Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Three: Divining the Source
"Valentina! I didn't see you there," Daphne said. She felt a rush of excitement; they had found the person they were looking for! "We're here because we were hoping you might be able to help us," she went on. She beckoned Ginny forward.
Valentina looked at her. "That bright red hair…are you related to Bill Weasley?" she asked.
Ginny nodded. "I'm his sister, Ginny," she said.
"I see. So, what kind of help do you need, Ginny? I imagine it must be a very challenging curse of some kind, if you come to me for help when your own brother is a very good curse breaker himself," Valentina said.
"Well…this isn't so much a curse," Ginny said hesitantly. "But it is magic I would like to get rid of. See, we're trying to break my Trace, because the Death Eaters will be able to find me and my friends every time we use magic otherwise."
Valentina frowned, and Daphne was afraid she was going to say it was impossible. Instead, however, she said, "How old are you now?"
"I'll be sixteen on the eleventh," Ginny said.
"And I'm assuming that there is a reason you cannot wait a year for whatever it is you want to do?"
"We're trying to stop V-You-Know-Who," Daphne said. "And it'll become harder with each passing year as he grows stronger."
"You wanted to say his name, didn't you? Did you find out about the Taboo on it already?" Valentina asked.
"Is that what it's called? We did know that saying his name somehow alerts the Death Eaters, in any case," Daphne said.
"How did you find out?" Valentina asked, sharply looking at Daphne.
"We…used his name and were immediately attacked by Death Eaters…and I knew the name was the reason because I could feel it 'pulling', somehow," Daphne said.
Valentina smiled in understanding. "Just like you can feel the magic in the air, while Ginny here cannot, right?" she asked.
Daphne turned to Ginny. "Wait, you really can't feel anything? It's like wading through syrup, almost," she said.
Ginny shook her head. "I don't feel anything different," she said.
"Are you a Seer, Daphne?" Valentina asked.
Daphne nodded. "I am. That's how I knew You-Know-Who's name was the trigger for that enchantment. But what does that have to do with being able to feel magic?"
"Seers are sensitive to external influences. Certain types of magic trigger that sensitivity. I suppose you might call it an allergic reaction, though rather than being harmful, it can be very beneficial when used properly. You say the magic in the air here feels like syrup, but I don't feel anything.
"However, whenever I go somewhere, I set up certain enchantments that allow me to monitor the flow of magic around me. It's highly useful when attempting to break locational curses, and I'm always seeking for more knowledge…but that type of magic, like Divination, is very arithmantic in nature.
"I presume that your own sensitivity is responding to my enchantments. You will find that, if magic is used within this enchantment, you will likely feel the enchantment reacting in different ways depending on the spell that is used — but since we have someone with the Trace with us, I won't demonstrate right now. I'd prefer to keep your Ministry off my back, if at all possible."
"So…do you think you can help us? Can you break Ginny's Trace?" Daphne asked anxiously.
Valentina smiled. "Possibly. With you there, it will be easier, certainly."
"It will?" Daphne asked, surprised.
Valentina nodded. "Every magical nation has its own version of the Trace. They are all similar, but different enough that you need to perform quite complex magic to find out exactly how it has been set up. Obviously, that would trigger the Trace…but a Seer can find out how the enchantment is constructed without ever casting a single spell. It actually makes Seers very good curse breakers and enchanters, if they choose to develop their talent in that way.
"While I'm not a Seer, I can instruct you in what to look for when we're trying to find out exactly how Britain's Trace works. Once we know that, we can set about neutralizing it for Ginny. It won't be so much 'breaking' the Trace, as protecting Ginny from its effects, because a Trace is essentially an enchantment on a very large area, which interacts with every magical person within its radius. The new Taboo works in much the same way, actually, so that might be the best place to start."
She fell silent for a moment, thinking. Daphne and Ginny briefly looked at each other as they waited for what Valentina would say next.
"Yes," Valentina said, drawing Daphne's and Ginny's attention again. "Yes, I think I know what we can do. There will be some difficulties, but we can work around those."
Daphne could see the same excited look in her eyes she'd had at the World Cup, when she was telling Daphne how challenging misfortune curses were.
"First, Daphne, you will need to become able to detect the Taboo's presence in the air, and recognize how it shifts when you pull on it, not by saying the name, but by thinking it. Enchantments like these would be useless if they triggered on thought — even his followers can't help but think the name — but they will react to it to a small degree.
"You said you felt the name 'pulling' somehow…I need you to…reach out and try to feel the flow of magic around you. Since you're being overloaded by my enchantments, we should step outside of their range for this.
"It's difficult for me to explain this, as I am not a Seer, but the goal is to get you to recognize the presence of powerful locational enchantments in the air around you. Since you've already felt the Taboo, and can excite it using only thoughts, I will be able to use your descriptions of it to map those to my own monitoring spells, and then translate my readings of the Trace here into something that you can then search for. Do you understand what I'm talking about?"
"Er…I think? For now, you want me to recognize the Taboo, right?" Daphne said.
