Lys looked uncomprehendingly down at the trio of books I'd dropped in front of her. One of them was the book I'd taken from Dumbledore all those years ago. The other two, however, were from the normal world. We'd been chatting for fifteen minutes. Mostly about my suit, but the topic had strayed into illusions and wandless magic which had spurred me to get up and bring those three books over for Lys to use. The half-dwarf looked up at me with a raised eyebrow in question.
"There are two ways to get good at enchanting, the first is to have a talent for it." I gave her a teasing look. "I'm thinking you don't have that or you wouldn't be here. So that leaves us with my way, which is to work your little butt to the bone, using every and all tricks to get the work done." I said before stabbing a finger down on the top book, the one I'd "borrowed" from our illustrious headmaster. "It's the first three chapters in that book that I want you to focus on, it deals with focusing your mind and meditation." I told her before placing a finger on one of the none magical books. "This one deal with mnemonics, it contains techniques that will allow you to increase the rate at with you absorb and retain information because you have a lot of reading to do. The last book is a guide on how to learn how to speed read, again, a useful skill to have."
Lys looked helplessly down at the books and then back up at me. "Is this all necessary?"
I shrugged. "I wouldn't say necessary." I hedged. "It will make things easier in the long run, but if you don't feel you can manage…" I trailed off leadingly.
Lys looked like someone had just force-fed her the world's sourest lemon. It was almost cute. "I'm not daft you know! Don't try to make this a pride thing!"
"Hey, if you don't want to roll up your sleevies and get down 'an dirty I won't force you." I told her while holding up my hands in mock-surrender. "Not everyone can handle it." I told her smugly, and then watched her fume in anger with no small amount of amusement. Dwarves, so easy.
"I don't have time to learn how to cast wandlessly, you wanker." She growled back at me menacingly. "Have you any idea how little time I have between my extracurriculars and regular school work!?"
"But you thought you'd have enough time to learn enchanting?" I countered easily. "It's not exactly a fast or easy thing to pick up."
"I get that!" Lys protested hotly.
"Do you? How much have you read up on the subject?" I questioned.
"Enough," Lys grunted, looking mulish.
"Uh-huh, tell me about the Enchanters Wheel," I demanded.
Lys glared furiously at me but remained silent. I sighed internally. I'd had thought that she'd would have gotten that far at least! That was almost base level stuff. It would seem she'd just impulsively dropped in on me once she'd understood what was going on. Well, that was fine, I supposed. At least she was guaranteed not to have any bad habits I needed to break her out of. Which I thought was good; because I'm not sure I was a good enough teacher to actually manage to do something like that. I honestly don't even know where I'd begin. "I thought as much," I told her with a sigh. "Well let me elucidate."
I started to pace around as I gathered my thought and decided on the best way to deliver this to her in an as short and concise manner as I could. "By now you have likely tried this on your own, just placing charms on an object that you've made," I stated and she nodded as if I'd just asked a question. "And that works just fine, for a while," I told her with an amused smile which got me glared at. I chuckled. "But after a bit of time I bet one of three things happened, either the charms you placed just up and stop working, or you get a weird misfire of some sort, or they suddenly start doing something else, sometimes something radically different." Lys actually blushed when I said that last thing, I bet there was some blackmail worthy gossip in there. I made a note of trying to ferret that out and put a pin in it.
"Yeeeeah, you can't just do that. Enchanters call it fraying, the charms rub against one another and eventually they break in one way or another, or they mutate and settle into a random "shape" for lack of a better term. There is no way to tell exactly what will happen." I told her brightly and slapped her on the back as I passed behind her. "Good way to get new ideas for useful enchantments however, and the occasional stroke of luck might have it producing something truly unique. I wouldn't hold my breath for that last one though." I chucked. I'd tried for it myself but hadn't gotten any useful results yet. The only one that could maybe be considered useful was the Ring of Flatulence. I had been going for wind, but not that kind!
