The Unseen Scribe
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Lily's Journal - Chapter 5
🕑 Added 2023-10-09 15:49:42 +0000 UTCAN: Hey guys.
A quidditch match and another experiment in this chapter.
Hope you guys enjoy this one.
Chapter 5
It was less than a week since the Halloween feast and the Sirius Black debacle. Harry knew she should've been scared, the man was apparently a mass murderer who betrayed his parents and now wanted to kill him, but he just for some reason didn't care, he didn't felt even a hint of fear that the man was inside Hogwarts once and could return again, he didn't know why that was the case but he thought that it was because he had a lot on his mind.
The last week had advanced their research by leaps and bounds; Harry had finally finished carving the runes on the radio the day before and they would test it later. He had started working on his magical laser idea, it was mostly theory at the moment, he was reading a lot about how lasers worked, but he also spent some time reading about metallurgy, geology and alchemy, he liked to build things with his hands and he wanted to figure out how to create new materials for him to work with.
Hermione also had some success on the generator, using her tesla coils looking things, which he still didn't know what they actually were, was able to harness some of the lightning and convert it into usable electricity, it was still inefficient and somewhat intermittent, but it was massive progress nonetheless. It was also prone to massive failure, just a couple of days ago it caused a major explosion that would've killed them all if it wasn't for Dobby putting up a shield before any of them could even react, the elf could be heard after that mumbling about 'irresponsible Mistress trying to kill herself before she gives birth to little Potters.' Harry pretended not to hear the snickering coming from Penny and Hannah when Dobby said that, all while trying to stop himself from blushing.
But the biggest breakthrough was on the cell phone idea. The day after the Halloween, Penny and Padma were complaining about not making any progress for a week and how they were stuck trying the same things that never worked just in different ways, when Hermione said that instead of connecting every mirror together they should try to connect every single one to a central location and then have that central location make the connections between the mirrors, she said that was how telephones used to work, that in the early days every single call had to pass through a switchboard operator. The result of that idea was a massive enchanted book were every single mirror would be connected to, they would all be given an identifying number on the book, exactly like a phone number, and then the book would make the connections between the mirrors, it solved the problem of connecting the mirrors, they just needed to figure out how to transmit sounds and images trough them. That was until a couple of days later when Parvati of all people gave them the idea they needed to figure it out; they could enchant the mirrors with the same charms that parents put on baby cribs to know when their baby was crying, the charm could transmit sound without any delay, and the image problem was actually pretty easy to solve using a modified scrying mirror. Harry still chuckled every time he remembered Hermione's face once she realized that they would use divination magic for something productive.
After that it was easy to build a prototype, it took a couple of tries to get the enchantments right but Penny managed to do it in less than a day, they celebrated the achievement by making a group call, all from different sides of the castle, and they celebrated for all of one minute before the mirrors all lost the enchantments at the same time. It showed that there was still some work to be done, but it was still a massive achievement and it wouldn't be long before they had a working communications system.
Their group had also expanded as well. Sue Li returned and was a bit shocked with the amount of progress they had made, but she quickly caught on with the rest of them and started contributing to the research with new ideas and a fresh look at some of their long term projects. After the help she gave in their cell phone project Parvati was also brought in, she didn't work with them on their experiments but they always consulted her whenever they started working on a new idea, she would always bring in a different perspective and had an ability that they all lacked in some way, sociability. None of them were good a socializing with others, so it was nice to have someone how was. Harry also consulted Luna every once in awhile; the girl had an unique way of seeing the world and her ideas were always a little out there, but they usually worked really well, it was an unorthodox way of thinking and something that would be a major advantage when they started working on new tech instead of just recreating something that already existed, just with magic added in. The last of the additions was Susan Bones; Hannah brought her to the workshop one day and she seemed somewhat interested in what they were doing, she mostly just wanted to learn more about muggle society and what they used in their day to day, but she also knew a lot about magical law and how the ministry worked, something that helped a lot with the idea that had been brewing in Harry's mind ever since he learned of Hermione's magical computer project, the idea of selling some of the things they made.
