The Unseen Scribe
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Lily's Journal - Chapter 8
🕑 Added 2023-10-17 15:44:48 +0000 UTCAN: Hey guys.
Interesting things happening in this chapter.
Hope you guys enjoy this one.
Chapter 8
Harry sat in silence in a couch on the gryffindor common room, reading an alchemy book. Hermione was sat at his side, her head resting on his shoulder as she read her own book on electrical engineering. The last month passed quickly and it brought a lot of successes for their group.
Hermione had some minor advances on her generator research. She was finally able to harness the lightning generated by the runes and transform it into usable electricity. The generator was still crippling inefficient, making it impossible to use, but just harnessing the electricity of a lightning bolt was still a major achievement. She hadn't made any major progress in her superconductor research yet, only managing to push her cooling runes to operate around 215 K. Not enough progress to actually be useful for a prototype, especially since they were also having some troubles with their air pressure research. Any material they used would quickly break apart under the runic array, it appeared that not only the air pressure, but also the magical electromagnetic field would interfere with anything they used to build a pressure chamber. They were having a lot of issue solving that problem, and still had no way to solve it in sight. On the other hand; she did help Sue Li improve her steam powered generator. Hermione was able to help the Asian girl push the efficiency of the heating runes almost 250%, vastly improving the generators, enough to make them viable for large scale use. It would take some time to know if the generator wouldn't break down due to magic interference, but they were hopeful that it wouldn't, and they would have a first product to sell in their future company.
Harry would be visiting Hermione's home during the Easter break. They both hoped that her parents would be able to help them with setting up a company to sell some of their magically enhanced products. They wouldn't be able to sell anything that had magic, not without breaking the statute of secrecy, but they would be able to use magic in the manufacturing process. With the generator working as well as it was, they would be able to set up an energy company, selling the electricity instead of the magically enhanced generators. They still didn't know how they would divide the company, but it would be divided amongst everyone in their research team. The girls said that he should have a larger number of shares, since at the start he would be the sole financial contributor, using some of the gold he had on his vault. But Harry wanted to divide the shares in equal parts for all of them; he thought that the ideas and products they were developing were a lot more important than the money, and he also argued that the first product they would be selling, electricity from the generators, had almost nothing to do it him, he only made a small comment about heating runes once, and most of the research was done by Sue and Hermione.
His own research was having some nice, if slow progress. The laser research was taking a lot of his time without a lot to show for it, he was finding it extremely difficult to develop an Excimer laser, mainly because he didn't have the right tools to do the job, but he thought that he was able to modify the air making runes to make only diargon, the RoR helping immensely in that area of research with its ability to seemingly create new runes when needed. On the other hand, his research and experiments on alchemy had progressed a lot in the last month. He found out how to clear the copper and tin of all impurities using transmutation, and then use the pure metals in the transmutation process from bronze; using that new process he was able to drop the loss of the base materials to 20%, a little lower than his desired percentage, so he was able to finally work on other metal alloys and more complex transmutations. His experiments with steel were going well, the loss of materials was a little higher than when making bronze, but that was mostly because he was still finding the precise measurements of the base materials. He was hoping to solve the problem with the steel transmutation in another month or so, and then he would finally be able to start working on creating entirely new materials; he still wanted to try to make Adamantium or Vibranium using alchemy.
Padma, with some help from Penny, was able to also make some progress in her magical TV research. The larger mirrors were now working for a few minutes without losing the enchantments, it might not seem like much, but it was massive improvement from before, when they wouldn't even take the enchantments. The new scrying runes were clearer and more stable, lowering the magic pull of the mirrors, which helped then to last longer without breaking the enchantments. It was also enough to create a magical camera, which wasn't that much different than a regular mirror, just a little larger and with a different connection to the central book that all mirrors were connected to. And unlike the enchanted muggle made mechanical cameras that were used to take magical photographs, the magical cameras had a vastly superior quality of image to even the most modern non magical cameras.
