Chapter 21 Using Ambient Magic
To my immense relief and horror, my palm connected just as her eyes fluttered open. She flinched to the side from the force of my blow.
"Ow! What the hell, Albus!" She exclaimed while rubbing her sore cheek.
Thank god she is okay. Without thinking, I dived towards her, wrapping her in my arms.
"Ompf!"
"Don't ever do that again! Do you know how worried I was? When you exploded in light?" I screamed at her.
The annoyance in her eyes seemed to soften, as she heard what I said.
"I would have warned you, Albus. But I had no idea that would happen. I am sorry for scaring you."
"Hmpf." A single apology is not enough to justify making me fear for your life!
"I'll make it up to you! In fact, I will tell you a secret." She soothed.
"What secret?" I asked, intrigued. Is she finally going to tell me how she took over Slytherin?
She smiled mysteriously, "You have a sister at home, her name is Ariana and she can turn into black mist."
I froze. My brain short circuited. How does she know that? I never told anyone my true reason for doing Care of Magical Creatures had been to understand my sister's condition better, to see if there is a cure so that I may be free to pursue my career. I am certain that Aberforth would never tell anyone about Ariana, knowing how protective he is of her.
"H…How?" I asked, dumbfounded and amazed.
"I am a seer." She replied.
A seer. One of the rarest magical talents around. Suddenly, it all made sense. How she had been interested in divination since the first day, how she casually predicted how our grade will turn out. How she sulked before Abe's meaner verbal attacks on her. How she knew exactly how to rebuttal all those insults anyway. How she stalked out of the divination class in rage and disappointment…
But it still did not explain how she knew about Ari!
"I made the choice to visit your family during the summer holidays, then used ambient magic to replace the live sacrificial source, and consciously induced a vision, otherwise known as scrying." She elaborated.
Scrying. The highly banned ancient art of true, well, most accurate divination, due to its cost of human sacrifices. Without the need for so much sacrifice, it would be so useful in life, if we knew what was going to happen to Ari, Father would still be with us! Mother would not be so melancholic all the time! I can avoid incidents like what happened to Ari from happening again! I could sav-
"Scrying can only be performed by seers. I already researched the entire Hogwarts collection in Divination." Seraphina said in a quiet voice. "I'm sorry, Albus."
And just like that, my hopes were dashed.
Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind.
"Seraphina, are you using it for duelling?" I asked. Afterall, she barely dodged most of the spells sent towards her.
She paused, reflecting, then she widened her eyes.
"I guess I am, subconsciously!"
"Subconsciously?"
"I have this weird feeling, almost like an extra instinct, telling me when to dodge, in a sense." She clarified. "But now that you've mentioned it, I am going to try to do it on purpose! Thanks Albus!"
I froze. Then groaned. I just made our duels unfair! Now it will be even more impossible to win against her. She laughed at my reaction.
…At least one of us is cheered up.
I walked into the Care of Magical Creatures classroom. Sitting down next to Seraphina.
"Good afternoon!" She greeted me.
"Good afternoon."
"Quiet down, class. Today, we will be talking about phoenixes." Professor Kettleburn walked in, trying to hush up the Hufflepuffs.
The class was small, only around ten people, Seraphina and I being the only Slytherin and Griffindor to take it. Most were Hufflepuffs, with a few Ravenclaws.
I perked up at the voice of the Professor. Phoenixes. My family had a myth about my Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather owning one. It would be so amazing to have a magical pet. Beside me, I saw Seraphina also perk up.
"Now, who can tell me what phoenix feathers are used for?"
Seeing no one raise their hands, Kettleburn defaulted back to Seraphina and I.
"Miss Astrum?"
"Phoenix feathers are often used as wand cores, but can act as an extremely powerful but unstable booster in potions."
