You need to die?
It was the 18th of September. It was the day before the birthday of Hermione Granger.
Harry had acquired a Fumehood and Centrifuge as birthday presents and had apparated secretly to Hermione's backyard. He then scouted an appropriate area for Grace to transport the wooden crate, as these gifts were certainly not going to fit in her living room. These would travel to Granger Manor, however. Satisfied that he had found a suitable location, he apparated with Grace to the machine shop with his new vambrace. He uncloaked when nobody was looking and then walked in and spoke to Klaus.
Harry had decided to solve one of the biggest issues - He could not charge his power cells reliably and it would affect the ability of his devices to function. There was only so much energy he could push through his fingers. With the discovery that Aluminium was 'magically magnetic', Harry had done a preliminary design and had sent some parts off to the machine shop. And now, he was going to collect them, to facilitate another round of experimentation.
Harry was going to build a magical generator this morning.
Harry had used a car alternator for inspiration. He had copied the design but had made some changes to slim the assembly down. Harry had merely replaced the copper coils with pockets where he could screw in pieces of trapezoidal aluminium blocks. The coils were some laser-cut aluminium sheets that were patterned with an unusual but efficient serpentine coil. Trusty hex machine screws held everything in place. Harry had even integrated connections into the assembly via small pieces of a solid copper bar. As Harry began to assemble the pieces, Lorna and Remus apparated into the null-box.
"Hello there. What are you up to?" asked Lorna.
"Technically, I am doing a 'monkey see, monkey do' session today. We have a case of imitation is the best form of flattery here." Harry then pointed to his generator.
"Hey, I might know this one. That bit looks like a motor. A magical motor then?"
Remus rotated the device with his fingers, and the device spun smoothly, as it was attached to some rather quality bearings.
"Generator. It is for charging the power cells. Think about a magical pump?" Harry answered
"Pretty close then. I have been thinking about something. Firstly, we just tested Hermione out in the park. She cast a lot of magic this morning and no letters and no alerts were present. So, as long as you are away from home from Dumbledore's wards, you can cast freely. Hermione is practising magic right now in her home and there have not been any alerts either. "
"Oh, that is nice. What is the other thing?" asked Harry.
"You need to die?" deadpanned Lorna.
"I don't get it?" asked Harry.
"Harry, the type of projects that you do, will eventually cause you to run into powerful people. Powerful people will come looking for you. You cannot go to Hogwarts. You won't be able to run your business, do your research and play the part of an unremarkable young man. I don't even think Hermione should go to Hogwarts either. Same problem with her. There is no way you will get into Imperial while trying to play fiddle to the Hogwarts schedule." replied Lorna.
"That makes sense." Harry intoned.
"The ideal time would be to fake your death shortly after Sirius Black is broken out. We want it to be suggested between the lines that either Sirius Black escaped and killed Harry Potter, or that some unknown wizard who suddenly appeared out of nowhere, decided to kill Harry. Wizards love to gossip and they love tabloids. These competing rumours will leave the public confused as the sheeple drag it out."
"That - that is utterly devious!" Harry exclaimed. Remus realised that Lorna was a mad bag of cats when she was in the mood for mayhem.
"The other thing is that for Sirius to already be effective as Lord Black, he will need time to rest and recover. He will also need to reach out and build alliances. Remember how much work we did on you? Sirius has been in the presence of Dementors for almost a decade. Your target time should be right after we visit Clementine Delacour. Sirius needs to be fully operational by September next year."
"No pressure then. I just have the drone, the jetpack and some revisions to the rifle and we could be on the way to Azkaban. I have some partial map plots. Alright. I will get to work I suppose."
"Excellent. Remus came over to stay with you. I will be going. Let us know if you are successful with your project." Lorna then apparated away.
"Hello, Harry. I see you are busy as usual. What are those cases over there, about?" asked Remus.
"Open and take a look. Maybe as you are here, we can cover apparition classes if you are ready? Let me just finish the assembly on this thing and we can have a go at it."
Remus opened a case that possessed his spraypainted name on it and found a mean looking pistol and a strap looking device set into the padded indentation. Remus knew enough to recognise that this was a pistol.
"I am ready. I had to learn about the process myself. With splinching as a possibility, this one you should not attempt by yourself. The pistol looks impressive. I think this is for me?"
"Yep. Let me help you with getting it on."
