Getting busy at the workshop:

Harry could not sleep as a particular question kept him up at night. Harry wondered why electronics and magic were not compatible. It was puzzling. Electronic devices could travel with a user via apparition with no problem. Yet travelling towards magical places via apparition or otherwise fried electronics like chips in hot oil. Harry decided he need to design an experiment to investigate a problem.

His first thought was to design small circuits on the back of random business cards he had collected at the groceries. He proceeded to hook up a red LED to a standard twin AA battery pack and he decided that as he approached Diagon alley, he would observe the behaviour. He was curious to see at what point the circuit would misbehave. He also considered that perhaps he could take measurements in the mundane world and leave the battery in the Diagon alley as long as the wire was long enough.

From the tutorials he had been watching on YouTube, the oscilloscope would help him understand electricity not as a linear concept, but as something that was also a carrier of various waveforms. He decided that a cheap handheld and battery-powered version could perhaps familiarise him with the basic principles. He could get a much more expensive bench oscilloscope later.

"Time to get shopping," he thought. He ordered a device to his specifications and also purchased some bulk copper wire on trusty Amazon.

In order not to attract attention this experiment would be done at 3:00 a.m. Lorna who was quite angry about the spanking new Motorola phone she had lost many years ago, was only too happy to help. Truthfully, she was curious herself and wondered why she had never bothered to find out herself, as she had been good at Physics.

Invictus, who understood the principles of electricity because of Harry's self-study was curious to see what would happen. Invictus had watched a video with Harry about the nervous system and cellular biology. Voltage was present in the internal processes of cells, nerves and muscles. Magic utilised these biological constructs – so there had to be a relationship. Harry's exercise had done wonders for his magical core and the training had increased his muscle mass.

So, electricity was present in the same human body that also carried a magical core. No problems there. This was the first question Harry had asked Hermione when her brain short-circuited.

"That – That is a really good question. Even the heart needs electrical signals to pump blood. So, I don't know why Magic doesn't work with electronics in highly magical areas. Grace can apparate with the pet tracker just fine too. Let me know if you figure out anything?"

"Deal."

On a rather dull and normal Sunday night, when Harry entered the Leaky Cauldron, things were quiet. Tom had given him a nod, recognising the body language of James Potter from far away. While Harry was not aware, Tom already had him made, even with the new glamour that Lorna had applied. Harry noticed as he approached the magical brick partition, that the LED shone brightly as the shadows danced on the bricks in the area. Curious as to if this was related to distance, he connected the alligator clips from his voltmeter to the circuit, as he resumed walking toward the barrier.

The voltage had increased almost two volts within the 10 paces he had walked. He decided to check the current and it remained constant at 50 milliamperes. Considering he didn't want to expose his equipment to anything unexpected, he backed off, disconnected the alligator and asked Lorna to open the partition. Within two seconds, the red LED began to smoke. Harry surmised that somehow Magic was amplifying the voltage.

"Time for phase two." he thought to himself.

He took out another battery pack and attached his voltmeter to the wires and asked Lorna to walk slowly across into Diagon Alley. Harry ensured that Lorna had stayed within his line of sight. Harry continued to signal Lorna until the wire ran out. Harry observed as the battery pack that should have been 3 volts climb to a fantastic 38.5 volts, and suddenly a lot of things began to make sense to Harry. It seemed that magic amplified the voltage of battery packs? Perhaps magic was an 'electrical catalyst'?

Even more curious was that 3 multiplied by 13 was 39. Assuming voltage drops for the resistance due to the length of the wire, it seemed that 13, a number that was significant in magical lore had reared its head. Harry quickly connected his oscilloscope and had a look at the waveform.

To his surprise, there seemed to be some type of high-frequency emf spike ever so often that showed up on the oscilloscope. It seemed almost to pulse like a heartbeat. Harry, curious as to what was going on, summoned his mage sight and hearing and decided to watch and listen to the devices. While the oscilloscope was much too complex to understand, the electricity in the wire seemed to be collecting energy from the environment. Very often he would see magical energy pooling into unsuspecting lightning-like patterns and it would strike the wire. The wire would then pulse with extra electricity.

Harry signalled Lorna to wrap the wire up and return to the Leaky Cauldron. And so, in the wee hours of Monday morning when nobody had least suspected it, Harry had begun to solve one of the fundamental problems that prevented electronic devices from working in the magical world.

Invictus had been watching the experiment and had decided not to comment yet, but he understood the figures Harry had mentioned. Yes, the boy's mother was truly a prodigy. Her suspicions were insightful and they suggested that Magic and technology could play off each other? Harry and Invictus brainstormed some of the options that were available when they arrived home – perhaps a device could be made to work in a highly magical place if the power was filtered, and the voltage dropped.