Harry was seriously thinking of starting two companies to sell anything they made, one on the magical side and one on the muggle side. They wouldn't be able to sell anything with magic to the muggles without breaking the statute of secret, but they could use magic in the manufacturing process; he read a little about the manufacturing of microchips and other small electronic components when Penny talked about lasers being used in the process, and found out that there were a number of different ways that magic could help to make it cheaper and more efficient. That was only one of the ways they could sell things in muggle society without breaking the statute, he was sure he could find a few more areas that magic could be used without anyone realizing.
He asked Hermione to send a letter to her parents, telling them about some of the things they were doing and asking for advice on some things they were having troubles with, they weren't able to help with much but they got in contact with a few friends that could hopefully help clearing some doubts they had in a few fields of science. But if they couldn't help with the science, they could certainly help with the business side of things. Being successful dentists that owned their own business they knew a lot about how to set up one, how to deal with taxes and the ever annoying and expanding governmental bureaucracy, a dentistry practice was way different than the potential tech company that Harry was thinking about, but it still had a lot of similarities, enough to be able to at least help Harry get a start on his plans. He was hoping he would be able to see them on the summer break next year, he would need to find a way to avoid going back to his relatives which would be difficult, but if he managed to do it, it would also free his summer for a lot of things he couldn't normally do.
"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, listen up." Harry heard the voice of Oliver Wood say.
He shook his head to drive away the thoughts and looked up to see his quidditch captain starting his pre game speech. Harry was seated at the end of a wooden bench on their locker room, Fred was to his right and George was at the other end of the bench. To the right of their bench was another one, that one was occupied by their three chasers, Angelina, Alicia and Katie. No one seemed to be nervous, they had been playing together for a couple of years now and everyone already knew each other really well. The Gryffindor team was a well oiled machine after two years of training, every single member of the team knew how everyone else liked to fly, the chasers knew would their friends moved with or without the quaffle, the twins were almost telepathic in how they communicated with each other on the air, never going for the same bludger, and Harry himself knew how everyone else liked to move, when he could do an interference play and when he should stay far above them, looking for the snitch.
"We all know this team is the best Hogwarts has seen in decades." Oliver continued his speech. "We were robbed of the cup the last two years, either by outside factors, or by unfortunate injuries." He said, bowing his head slightly to Harry at the end of it.
"This is our time, I want our names on that cup by the end of the year; I'm I doing this alone or are you with me?" He ended and they all cheered loudly.
"Ladies, I want you to fly tight, secure formations. The weather is terrible and we all know how much a wet quaffle can interfere with passing." He instructed the chasers.
"Twin one and Twin two..." Oliver started.
"Which one is the number one?" Fred asked earning a snickering from everyone but Oliver.
"Shut up." Oliver responded, pretending to be mad but with a smirk on his face. "I want you two to fly close to the chasers, focus on protecting them and hitting the bludgers as strong as possible. It will be impossible properly aim with this rain going on, so just get those bludgers away from us." He instructed, the twins giving him a mock salute at the same time.
"Harry, don't wait for us to open an advantage on the score, if you wait too much this game will just go on forever, so just catch that snitch as soon as possible." Oliver said, and Harry nodded his head in understanding.
"Now, let's just go out there and win this game." Oliver said, putting his hand forward. They all rose from their seats and did the same, putting their hands together and standing in a circle. "On three." Oliver said. "One, two, three, Gryffindor." They all cheered loudly.
The team got into formation, Harry at the end of it, and started to walk out of the locker room and towards the pitch. While they waited to walk into the pitch and start the game, Harry saw some movement on his peripheral vision, turning his head around he saw Hermione quietly getting closer to him, once she reached him she gave him a quick hug and said.
"Here, this should help." She pointed her wand towards his face and said "Impervious." And Harry immediately felt the charm take effect.
"Thanks." Harry thanked her, leave it to Hermione to think of how to play quidditch in bad weather, even if she didn't like the game.
