Harry Potter: I Get Stronger by Taking Loans - 176

Chapter 176: Upgrading the Flying Car, Luna

The shed at the Burrow smelled of oil, old metal, and the faint tang of spellwork settling into place.

“Leonardo, Muggles have a box that makes ice all on its own,” Mr Weasley said, half-buried in the engine bay as he tinkered. “No Freezing Charm at all. It’s marvellous. Have they shut a small, docile frost sprite inside it? Does it need feeding?”

“There isn’t a frost sprite in it,” Leonardo said, leaning in to get a better look at the wiring. “The principle is more like…”

Arthur Weasley asked questions the way other people breathed. Leonardo answered the best he could, translating Muggle technology into magical terms without turning it into nonsense. It was oddly calming, in a way that made the hours pass too quickly.

“And the Muggles also have something that doesn’t use owls,” Mr Weasley continued, eyes shining as he pulled out a piece, checked it, and swapped it for an alchemical component. “They press a few buttons and can speak to someone far away. What on earth is that?”

“A mobile phone,” Leonardo said, then paused as his mind wandered.

The wizarding world still relied on letters and owls for most communication. Why not build something faster?

If a long-range voice-transmission charm could be stabilised, then image transmission would not be far behind. The principles were close enough that solving one would likely solve the other.

It really was different, the way magic progressed compared to Muggle technology. Muggles needed several leaps of engineering to go from sound to images. Magic could skip the staircase entirely and simply step across.

If the costs could be controlled, a widely affordable magical communication device would almost certainly sell well.

Owls might complain, of course. Then again, there would always be parcels, deliveries, and the sort of post that deserved talons and attitude.

Leonardo set the idea aside for later and returned his attention to the job in front of him.

Mr Weasley had invited him to look over a car. It had once been a rusty old Muggle vehicle, but Arthur clearly intended to give it a touch of wizarding ingenuity.

“Oh, flying is so convenient,” Mr Weasley muttered, as if this were an obvious truth the world was being stubborn about. “Why don’t Muggles add that function to their cars?”

Leonardo’s mouth twitched. The word for a flying Muggle vehicle was aeroplane, but he decided it was safer not to derail Arthur’s joy.

Arthur dismantled the car’s structure with surprising confidence, stripping out bulky, useless components and replacing them with alchemical parts. He flicked his wand now and then, laying spell patterns into the metal like stitches.

“Ron told me you’ve started studying alchemy,” he said, in a casual tone, as though it weren’t wildly impressive. “So I thought you might find this interesting. And—well—I really must thank you for helping Ron with his studies. That boy used to give me a bit of a headache…”

Leonardo made a few careful adjustments as Arthur asked, and listened to the comfortable rhythm of family chatter.

“Work’s been busy lately,” Arthur went on. “We’ve been raiding homes, confiscating enchanted objects. I’m in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, you see. We’re meant to stop people putting magic on Muggle-made things, in case they end up back with Muggles…”

Leonardo’s hands paused.

Something about that sounded… off.

He stared at the car, which had already been altered beyond recognition, and fell into a thoughtful silence.

So he enforced the law against this exact thing. And he was currently doing this exact thing. In his own shed.

Leonardo glanced around. The place was stacked with Muggle items, and most of them looked as though they had been “blessed” by wizarding experimentation at least once.

Does he never invite colleagues home? Leonardo wondered. Wouldn’t someone arrest him on the spot and call it a career-defining achievement?

“Feels like it’s still missing something,” Mr Weasley said, rubbing his chin as he admired the near-finished car.

Leonardo considered it, then offered the obvious, kind warning.

“A Disillusionment Charm, perhaps? Muggle cars don’t normally fly.”

“Oh, yes. Of course. Thank you, Leonardo,” Arthur said, clapping his hands once, delighted, and immediately diving back into work.

Leonardo stayed to help. After Arthur added the Disillusionment Charm, Leonardo etched a small array into the spellwork, subtle enough not to interfere, but precise enough to be reliable.

“Leonardo, what’s that?” Arthur asked, blinking at the runes. “I don’t think I follow.”

“It’s an array for automatically triggering a charm,” Leonardo said. “I’ve set it so that once the car begins flying, it switches into Disillusionment automatically. It stops Muggles from seeing it. Otherwise, you’d have to remember every time, and that gets troublesome.”