Harry then placed the strap on his right leg and buckled everything snugly. He then took the pistol up, unflicked the safety and walked Remus through the sighting laser and the trigger operation. Finally, he explained the swinging barrel design and the two options – stun and explode. Harry who could now lift empty soda cans wandlessly said….
"Think fast!"
Remus suddenly found himself struggling to point the gun as the empty cans hit him in the head.
Plonk! Plonk!
"zzzPew!"
Remus had gotten the third shot. Harry then summoned his wand and began to throw empty Monster cans, Coca-cola cans, water bottles, biscuit tins and anything he could find. Remus with the sighting laser managed to nail every target, although it was not fluid.
"Well, not bad at all. Just place the gun on the leg pad, it is a magnetic holder."
The gun made a satisfying snap.
"How did it feel Uncle Moony?"
"Not so bad. The laser sight helps. A lot of the wand skills carry over if you already have fairly good aim. It feels solid and inspires confidence."
"Exactly. Anyway, let me just hook up this EZ80 tube here and…."
Harry began to spin the magical motor with his fingers and he looked on with his mage sight. The device was pushing magic across the vacuum tube.
"Nice. So antenna, shielded DC motor with powerpack, and…"
Harry connected the other pieces over the next half hour. Harry looked on as the brushless DC motor began to spin the magical generator. The device began to pump magic from the environment via the open antenna and it created a void that was similar to the titanium. However, the energy flowing into the output wire was pushing a lot of magical energy. Far more than anything he could manage with his wand and fingers.
"Well, will you look at that eh? Two for the price of one!" Harry said as he rubbed his palms together.
"If I am guessing correctly, you made something to generate magic?" asked Remus.
"Not generate. Merely it pumps the magic out of the ambient air into the power cell by using electricity. I am using the Aluminium plates like magical magnets. You will have to learn some motor theory I suppose. The device can also create magical voids at very high speeds, so I don't always need a titanium plate to shield something. Some large versions of these could be used to insulate rooms at a time. The titanium can be used for combat grade items. Mipsy?"
Pop.
"What does Harry need?"
"Mipsy do you know where Hogsmeade is? And can you apparate us there without exhausting yourself?"
"Mipsy could never apparate that far normally. But Mipsy is very strong now because of Master's Harry Magic. Mipsy would like to try and if she can, she will carry Masters Remus and Harry. "
"Okay. Don't exhaust yourself. Go get them, Mipsy!"
POP.
POP.
Harry was wondering if she had returned that quickly but it was somebody else. Hermione had appeared with Whootsy and she had had not bothered to straighten out her hair, as she was excited.
"Harry! You won't believe this. The runes? Lady Von Neuu…"
POP.
"Master Harry, Mipsy just apparated furthers than any known elfs has. Straights to Hogsmeade. Mipsy found a nice quiets spot and she cans carry everyones easily!"
Hermione who had stopped mid-sentence began to laugh. Then she noticed the gun strapped to Remus' leg.
"Ah, so you been busy. It looks good. Is that motor running over there?"
"A magical generator. Or more correctly a magical pump. I was about to try it in Hogwarts. It is sucking the energy up and pushing it out to a powercell. But yes, I can make a magical motor out of it, too."
"Oh, so you can charge power cells! Great. The runes notes are amazing. Lady Von Neumann had developed runic structures similar to computer programming loops. Morgana also has a rune system that can describe the magical state of an object. The runes are tied to an object and when you change the rune, you can change the object with Transfiguration. Think about your wand core and tell me what you think that means. Personally, this is the best birthday present, I have ever received!"
"It means multiple spells in a single wand core as long as we map them to the correct runes! This is the last missing piece for the Medi-Bracelet to work!" Harry replied. Harry then asked, "Mipsy, can you manage the three of us?"
The elf apparated all of them to Hogsmeade and found herself somewhat tired. It would take her probably an hour to replenish her energy. Remus held Harry and Hermione's hands as he lead them to the place he had frequented as a young man.
"Well kids, I had my Werewolf transformations here. Very dusty. Let me see if I can cast the intent modified Evanesco."
"Evanesco!" Remus bellowed as he thought about only clean air being present in the environment. The entire room suddenly became clean and even the air smelled sterile.
"Well, that is interesting. I would normally be panting for breath after a spell that demanding. The exercise has done me well. Harry, why don't you set up and tell us if you can get a good charge?"
