It was two days to go to the end of my fifth year here at Hogwarts, the ever strange and wonderful school for wizardry and witchcraft, and I was feeling somewhat listless and unmotivated. I'd finished up most of the things I felt was critical and needed doing before I left for the summer yesterday, and didn't feel it would be productive to start up something new so close to the end of the school year.
The Mark Two remained unfinished, I'd hit a bit of a snag and had to redo part of the lower torso when I found that it was to snug for me to get into. I'd been forced to rethink and then redo the whole thing, which had set me back a good three weeks as I worked around the problem. I might end up having to scrap large parts of it due to mobility issues as well. Well, that was something for after I got back.
I was currently in my potions lab, sitting slouched over one of the workbenches, idly twirling the bottle filled with Exstimulo Potion around the table like an unbalanced top. I still hadn't found a good use for the damn thing. I'd concluded, after some careful thought on the matter, that trying to use it for enchanting was a bad idea. It was more about skill than power when doing things like that and overpowering one part would inbalance the whole Wheel. I thought of saving it for an emergency but quickly realized that no one would wait around for me to get it out and take a swig, so that was right out.
I would have gone and bothered Lys, but she'd spent the last two weeks ensconced in the room under some pretty heavy time compression every free moment she had. She'd threatened to castrate me if I disturbed her, and after she sent a rather nasty curse after me the last time I did, I felt discretion was the better part of valor. I think it might be her time of the month. I might be a first-class troll, but I had some self-preservation. I'd get her back once I swung by her place.
I don't know what she was building in there, but whatever it was it involved a shitload of cogs, springs and other weird do-dads I didn't even have a name for. She'd really taken to all the books on muggle engineering and mechanics I'd gotten her, and it'd gotten even worse since we'd found that little greenhouse in the Room and found out that it was of dwarven make from that ancestor of hers. I think I spotted some books in there that I was sure she didn't have the last time I'd bothered her. I wonder where she got 'em.
I admit I had been a bit amused to find out that the dwarves were the most science-minded of the various races in the magical world, having turned to machinery to compensate for their lack of easily applied magic. By the sound of what little I'd been able to find out about it, they might actually have been on the cusp of a magical mechanical revolution when the Wizard-Goblin alliance decided to take a dump on them.
I had noticed that Lys had acquired a new friend, a Ravenclaw. I wasn't sure of what to make of him honestly, I'd noticed him observing me on occasion, and I'd noted the same when I'd visited Lys during her Alchemy extracurricular classes. I had a sneaking suspicion that not everything was kosher with that guy. But that might just be my paranoia talking. If everything was good then this was good, a positive development for Lys. She was reaching out to others for help, that was good. She'd have to learn to do that if she wanted to be a good ruler of her people one day. So, in light of that, I'd decided to take a wait and watch approach to him for the moment and keep a closer eye on Lys to see if she changed her behavior any more.
And then there was Nel. Nel wasn't around to talk to ether on account of Lys continual presence. My resident postcognitive was elusive and inscrutable as was her habit. She still sat with me in class but besides History of Magic that wasn't the place to have lengthy discussions on anything. I did notice that she had acquired another piece of strange jewelry from somewhere. A thumb ring of all things, made up of interconnected gears, held together by two serrated rings. I was starting to notice a theme there, but when I asked about it Nel had just given me a mysterious little smile and ignored my questions.
Spoiler: Ring
It didn't take a genius to figure out that she was up to something.
It was quite vexing to me. But I couldn't exactly call her out on it since I was guilty of the same thing, and I knew she knew that. And that she found it funny, even if she didn't laugh at me outright. I could feel it.
I snorted to myself before slamming the potion bottle down on the table with a bang and hoisting myself to my feet and walking out of the lab. I wouldn't be getting anything done in my room today so I might as well go foraging in the Forbidden Forest. I'd pop in on Hagrid and Sigrid on my way there and see what the two ettins (Hagrid had adopted the term on Sigrid's insistence), were up to. The two were getting on famously, to the degree that I felt a bit like a third wheel whenever I showed up. Being the good friend that I am, I'd decided to give them their privacy, even though I missed my friend. I still made sure to visit from time to time to reconnect of course. While I was mostly fine with leaving them to themselves I had no intention of letting Hagrid drift too far away from me.
I didn't have enough friends to lose one to neglect.
"Paddy," I called.
The smartly dressed elf immediately appeared to my right with a soft sound, standing on a table with a stiff posture, feet together and hands clasped behind his back. "You called, sir."
"Yeah. You mind giving me a lift over to Hagrid's?" I asked.
Paddy gave me a once over. "Feeling weak in the legs, are we, sir?"