Arthur slapped a hand to his forehead, suddenly looking as though the answer had been hiding in plain sight.

“You’re right. That’s it exactly. Honestly—quick minds, you young people."

As Leonardo turned to leave the shed, Arthur hurried after him, dropping his voice.

“Leonardo, one more thing. Don’t mention the car to Molly. She doesn’t like me fiddling with this sort of thing.”

Leonardo nodded to show he understood.

No worries. Even if he said nothing, the Boy Who Lived would be sitting in this very flying car soon enough.

…

Leonardo knocked lightly on Ginny’s bedroom door.

Ginger the Niffler had been on loan to her for days now. Leonardo was heading home to prepare for the start of term, and he needed the little thief back before it decided to empty the entire Weasley household into its pockets.

Click.

The door opened.

But it was not Ginny standing there.

It was a girl Leonardo did not recognise, with pale skin and light eyebrows, moon-bright silver eyes, and dark golden-brown hair. Her eyes were a touch prominent, giving her the permanent look of someone mildly surprised by the universe.

She wore radish-shaped earrings and a necklace strung with Butterbeer corks.

That distinctive style…

Leonardo had never met this floaty-looking girl, but he had a strong suspicion.

“Ah, Leonardo.”

Ginny appeared behind her, scooping Ginger up into her arms as she introduced the stranger.

“This is Luna,” Ginny said. “Luna Lovegood.”

She glanced at Leonardo. “Her family lives in the village too — they’re our neighbours.”

“And her father is the editor of The Quibbler. It’s a magazine that records… rare things.”

Leonardo studied the girl. Ah, so this was Luna.

People said she could see things others could not. Whether that was true or not was another question. Thestrals, at least, were real. It was just that people who had never seen death could not see them.

“Hello, Luna. I’m Leonardo, Leonardo Grafton,” he said.

Luna did not react to the introduction in any normal way. She simply stared at him, silver eyes empty, as though she were looking through him rather than at him.

The silence stretched.

Ginny shifted awkwardly.

Then Luna spoke, her voice dreamy and distant.

“You’re very special.”

…

“Special?”

Leonardo blinked. They had met for the first time, and she was already offering strange verdicts like she was reading the weather.

Keeping his tone gentle, he asked, “Luna, why do you think I’m special?”

Luna tilted her head, gaze drifting over him as if tracing outlines only she could see.

“Well… you don’t have a single Wrackspurt around you,” she said, sounding sincerely amazed. “It’s incredible. I’ve never seen that before.”

“Wrackspurt?”

Leonardo remembered Luna’s nickname at Hogwarts. Loony Lovegood.

Seeing things no one else could, speaking as though the world ran on slightly different logic. It was hard to tell which trait caused the other.

Wrackspurts were probably one of those creatures only Luna, and her father, could see.

Luna nodded and stepped closer, lifting both hands and fanning the air kindly beside Leonardo’s ears, as if shooing away invisible insects.

“Mm. Wrackspurts. They’re invisible. They float into your ears and muddle your brain.”

She frowned, puzzled in a way that looked almost childlike.

“It’s strange. You were clearly wondering just now, but you still didn’t attract any.”

Luna then reached to her own ear, pinching thumb and forefinger together as though she had caught something tiny.

“See? Even if I bring a Wrackspurt over to you, it will choose to leave. All by itself.”

Luna held her pinched fingers out in front of him, presenting the “Wrackspurt” with quiet confidence.

Leonardo’s eyes darkened. A slow black vortex turned in his pupils as Magic Sight opened.

There was nothing.

No trace of magic, no residue, no disturbance at all. Luna really was…

“But there are lots of other things around you,” Luna continued calmly. “So many. And they’re so odd. I’ve never seen them before. Like… like…”

She searched for the words, then landed on them with unsettling precision.

“Like they came from another world.”

Leonardo’s vortex froze mid-turn.

For a heartbeat, the air felt tighter.

Another world?

His soul had crossed into this body. If anything could be called from another world, it was him.

And she said there were lots of other things around him. Things that came with him?

Leonardo narrowed his eyes, equal parts wary and curious.

He was on the verge of asking what, exactly, she could see.

“Eh?” Luna suddenly exclaimed. “They’re gone. All of them. Whoosh. Gone at once.”

Colour and motion flickered in her previously empty gaze. She circled Leonardo, searching, as though the “things” had slipped behind him like shy animals.