The regular mirrors were also finally out of the testing phase. After a few months of data gathered by their test mirrors given to family and some students, as well as the pair of mirrors that spent all that time on open call between each other, showing no indication of losing their enchantments, they were all in agreement that the mirrors were ready for sale. They were only going to start selling them in the summer, after their meeting with Madam Bones; they needed to know the laws that needed to be followed for someone wanting to sell products in magical society, since most of them knew even less about it than the muggle one.
Hannah had some success enchanting a muggle built telescope and was gushing about how better it was to magical ones, and after a look at it in the astronomy tower late at night, Harry had to agree with her. Hannah's new telescope had a lot clearer images while still keeping the enchantments in the magical telescopes that showed the movement paths of the celestial bodies, it was a perfect blend of magical and non magical, and Harry had trouble to think how it could be improved further. After that little presentation, the entire group bought muggle telescopes for Hannah to enchant for them, they all wanted that advantage in class.
But it wasn't just the research that advanced in the last month.
Harry had learned a lot about the patronus charm from professor Lupin, and it seemed that it wouldn't take much more time for him to perform a corporeal patronus, something that the professor said was an incredible achievement for someone his age. Harry was still a little annoyed with the defence professor; he still hadn't said anything about being friends with Harry's dad. Hermione also had a theory that he might be a werewolf. He always disappeared in during the full moon, and came back a couple of days later looking weak and like he hadn't slept in a while, together with his nickname in the map being Moony; she was almost taking it as a fact that he was a werewolf. Which Harry always liked to remember her that she couldn't believe Sirius letter when it came to the nicknames, and still cast doubts on his innocence.
The Sirius situation was also starting to annoy Harry. They still hadn't found Scabbers, the rat had vanished from sight, no matter how much they looked for him. They were able to confirm that Peter Pettigrew was alive and inside the castle, they saw him trough the map once, moving in one of the corridors on the first floor. But they still weren't able to catch either him or the rat, and as such couldn't confirm that he was an animagus and impersonating Scabbers.
He wanted to set up a meeting with Madam Bones, to present the evidence they had; he was even willing to show the map to her, even if it ended up confiscated since it was a major breach of privacy; it would be worth the cost to finally know for sure who was the one that betrayed his parents. But every time he asked Susan; she always said that her aunt was busy and wouldn't have time to see them until the summer. It was annoying but he could understand. Someone in such a high position in the ministry must be incredibly busy, and couldn't waste her valuable time unless they had some solid evidence to present, and at the moment everything they had was somewhat circumstantial.
Hermione had started looking on magical law, to both help with the Sirius situation and the trial of Buckbeak. The trial would be the next week, and Hagrid was crying almost all the time, fearing that the hippogriff would lose the case, but Hermione was putting a lot of time into her research and they thought that they had a solid case. The good that came from this added research was that Hermione had finally heard their complaints and dropped divination class. When the other girls started to complain alongside Harry; she finally relented. She still looked overworked and still had a short temper, but it seemed to help a little, if only she would drop muggle studies as well, then she would have a solid schedule, without overworking herself. In the last few weeks he started to seriously consider that his crazy theory might be right, especially because he thought he saw her wearing a necklace with a suspicious looking hourglass shaped pendant, it was fast so he couldn't confirm, but his gut was telling him that it was right. It served to drop his opinion of the magical government even more. Hermione was amazing, but giving a time travel device to a girl just so she could take a few extra classes was irresponsible to the extreme.
They were all showing vast improvements in their classes, and all of it was because Penny found a book in the Room of Requirement about something called occlumency. She had read the term in one of her advanced charms book, and decided to look up more about it, when she didn't find anything about it in the library, she decided to see if the room had any information on it, and it did. It turns out that occlumency is a mental discipline that stops others from being able to read their memories, by sorting and defending them. It also results in something like an eidetic memory and some minor improvement in cognitive ability, since the mind and memories of a master occlumens was organized to the point of subconsciously helping them in quickly making connections about anything they knew. The entire group decided to learn the discipline, and even if they only started less than two weeks ago, it was already showing some results. Especially to Hermione, who seemed to have already discovered some of the basics of the discipline on her own, before she even started Hogwarts. It was how she was able to remember so much from the books she read and helped her make connections between different subjects.
