Chapter 13
Tested the new HECC, fantastic, everything works like a Swiss watch. I planted my favorite mandrakes. I have a lot of experience with them and I have prepared potions and fertilizers for them with a reserve. Again, a stable demand, a pleasant price, and most importantly, no competition and no overstocking. Of course, with the Acromantula cobwebs I cannot think about money, but I have ambition and scientific interest. A few rings of mastery and valid membership in prestigious international guilds on my hands will look good.
Excellent, in fact. After all, this symbol of recognition was given for a much smaller contribution to the development of magical directions. I'm finishing my sixth year, and it's time to think about my future plans.
I celebrated my seventeenth birthday. I had to, as headman, and by magical standards I had become an adult, a good reason. You can't blame me. I smuggled some creamy ale and whiskey from Hogsmeade for the older kids, and I didn't forget the younger ones, I got them some juices. I signed up for an Apparition class. They hold them in the spring for all interested sixth years. Honestly, I wanted to try it before, but it was too risky. In general, magical teleportation is like riding a bike. Once you learn it, you never forget it. In magic in general, a lot of things are based on this principle.
Once you do it once, it becomes much easier. Many prominent theorists are inclined to the concept of a psychological barrier. Magic is not only a gift, but first and foremost a belief in oneself and the will to achieve a clearly defined goal. Even the Bible speaks of the poppy seed of faith and the ability to move mountains. I don't know about Muggles, but that's the way it is with wizards and witches. The wand just creates the foundation, the outline of the web, the rest is built on that foundation by the subconscious or something like that.
Maybe the very core of the soul, nobody really knows exactly how and what happens. Some principles and regularities have been calculated, even translated into the language of mathematics and runes, but there is no comprehensive and fully reliable knowledge, alas and ah.
I mastered the apparatus easily, could have been the first in the group, but due to ingrained habit I did not stand out. It's all about the brief experience of being a soul detached from the body. Magical teleportation is a brief transition from a material state to a purely energetic one. Special artifacts on the training ground help by destabilizing the bodies, and the catchers placed in the squares work as strange analogues of mental magnets. All the student has to do is give a small impulse, like pushing a pebble out of the mountain, to cause a collapse.
Most people get their first success in a couple of hours and then just practice, but sometimes there are problems. Emma went to class three times before she could done this. And she understood everything, but she couldn't do it no matter how hard she tried.
Suddenly there were no more books in the copy room. It was so strange. To understand that every library is finite, but to realize that you have taken the knowledge accumulated over a thousand years of the school's existence and duplicated it in your Grimoire. It's awesome, there's nothing else to say. For a few hours, I just sat in my chair and stared at the tabletop. Now I wish I could read it. But magicians live long, and strong magicians live very long.
Not lazy ones are biologically immortal, I think. Mages in general are ruined not so much by time as by the burden of curses and years lived. And with the latter, which everyone has to fight for themselves, there are no uniform recipes and ready-made methods. It is not the evil eye of an envious person, involuntarily imposed, cleansing ritual to remove. It is difficult to experience loved ones while remaining a human being. In the broadest sense of loved ones, from hamsters and life partners to children and often great-grandchildren. I've never seen eternal life as a blessing, it's the worst possible curse.
The Badgers were confidently ahead and almost took the School Cup, and it was not for nothing that I worked so hard with the young people, but Snape showed up in all his glory. Slytherin won by the slimmest of margins. The young Snakes rejoiced, but their older and more experienced companions sat gloomily, looking around cautiously. I explained to my friends that there was no need to worry, that everything was nothing and passing, that only the friendship and unity of Hufflepuff was eternal. In short, I made a pathos speech for the younger ones and advised the older ones to stay out of politics.
The Ravenclaws were wise enough to understand and explain to the first years that there was a reason for this. And only the Gryffindor had a burning desire to do good and justice. I later organized a party for himself in the Great Hall, with prizes for the younger ones. Eternal Transfiguration and the chance to go to Hogsmeade for the weekend made it possible to reward everyone. Emma and her friends organized competitions and made-up nominations. The boys and I were the sponsors and the creative force, and it was fun, because the first year had taken the stupid school cup and the idiotic point system to heart.
In fact, I got much closer to my own faculty that year than I had in the previous five years. You could say I became a real badger. In the end, I didn't make any artifacts except for HECC and Pensieve because I didn't have enough time. But Pensieve had extended functionality. In it, you can not only be present in the memory as an outside observer, but you can also experience the event from the first person.
Since I had become a fully capable and responsible sorcerer by magical standards, no one bothered with my problems. The letters with spells for the director of the orphanage were not delivered, instead I was summoned to the director's office. The official reason was to consider candidates for the position of headmaster. I politely refused the candy and tea, did not look my grandfather in the eye, kept my Occlumency shields alert, but since there was little hope for them, I used the mental layer of my aura.
This technique is very effective against the one who wants to count you. Of course, it won't save you from a direct spell, but it will protect you from passive influence. The conversation was really about nothing. Dumbledore was interested in my successes and plans, and spoke inspiringly of own youth and the open road. He lamented the narrow-mindedness and nepotism of the aristocracy, the unfair treatment and discrimination. He didn't talk about the common good, thank goodness, but he did mention equality of opportunity.
As far as I understood, he was thinking about use me into future. I nodded, sniffed thoughtfully, and told him that I wanted to be an apprentice and that I dreamed of becoming a master. It seemed to work. He needed loyal people in the Ministry, especially the Aurors. He praised them so much that they were heroes without fear or reproach, fighting the darkness at the forefront and generally honored with respect and decent money. Well, well, well, my HECC is the size of a toolbox, with the reduction spell activated, hiding almost an acre of space inside, from which I'll earn more in a quarter on Mandrakes alone than an Auror with a year's experience.