Serena Snape: Love of Magic - chapter 23

October 23, 1976 – Serena PoV

I enjoyed the sour faces the marauders threw at me during breakfast, today was Saturday, therefore, I didn't have any classes to attend, I could disappear for the whole day without any problem, and that's what I was going to do.

I immediately headed to the Room of Requirement, I had a few things to try first. Despite the invisibility granted by Aria, there were certain ways they could use to discover me beneath it, Moody's Magic Eye Charms, the Marauders Map, and Dumbledore's Human Presence Revealing Spell to name a few.

But even without those options, there was still the noise, the smell, and the trail I left behind, I may not be able to do much about that last one, but the first two were easy to fix.

Once inside the room, Aria started trying to take off my clothes, with a sigh I sent it into my inventory and put on the clothes that seemed like they would be becoming the only ones I could wear.

As I thought, eliminating the noise and the smell was easy, Severus had enough experience with both, he had created the muffliato charm and it was easy to modify it to suit my needs, the charm already silenced all noises in a certain area, but I needed it to be more mobile and not leave any humming noise to the people nearby.

The smell was also easy, the potions that Severus prepared did not always give off a tolerable smell, so it was also quickly solved in the same way.

The problem, actually, not so much a problem as a minor mishap, was that I had to anchor both enchantments to an item, I first thought of one of my earrings, but I really didn't want to find out what would happen if I started storing or decanting my metal minds along with the enchantments on them.

So there was left, a new jewelry? One more bracelet couldn't hurt anyone. Maybe put them on Aria? Can the death cloak be enchanted? Hmm ... going through all my items in the inventory I stopped at one, the pocket watch of the state alchemists, I took it out and held it between my fingers, I loved it, but where could I use it? thanks to Aria I really didn't have any spare pockets to put it in.

I tried wearing it in front of a mirror on my neck as a necklace, I winced, no. On my shorts? Could I modify it to include a small pocket, or, let it fall to one side? Mmm maybe. I grabbed the chain and secured it to one of the belt loops on the left side, drop the chain down the center and secure the other end to the right loop letting the watch drop a few inches and rest on the top of my thigh, still over my shorts.

I looked at myself in the mirror humming as I moved back and forth, I liked it, best of all, I could show off my pocket watch, if you have it, flaunt it and all that.

It was decided, it stayed, I took the watch out of its place again, first, an unbreakable enchantment, I refused to lose it for any reason, I stopped for a second... the unbreakable enchantment wasn't completely broken? I came up with several ideas to use it, most of them in defensive ways, the killing curse could be blocked by physical obstacles, but these end up completely destroyed if they weren't strong enough, now, an object with the unbreakable enchantment could stop the killing curse?

I shook off those thoughts, there was time for experimentation later, first finishing the tasks at hand, I continued to enchant the watch with all the care I could muster and then made sure it kept correct time, keeping it in the Pocket Space where no time passed made it keep time completely at random. Once finished I placed it back in my belt loops.

With that, I had finished removing the physical reactions, now the magical one. I had already thought about it and had an idea, copper, specifically my copper clouds, could possibly hide my transformation like Magia Baiser and La Verità, I still didn't know if I really needed it during my transformations or not, BUT it didn't hurt to have it as insurance.

But there were ways to test it, Severus knew how to place wards, it wasn't his area of expertise certainly, but he had some experience, mostly to prevent his things, especially his potions and ingredients from being stolen, so creating a ward with an alarm took me little time, I swallowed copper and began to burn it.

Results: mixed, positive.

The copper cloud kept me hidden from any wards trying to detect me, which was great, it gave me an easy way to get through wards, but what it didn't cover was if the wards were more specific and on an object.

For example, it would activate when the protection was of the alarm type on an object that made noise when it was moved, in fact, as soon as I got close enough or if I wrapped the object with my copper cloud, it activated the protection, it would seem that it took that the object of the protection had been moved even if it was still in place, somehow my copper cloud cut the connection between the object and the alarm activating the latter.

It wasn't ideal, but it was very good to know, I couldn't test with revelio and homenun I revealed myself, but I was sure they wouldn't reveal me while I was under my copper cloud unless they really focused, my clouds could be pierced by someone really strong if they focused enough, Dumbledore and Voldemort weren't ones.

Now, the only thing left was to be aware of where I walked, the trace of my footsteps would still be visible even though everything else was not.

I looked at the time on my watch, it was just noon, lunch should be served in the great hall, and now that I had the almost perfect way to sneak out, it was the perfect time to get out of the castle, I decanted my mind-bendalloy to avoid hunger, I placed Aria on my body once more and hit her twice.

I blinked twice seeing that Aria had turned into her Mistcloak form upon asking her to become invisible, it wasn't something expected, but it was more than welcome. Now invisible I created a portal near Hogsmeade, but hidden from view, exactly under a nearby bridge.

Once I made sure there was no one in sight, I let out my wings and soared into the sky.

Ancient magic Hotspots, ancient magic would seem to be real in this world if Niamh Fitzgerald was any indication, but hotspots of ancient magic were in extremely doubt, if I recall correctly there should be one near Hogsmeade to the east.

Much like the castle, and certainly obvious after thinking about it for more than two seconds, Hogsmeade and the surrounding terrain were much larger than the game, so it took me a while to fly over the lands looking for the castle ruins where the spotlight I was looking for should be.

Whispers, murmurs, noises that were not there before, were the first things I heard/felt as soon as I landed near the ruins and then I saw it, the traces of ancient magic, the particles of magic that created a path, I wanted to smile widely.

I approached the point of greatest concentration, the magic came to me instinctively, I took out my wand and unconsciously manipulated the ancient magic, I was euphoric, finally a progress, it was the first time I was able to manipulate and use ancient magic, it was a true achievement, I saw when the ancient magic dispersed into three paths.

Fun fact, flying ruined all obstacle courses that might come my way, so I reached all three points and absorbed the remnants of ancient magic with extreme ease, and when the third one entered me I felt it.

A slight change, it really wasn't anything noticeable, but... it seemed like something had sharpened, my magic didn't really feel different, my magical capabilities hadn't magically increased, but something had undoubtedly changed.

I sighed, it was too good to be true, but it was good news that this hotspot of ancient magic existed, it meant that the other 19 were also present, and I wanted to believe that they were not only found around Hogwarts, there were other places around the world where ancient magic could accumulate.

But first, I had to figure out what it was and where to get answers.

The map chamber, tonight I would meet the Keepers.

My smile grew bigger as I thought about it.