You could not expect a smartphone to work approximately thirteen times its rated power requirements. And so Harry tried everything he could think of, as he visited the partition regularly. Sometimes he even went by himself, and he had even offered to explain that he was investigating something that his mother had been working on for a long time.

"Lady magic bless his soul. He is following in the footsteps of his mother," Tom would whisper. Harry would also speak to Tom after he was done, and Tom often made whatever he wanted.

At the beginning of December, Harry got frustrated because no progress had been made. He would essentially jump around between his studies and his spell casting to clear his mind. Harry then suspended the electrical project and decided to focus on other things. Harry had been able to get powerful forty volt motors to run on very small battery three volt battery packs, but as long as the item possessed integrated circuits?

No luck and a lot of smoke.

Every circuit he had built essentially went up into smoke as soon as he entered the magical world through the magical partition. He thought to himself maybe a break from the problem, might do him well.

Harry began to investigate Wand design and he soon hit a snag.

Glaucon's notes had to be translated by Invictus, as all of them had been written in Middle English. Worse yet, the language had been written in different alphabet systems. Many of his early notes were written in runic letters. Afterwards, he had adopted the standard Latin lettering. Invictus was not sure of the translation many times, and there was no way to consult a third party. Naturally, this was becoming a bottleneck. Invictus was quite sure all the answers that Harry needed were present in the notes and grimoire, but could easily take an easy 15 years. Harry did not have fifteen years to prepare. Invictus realised that Harry would have to brute force the discoveries by himself and he hoped that the general scientific knowledge of the day would aid in accelerating the process.

It was now approaching Christmas and Harry had become very organised. He scheduled his daily activities according to an excel spreadsheet and he never became distracted as he continued to tweak his mind with occlumency. His mind fortress now orbited a black hole and there had been any number of plasma cannons tied to puzzles and mathematical problems. Many of the suspensor plates floated mid-air and constantly shifted around. In some places, gravity was inverted and the normal orientation of balance changed drastically. It was a logically created madhouse and Harry enjoyed tweaking his mind regularly.

He had finished the entire Standard Four Syllabus and an agreement had been made with the school administration.

Harry had exercised his rights as a "gifted" child to explain that he had no interest in leaving Ms Singh's class and that he would work independently on his own, in her company. St Grogory's who were hungry for his achievements decided that the demand was acceptable. Harry at the end of the next term would easily be finished with primary school. Personally, he was excited because he planned to study all his Magical subjects during the holidays. Hermione would join him as she was capable of casting spells. Hermione too had entered her final year of primary school, and she and Harry would leave the institution together.

Harry began reading some of the premises put forth by his mother. He soon understood how far his mother had progressed, in terms of unravelling Magic down to its scientific core. She had suggested that a Wand underwent physical changes to produce magic. After all – how did a wizard know if a wand was suitable for their usage? Why did the components matter?

It mattered because wands by 'the virtue of being a stick, were bound to the same rules of the universe'. This was the line that had tilted Harry's thinking towards the idea of seeing the phenomenon as one where atoms and molecules behaved in a manner that was consistent with scientific frameworks. Afterall, if a wand could be probed for its last known spell that had been cast, it implied that Wands had some type of memory storage capability. The idea that 'because it is magic' did not fly with Lilly one bit. Invictus began to consider that Lilly was definitely on to something, as he explained that in his day, the Priori Incantatem did not exist. Invictus nodded and explained that evening, that the conclusion was logical and that this was a brand new piece of wand lore that was being researched.

Harry continued to read his mother's research as she shared suppositions that she could not test, but were fairly certain had they were somewhat valid. She had suspected that charms like Lumos and Wingardium Leviosa merely worked by taking cellular energy and conducting it through the wand. She posited that magicals probably had a special type of mitochondria in their cells. She jokingly named them magi-chlorians in her notes. He had laughed when he read this as he considered that his mother had done the possible in a roundabout sort of way. She made Star Wars partially real.

He also read that the Protean charm had to be some type of quantum entanglement. She had also extrapolated that the person who invented the spell needed to encapsulate the conventions at the time - that magic had to look special, have a lot of sparks and fanfare was considered aesthetic. She had limited success with leaning down the showmanship of the spell with intent-based casting. She had mentioned that James had a particular talent for using this spell.