"You're a little quiet. Anything fun in that book of yours?" He heard Hermione ask. Shaking his head to clear away the thoughts he responded.
"To be honest, I was a little distracted. But I did read about how some alchemists speculated that Flamel might have used phoenix tears as an ingredient when making his stone." Harry responded, remembering something he read earlier in the book.
"It seems likely. Phoenix tears have some amazing restorative properties as you well know." She responded, giving a little sad chuckle when she said that. "So they might be a component that helps with the whole elixir of life thing. From what you told me, alchemy is all about using the many different properties of the base ingredients and then directing the magic into only combine those you want in the end product." She added after a few seconds.
Harry absently nodded his head, it seemed like a good enough explanation. After a few months of research he knew enough about alchemy to know that the base ingredients are the most important part of any alchemical compound, even if he spent most of his time with transmutation, instead of alchemical potions or other substances. And the stone was made by transmutation, it was the only part of the process that Flamel had ever revealed. Maybe he would try to make one, one day; but for now he had other things to focus on.
"What about your book, anything interesting?" He asked.
"A few things about voltage that I didn't know about, but nothing major." Hermione responded. "What had you distracted earlier?" She asked, her head moving a little, but still resting on his shoulder.
"This whole Sirius situation. I feel like things are going nowhere, we aren't any closer to catching Scabbers, we know the Pettigrew is walking around in the castle, but we still can't find him, and we still have no way to pass the information we have to Susan's aunt." Harry responded, letting out a little huff at the end, showing how annoyed he was.
"Harry, you're focusing too much of your time and energy on that. We know he sent you that broom and that it wasn't cursed. We know his side of the story from that letter, but it doesn't mean he is telling the truth, he could be just trying to make you trust him." Hermione responded in a soft voice.
"I know, but all the evidence we have points to him being innocent." Harry argued.
"But that doesn't mean that he is, Harry. What did he read about in that science magazine? Only empirical, peer reviewed evidence can be considered truth, everything else is unproved theory." Hermione responded, making him huff in annoyance again.
He didn't respond, going back to reading his book. They stayed that way for another hour, until they looked around and saw that the common room was almost empty, most of the other students already gone to sleep for the night. Saying goodbye for the night; Harry walked towards his dorm room, once there he took his sleepwear, an old, used and massively oversized shirt that once belonged to his cousin, and went to the showers. Taking a nice, hot shower, he put on his sleepwear and went back to his bed, climbing in bed he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
It felt like he had only just closed his eyes when he heard the floor creaking. Opening his eyes slightly he saw a man standing on the door, a knife on his hand, his eyes looking quickly around the dorm, as if searching for something. The man was covered from head to toe, all black clothes and a mask on his face, his hair looked like it hadn't been combed for years, and Harry could smell him all the way from the other side of the room, the man smelt like he hadn't showered in years. He knew exactly who the man was, but he grabbed his wand, pointed it at the man and decided to ask, just to be sure.
"You're Sirius Black, aren't you?"
The man jumped in surprise, making the floor creak again, it seemed he hadn't seen Harry move before. His eyes quickly met Harry's own and a look of longing passed through his almost empty looking eyes, being quickly replaced by a determined look. The man started walking towards Harry, without responding his question, and Harry quickly raised his wand a little higher, pointing it right at the head of the man, making him stop.
"Don't come closer. I believe you're innocent, but I won't trust you until I have some hard proof." Harry said, quickly preparing himself to cast a curse if he needed.
"Fair enough, pup. I am your dogfather, Sirius Black." The man said, and even with his mask hiding most of his face Harry could still see his smile.
"You're looking for Pettigrew, right?" Harry asked, already knowing the answer, and the now named Sirius just nodded in response.
"He's not here. We have been looking for him even since you sent me that letter, the map has shown him walking around inside the castle, but we haven't been able to find neither the man nor Scabbers, the rat." Harry said, still with his wand pointed towards Sirius.