I looked at the elf and raised an eyebrow. "Sass, Paddy?"
"Mild teasing at best, sir," Paddy responded blandly before popping over to my shoulder and then I was standing outside of Hagrid's house. "Here we are, sir. Would there be anything else."
"No thank you, Paddy. You may go." I said with a little wave.
"Very good, sir." He said before vanishing back to wherever he went when he wasn't around me.
I shook my head with a smile. "What a character." I huffed before I banged at the door roughly. "Hey, Hagrid! Stop snogging that bint, you got company!" I yelled loudly.
Hagrid's booming laugh immediately issued from inside and I felt the porch vibrate with his heavy steps as he rushed for the door. Moments later it was thrown open to reveal Hagrid's grinning visage. "Drew!"
"Hey big guy, how are you doing? Made an honest woman out of Sigrid yet?" I asked shamelessly, hoping the woman in question could hear me.
Hagrid laughed again.
"Nah, just helpin' Sig get 'er head around some of tha' fiddly bits 'o magic. Same as yeh did fer me." Hagrid responded, not at all put out by my insinuations.
"Not that you would know anything about being honest." The woman in question said as she appeared behind Hagrid and giving me a glare.
"Hey, Sigrid," I said with an irreverent smile on my face and a little wave. "Have you gained weight? Your butt seems a bit bigger."
"Oh Merlin have mercy," Hagrid muttered in exasperation and rubbed a meaty hand over his face. "Er we go again..."
"Not as big as your mouth, here, let me help you tear it down a size!" Sigrid growled and reached for me. Or tried to, but Hagrid was quick to grab her reaching arms and prevent her from getting to me.
"Ah, no need fer 'dat, Sig. He's just trying to get yer goat." Hagrid grunted under the effort to hold the other ettin back from getting to me.
"And I just want to show him what I do with anyone trying to steal from me." Sigrid retorted as she tried to struggle free. "Maybe just a broken bone, I bet he'd stop being a mouthy little twat if I did that."
"Don't hold your breath, honeybun!" I called to her.
Sigrid growled and stabbed a finger at me and caused a thin bolt of electricity to arc out of it towards me. It splattered harmlessly again the shield I'd raised in defense, even though I was fairly sure that there wasn't enough power in that bolt to even make my hair stand on end.
"Nice. You're doing good work there, big guy." I complimented my first friend in this crazy world.
"Thank ye, didn't do much," Hagrid said bashfully while he manhandled his ladyfriend back inside before using his bulk to block the doorway. "Sig's got a real head fer all 'o this. Pickin' it up right fast she is."
There was a flash of light behind Hagrid, causing him to twitch and jump, mostly from the surprise I bet. Then he grinned. "Nice one, Sig. I felt 'dat one." He complimented.
I head Sigrid huff behind him and chuckled. Really, use weak magic like that against a half-giant was like trying to slap a stone, you could do it but the stone wouldn't care much.
"Now, befer ya get Sig to try to kill ya again, what ken I do fer ya?" Hagrid asked curiously.
"Its nothing," I told him, waving it away. "I just thought I'd swing on by before heading out in the forest for some foraging. "Touch base and see if there was anything you needed, that sort of thing."
"Nah, we're doin' fine 'ere. No complains." Hagrid said, but I head a distinct snort behind him. Seems Sigrid didn't agree. Well, that was fine. Hagrid didn't bother warning me about the forest, he knew I went in there regularly and was in no real danger from it.
"Alright," I said and gave him a slap on the arm. "I'll leave you and the grump to it then," I said before moving off towards the forest.
"You take care, ya hear!" Hagrid called after me.
"Will do!" I yelled back.
Once I reached the forest edge I floated off the ground. I'd found out early on that making too much noise in here was a recipe for getting some of the more inhospitable critters in here to come after you. Initially, I'd relied on sound canceling charms and scent masking spells to keep them from noticing me. And I'd used the disillusionment charm too of course. But after I'd made the flight suit I'd started to use that instead, much easier and just as effective. The Forest was an amazing place, and quite dangerous. Which was why it was such a good place to pick up some good ingredients. Most magicals didn't bother going in here due to the hostility of many of its denizens. The Centaurs were bad enough, but then you had the rather large colony of acromantula. Not that the acromantulas didn't enjoy having guests, it was that they enjoyed them a bit too much.
I'd been surprised to find that the wizarding world did not make use of acromantula silk, or any silk at all. Not that there weren't any silk in the magical world, but all of it was sourced from the muggle world. In fact, most clothes came from there because it was just cheaper, faster and at a better quality then anyone in the wizarding world could manage. Even China, the birthplace of silk, didn't make it on the magical side of things. Damn shame, really.