"To prevent fraying from occurring you have to bind any charms you use together into a united whole, those in the practice call this the Enchanters Wheel because the image that is generally presented is like that of a many spoked wheel or that of a complex snowflake. As you might imagine, the more charms you try to add the more complex the Wheel becomes and subsequently harder to actually cast." I droned as I walked about. "Creating a connection between the two charms was no big deal. An average second-year student could probably manage it without any major issue. A Third year could maybe manage four if they were talented or dedicated enough. A Seventh year who made a concerted effort could maybe manage six, maybe more if they were aiming to be enchanters and have been practicing diligently. You need to be able to do at least eight if you wanted to work in the business and expect to be competitive. If you could reliably manage ten you are considered a Master. Twelve is the maximum anyone has managed in recent memory." I told her at length before adding. "Merlin has managed sixteen. It was that feat that earned him the epitaph "The Prince of Enchanters". A title that is well earned."
"How many can you manage?" She asked.
"I've managed nine so far, but not reliably," I said and pointed towards a specific section of the storage area where a black tinted dome sat. But even though the tinted glass the blazing orb inside shone with an almost blinding intensity. If one were to watch closely, they'd see three rings slowly rotating around the central point. "That's the most complex project I've done so far."
Lys looked at it for a few moments before turning her attention back to me. "And there is no easier way than that?"
I cocked my head to the side in thought. "In practice, no. Theoretically maybe." I allowed, wiggeling my hand back and forth.
Lys frown deepened. "What do you mean by that."
"It's been theorized, even since before the time of Merlin, of the Enchanters Chain. A theoretical way to bind charms together one after another instead of into a Wheel. This should theoretically reduce the complexity of the binding significantly. But no one has ever managed to get anywhere close to figuring out how that might work. At least that they've admitted openly. There are rumors of course, about famous witches and wizards having worked it out, like Merlin, Paracelsus and even Nicolas Flamel." I drawled lazily. "Some even claim that Rowena Ravenclaw could do it. But there has never been any actual proof to be had."
Lys sort of just looked at me helplessly for a few moments before slumping back in her chair and lowered her head. "I have no idea of how I'm supposed to fit in something like this into my schedule." She told me in defeat. "Blacksmithing and Metalworking take up most of my free time and I can't really afford to slack off too much there as it is."
"Why do you take blacksmithing anyway?" I asked curiously. It was useful to me that she didn't, but I was curious as to why she devoted so much time to it.
"What do you mean?" Lys asked absently in return as she listlessly turned the page of the wandless magic guide, her eyes moving over the page but obviously not taking anything in, her thoughts elsewhere.
"Well, didn't you mom or dad, whichever was a dwarf, teach you stuff like that?"
Lys looked at me like I was a halfwit. "What part of "all our secrets and knowledge ether stolen or lost" don't you understand?"
I winced. "Ah, right. I kinda thought… never mind." I said lamely. I'd stupidly assumed, regardless of what she'd told me that some skill had remained, just based on her being a dwarf. I blame fiction! I really have to remeber that this is a real world not make belive.
"So what, are you trying to recreate your people's lost knowledge from scratch? You have to realize how unlikely that would be." I told her frankly.
She shot me another glare. "I know that! Don't you think I have thought of that!? But I have to do something!"
I suppressed a wince of sympathy at the raw desperation I could hear in her voice. I felt my throat expectantly clench. I swallowed thickly. God, sometimes I wished I was as heartless as I sometimes gave the appearance of. I sighed internally as I made up my mind about something that had been percolating in the back of my mind ever since she'd told her story earlier. I suppose that sometimes you had to take a leap of faith. The Versertium showed that she didn't have any plans to fuck me over right now, and she was a Hufflepuff. While hard work was probably the trait that got her sent there I had to believe that loyalty had been a part of it also, and dwarves in fiction were known to be staunchly loyal to those that had earned it. If I was right then revealing it to her and showing her how it could help her should incentivize her to look on me favorably. Besides, if I was to do this properly it would have become necessary to reveal it to her eventually anyway if I wanted to get anywhere without having to dance around like a drunk monkey trying to distract her from it. Besides, my access to it was time gated anyway, I had it for a couple of years more and then that was it. I admit, it would be a bit of a pain to lose easy access to it should Lys blab, but honestly I'd already gotten the lion's share of what I needed out of it, now it was just quality of life stuff.