Valentina nodded. "Yes. However you perceive it is fine, even if you can't put it into words. As long as you can recognize it, I'll be able to guide you along."
Daphne nodded slowly. "Okay…then I guess I should get a bit further from the tent?"
"Around thirty feet should be fine," Valentina confirmed. "But you'll be able to tell better than I can; you can feel the magic."
Daphne began to walk away from the tent, and Ginny and Valentina followed her. She could feel their eyes on her, and already she felt the fear of failure welling up inside her. She hadn't expected to be pivotal in the breaking of Ginny's Trace…and yet, despite the fear, she felt strangely happy as well, because she'd actually be able to contribute in a way someone else would not.
The weird, syrupy feeling in the air vanished abruptly, and Daphne walked on a few more paces just to make sure she was out of the magic's reach.
She took a deep breath and calmed herself down by calling on her Occlumency practice. She closed her eyes and tried to recall the feeling of Voldemort's name 'pulling' on her thoughts.
At first, she didn't really feel anything, but as she slowed her breathing down and entered a divinatory state of mind, she began to become aware of several small pulls on her thoughts. Some seemed like almost random fluctuations, and she knew that those were the ones that could turn into predictions.
Behind — no, around — or was it between? — somewhere relative to the random pulls, however, were strange 'waves' of magic, difficult but possible to distinguish from what seemed like background noise, almost like the way it was possible to listen to a conversation in a noisy room if you really focused.
There seemed to be several different sets of waves.
Voldemort, Daphne thought. The waves didn't seem to change at all.
Voldemort, she thought again.
There was a very faint pull on her thoughts, but which of the set of waves — if any — had caused it?
Taking another deep, slow breath, Daphne once again thought, Voldemort.
An almost imperceptible ripple went through one of the waves.
Voldemort.
Again, the tiny pull, the small ripple.
"I…I think I have it," Daphne said softly, keeping her eyes closed, her mind on the waves in the air.
"How does it manifest?" Valentina asked.
"It's…wave-like," Daphne said. "And the thought of the name sends tiny ripples through it."
"Keep your attention on it. I will think of the name repeatedly. Try to see the ripples, and if possible, try to pinpoint their source," Valentina said.
Daphne nodded and resumed her deep, slow breaths. It was quite disorienting to try and visualize something that had no true shape, or color, or dimension, but somehow she seemed to be managing it. It was like having three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision, except not really.
The waves fluctuated calmly, rhythmically, and now that Daphne had noticed them it was becoming easier to keep them in focus.
"Do you feel anything?" Valentina asked.
"No. Are you thinking about the name?" Daphne asked.
"I am. Let me stand a bit closer to you…"
Daphne heard Valentina moving closer. A moment later, ripples even smaller than the one Daphne herself had caused appeared in the waves.
"I sense it," she said.
"As expected, the disturbances don't travel far…the enchantment isn't meant to interact with thoughts," Valentina said. "Alright…are there any other 'waves' around?"
"Yes, two more sets, I think," Daphne said.
"Does one of them appear stronger than the others? As if its source is nearby?"
Now that the question was making Daphne focus on it, it became apparent that one of the waves, which seemed green, somehow, was indeed stronger than the gray Taboo, or the remaining, soft golden wave. The green wave seemed to emanate from a point close by, inasmuch as it existed spatially at all.
"Yeah," she said.
"That will be the enchantment on the burial chamber, then. They often use locational magic as part of their defenses. The remaining wave, then, should be the Trace. Can you detect…physical objects? People? Specifically, can you see how the remaining wave interacts with the world?" Valentina asked.
That would be a difficult question to answer. 'Seeing' the waves at all was difficult enough, but the physical world didn't have a representation at all. But the Taboo wave had been sensitive to physical distance, so maybe this would be, as well.
"Can you both come closer and each take one of my hands? I can't 'see' anything now, but maybe if we're touching…" Daphne said.
She heard Ginny and Valentina come a bit closer still, and she held out her hands. A moment later, she felt them being grabbed. She focused her attention on the golden wave and on her hands. It seemed to pulse brighter in her left hand, almost as if slowed down a bit before passing through. Her right hand and the rest of her body, however, showed no difference in the wave at all.
"It's slower when it hits Ginny," Daphne reported.
"Very good," Valentina said excitedly. "Now comes the difficult part."
"Wait, now it gets difficult?" Daphne asked incredulously.
"Yes. The Trace is a simple, yet complex enchantment. Its effects are simple and its conditions are simple, yet everyone's magic is different, and therefore the Trace will interact differently with each witch or wizard. We will need to determine the enchantment's structure and its exact effect on Ginny. Fortunately, you will not have to do this alone. I simply want you to step inside my circle of enchantments and locate both the Taboo's wave and the Trace's wave again. Come on, let's go."
Valentina sounded like a child in a candy store, and when Daphne opened her eyes and saw her beaming expression, she couldn't help but grin.
"You're really enjoying this, aren't you?" she asked.