"No problem." She responded giving him a smile. "Now just go out there and win the game like you always do." She said, quickly giving him a kiss on the cheek and running away, leaving Harry with a massive blush and the annoying snickering of his teammates.
"Well, we all heard missus Potter, we should go out there and win the game." Fred said causing Harry to blush even more and the others to chuckle. Harry was about to respond when he heard the voice of Lee Jordan announce.
"And here comes the gryffindor team. Keeper and captain Wood, followed by Johnson, Spinnet and Bell, Weasley and Weasley and finally Potter." Every time Lee said someone's name they flew out towards the pitch, when it was Harry's turn he flew out and immediately started doing a few loops and other dangerous manoeuvres, some would think of it as showing off, but for Harry it was just a warm up.
"Some say this is the best team Hogwarts has seen in decades and it is a shame that they still haven't won a cup, but maybe this one will be the year that they lift it." Lee said, but Harry wasn't focused on it.
Harry finished his warm up and looked towards the stands, even with the bad weather it the stands were packed with students, professors, parents and some of the citizens of Hogsmeade. Harry spent some time looking for Hermione, it was difficult to see in the rain that was getting heavier by the second but after a few moments he was finally able to find her, she was walking into the stand, probably just now returning from when she cast that charm on his glasses, she surprisingly sat alongside Ron, maybe they were making a truce in their constant war this year to show him some support. He tried to look for a few more of his friends but was only able to find Penny wearing a gryffindor colored scarf, and even that was only because she was seating alongside Luna who was easy to spot with her huge lion's head hat.
He was so distracted looking at the stands and the rain and thunder were so loud that he almost missed the start of the game, but he was able to see madam Hooch toss the quaffle upwards and mark the start of the game. He immediately set out in a search pattern, flying high above the other players. The hufflepuff seeker, Cedric Diggory was flying close to him and they sometimes crossed paths with each other, Harry used those times to trick any bludger following him into targeting the other seeker.
He continued to fly a wide search pattern, the low visibility making it difficult to see what was going on with the rest of the game, and the thunder was loud enough that he also couldn't hear anything from Lee's commentary. In the brief time that he had some visibility of the chasers he saw a perfect opportunity for an interference play, one of the hufflepuff chasers was a little out of formation, giving him just enough room to fly down between them. He ignored how the rain seemed to be getting colder and decided to take the chance to help his teammates and dived towards the hufflepuff formation, but on his dive he saw a glint of gold on his peripheral, the snitch was near the ravenclaw stands. He immediately changed directions mid dive, a manoeuvre that would probably make a less talented flyer lose control of the broom, he quickly looked behind and saw that Diggory wasn't following him, but then he looked to the side and saw that he was flying a few meters away and behind on his left.
The snitch started to fly a little more erratically when they got closer, Diggory had closed the distance and he was now flying half a meter behind him. The snitch suddenly flew up and Harry once again changed directions, he started to gain a few centimetres of distance from Diggory, his better broom making a little difference in a situation where gravity was against you, the rain was so cold that it almost felt like it was freezing him but he paid it no mind, he was almost touching the snitch when he saw something black on his peripherals and started to hear the voice of his mother, knowing what it was he pushed his broom even more and the moment he felt the tip of his finger touch something cold was the moment he lost consciousness.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Harry woke up and saw the blurry roof of the hospital wing, his entire body hurt and he still felt cold. He knew what had happened, even if he had only heard it once, he would always recognize the voice of his mother, and there was only one way he could hear her voice. Why the Dementors decided to attack the game he didn't know, but he hoped everyone was ok.
He felt someone press his hand and looked to the side to see who did it, his vision was blurry without his glasses but he would always recognize that mane of brown hair. He felt Hermione release his hand and saw her reach for something on the bedside table, she picked something up and directed it towards his face, putting his glasses back on. He blinked a few times to correct his vision and looked back to Hermione, she was giving him a soft smile, filled with concern.