"You have the map? I was hoping you would have it, and would understand my message." Sirius responded. "Can you look at it and see if the rat is anywhere around here?" He asked.
Harry nodded and started to get up from his bed, it was a little difficult to do it and keep his wand pointed towards the man across from him, but he managed to do it. It was even more difficult to search for the map inside his trunk without losing sight of the man, it took almost a minute but he was able to find the map without taking his eyes of the man for more than a second, quickly grabbing the map, he opened the parchment before walking back a little and grabbing Ron's wand from his bedside table, setting the parchment on his bed, he touched Ron's wand on the parchment with his left hand and said the password, his right hand still firmly holding his own wand pointed towards the Sirius; the man giving him a large smile.
"And now, how are you going to look at the map without taking your eyes of your handsome dogfather?" Sirius asked with an amused tone.
"I won't. You're going to look at it and tell me if he is here." Harry responded, picking up the map and tossing it towards Sirius.
"You know, as much as you look like your father, it is almost like I'm seeing Lily in front of me right now. I imagine she would act exactly like you're acting right now, if she was in your situation." Sirius said, bending down and picking up the map. His eyes quickly searched through the map and then he tossed it back towards Harry. "He's not here, but he is in the seventh floor, close to the entrance of the ravenclaw common room." He said, after tossing the map back to Harry, and then started to walk away.
"Where are you going?" Harry asked.
"I have a rat to catch, Harry." Sirius responded, his hand already on the door handle.
"No you don't. I do!" Harry said, causing the Sirius to stop. "You are going to hide somewhere, and I will capture him. I'm somewhat friends with Susan Bones, if I capture him I can set up a meeting with her aunt and she will question him. Madam Bones is the head of the DMLE, let her do her job and clear your name." He added.
"Amy is head of the DMLE now? Guess she is moving up in the world." Sirius said in a surprised tone. "But I can't let you go after him alone Harry, the rat is dangerous, and..."
"And he doesn't know I know about him. He will probably think I'm just trying to catch him for Ron." Harry interrupted, giving his reasons. "We do this my way, or not at all." He added in a tone that showed he wouldn't take any argument.
"Alright pup, we do this your way. You don't have to break out that tone with me; I got enough of it with your mother, back in the day." Sirius responded chuckling a little.
Harry walked towards his still open trunk and grabbed his cloak, closing the trunk after that. He saw another look of longing appear on Sirius' eyes when he saw the cloak.
"You have the cloak as well, nice. This should help you to pull some amazing pranks." Sirius said with a sad smile, likely remembering the times he probably used this cloak together with Harry's dad. "Anyway, when you have some information for me send me that amazing owl of yours, or just go to the Shrieking Shack, I'm staying there. There is a tunnel below the whomping willow, you just have to press the little nub on the roots of the tree and it will stop attacking for a while. Goodbye, pup. It was nice to speak to you, and I hope to see you again soon." Sirius added after a few seconds and then walked out of the room.
Harry waited for a few minutes, watching the man leave the common room on the map. After Sirius left, he quickly put on the cloak and walked out of the dorm room; he thought about waking up Ron, but it would be a lot more difficult to move below the cloak with more than one person without being noticed by the rat. He seriously thought of waking Hermione, even with the problems with the cloak, but in the end decided against it as well, doing things alone this time.
Walking out of the common room; he quickly made his way through the empty corridors. The castle was mostly dark this time of the night, and the prefects patrols had already ended, so the only ones he had to worry about were Filch and the professors. Filch was in the second floor, and Snape was in the dungeons, so his way was clear. The ravenclaw common room entrance was on the other side of the castle, so even if he was already on the same floor, it still took him a few minutes to get closer to his target. The little dot with the name Peter Pettigrew on the map hadn't moved much, only moving a single corridor since he left the gryffindor common room. As he reached the same corridor that the dot was in, he look at the other end and saw nothing, there was no man there; seeing the dot walk towards his direction he quickly hid in an room to his right, keeping the door open and his eyes on the floor. The corridor was dark and he couldn't see much, but he was lucky that one of the few torches illuminating the corridor was right outside the room he was hiding in, so when the rat passed through the open door; he was able to clearly see him and had a clear shot with just two meters of distance. "Stupefy" He said, and the spell hit its mark, the rat immediately stopped moving.