"Of course I am!" Valentina said. "This is a unique chance for me as well! Researching an enchantment aided by a Seer, without using any spells? That's something I've never done before, nor something I'd ever think of attempting under normal circumstances. And your descriptions of the magic around you will help give me new ideas and further my knowledge…it's magnificent. And, of course, in the process I'm helping to defeat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, which is a nice bonus."
Daphne and Ginny exchanged a glance. "We're…glad we can help?" Daphne said.
She followed Valentina back into the range of her enchantments and tried to locate the waves again, but it was like someone was shouting in her ears. The power of the monitoring spells seemed to drown out everything around her, especially because the waves themselves were difficult enough to detect as it was. How would she ever be able to detect anything with that racket going on?
Then, however, she had a thought. The green wave, coming from the burial chamber, had been much stronger than the other two. If she could find that…
She frowned in concentration.
"Is it more difficult here?" Valentina asked.
"A lot. Your enchantments are making it impossible to see anything; it's so noisy," Daphne said.
"The noise makes it hard to see…why do I get the feeling this won't be the weirdest thing I hear today?" Ginny asked idly.
Daphne merely slowed her breathing down and tried to reach over the noise. After what felt like ages, but was likely only a minute or two, she 'saw' it. The green wave was hard to spot behind the haze of noise and color, but it was there, and knowing where it was allowed her to look for the other waves as well. With great difficulty, she spotted the Taboo and Trace waves again.
"Okay, I have them…I'll think about You-Know-Who a couple of times, and then you can probably detect that too, right?" Daphne asked.
"I can. Go ahead," Valentina said.
Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort.
The ripples were obscured in the noise, but Daphne knew they were there, and Valentina said, "I have it! If that is the Taboo, then this is likely the burial chamber, and this will be the Trace…"
She muttered a bit more, switching to Italian for most of it.
"Take Ginny's hand again," Valentina instructed. "She will then think of the name. Because the Taboo reacts to it, it is in some way now a spell, and in a similar manner to how the Taboo ripples because of the thought, so will the Trace. I want you to take note of exactly how that ripple works. Describe it in any way you can, no matter how non-sensical. I can see the effects through my own spells from here."
Ginny took Daphne's hands — both of them, this time — and Daphne kept her thoughts focused on the waves of magic.
"Ready?" Ginny asked.
"Yeah, go for it," Daphne said.
The Trace wave, which had, as before, been slowing down and brightening before passing through her, distorted oddly at her hands, in short pulses. It wasn't a ripple like it was in the Taboo wave, instead it seemed to be short bursts.
"It's different," Daphne said. "There's no real form to what I'm seeing and it doesn't travel around the wave at all. There were three 'bursts', but they were all different."
"I see, that's tamper resistance, then…" Valentina said.
"Try it again a number of times. You don't need to describe it, but stay mindful and see if there are any patterns at all. There should be, but they might not be apparent immediately. If there are any, you will likely spot them before I do, so if you notice one, let me know."
Daphne once again focused on the Trace wave, and intently kept 'looking' at the bursts in it. At first, it seemed random, but the more bursts she saw, she realized that it wasn't.
"Each burst has different 'peaks', and after seven bursts they repeat, just rotated clockwise a bit," she said.
"Is it in sevenths? As in, does the cycle repeat after seven iterations?" Valentina asked.
"It…seems to," Daphne said after a few moments.
"Perfect!" Valentina exclaimed. "You may stop now; I have all the information I need."
Daphne opened her eyes and sighed. She felt exhausted, almost as if she'd spent hours upon hours studying.
"I will need some time to process all of this information," Valentina said. "You're welcome to camp here as well, provided you have a tent. My enchantments should be spacious enough to fit yours in as well, so you won't have to worry about being detected."
"So you think you can actually do it?" Ginny asked.
Valentina shrugged and nodded. "I believe so. The challenge now lies in coming up with a way to pull it off without incantations at all, but that is not something either of you will need to be worried about, and isn't uncommon with certain curses anyway. It will take me a couple of days, I think, to work it all out. This is tricky magic and requires careful attention to detail…but Daphne's help has saved us a lot of time. Seers truly have an amazing gift," she said with a hint of envy.
"Wouldn't you normally just cast some spells?" Daphne asked.
"I would, but you have to understand that the pattern you spoke of is entirely invisible to the spells I have here. While these aren't the ideal spells for this specific job, they are generally fairly accurate. I doubt anyone but a Seer could have detected a pattern like this so easily. You've possibly cut around a week of trial and error from the process. I might call on your help again while we're setting up for the ritual, but that should be much easier than this," Valentina said. "Now, I suggest you go and pitch your tent…I have some work to do…"
Valentina went into her tent, leaving Daphne and Ginny on their own.
"I…didn't understand anything of what either of you have said this entire time," Ginny said.
Daphne chuckled. "I don't really understand it, either. Divination is weird. But honestly, for the first time…I'm glad I can use it."
Can you tell that I love nerding out over the more technical side of how magic might work? Because I do. A lot. I don't know what this has been like for all of you to read, but I had a blast writing it.