Harry set up the device and began to run the motor at breakneck speed. Hermione called Lorna out of curiosity as she wondered if the titanium plate modification to her smartphone was enough to block out the magic. The area around Hogwarts and the castle were notorious for being incompatible with technology. The phone however, continued to function as normal. Hermione sent a picture that was labelled "Inside the infamous Shrieking Shack!" to the group chat.
Meanwhile, Harry had been looking around at the environment and he noticed that Mipsy was tired. He decided to try an experiment.
"Mipsy, I was wondering. Could you absorb energy from a source of magic? For example, could you touch this power cell and recharge yourself, while I run the generator?"
"Mipsy doesn't know. Mipsy will try?"
Mipsy closed her eyes and touched the capacitor.
"Sorry Masters Harry, nothings?"
Harry remembered what his energy looked like when he had first tried to give the elves energy. He realised that perhaps the energy was missing intent. He then touched the capacitor and willed the energy to be full of his gratitude and thanks. Mipsy had sensed that the energy had changed as she placed her hand on the power cell. She groaned as a large amount of energy began to suddenly top off her core.
"Master Harry has discovered something new about the elves. Mipsy can feel the powerful magic fixing her bodys and charging hers core. Mipsy needs maybe twenty minutes to tops off her core!"
"Take thirty minutes, the skin already looks better. This is far more energy than I can give at home. Want to see if your health will improve. You will let me know?"
"Yes, Master Harry!"
"Harry what is going on?" asked Hermione.
"I think we discovered a piece of lost elf lore. The elves probably need high amounts of magical energy to be healthy. The energy needs to carry intention too. I took my intent and coloured the magic in the BMP. From what I can see, the magic is replenishing her core and it is fixing her body. Let us give her a half hour and then we can get back. I am close to almost fully charged and that is an achievement. This is a lot of power!"
"I would love to see the vambrace shield being sustained by that kind of power!" Hermione commented.
"Perhaps we can stack multiple layers of shields together. That will be handy. Remus tell us some funny things that happened in this place?"
Remus went on to explain that one evening, James had suggested that he and Sirius could ride Remus into battle while in their Animagi form. The joke had ended up with James and Sirius sporting long gashes in the hospital wing the following morning and with fifty points being lost to Gryffindor. Harry who had been looking on at Mipsy had identified when she had enough magic and she could not take any more. Mipsy's ears had gotten far smaller and she almost seemed to look like a pixie? Her eyes were far smaller too.
"Is something wrong, Master Harry?" Mipsy asked.
"You look great. You will have to look in a mirror to see the changes. Your skin looks far better and a lot of your features have softened up. Even your voice has changed."
"I suspected so. My mind feels much clearer. Are we all supposed to be like this?"
"I think so Mipsy. This invention has paved the way to fix a long pending issue. So, I do thank you for the domestic support you have given me. It has allowed me time to get this thing working. Naturally, as the device improves, we will look into getting some type of internal treatment plan for all the Peverell and Granger elves. I don't mind putting out the magic from my fingers but I can get far bigger quantities like this….."
"I understand. My voice feels like it is buzzing. Anyway, Harry, Hermione and Remus, time to…what is the expression…time to scoot?"
Harry packed up the device in his hardshell case and they all held hands.
"Mipsy? To the mothership!" Harry instructed. The four individuals appeared directly in the null box, and it felt instant.
"Ah – that feels right. The apparition process felt far more controlled." Mipsy explained.
"Good. Experiment and see if you have any new abilities that might have manifested. Please inform the others as soon as I can manage, we will build a device to get this process accelerated."
"Very Well. See you later, my lovelies!" Mipsy exclaimed as she left.
"Did she just sass us, Harry?" Hermione asked.
"I think so? I suppose there is a general increase in cognition? They are people just like us, Moine."
"I understand your mother's reaction to your escapades Harry. No doubt you make fine weapons, but this? This is beyond an award. This changes the magical landscape forever. I have a question. Why didn't you use Piertotum Locomotor to turn the generator?" Remus inquired.
"It seems that charm only does well to temporarily animate things, but not good at producing speed. The motion is slow and it is really good for moving large masses."
"Damn, you covered all the bases then?" asked Hermione.
"I think perhaps we too might be able to uptake energy from a storage device. Perhaps the skill requires practice. Gramps is in for a hell of a story. By the way Hermione, Lorna came to have a chat with us and…."
Harry went on to explain to Hermione that it was suggested that he fake his death so that he could work on maintaining his business and continue long term planning for the war. He also mentioned how Hogwarts would not allow either of them to attend class at Imperial College.