He read her theories on how Wingardium Leviosa and Arresto Momentum were essentially gravity manipulation spells. Magic from the body was used to temporarily control gravitons. In some cases, the effect of gravity had been lessened and in other cases, it had been used to apply gravity in a specific direction for acceleration or deceleration.

Naturally, Harry who had no idea what gravitons were had to acquaint himself with more advanced models of the Atom as he ventured into casual subatomic physics. After Invictus began to appreciate the scientific knowledge, he encouraged Harry to get to work. Harry began to cast spells using many of the spare wands while using his mage sight.

What he had seen amazed him. His mother, Lilly Potter had been dead right, as usual.

The magical core of the wand took on different structures in the core, depending on the spell. He could often see the magic spreading in different patterns as he tried Standard Year 1 and Year 2 Hogwarts spells. More interesting, was that the wood seemed to even out the magic coming from his hand. Perhaps the wood was a magical capacitor?

Harry then decided to try something rather unusual – he decided to hold the wand and drip a sliver of magic and think about the 'intent' of the spell. Without a large amount of magic in the wand, Harry was able to see that the core structure had changed. Harry then attempted to push magic through the wand without thinking of any particular spell by using his fingers and then the Lumos fired off.

Harry explained the discovery to Invictus excitedly.

"Grandpa? I think a small amount of magic is used to change the core to the correct structure. Then the magic uses the structure to create the spell! I can do it separately! I am not consciously casting a new spell, I am just a magical battery now!"

"WHHHHAAAAATTTTT!"

It was now the day before Christmas Eve and Harry was so excited that he sent a message to Hermione. Invictus looked upon his grandson and his granddaughter, and he was proud of how much the boy had discovered. A mere nine months had been full of so much achievement.

"Hi Mione. I just made a brand discovery about wands. Come over soon!"

Grace disappeared 10 minutes later and brought Hermione to the null-box.

"Alright big head, spit it out. Immediately."

Harry explained this discovery and then Invictus added:

"You see granddaughter, Runes do have the ability to reproduce magic but it has never been effective, powerful or predictable. Many esoteric ideas in runes don't map directly to spells and we have something called the patchwork-quilt problem.

The patchwork-quilt problem is where complicated runic arrays become a mess as they become more complex. Small mismatches within the language of the runes and the magical ideas begin to compound with complexity. Suddenly it becomes a game of intuition as you begin to counter random, unpredictable behaviour. Now think about Harry's discovery and tell me why this might be important…."

"A wand might be able to store the spell pattern and repeat it predictably if we can make a magical battery?"

"By the Omnissiah! By the Machine God!" Harry yelled as Hermione giggled. Hermione had come to appreciate Warhammer 40K memes in passing and thought that as silly as Harry could be sometimes, perhaps the outburst was appropriate. It was indeed a big discovery.

"What now?" asked Hermione.

"My dearest Grandchildren, why don't we open the Runes notes that Lilly Potter has – you will find that the first lesson in runes is very beneficial."

Harry and Hermione underwent a crash course in runes as they began with the first project that was generally taught to students. They began to etch power stones with the scribing kit that Lilly had used herself when she was a student. As soon as the word 'power stone' had been mentioned, Harry and Hermione already understood the play. A power stone in combination with a wand could recreate spell. No matter how complex or how simple, the result would be repeatable and accurate. As both of them finished etching the power stones, Harry wondered what was so magical about a random rock?

When Invictus that it was time to 'imprint' the power rune on the stone with ink, Harry immediately stopped everyone.

"There is no way the rock is magical. It is a God-dammed fucking rock!"

Hermione continued nonetheless and charged the rock with some energy from her wand. She then touched the wand that harry Had previously cast the Lumos with and the wand lit for about three seconds before fizzling out.

Harry had already gotten busy. Harry had taken a small hot sauce container and had poured some wizarding ink into it. He then proceeded to charge the ink with magical energy. His eyes flared green as he produced a large quantity of magic. When the ink began to overflow with magic he stopped. Hermione had already caught on, while Harry looked for a small thick piece of copper wire. She explained to Invictus:

"Harry suspects the ink is what stores magic. So instead of carving the runes and using the rock, he is just using more energy storage material from the beginning."

Harry then took a deep breath as he considered that wizarding ink could be affected by magic – after all that was how the Marauder's map worked. When Harry touched the copper end to the wand, it lit up brilliantly enough to hurt their eyes and it sustained the spell for two minutes straight.

"This – I can't believe it! Grandson, do you know what you just did? You have built an entirely new type of magical storage device? Try putting another spell into the wand."