He walked out of the room and picked up the rat. Scabbers looked awful, even worse than usual; his fur was almost completely gone, and he looked malnourished. He looked like what Harry imagined would be a stressed rat, which was understandable since he probably knew that Sirius was free and after him. Deciding to solve this problem quickly; Harry started walking towards the headmaster's office, while picking up his mirror and making a few quick calls. The first one was for Susan; it took a few seconds for her to respond, and Harry's call probably woke up her entire dorm, but it was necessary. He quickly asked the redheaded hufflepuff to call her aunt, saying he had captured a criminal inside Hogwarts. His second call was to Hermione. He could see how much she wanted to complain about what he did, and about not waking her before, but she didn't say anything about it, just saying that she would wake up the others and meet him in the headmaster's office. By the time his second call ended he was in front of the gargoyle that protected the headmaster's office.
"Can you please alert the headmaster that I have captured a criminal that was hiding inside Hogwarts." Harry said to the gargoyle, he knew the statue had some type of enchantment in it that alerted the headmaster of whoever wanted to talk to him.
Harry had to wait for a few minutes before Dumbledore appeared, time that he spent focused on the rat, even if the spell shouldn't lose its effect for a few more hours, he still wanted to keep his eyes on the animagus. When Dumbledore appeared Harry looked up and saw that the old professor had that look of someone that just woke up, his hair was all over the place, his usually immaculate beard was also dishevelled and his clothes looked like they were hastily, put on but his eyes were alert, taking everything in.
"What is the problem, Harry. Is it your scar?" Dumbledore asked, his voice hard, lacking the usual grandfatherly tone.
"No sir, it's the rat, sir. He is an animagus, Peter Pettigrew to be exact." Harry responded. Dumbledore just looked at him for a few seconds and then pointed his wand towards the rat and cast some spell that Harry didn't know, the rat glowed green and Dumbledore nodded his head a little.
"Come inside, this conversation is better held somewhere private." Dumbledore said, turning around and walking up the steps towards his office.
Harry walked behind the headmaster, his eyes looking at everything inside the office, it looked similar to what he remembered from last year, the only difference is that now Fawkes was in his fully grown form, sleeping on his roost. The rest of the office looked the same, with all the weird, noise making devices that he knew nothing about, all the old looking books and all the portraits of previous headmasters, only a few of which were awake.
"Now, how did you know that the rat is an animagus, Harry." Dumbledore asked, after seating behind his desk and offering Harry a seat.
"Dumbledore, I received word from my niece about a criminal hiding inside Hogwarts, open you floo so I can pass trough, this is a criminal investigation." He heard a woman's voice say, in a commanding tone, one that accepted no arguments. Dumbledore turned to look at Harry and he just scratched the back of his head.
"I told Susan to call her aunt." Harry responded the unasked question. Dumbledore nodded with a tired look, rose from his seat and walked towards the fire place.
"I told Susan to call her aunt." Harry responded the unasked question. Dumbledore nodded with a tired look, rose from his seat and walked towards the fire place. He touched a couple of spots on top of the fireplace and the fire burned brighter for a few seconds, a woman appearing after the flames lowered. She had red hair similar to Susan's, but with streaks of grey in it, a monocle on her eye and a face that screamed authority; she also had the same... large assets that Susan was starting to show.
"Mr. Potter, I was told that you were the one that captured the criminal." Madam Bones said, walking towards him.
"Yes ma'am. This rat here." He said pointing at the rat. "Is an unregistered animagus, he was posing as the pet rat of my friend Ronald Weasley and his brother Percy before that. He is also someone supposedly dead, Peter Pettigrew." Harry added, causing the woman's eyes to widen in surprise.