"Quite right, 3 points to Slytherin. Now the phoenix is a legendary bird. They undergo self combustion when they age and rise from the ashes as a baby bird. Several sources conflict each other on how often they burn, ranging from once every five years to once every five centuries. It is because of this, that they are known as the symbol for rebirth and life. Domestic Phoenixes are extremely rare. Only two are confirmed to have existed, one in New Zealand, acting as their national quidditch team mascot, the other by Johnathan Dumbledore, cousin of the famed alchemist Nicholas Flamel."
I felt the entire class turn to stare at me. I did not know my great-great-great-great grandfather was cousins with Nicholas Flamel! I have written letters to him, and he indulged me with my questions on transmutation! Yet he never mentioned our familial relationship!
Kettleburn continued on for the next hour, rambling about phoenixes and their rarity. Seraphina seemed deep in thought, no doubt transfixed on certain aspects of the phoenix's magic.
"...and therefore, as useful as the phoenix's flame travel is, we have been unable to duplicate it with wizarding magic. Two feet on phoenixes due next Monday. Class dismissed."
Seraphina and I packed up our items.
"Albus." She hissed excitedly as we walked towards the empty classroom we had taken over for spell practices.
"What?"
"They said the main issue wizards encountered while trying to duplicate phoenix fire is power, right?"
"Yes, so?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"So! If we use ambient magic, we might be able to do it! I bet that's how phoenixes do it naturally as well! The concept of using flames to travel is not unheard of, afterall, floo exists, even if it is closer to an amalgamation of alchemy and potions. We just need to derive a spell…" She trailed off.
I considered her idea. Theoretically it made sense, however, practically, it sounds a bit impossible.
"Where will you even get a phoenix to study?"
She waved her hand dismissively, "I'll figure it out."
I sighed, it would not be entirely out of character for her to kidnap a phoenix, I just hope that the phoenix will survive whatever Seraphina has planned. We reached the classroom and I opened the door with a flick of my wrist. "So, do you want to keep trying and fail to cast the patronus, or do you want to dive into spell creation?"
"For now, let's try the patronus charm one more time. I have a good feeling about this." Seraphina grinned cheerfully. "Ready?"
I smirked. Pointing my wand in the air, I thought of my happiest memory, the day I met Seraphina, finally meeting someone with my passion in magic.
"Expecto patronum!" We spoke simultaneously.
Like before, a bright white mist began gathering on the tip of our wands, radiating joy and warmth. It was all we had been able to do for the past week, ever since Seraphina's insistence on learning this spell. Unbidden, another memory entered my mind, this one from a long time ago. Ariana's third Christmas, where mother and father were both still happily with us, Aberforth and I were still close.
"Alby!" Ariana called while tugging on the lower edge of my shirt, the soft fireglow making her dark strawberry blonde hair glow gold like a halo around her.
"Merry Christmas, little sister!" Aberforth said cheerily, hugging Ariana.
"We made this for you!" I continued, taking out a roughly made fabric doll. Aberforth and I spent time learning how to sew, stealing mother's sewing equipment at night to make it for her.
Ariana's face lit up like the Christmas tree. She clutched the doll tightly to her chest. Suddenly, a bright white light exploded from her chest, multicoloured fairies appeared in the air, fluttering with joy. A warm feeling filled up my chest. We were so happy. So close and so content. Before it all fell apart with the first appearance of the muggle boys a year later. Their arrival forced mother and father to teach Ari to hide her magic, then her episodes began soon after. Now Aberforth and I barely even talk to each other…
"Albus! Look!"
I opened my eyes. In front of me was a lion, it prowled around the room proudly, looking for danger. Another large patronus with an impressive plumage and long tail making teal trails with its wings flew around it in circles. (A/N at the end.)
A phoenix.
Seraphina has a bloody phoenix patronus.