"How's everyone?" He asked, causing Hermione to shake her head and give him a hard look.
"Honestly, Harry. You were attacked by those soul sucking abominations, you fell from your broom, and still the first thing you do is worry about everyone else but yourself. Can you take care of yourself first at least once?" Hermione said, her voice filled with worry and cracking a little at the end. Harry looked into her eyes and saw that they were a little red, she must have been crying and that made him feel pretty bad, he didn't like when Hermione cried.
"I'm here, and I don't feel anything missing, so I'm alive and well. I'm more worried about the others because I don't know how they are." Harry responded. He then smirked a little and said. "Although, I always thought that you were an angel, so maybe I'm dead and you are here to welcome me into heaven."
Hermione hit him on the arm with a few weak punches while giggling. "You're an idiot, did you know that?" She asked.
"I know, but I made you smile, so that's a win in for me. I'll gladly continue to be an idiot if you keep smiling." He responded and the bright smile that appeared on her face while she started to punch him again made everything better.
"Miss Granger, I will ask you to stop assaulting my patient, he is still suffering from Dementor exposure and he doesn't need you punching him." He heard the voice of madam Pomfrey say; he looked over Hermione's head and saw the matron coming towards his bed.
"You will have to stay here in observation tonight mister Potter, but you should be cleared to go tomorrow morning. And here, sit up and drink this." She said while casting spells at him and putting a cup with steam coming out of the top on his bedside table.
"Are you sure I can't leave today madam Pomfrey? I'm feeling fine." Harry asked while he sat up, already knowing the answer.
"No, I know how you are, Potter. If I let you leave you will be here again tonight." Madam Pomfrey responded and Harry heard Hermione snickering.
"I'm not that bad." Harry complained while grabbing the cup from his bedside table a chugging it down expecting a potion, and immediately felt his throat burn from the hot chocolate.
"Not that bad?" She asked with a raised eyebrow and casting another spell at him.
"I thought it was a potion." Harry complained and again heard Hermione snickering.
"Stay here, if I see you out of this bed today it will be a week of detentions." She said and then turned to Hermione. "And you, miss Granger, you should make sure this knucklehead takes care of himself." She added.
"Don't worry, madam Pomfrey, he'll behave." Hermione responded and madam Pomfrey nodded her head in approval.
"Alright, you can approach now, but don't over stimulate my patient." Madam Pomfrey said looking to someone on the other side of the room. He looked to see who she was speaking to and saw his teammates all there, already out of their uniforms. A little behind them were Ron, Megan, Penny, Padma, Luna, Sue, Hannah and Susan, Ron was carrying something on his hands, it looked like a blanket.
"Madam Pomfrey, that is despicable. We don't have any desire to ever stimulate our young mister Potter here, at least us lads don't. I don't know about the ladies but if they want to we are willing to give them some privacy." Fred said and immediately took a slap to the back of the head, courtesy of Alicia.
"You know I'm your brother's girlfriend right?" Penny asked looking at the twins.
"We know." they responded together. "And as his brothers we say you could do a lot better." They added also speaking at the same time, causing everyone to laugh.
"Don't over stimulate my patient." Madam Pomfrey said one last time and walked away but Harry thought he saw a hint of a smile on her face.
His friends approached his bed and Harry almost fell of it when he was tackled into a hug by Luna, he was a little surprised since they had never hugged before, but Luna always did things a little differently so he returned the hug after a couple of seconds.
"So, how were things after I passed out?" Harry asked to no one in particular once he broke the hug.
"The professors drove the Dementors away with their patroni, and then professor Dumbledore used and aresto momentum to break your fall. It looked really bad for a few seconds but you slowed down just in time." Angelina said.
"Did the Dementors attack anyone else or was it just me?" Harry asked again.
"It was weird, it was like they were focused on you, some of them only stopped trying to attack you when the patroni were right on top of them." Susan added.