"Are you sure about your information Mr. Potter?" Madam Bones asked.
Harry nodded in response and then started to give her the same long explanation that he had given Dumbledore a few minutes before, showing her the map, and how it was still showing the rat to be Peter Pettigrew, she had a few questions about the map, but Harry just responded that it was a family heirloom, something his father had made while he was in Hogwarts; she accepted that response but still asked more questions about it, if the map had been wrong before, or if the map could be tampered with. During that time Dumbledore left, leaving trough the front door of his office and returning a few seconds later with Ron, Hermione, Susan, Hannah and professor McGonagall. Hermione immediately ran towards him and tackled him into one of her signature hugs, if he wasn't sat down he probably would've fell over; during the hug she passed him a piece of parchment and whispered in his ear "It's Sirius' letter. I had Ron grab it from your trunk." It took another minute after that for Harry to finish explaining everything to madam Bones, and at the end of it he said.
"There is also this, madam Bones." He said, touching the parchment with his wand, saying the password and giving her the letter that Hermione had passed to him earlier. "It is a letter I received on Christmas, from my godfather Sirius Black." He added to the shock of the adults in the room. He waited for a couple of minutes while madam Bones read the letter, his hand being held by Hermione. After madam Bones had read the letter she turned towards Dumbledore and said.
"Dumbledore, I'm going to have to bring your defence professor in to give his statement. I will also want you to give your own statement on the Sirius Black case sometime in the next couple of days." She then turned towards Harry again and asked. "Do you know where Sirius Black is right now Mr. Potter?"
"Do I have your word that nothing will happen to him?" Harry asked, and when she responded yes he said. "Dobby." The little elf appearing close to him looking as energetic as ever. "Do you think you can find my godfather, Sirius; if I tell you were he is?" Harry asked, and Dobby nodded his head in response. "He is currently in the Shrieking Shack, go there and tell him I have captured Wormtail, that the rat is under custody of madam Bones, and that she wants him to turn himself in. She promised to keep him safe while the investigation is under way." Harry said, trying to be as clear as possible, so the elf didn't mess up the message.
Harry waited for another twenty minutes inside the headmaster's office; his time mostly spent explaining everything to Ron and Hermione, they were both a little annoyed with him that he decided to do things alone, but they understood that he needed to act fast. At the end of the twenty minutes the door to the office opened again and Sirius walked in, looking just like he did in the dorm room, behind him came professor Lupin, and professor McGonagall, who had left the office earlier to pick up the defence professor. Things got a little tense when Sirius walked into the room, but he gave Harry a large smile and walked towards madam Bones, his hands raised high.
"Hey Amy, you're looking old." Sirius said in a teasing voice.
"Shut up Sirius. You're going to come with me to the aurors office, and we are going to solve this mess." Madam Bones responded in a cold tone. She walked towards the desk and picked up the rat, she then turned towards Dumbledore and said. "Chief Warlock, you're going first, alert my aurors that I'm coming with Sirius Black in custody, they aren't to raise their wands."
Dumbledore walked towards his fireplace, threw some floo powder into it and walked into the green flames. A couple of minutes after Dumbledore had walked into the floo; madam Bones turned towards Harry and said.
"I will have more information for you soon, Mr. Potter. And you may be called in for a statement." Harry nodded his head in response, she then turned around and said. "Now, you go first professor Lupin, Mr. Black will go after you."
Harry watched in silence as Lupin, Sirius and only a second after Sirius, madam Bones walked into the floo. He rose from his seat when he heard professor McGonagall ordering them all to go to bed. He doubted he would be able to sleep, but he wouldn't gain any information by waiting there. So he walked together with Ron and Hermione towards the common room, saying goodbye to Hannah and Susan outside of the headmaster's office. He didn't even realize that he walked all the way to the common room holding Hermione's hand.
AN 2: Some long term plans being hinted at.
And a resolution to a Sirius situation, (pun intended)
Next chapter will have some things happening outside of Hogwarts.
I will see you guys in the next one.