“They’re all gone,” she said, peering up at him. “Did you eat them?”

Leonardo did not have an answer for that. Luna’s mental leaps were not the sort a normal person could politely chase.

He glanced at Ginny, who looked utterly lost.

Not now. Another time. He would speak to this Ravenclaw-to-be properly when there was space for it.

“Ginny, I’ll be going,” Leonardo said, taking Jinji back into his arms. “I need to get home for dinner. And, by the way, this Niffler is adorable, but it’s a bit on the plump side. Maybe don’t stuff its pockets quite so much?”

“See you at Hogwarts, Leonardo,” Ginny said.

Luna skipped away before Leonardo could respond.

Leonardo frowned slightly and looked down at Ginger.

Plump?

No. It was perfect.

Cute, even.

…

A few days later, Diagon Alley.

“Aunt, that’s Gringotts,” Leonardo said, guiding Penelope through the bustling street. “It’s the wizarding bank, and it’s considered the second safest place in the world, after Hogwarts.”

He pointed a little further along.

“And that’s Ollivanders. My wand came from there. They’ve been making wands for more than two thousand years.”

He gestured to a shop filled with cages and hooting.

“And that one is Eeylops Owl Emporium. Didn’t you say you wanted an owl as a pet?”

Leonardo took Aunt Penelope on a proper tour of the wizarding marketplace. It was all new to her, and she looked around with bright, curious eyes, asking questions about the objects in the windows, and the peculiar things witches and wizards treated as ordinary.

It was the back-to-school season again. Young witches and wizards filled the street, some with parents, some with professors, all shopping for supplies.

Leonardo was entering his second year. Beyond the new textbooks, he did not need much.

Second year did not add more classes compared to first year. If anything, it removed flying lessons, though the remaining lessons ran longer.

“Leonardo!”

A delighted voice called from nearby.

Hermione Granger hurried over, her bushy brown hair bouncing with every step. She greeted Leonardo first, then turned to Penelope and greeted her politely, careful and composed in that way Hermione became when she very much wanted to be seen as mature.

Hermione had met Penelope once before, at Leonardo’s birthday party, but she still could not help thinking the same thing.

Leonardo’s aunt was stunning.

And Hermione had learned something else at that party too. Leonardo’s background was far more prominent than she had ever imagined. In the Muggle world, it was the sort of family you did not simply “bump into”.

Yet Penelope’s manner was gentle, and she didn’t carry herself as if she were above anyone, nothing like those dreadful pure-blood aristocrats in the wizarding world.

It made Hermione quietly relieved. Combined with how approachable Leonardo always was, it felt like proof of excellent upbringing.

At the same time, Hermione had learned, as everyone had, that Leonardo’s parents had died early. Leonardo had never spoken about it, and his steadiness, his maturity, suddenly felt different in hindsight.

People who were strong all the time, Hermione thought, might still have soft and fragile places they kept hidden.

Hermione chatted with Leonardo about her summer, while Penelope watched with an amused smile that missed nothing.

With her experience, it wasn’t hard to see what was happening. And it wasn’t just Hermione—there was also that blonde girl Leonardo had invited, the one with the surname Greengrass.

Penelope didn’t care if Leonardo married a witch or not, as long as he loved the person.

After a short conversation, the three of them headed into Flourish and Blotts together.

“Big news!”

A voice boomed over the crowd, repeated again and again with breathless enthusiasm.

“Internationally renowned author. Recipient of the Order of Merlin, Third Class. Five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award. Honorary member of the Dark Force Defence League. Bestselling author of Break with a Banshee, Voyages with Vampires, Travels with Trolls, and more…”

“Gilderoy Lockhart!”

“In half an hour, Mr Lockhart will be signing books right here. Please purchase Mr Lockhart’s works and queue in advance.”

“We will draw one lucky reader for a photo opportunity with Mr Lockhart…”

Leonardo raised an eyebrow.

So. The future Defence Against the Dark Arts professor had arrived.

A man with a mountain of titles and a hollow core. A fraud who stole others’ achievements, then used a Memory Charm to wipe the truth clean.

Still, that Memory Charm was genuinely master-level. If there was a chance, it would be worth learning.

When Penelope began chatting with Hermione’s parents, Leonardo found an excuse to step away.

There were partnerships he had discussed days ago, and now it was time to finalise them.