"Well, that's fine then; I'm glad no one else was injured." Harry said felling a little relieved that it wasn't as bad as he thought. He was fearing that the Dementors might have kissed someone, but if they really were so focused on him like Susan said then that was probably a good thing, it kept everyone else safe. Although, he would still try to find a way to combat them.
"What about the game, and did anyone grab my broom?" He asked.
"We won." Oliver responded, a massive smile on his face. "Diggory caught the snitch right after you lost consciousness, but once they checked the snitch on the ground it showed that you touched it first, there were some that said it shouldn't count but the rules are quite clear on that one, it is why snitches have that charm on them after all." He added.
"It shouldn't count. I barely even touched it with the tip of my finger and at the time I thought it was a Dementor that I was touching. It isn't fair to Diggory, the catch should go to him or maybe we should have another game." Harry spoke in defence of the hufflepuff seeker. He certainly didn't believe he won that game and it didn't feel fair to win just because the tip of his finger brushed against the snitch.
"Take the win, Harry. Even Cedric said it was fair." Katie said shaking her head at him when he made a face showing his opinion on the matter.
"What about my broom, did anyone got it." He asked again.
"Well, about that." George said, scratching the back of his head.
"Once you fell, your broom flew away towards the whomping willow mate, and you know how that tree is." Ron said as he walked forward and put the blanket he was holding on his bed, and Harry saw the remains of his trusted nimbus 2000, broken beyond repair.
"Does anyone think a can sue the ministry and make them pay for a new broom?" Harry asked while putting his hands on his face, hearing the laughter of his friends at his question.
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Harry left the hospital wing the next morning. The day before was extremely boring after the visit of his friends and teammates, they only stayed about an hour with him before all but Hermione left. His best friend stayed behind almost till dinner, trying to cheer him up after the loss of his broom, they talked a lot during that time, some of it was about school, some of it about what happened after the game, some of it was just small talk and some of it was about their research projects. They were discussing what to start next, now that most of their projects had achieved some success, even if it was minor. They were going to test the radio latter that day, but the girls refused to do it without him saying he did most of the work so he should be there to see it.
Hermione wanted to start on his laser idea next, she said that it could be used in so many different things that it was the obvious choice for their next project, but Harry thought that her idea of permanent atomic transfiguration was even more versatile and should be what they focus on first. At the end of the discussion they decided to put it to vote and let the rest of the girls decide.
Harry was really hoping to find a way to combine Hermione's idea with his own research into metallurgy and alchemy. His readings on alchemy were slow going, but he had understood just enough to know that transmutation was a distinctive magical process, that anything created that way was heavily saturated with magic and couldn't be created in any other way, he wanted to test if that was true by using Hermione's atomic transfiguration idea, that was why he wanted to start working on it as soon as possible. In theory it should be able to make anything, Hermione's atomic transfiguration was supposed to work by rearranging the protons, neutrons and electrons of any base material into something else, it should work, but magic is always a little weird, even with how much they learned about how magic worked it still managed to surprise them every once in awhile.
Hermione also had a new idea about ghosts and how they connect to magic. She was scratching her head about how only magicals can become ghosts, the difference between a ghost and a poltergeist and how only poltergeists were able to interact with the world, while regular ghosts couldn't. It was an entirely magical problem, compared to the others they were working on, and it also sounded more difficult than anything they were researching, but she seemed determined to figure it out.
He was so deep in thought that the people walking the corridors of Hogwarts alongside him went mostly ignored, the castle wasn't usually this full, the other students liked to spent their Sundays on the grounds; but right now wasn't summer, early November was not a time to be outside in the Scottish highlands. So he was a little surprised when his distraction caused him to bump into someone.
He felt the person he bumped into fall to the ground, he looked down and saw the person he ran into. He was always surprised every time he saw Luna, her dirty-blonde hair and her silver eyes gave her an otherworldly appearance, since meeting her Harry always thought that seeing Luna was the closest one would ever get of seeing one of Tolkien's elves.
"Hey, Luna. I'm sorry for bumping into you, I wasn't looking were I was going." Harry apologized, helping Luna to her feet.