"Crap. Sorry for Dumbledore, but Imperial College is way more important. I think we still need to be familiar with Hogwarts. Perhaps as time goes by, we can apparate into the grounds and explore. Perhaps we need friends who will keep us informed?"
"Hmm – I think I know who can help with that. I want the Weasleys in my corner and how about your Luna? Finally, my godbrother Neville. They can do the footwork and we can storm the Wizarding world when they least expect it."
"That works. After my birthday party, we can begin to work on integrating the rune work into everything. We can store multiple wand states in a single wand. That will be very handy. I haven't even gotten through the other four hundred and fifty pages!"
"How about you read everything first, and make some notes on what we can run with immediately. Then we investigate more deeply."
"Alright see you tomorrow."
After Harry took a break, he then penned the following letters while Remus worked through the fine control exercises:
Master Bloodaxe,
I have an outlandish idea as to how we might beat the other conclaves in the meanwhile – or at least take a chunk out of their gold away. I have been thinking about the following:
If England's total wizarding population was theoretically 16,000 people (this is overshot and includes displaced muggleborn wizards), that places the percentage of magicals to be 0.02 per cent of the total population of the United Kingdom. Assuming the same percentage across Africa and China and India, we are looking at a total of 3.996 billion people with all the magicals totalling approximately 799,200 individuals. If their fertility rates are higher and they are having more children, it could be much larger.
I don't think we might be able to match that number of people. No wonder they are hard to beat. The muggle economies are doing well in these places, and we would be foolish to think we are not affected by such things. So, what do we do? We sell the other branches some type of must-have product. We can sell them some of our mining gear.
I am building a 'mining laser' that essentially will be an immensely inferior version of the weapon I built. This device can be sold to the other Gringotts Conclaves. However, I will make an enhanced version that will perform far better, and Gringotts can keep that internally. I say since the other folks have a lot of money, why don't we sell a single mining laser at the nice price of 5,000,000 gallons? Yes, I am hoping to sell multiple 'mining lasers'.
Based on the numbers, they can afford it. These other enclaves seem to have about twelve times the number of customers that are available to you. Maybe they have not admitted this openly because they wanted you uninformed. I would not be surprised if the Goblin populations at these branches have become far larger to accommodate the increased number of clients.
I am suggesting a 15 per cent cut each for myself, Hermione and yourself. I don't know if Lord Ragnok takes a personal cut on deals like this? Gringotts is going to take the rest. In terms of what the device might cost to manufacture, a mere fraction of that. We must also consider at least from the muggle history that I read, that India and Africa were always hotspots for diamonds and precious materials. With the reduced performance of the items, they will still outpace you.
We are going brave on the price to compensate. Let them know that you are quite aware of how many customers they have. If one enclave won't pay, the other will pay after a demonstration of the devices.
As for the inferior items, I do plan to make the parts replaceable, as I will manufacture them to fail slowly. They will have to approach us for replacement parts. I do not believe we should mess with safety. The safety items will be of the best quality, as I hope to keep everyone safe. Breathing bodies tend to purchase things. I also plan to work on some lights and personal shields. The shields are recent, I can demo them if you like. I modified the Protego spell to take blunt impacts. This should help with the cave-ins.
Let me know if this is something King Ragnok is interested in doing?
Regards,
Harry Potter.
After Harry was finished writing the letter, he allowed Remus to read the contents. Remus produced a big booming laugh as Harry explained the specifics of the internal competition between the various international Gringotts branches. Harry then began writing the next letter:
Hello Clementine,
I am very acquainted with this substance that you are looking for – and I manufacture it by the metric tonne. You might be surprised to know that muggles use the same substance for electrical energy storage. The sample you sent to me has approaching two per cent of the active ingredient. I have decided to send four samples to you of differing concentrations:
A: 10%
B: 20%
C: 30%
D: 40%
Any higher and it is more a sticky paste than a liquid. I am also sending the dry ingredient so you can mix it to your specification. If it works, I would be willing to give you as much of the substance in a credit arrangement. As I utilise your services for my oddball projects, you can take your fees in ink material. Let me know if you have made any progress.
Troublemaker Supreme,
Hadrian Peverell.
Harry then sent both of the letters off along with the ink packages. He was satisfied with the progress he had made and decided that he would spend the evening merely reading and designing some other small pieces he needed for his drone, which was the next big project - a project that would allow him to locate Azkaban.