34. Working towards the next event

A few days later as we ate in the dining hall a commotion happened at the gryffindor table. Today Sophia and myself had opted to eat at our own house table and so we could only look from afar with curiosity. Especially so because said commotion was happening at the first years of the table. 

“What do you think that is about?” Padma asked, looking more for gossip than for answers I would assume. 

“No idea, but seeing as the commotion happened after the owl delivered what looked like a broom and Harry being the new seeker…” I left the rest unsaid. Afterall, all of us raven claws could appreciate and understand the unsaid part.  

“You can’t be serious. First years aren’t allowed to have their own brooms.” Sophia said with a bit of awe. Meanwhile I had to try hard to not make a Sirius vs serious joke. I would save those for the third year. 

As was to be expected gossip flew faster than light and by the end of lunch everyone and their mothers knew about Harry getting a brand new nimbus two thousand. That however wasn’t the important part for me though. Instead, I had to think about what came next. The first match of the Hogwarts quidditch season. 

Seeing as events so far have tended towards lethality I had to think about needing to interfere. Afterall, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence but thrice? Thrice is a pattern. So far we are at coincidence, with the flying practice and the troll. Even so, I wouldn’t be taking any chances.

Thinking about it. I had an extremely devious and foolhardy idea. In the movies Hermione had set fire to Snape’s robes. What if, I did the same but for Quirelmort’s turban. It would be hilarious to see the man panic. Afterall, if he removed the turban or it burned down, baldy's face would be revealed. That also means I need to make sure the fire can’t be easily put out by magical means. 

“Oh how much I love chemistry.” I mumbled to myself as I thought of a compound that would do the job quite well. White phosphorus, being a substance that likes to burn spontaneously when in contact with air, would do the trick just right. Sure, magic could extinguish the fire, but all that would be needed to restart is contact with air. There is a reason why the Geneva suggestions prohibit its use for war. 

Plan in mind, I let time pass me by as the ever boring classes continued. Don’t get me wrong, I love learning magic but I have read so much in the library and practiced by myself as much if not even more than I read. This means that my mastery of spells is head and shoulders over my peers and therefore the material covered in class. 

Once classes came to an end for the day I gave Sophia the slip and entered an empty classroom. Why? Well, to have Gurry acquire the materials I would need of course. I don't trust the little guy with handling white phosphorus as is so instead I would make my own, not that it's hard to do so anyway. Besides that I also asked for some gasoline. Phosphorus ignites gasoline when in contact with air and there you go. 

I would get to that once Gurry got the stuff. Meanwhile I decided to work once more on a project I had shelved so I could focus on my wolf problem. That project being my codex. Originally, I had wanted to make something like a grimoire. A book with the enchantment for infinite pages, not that it truly is infinite but whatever. In the end, I realized that wouldn’t work. 

For starters, an enchanted book can only have its cover itself enchanted. This clearly reduced the area I had access to. Second, paper is delicate no matter what anyone says and I would rather not have my efforts go up in smoke. Thank you very much.   

So here I am, cutting tiny ward stones into centimeter cubes. Stones that I will inscribe with runes and glyphs. These wards stones however, aren't the normal kind. I had taken my time to turn them into vitality stones using my usual ritual. Pros of doing this is that the ward stone can now channel vitality. Con, it can channel vitality not store it. At least the things won’t turn into stone after a set period of time. 

Anyway, I also got glass. Why glass you ask? Memory that’s why. I will have the ward stones storing information by writing it on glass. It is a rather weird interaction that magic has with glass truth be told. To put it simply, when magic flows through glass it can alter the crystalline structure. So, I used magic to set the structure of the glass in a pattern I have designated as empty. Then the codex can alter the pattern to store information. Add to that information compression and if my calculations are right, I can very well hold up to petabytes of information… not that it stores it in bits mind you. Binary is inefficient despite being an incredibly useful tool.  

Now, all that is well and good if the damned stupid ward stones would stop blowing up on me! Carving tiny runes is not easy and I have come to learn that magic much like electricity likes to jump. Meaning, I need to find a magic insulator to restrict the flow of magic so it will only go where I want it and only where I want it. It took me the better part of a month to find a material that would work. 

“I once again reaffirm my belief that today's sorcerers and witches are imbeciles, every. single. one. of. THEM!” I raged as I found out that the metal I had been needing was considered a useless metal. Adamantite, a black metal heavier than tungsten, harder too, and a bitch and a half to work with. 

To put it simply, adamantite is the bane of wizards as it is veritably invulnerable to magic. Don’t get me wrong, magic can still affect it. Only you would need orders of magnitude more to do so. That being said, I could already find a thousand and one uses for the damned metal! Oh I don’t know, they could very well use it to make cuffs for prisoners! But no, better use enchanted cuffs that have the same effect. 