Harry then 'programmed' a Wingardium Leviosa and levitated his elongated Lightsaber, as he wondered if having a spell actively produced fully with magic instead of programming the 'spell-pattern' made any difference. As soon as Harry recharged the ink and connected the makeshift battery to the wand, the Lightsaber was automatically summoned and it levitated exactly like before. So instead of just using his magic to set a pattern into the wand, it also implied that the full execution of a spell also carried out the same process

Harry began to giggle. Hermione suspected he had a plan. Harry opened his phone and called Lorna.

"Hi, busy? Okay good. You know the electronics store after the grocery? Yes, we need a chaperone. Sending Grace."

"zzzzzZZZZap!"

"Time for some emergency shopping."

Invictus was soon around Harry's neck as Hermione and Harry visited the electronics store. The owner considered it admirable that Harry as a young man was interested in using his hands and doing something useful with his time. Harry purchased assorted 0.5mm copper plates in various sizes, small magnets and other components. He then skipped across to the Hardware and purchased silicone and spray on varnish. By the time the evening had arrived, Harry was well on his way to his 'invention'.

Harry had explained that he wanted to create a magical 'battery' with a construction method that was similar to a lead-acid battery. Harry sandwiched the copper plates together with nylon washers and connected copper leads to the entire affair. Harry then 3D printed an appropriately sized box and varnished it properly to ensure that everything was watertight.

Harry then unceremoniously appeared at his mother's house and appropriated every bottle of Magical ink while Priya looked on in confusion. Harry then emptied the ink into his assembly and proceeded to charge it with magic. Harry then had a wild idea.

"Grace, I need you to hit this thing here with some magic. I can charge this by myself but it will take too long."

Grace stretched her talon out and held the copper wire as she began to funnel magic into the battery. When the magic began to overflow, Harry stopped her.

"Enough Gracie. Thanks, you are the best."

"Ewe."

"Owe you bacon strips. Love you."

Harry began to cast Lumos wildly at every wand he could find and connected them all with alligator clips. He then began to add them to the battery with his stained, inky fingers. Very soon he had ten wands at full brightness and the battery just didn't seem to care.

"Well, let us do some other things while we put that through a torture test."

Harry and Hermione spent the next three hours revising work and practising Defence against the Dark Arts spells along with Charms. Hermione and Harry had developed a new but rather brutal method for quickly learning spells.

Harry based on his experience with the 'Scribe inanimo' spell he had learned earlier, decided that he would learn spell casting with a high-intensity method. He would read the theory first and attempt to produce the spell as he considered the intent and the wand movement. When he successfully produced the spell, he would think about the feeling of the magic.

When he believed that his feelings represented the spell well enough, he would begin to cast the spell as quickly as possible. The idea was to get as much repetition as possible and to cast via the feeling. The words would only help to get him in the mood, and it was no big deal if he missed a lot as his wand tip movement was not necessarily constant.

There was no stopping. Twenty-minute stints were acceptable and Harry would sometimes cast between 800 to 1200 times in that period until he was on the edge of being magically depleted. Most of the time, his actual success rate was thirty per cent. His hands and wrist often hurt at the end of the entire affair.

Harry reasoned those approximately 200 minimum successful attempts at casting a single spell in a day were stellar. He would then take an hour-long break and eat something while he replenished his energy. He would work on another spell in the same manner afterwards. Harry subscribed to the idea that quantity was its own type of quality. This was an idea he had read in a business book and he believed that it would aid him in his magical learning. Little did Harry and Hermione notice that at the end of their spell casting, that they were not really using any wand movements. They were much too excited and tired at the same time.

Hermione who was learning both Year One and Year Two Hogwarts material along with Harry liked the competition but could generally cast about half as much until she became depleted. Hermione was not lacking for power - she was ridiculously powerful for a child. The issue was that Harry was an oddity from his unique accident and Hermione usually considered Harry to be the minimum standard.

She reasoned with enough hard work, that even if she never stepped into the raw power that Harry packed, her skill could get her close. Aiming high and falling short on Harry's scale would keep her comfortably ahead of the rest. She also understood that her magic was fast and temperamental. She seemed to be able to cast far faster than Harry. She could often cast four hundred to six hundred times within six to seven minutes. Even with the low success rate, she continued to power through.

At the end of the entire practice session, the wands from the experiment were still lit and some of them had begun to smoke. It seemed that the heat from the constant Lumos had begun to burn the wood slightly. Harry disconnected the entire affair and decided he would take the rest of the evening off. Hermione retired to her home, after giving Harry his customary hug.

Harry then sat down to meditate and began his daily practice of organising his mind. Harry then saw a hexagonal pattern in his mind and then began to wonder what the hell was going on…