Chapter 17
In the evening the next day, Sirius finally found himself back in his secret training room. He had been graciously allowed some time to himself at last.
Late into the night, he found himself in the bedroom with Amelia. Once they were alone, she gave him an earful about how he was keeping things from her, how she had no idea where he was disappearing to all the time and how he spent too little time with her and his family. After a lengthy rant, he patiently addressed most of her grievances, apologizing all the while.
He explained how he was still hurt over what happened with Isabelle and had no idea how to bring it up or if he even should. That he assumed it was all in the past, and with her married to some Death Eater he would never see her again, at least not in any meaningful way. That he saw no point in forcing himself to relieve the, overall traumatic, experience if it had no bearing whatsoever on the present. That he had a lot of errands to run, taking care of the business and Wizengamot meetings, all the while training for the tournament. That he was under a lot of pressure and wasn't sure how to cope with it all, not quite used to so much responsibility. That he barely had time for anything else, and that he never put anything before her or his family. That he would make a concerted effort to organize a meet-up like that every other weekend in an effort to spend more time together. And above everything, he professed his love for her.
While Sirius originally just wanted to get off the hook by presenting all those excuses he did actually mean all he was saying and things got quite emotional. What followed was a heated make-out session, with a happy ending. By morning Sirius could confidently say that Amelia had forgiven him.
That did not prevent her from monopolizing the rest of his day. Everyone had stayed the night at Potter Manor, and after a meal together they all went out to Paris. Coming back from what was essentially a shopping trip, more than anything else, they ate out on the ground surrounding the manor and had a couple of bottles of wine afterward. By the time their guests had departed and the children were put to sleep it was dark outside. Amelia would hear nothing of him doing anything else and had immediately dragged him to bed for the night.
And so it was only two days later that he was finally allowed to assess how significant his ritual gains were. He was practically shaking with anticipation as he jumped down into a dueling pit. The forced two-day wait had only exacerbated his curiosity.
The area he was entering was one of the few that had powerful magical containment wards erected around it, meant to allow for the casting of a number of powerful spells in a relatively safe environment. The rune array would block and gradually siphon any magic coming out of it. Once activated it also prevented any physical objects from crossing the line, so the vast space inside it allowed him to wreak as much destruction as one wanted, without worry about damaging the integrity of the room.
Deciding to start with something basic, he went through some spell chains. He had memorized and practiced them hundreds of times, and he wanted to see how much of a difference his new and improved control would make. After finishing, he frowned.
Casting felt noticeably easier as if it took no effort at all to form the spells, but the pace did not seem to be much affected. Sirius reasoned that he was being constrained by the speed of his wand movements and his focus, as the spells already took minimal time to cast. It should have been obvious that would be the case, but he still felt somewhat disappointed. There was some progress though, so there is that.
Deciding to move on to something else he started a complex transfiguration. Sirius conjured a life-sized, stone replica of the barghest he fought two nights ago, simultaneously animating it, which was not the easiest technique. As the creature came to life in seconds he had to grin to himself. Thanks to his occlumency, he was able to recall every minute feature of its body and mannerisms, the way it prowled around was spot on. In the next breath, he conjured a rhino and sicced the barghest on it, wincing as he saw its claws tear the stone construct apart like it was nothing.
'Damn, too soon.' He didn't even want to think about how close he came to sharing the same fate.
In a better mood now he decided to move on to something that would truly test his control. Sirius started weaving a multi-layered ward, that had previously been just beyond his capabilities. He had tried to cast it before, but while he was able to get to the very last part semi-successfully, it still eluded him. When he attempted to incorporate the memory alteration aspect into the matrix and finish it off, it always somehow slipped away. He knew it was a matter of fine control and the ability to manipulate multiple constructs at once, so he hoped to complete it now. And lo and behold, he was able to smoothly complete the whole ward without much strain at all.
Feeling like he was on a roll, Sirius released control of the ward and attempted something very stupid. At the very pinnacle of skill in ward-crafting was the ability to unravel wards. You basically had to very carefully manipulate each aspect of the ward, making minuscule changes that would make the ward ineffective in the particular situation. So far Sirius had only succeeded in achieving that with the very basic ones. And here he was attempting it with a ward he couldn't even cast a moment ago. It ended as well as one would predict, with Sirius losing control of the matrix almost immediately, and left only with a splitting headache from the backlash of his magic.
'Ok. Let's not try that again anytime soon.' Sirius knew that he got carried away big-time. Even with all the magic control in the world he simply lacked the skill and experience to attempt what he just did. 'One step at a time.'
