back in the castle he sat at the desk in his study and opened his spell book. Seeing his familiar analytical magic circle, he pressed his finger on the page and injected magic.

A drop of blood appeared and he began injecting more magic into the circle. Soon he felt feedback and the structure of the blood appeared in his mind.

He began filtering out the vampire's DNA and looked for the magic contained in the blood.

Virgil had two forms of magic, one brought by the magic in his body and the other from the circuits in his soul.

The magic in his body was like electromagnetic radiation, the reason it affected electronics. Casting a spell was like sending out a television broadcast.

He had to tune his electromagnetic field to the right frequency with wand movements. Then use an incantation to transmit the information to be carried by the wave and send it out.

To create a spell one had to find what frequency could carry what information. The wrong combination could cause disastrous effects.

Having a talent in a certain field made finding those frequencies easier. When one became more experienced they could cast spells without the extra steps.

Using circuits to cast spells was different, akin to a computer program that can affect reality. Magic was the source code, the school of magic was the programming language, and the spells were the lines of code.

It was, for this reason, families in the Fate universe stuck to one school of magic, they mastered the programming language.

A Magus would spend his life perfecting their code and store it in the magic crest like a hard drive.

Virgil had an advantage, he already had all the answers. Magic was at his fingertips for reference and could easily be converted from one system to another.

His spellbook was for that purpose. Made of goblin silver and dragon leather, he used portrait magic to impart all of his magical knowledge and make it into a magical computer.

The book analyzed information input inside and formed a magic sigil to represent the spell. If he wanted, he could continue to perfect the spell and make it more powerful but that would take a lot of time.

While he isn't using the book it optimized spells for him, but portrait magic lacked the creativity brought by a soul.

For now, he used the spell book to help him analyze this blood. Chains of DNA were projected into his mind and he started analyzing their magical properties.

"It seems like the Vampire curse is embedded inside its genes, that's why Half-vampires can be born." He had already found traces of the curse and knew vampires were not just a different species.

"It looks like something went wrong with a blood magic ritual, or something went right." Virgil started stripping parts of the curse from the genes and slowly formed a unique sigil in his mind.

"It's similar to my malediction but non-lethal. The werewolf curse is more like a virus that infects cells and lays dormant until the full moon."

Virgil's mind moved and a complete sigil that looked like a wolf's head with fangs bared appeared. This was the complete werewolf curse that he analyzed.

"Fools tried to add the traits of a magical creature to their body and failed." Virgil shook his head and turned his attention back to the vampire curse.

The more his research progressed the uglier his face became. This curse was far too similar to the one in his body. He realized his ancestors were wrong, the curse didn't just break out when they turned thirty.

"The two curses are similar, but the vitality of the cells isn't the same at all. My curse is burning my lifespan to increase my magical capabilities! No wonder Shafiqs are so capable and this curse is so powerful!"

"I didn't notice it before because the cells of a wizard were too powerful compared to muggles. I didn't pay much attention before because I didn't have other cursed genes to compare it to!"

"Even if I break this curse, my body is already damaged beyond repair!" Virgil slammed his fist on the table with a twisted expression and clenched teeth.

"What a WASTE! This body is useless!" His breathing became unsteady and a ruthlessness flashed in his eyes.

"It seems like I have to take more extreme measures. Even if I know it's useless, I can't stop. If I do, I'll lose my only advantage!"

Virgil already knew he'd have to abandon this body, but he couldn't give it up. Magic circuits were hereditary, just like this curse. If he wanted magic circuits he'd have to take the body of his descendants.

"It seems like my research focus will shift to the soul. If I'm going to make a Horcrux, I might as well play it big."