I looked at her agape. To my shock, she just looked amused, not surprised or shocked, but amused. What. The. Bloody. Hell!? I thought magical patronuses were extremely rare, a myth, even! I thought at some point, Seraphina would stop surprising me at every turn, I was wrong, again. But why a phoenix? As far as I know, she has never interacted with one, how could it be a representation of her? I opened my mouth to question-
"A lion, oddly fitting for a Gryffindor, don't you think?" Seraphina asked, snapping me out of my reverie. "I guess the sorting hat really does not make mistakes."
I smiled. A lion, a protector, a warrior, a leader, a king. "What, did you think I would have been anything other than a Gryffindor?" I teased.
"Well, I thought you might be a Ravenclaw with your love of knowledge." Seraphina grinned as I gasped in false indignation. "Then I thought you would fit in better as a Slytherin. With your power and ambition. I thought the sorting hat only put you in Gryffindor because you asked, the fact that you were using that to escape the preconceptions set by your father certainly proved my point, but I suppose this proves me wrong."
The bell rang signifying the end of our shared free time. Seraphina moved to leave the room. Leaving me alone with my lion patronus and my thoughts.
I caught up with Seraphina in the abandoned classroom, where she was playing with her patronus, inspecting it even as it twirled around her, but it was different from before, almost as if it had been leached of colour. "Hello, Albus."
"Having fun with your patronus?" I grinned.
She huffed as the patronus flared its wings, almost like a real bird before diving towards me. I instinctively ducked even as it came to a stop in front of me before vanishing. Suddenly, the room felt a lot more sinister, darker and colder. Almost as if the patronus had taken with it a significant glow of the world.
"That was a patronus conjured with pure ambient magic, Albus." Seraphina said.
"That's quite interesting." I replied. "But I know that you are not lacking in power to cast a patronus, why do you bother trying to make one out of ambient magic?"
"It's a concept. An experiment of sorts, if you will." She replied as she approached me. "I want to eventually test the negative aspects of the patronus without, you know, dying."
"So how do you think that is going to work?" I asked as we walked away from the room towards the side staircase where we can access the main steps before heading towards our dormitories.
"Channelling ambient magic should be able to circumvent the mal-intentional patronus charm turning the caster into a pile of maggots, right? Without the human source, it will instead try to convert ambient magic into maggots, obviously that can't work unless it is intending to transfigure the entire Earth's air supply! So what do you think?" Seraphina exclaimed triumphantly as she bounced up and down in excitement as we walked up the steps towards the Gryffindor tower.
"Theoretically yes." I agreed. "But what would you use this for? I mean, it's not like you are a dark witch, you can't even test it!"
"But it would be a good spell for conjuring maggots!" Seraphina snickered. "Besides, we can always try to push our most malicious intent if we want to try the spell. It's not like you need to cast an Unforgivable to be a dark witch."
Just then, the step she was bouncing on shifted with the sound of grinding stone. I reached out to grab her as she gave out a startled yelp, leaping clear of the step, which looked normal to me. I took out my wand, conjuring a short rope, letting one end drop onto the step. To my surprise, the end of the rope sank into the step. When I tugged on the rope to pull it out, it seemed stuck. Then the step gave a yank and I lost my balance, to my horror, I began tilting head first into the step.
Before my hand could sink in, Seraphina grabbed me, and yanked me back up.
"What the hell was that?" I asked, bewildered.
"I believe Hogwarts just tried to murder you, Albus." Seraphina replied with a grin.
"Are you sure you did not hex it?" I asked, giving her a sidelong glance.
"Yep."
I grinned. "Maybe you broke the step with your bouncing."
Seraphina gave me a false look of hurt and gasped in mock pain. "How dare you insulate such a thing!"
I grinned. "Well, until we can prove otherwise, I am going with the idea that you broke the step!"
Firstly, thank you for reading.
This note is here to clarify the point about Albus's patronus. I know in canon that he has a phoenix patronus, but in this story, I personally believe that he did not gain that form until he meets Fawkes, after going through a lot more, mostly as a result of meeting Gellert Grindelwald.