Twenty minutes and a potion later, he was back to thinking about how else to test himself. He already ascertained that his enchanting and ward-crafting would benefit massively from his improved control over his magic, but frankly so would the rest of his skills. It had an effect on his casting overall, be it charms, transfiguration, curses, or rune-based magics.
All he really had to do was to get back on that grind and get a feel of his new capabilities. And yet there was one more thing he wanted to try out.
Sirius concentrated and attempted to flare up his aura. Nothing happened. After a few minutes of inane straining, he reluctantly conceded that it was a stupid idea. It would obviously not be as easy as this to develop this type of skill.
But then he realized he had yet to try all possible avenues of progress when it came to this ability. Wizards usually initially manifested their aura in moments of emotional upheaval, particularly once overwhelmed by negative emotions. So, in essence, it seemed like he would accomplish nothing by simply willing it into existence since he did not have any grasp on aura manifestation. Definitely not good enough to just manifest it at will. So unless he was in a state of severe distress no degree of concentration would be enough.
Against his better judgment, Sirius concentrated and started to modify his mind palace. Willing his occlumency to become inactive so that his emotions were not in any way stunted, he started going back in memory, searching for his worst memories. Thanks to dementors he had a good idea of what to look for. Recalling how it felt when his mother screeched at him and cursed him, while the rest of his family watched on, how it felt when he found the deaths of people close to him, how it felt being locked in Azkaban and, later on, in Grimmauld Place. The feeling of helplessness, living from day to day with no purpose, no goal for the future at all.
Shaking with anger Sirius pulled on his magic, willing it to manifest. His vision literally turning red with rage, he screamed out and struck out with his fist. Suddenly he found himself on the other side of the room with his fist through the wall. His whole arm was covered in dark light and he suspected the rest of his body was the same.
Taking control of his emotions, excitement coursing through him helping with that, Sirius willed himself to appear in the shady corner of the room. He was once again successful, but he immediately felt the action take its toll on him. Trying to concentrate his aura into a claw-like sharp point he struck out, the wave of energy leaving a deep rend in the floor. He was ready for more experimentation, but his aura flickered out and collapsed and Sirius went down with it.
Falling to the ground, Sirius had to take a moment to come to terms with this development.
'Alright, I can work with that. Who would have thought...'
Taking on the barghest's ability in magical control apparently went quite a bit deeper than he expected. It had the ability to control darkness and Sirius had seemingly inherited it as a side-effect of the ritual. Now that he thought about it, it was not all that unique. Nonetheless, it was an unexpected boon.
There were similar cases, after all, his family among them. It was not in any way proven, but it was a bit of an open secret that unique magical abilities usually came from rituals. His family's metamorphmagus ability probably came from sacrificing some magical creature.
Possibly a doppler - a semi-sentient creature capable of morphing into any living thing it saw of similar size. It was assumed to be extinct now, a shame since it was not aggressive or malicious in nature. That probably would not have stopped his ancestors from killing it for a ritual.
It all fit, since once the trait 'emerged' it was very common for a few generations, getting rarer and rarer with each one. Before Nymphadora came about a full metamorphmagus had not been seen for over two centuries.
Parseltongue could be another example of such a thing happening. It also inexplicably appeared with Salazar Slytherin and was then passed on to his descendants. Sirius found it funny that such a venerated ability was possibly simply a side-effect of performing too many rituals with snakes involved.
Some of the books Sirius read theorized that rituals could lead to inheriting some of the sacrifice's physical or mental traits, along with magical ones. Sirius was very careful with it, so he could only hope he would not become overly aggressive or develop any weird animalistic urges.
Regardless of all of that, the ritual Sirius performed had to have gone incredibly well for it to produce such a result. He knew he had picked the perfect conditions to maximize his gains, but he had not expected to get anything like a new magical ability from his first-ever magical ritual. While quite shocking, it was a very good thing in Sirius' mind, the ability itself really seeming really cool and useful.
'Still, I'm literally a one pump champ right now.' Sirius shook his head ruefully. What was the point of such an ability if he had no way to properly utilize it? Wasn't that worse than not having it in the first place? It was like having something dangled in front of your face, but being unable to get it. With how much it took out of him in just a few seconds, he seriously doubted it would be very useful any time soon. Exhausting himself like that was rarely a good idea, particularly in a duel or a fight.
Still, he would dedicate some time to try and get a better grasp on it, who knows maybe its energy consumption would steeply decrease with practice. He had flared its full force from the beginning after all. Maybe he could make the 'shadow travel' aspect of it actually useable some time soon and have it ready for when he completed his power enhancement ritual.
But he would not hold his breath. While it was a nice surprise, he had to focus on the upcoming tournament right now and that meant practicing actual magical arts, not his new and untested ability.
END