I just hope I was making the right call here.
"Get up," I told her and turned on my heel and started for my bedroom. "I have something to show you."
I head her chair scrape against the floor and heavy rapid footsteps rush up behind me.
"Show me what?" She asked impatiently.
"You'll see," I told her cryptically and threw her a grin over my shoulder as I passed into my bedroom.
Lys stopped in the entrance and looked around quickly before spearing me with a disgusted look. "If you think…"
"Mind out the gutter, please." I interrupted her bluntly even as I started to pace in front of a barren wall at the back of the room. At the third pass, the door appeared as expected. I opened it and gestured for my female companion to enter first. After another suspicious look, she did as I requested and walked passed me into the room. I followed but didn't close the door after me. The room, in its current configuration, was about the size of the main room we'd just left and completely bare save for two large wall mounted clocks.
Lys turned to me clearly unimpressed. "This is it?"
I smiled at her and conjured a simple ball and held it up for her to see, before turning around and lightly tossing it out of the room. Or tried to, as it crossed the threshold it stopped in midair. Well, not stopped exactly, it was visibly still moving, just very slowly. I turned back to the now befuddled looking half-dwarf with a smile.
After a few moments of staring at each other Lys decided to speak. "Is that supposed to be impressive? An enchanted ball?"
"The ball is not enchanted," I told her smile still in place, and more than a little smug.
Lys frowned again, correctly assuming that I was up to something. "Wandless magic?"
I shook my head. "No."
Lys rolled her eyes at me before growling impatiently. "What!?"
I chuckled and considered how to make this more obvious. "How about this, go outside and then look in."
"How about you just tell me instead." She countered angrily.
"Where is the fun in that? Live a little. Come on. It'll be fun!" I promised.
She glared at me some before she decided that it was likely faster to just humor me and stomped out of the room. The moment she passed the threshold I started moving around the room slowly and casting lightning bolts against the walls as I did. I don't know how long I kept it up but eventually, I was interrupted by a shout.
"What the hell was that!?"
I stopped and smiled at Lys, who now looked like she was seconds away from setting her hair on fire. I threw my arms wide, gesturing towards the room. "Welcome, Lys Hreidmarsdottir, to the Room of Requirements. One of Hogwarts' most closely guarded secrets. Well... not guarded exactly, most just don't know it's here."
"Room of Requirement?" Lys asked dubiously.
I nodded enthusiastically. "It's not much of a name, but it does spell out what the room can do. Which, as the name implies is almost anything. It can transform itself into whatever the user needs. You want your own library, easy. A forge, done. A workspace, it's here. Anything! Even a room sporting a handy dandy quantum compression field!" I said grandly.
"A q-whatnow?" Was Lys response to the technobabble.
"It means that time is accelerated within the confines of this room, kinda like a watered down Timeturner that goes forwards instead of backwards." I told her gleefully, almost as gleefully as when I first confirmed that the room could actually do it. I know it could bend space, but it bending time was something that had only appeared in fan-fiction, though for some reason everyone always asked for the room to slow down time inside, which just showed that there was no helping some people. If you did that then you'd have less time, not more!
"I trust you see the possibilities." I said and waggled my eyebrows at her, which she ignored. Rude! I don't know why I make an effort!
Lys was still for a few moments, then, ever so slowly, her face started to slowly shift as a genuine smile slowly worked itself onto her face. "Yeah…"
"I also think it would be obvious that you shouldn't tell anyone about it, because if you do it's gone. No chance the teachers will let us use it unsupervised like I've done." I cautioned her.
Lys rolled her eyes. "Who would I tell? I don't have any friends."
I winced. "Ah… well… okay."
Awkward… Well, she was in good company, not like I had any friends either.
Well, at least my secret was safe.