"I'll take care of it." Harry promised, he still didn't know what a nargle was and had never seen one, but Luna always said they were flying around, and when one is dealing with magic not seeing something is not a guarantee that it doesn't exist.
"Are you doing anything important right now?" Harry asked.
"I was just returning from the owlery, I sent a letter to daddy with an article for the quibbler." Luna responded.
"You want to see how a muggle device works?" Harry asked. "The girls are waiting for me near the lake, we are going to test a new experiment." He added.
"Sure, that sounds fun." Luna responded and then started happily skipping towards the doors of the castle, leaving him behind. Harry shook his head at Luna's antics and followed her, quickly catching up with the small girl.
"Can I know what that article you wrote is about, or is it a secret?" Harry asked.
"It's just about things the nargles said; they say some fun things sometimes." Luna responded. "I 'm looking forward to see daddy's article about the new discovery he made on his last trip." She added.
"What was the discovery?" Harry asked curiously. He knew Luna's father was a magizoologist, so it was probably some new magical animal.
"It is a species of mini dragons, they can't fly and don't have fire breath, but they have abnormally large tongues and they can change their skin colour. He found them in Madagascar." Luna responded.
Harry tried really hard to stop himself from laughing but still ended up chuckling a little, he just hoped Luna didn't think he was making fun of her because he wasn't; it was just too funny of a misunderstanding, almost impossible not to laugh.
"Luna, that's not a mini dragon, they are chameleons, they are muggle lizards, not magical dragons." Harry said once he got his chuckling under control.
"Well, it was still a fun discovery either way. It is not about the animals you discover, it's about how much fun you have doing it." Luna responded, completely unfazed by his revelation that her father's discovery was wrong.
Harry chuckled again thinking that Luna's unique way of viewing the world held a lot of wisdom. It is always worth it doing something that you find enjoyment in, even if you end up wrong, in the end you still had fun.
They left the castle, making small talk as they went. They quickly arrived at the edge of the lake were a rather large group was waiting for them, not only were their research team there they were also joined by his quidditch teammates, Lee, Megan Jones, and even Ron was there, which was surprising because he had repeatedly said he wanted nothing to do with 'boring muggle work.'
"What are you all doing here?" Harry asked as he and Luna approached the rest of the group.
"We wanted to see if it worked." Angelina responded, getting nods from her fellow chasers.
"What about you, Ron. Didn't you say this was boring?" Harry asked.
"Well, this is fun init. You said this thing is like a wireless, and music is always fun, even if it is muggle music." Ron responded, earning a glare from Hermione and making Harry shake his head. Their friend would never change.
Harry looked towards the girls and saw that Hermione was holding the radio in her hands, when it before was just an average portable radio, now it was beautifully adorned with silver, almost like veins working through the casing, there were intricate runes carved on the silver. It was the work of weeks of Harry's time and effort, and it was only possible due to the RoR providing them with the silver from what the elves called the room of hidden things.
"Are we ready to start?" Harry asked, receiving a nod from Hermione.
"Let's start this already. I don't know about you all, but I don't want to spend too much time outside, it is too cold." Padma said, receiving nods from everyone.
Hermione cleared a spot on the floor and put the radio on it, turning it on they only received static, which was promising since the previous test completely shorted out the other radio. Changing the station a few times they continued to pick up only static, until finally they found signal and an upbeat song started to play.
"Congratulations. You all did it." Megan cheered.
Harry was tackled into a hug by Hermione, a huge smile on her face. While his best friend tried her best to bruise his ribs he looked around and saw the smiles of his friends and research partners.
"Now let's get out of this cold and see if this thing also works inside the castle." Padma said, rubbing her arms but with a huge smile on her face.
They turned off the radio and walked inside the castle, finding a unused classroom they turned the radio on again and when it worked they decided to enjoy themselves for a few hours, having a small party to commemorate a successful project.
AN 2: Finally some success.
Now our group of researchers can finally move on to other projects.
But that is for the next chapters.
I will see you guys in the next one.