Taking a deep breath to calm down I began to plan. First of all, as useful as adamantite will be, it is also hard to work with. It doesn’t play nice with magic, and is as hard if not harder to work with than high carbon steel. Thankfully, I don’t need it in huge amounts nor made into large constructs. 

“Gurry!” I shouted into the relatively empty space of the room of requirements. 

“Has missus called for Gurry?” Well, no shit if I hadn’t you wouldn’t be here, I didn’t say that however, dimwitted as the guy may be there is no need for me to unload my frustrations on the useful guy. 

“Yes, I need you to put a commision for the Smiths, Here.” I had spent the last few hours doing much more than grumbling at the stupidity of wizard kind. I knew I would need the help of the Smiths sooner than later, afterall, my original designs still used a good bit of metal. Now I have modified those designs. 

If one were to look at the paper they would just see a bunch of schematics for seemingly useless bits and bobs. However, I knew better. Those bits and bobs would be assembled like a puzzle. The end result being twenty seven hollow metal blocks. Blocks that would house the twenty seven ward stones. The faces made of goblin silver, and boy did that hurt my savings, while the edges would be made of adamantite. Of course, those same goblin silver faces would have tiny groves on which a spider web made of adamantite would fit. All of it to take the shape of a rubik's cube made of rubik's cubes. So yeah, all of these would cost me a pretty penny. 

“The things we do for our ambitions.” I whispered to myself.

“Did you say something?” Sophia asked me as we walked hand in hand towards the dining hall. Yes, Sophia had gotten even more attached to myself and enjoyed holding hands very much… how lewd. Leaving stupid jokes aside I couldn’t help but feel a bit conflicted about it. Afterall, I would need to be blind and deaf to not notice the crush the girl was developing. A crush that maybe had appeared due to the pheromones. Should I try to distance myself from the girl? Should I stop using the pheromones? 

I sighed as those thoughts swirled in my mind as I ate. Would it be wrong for me to string her along? Truthfully, I didn’t feel the same for her. Don’t get me wrong, I love her how a mother loves her daughter or how a sibling loves her sister. There is no romantic attraction there, and much less a sexual one. Then again, how would I know. I never had a romantic or sexual relationship before. Yes, I died with all my V cards last life, deal with it. 

In the end I decided to do the mature thing and procrastinate the problem until it either bit me in the ass or it solved itself. If the girl ever confesses to me I might as well give the whole romantical love a try. Who knows it might work… or it could all go horribly wrong damaging our relationship in an unrecoverable way, time would tell. 

“It is not fair!” I sigh hearing my dear brother ranting. After a lovely dinner with Sophia, Draco had asked me to talk. Now I realize all he wanted was to rant about how it isn’t fair that Harry gets to join the quidditch team. How it's not fair that he gets a broom despite being a first year. 

“I mean, what is so special about him! He can’t even see without his glasses. Bet he will lose them during the match, making a fool of himself.” Huh, I hadn’t thought about that. I should recommend the boy uses a sticking charm just in case… even better, I will recommend he gets some sort of aviator goggles with his prescription. 

“Well, Draco, what do you want me to say? You have already complained to father and there was little he could do himself. Not to mention this is not the first such an exception has been made. In recent times, sure, but not the first.” Yeah, that isn’t what he wanted to hear as he gave me the stink eye. Not like I cared. 

“Not to mention it's not all good for Harry either. Being part of the team takes commitment and I bet you have noticed how exhausted he sometimes looks. Not to mention the reduction in free time he now suffers from.” And that got my dunderhead of a brother thinking. After a while he nodded and began speaking again. 

“You might be right. Even so, he still gets fame and recognition.” Hearing that I just shrugged. Not like that fame mattered to Harry, hell I know for a fact he outright disliked it. Not to mention, him being THE Harry Potter already came with quite a bit of fame. Far more than being part of the quidditch team would give.

“You are thinking of this the wrong way Draco. By comparing yourself to Harry, you are lowering yourself to his playing field. You need to play to YOUR advantages, not to his. You come from a noble family, you hold influence in your house. Matter of fact is, you need to find YOUR strengths and force Harry to play against those.” I decided to advice. Say what you might Draco is still my brother and so I want to see him prospere. Not to mention that his rivalry with Harry is inconsequential by the end of the day. 

“Think about it, Draco. Why do you think that I never lose? I am not perfect, no one is. I am just cunning enough to avoid unwinnable battles.” With that said I patted his shoulder and walked away as I left behind a pensive Draco. Afterall, I still had a bunch of stuff to do.