Not that I blamed them much acromantula's were both sentient and generally hostile to wizards. And outside of the Forbidden Forest, they weren't common outside the Jungles of Borneo. It made me wonder how a teenage Hagrid had gotten his meaty hands on one while he was still in school, I couldn't remember if the book ever made a mention of it. I'd considered collecting some and try to make some use of it, but I had no idea what to do exactly, and I already had more than enough on my plate with the leatherworking stuff to try to pick up weaving.
I spotted something and floated down to collect a unicorn horn. That had been another surprise, to find out that unicorn actually shed their horns yearly much as deer or moose did. Obvious in hindsight of course, it was an ingredient in many potions and since they were both skittish and wizards were loath to actually harm them, well, most wizards were loath to harm them, there really only were two ways for wizards to get their hands on their horns, ether from dead specimens, or from shedding.
When I bent over to pick up the horns I spotted something else, hanging under a large leaf on some fern-like plant I didn't know the name of. A fairy cocoon. Several actually.
"Hmm." I hummed thoughtfully to myself.
Fairies were an odd species. They started their lives as an insect, a brightly colored caterpillar, but after metamorphosing inside a cocoon for a month they come out as something that has very little resemblance to an insect, inside and out. What little hinted at it were their compound eyes, a pair of antennas and, of course, their wings, for which they were prized. But beyond that their internal structure matched up to that of a human, heart, lungs, spleen and reproductive organs. And while they couldn't speak, I had a hunch that was due to their limited intelligence. They were all females too, though I'd bet that hadn't always been the case seeing as they had reproductive organs that lent themselves to certain... activities. There were no records of males actually existing though, except for in stories. But the faeries there were actually intelligent and far more powerful. But the fairies of the modern day reproduced through parthenogenesis, though thanks to magic being bullshit the offspring wasn't a clone of the parent.
The pupa was rather pretty. It shimmered like a rainbow as the sunlight played over its surface. I scratched at my beard as something like an idea slowly emerged from the murky depths of my mind, spurred on by the tales of fairies I'd heard as a child, well, the first time I'd been a child.
"Hmm." I hummed again before reaching out and carefully detaching the leaf one of the cocoons hung from. Before doing that though I hesitated, and after considering it for a moment I decided to take the whole plant instead. There was only one cocoon on that particular plant so I could take it all, that might be easier in the long run. Said and done, I uprooted the whole plant and quickly made my way back to the castle and up to my room. Once there I produced a big pot and proceeded to plant my new acquisition before I went into the potions lab and fetching the Exstimulo Potion and a small syringe.
As I was walking back towards my new plant I noticed Paddy appearing on a nearby desk, observing me for a moment before speaking. "If I may ask, sir, what are you intending to do with that?"
"Just a little experiment," I told him before crouching down by the plant and removing the stopper on the bottle and inserting the syringe and extracting a small amount, probably no more than three drops worth of potion.
"I feel the need to remind you, sir, that experimentation with living creatures is prohibited by the Ministry." He told me dryly.
"Actually, it's hybridization that's outlawed. I'm not going to be doing anything like that here." I defended myself.
"Semantics. Really, sir?" Paddy asked reproachfully.
I shrugged before carefully inserting the syringe in the cocoon and depressing the plunger. Once done I took a small swig of the potion myself and shuddered at the taste and the sudden electric feeling that buzzed through my body. Then I cast the same set of charms used to give a mind to an inanimate object, the same that I'd used to make my various companions.
Normally this charm would not work on anything that was alive and had a mind of its own, even on an embryo. This had actually been tested, by Grindelwald of all people. It was found that the strength of an artificial mind was nothing against a natural one, there was just no effect, even when cast on animals. There was some talk that it might also be something to do with souls. But there was no real research to substantiate that.
But right now, the only thing inside that cocoon was a whole lot of sludge, no body, no mind, no nothing. Just a whole lot of goop. Injecting the potion into the cocoon had been a spur of the moment, and if it hadn't been a magical creature I was dealing with, it likely would have killed the forming fairy outright, doing what I did. But magic made things resilient, which was why wizards could play things like Quidditch, where children had iron balls the size of bowling balls shot at them and suffering no worse then a bruise if they happened to be hit.
I didn't know if anything would come of this. But it would be interesting to see. As the last act, I moved the pot up to the terrace above my workshop and gave Paddy the task of keeping the thing alive. It would take about a month for the fairy to hatch.
Satisfied for the moment I turned my mind towards what I was to do over the summer vacation. I was thinking another trip.
I wonder what the US looks like right now...