Rodrick stared at the still Ravenclaw on the opposite side of the table, more specifically, he was staring at the pair of headphones the student was wearing. Pair of working muggle headphones.
It hadn't taken long for him to get everyone's attention, though he'd kept the dragon currently snoozing in his hair invisible to avoid making a scene so quickly. He wanted a decent look at whatever the Ravenclaw seemed to have made. Before inadvertently overshadowing it. He'd honestly like to experience it again, the shock of being shown something new. Something potentially dangerous.
Maybe there was something wrong with him...
Still, it hadn't taken long to find himself in front of the Ravenclaw. Without the dragon to get their attention, it seemed the floating carpet soaked it all up instead. He was even sure the small number of spells almost hitting him was growing steadily smaller. Not that any of them would get past his wand.
In hindsight, regarding duelling, his answer had been staring at him all along. He'd worried about the best way to approach someone during a duel for so long, he'd failed to see the answer standing in front of him.
Surprisingly enough, he had Victor Krum to thank for the realisation, ironic as it were. If it hadn't been for that duel, he wouldn't have realised it.
He was good with Transfiguration. Really good The art was almost second nature to him. Why he hadn't realised how useful it truly was beforehand, nor why his own grandfather had failed to mention it...
Simply put, with how easy the art came to him... He could Transfigure one's spells. And if what he'd guessed regarding the floating carpet in front of him was true... There might even be a way to incorporate runes into the idea... Create a protego-like spell... Or would a magical item be better? Perhaps a ring? Made with a constant shield around him turning each and every spell it could, as soon as it could, into sawdust. Or perhaps fire... Or spiders. He still didn't get it, if he was completely honest, he'd have much more to worry about dealing with a snake compared to a spider... And yet he himself knew more than enough people that were simply put terrified of spiders. Maybe it was similar to how people had viewed his own former? Former, fear of Heights...
He gazed through the crowd, the blank expression on his face unnerving students, taking their eyes off the Ravenclaw's magical carpet, and putting them on him.
Wide-eyed surprise quickly turned into shock as students realised he was the one responsible for the sudden way all of their spells had started transforming into harmless sparks. Bolt's of light suddenly turned to nothing as they went anywhere near the Hogwarts champion. Even different kinds of magic resulted in a similar end... Conjure spells turned to vapor within seconds. Banishment charms practically shattered if they got to close, the sound irritating enough not to repeat them. But what unnerved them the most, was the expression on his face. The lack of one in any case. He was neither surprised nor looked to even care in the first place as he simply studied the Ravenclaw in front of him. Evidently finding him of more interest.
The first time a spider popped out instead of a Reductor curse, the student body unanimously decided to give Rodrick a few feet and soon even stopped trying to get him by surprise.
"Wow... When Does McG Teach us that!?" Rodrick's natural expression almost broke as he picked up one of the few pieces of conversation to filter through his silencing charm. He'd thought whoever that speaker was had been one of Carpet-maker's friends.
"I can talk?" The sound continued, a surprised tone to it.
Rodrick silenced everybody, though he made sure not to disturb the Ravenclaw, leaving him to read in peace. Unfortunately for Rodrick, the charm only managed to limit the number of spells he had to deal with to Non-verbal.
A few more spiders will have to do... Perhaps ones with wings this time.
And the one consistently managing to direct a Reductor to his head may even need an engorged one.
"..." Rodrick sighed as he took in a deep breath.
Straight. For. His. Mouth.
They stopped after that.
He really marvelled at their abilities sometimes. Evidently, sometimes all it took was a 3 foot 13 legged flying spider.
Honestly though? It made no sense.
The creature clearly wasn't real, it was imaginary, therefore entirely made of magic. It was never going to be capable of harming them, he hadn't used a spell to create any poison. It was simply magic. Practically a painting in thin air. yet it did the trick. Everyone had frozen, some, he could even see slink away in fear... Rodrick blinked as he found himself openly staring at what he assumed was a scared second year.
Considering her first year was his third year... Yeah... He couldn't really blame her for being scared. She was a Gryff to. Rodrick chuckled as he motioned the girl to walk towards him, his other hand going towards his hair. The girl blinked at the attention, her eyes widening further the moment she saw the small dragon appear in his hands. The rest of her automatically moving towards it.
He snorted somewhat at the glazed look in her eyes. It seemed the dragon's 'sentience' gave the creature an extra benefit. He idly wondered if Fawkes was capable of the same, briefly watching as the girl disappeared into the same charm his dragon was currently in.
"He made her disappear... " Small whispers slowly died out, as Rodrick simply silenced everyone again, someone had managed to undue his charm? The thought, oddly enough didn't seem to faze him. Perhaps someone had gotten lucky... Accidental magic was definitely possible, and there were plenty of first years about.
A second later and the thought disappeared, honestly, someone was bound to have figured it out at some point... At any rate, his silencing charm being broken aside, so long as no one decided to panic over the girl's disappearance there was no risk of any problems arising.
He was also glad his reputation was coming to use for once. He knew for a fact it hadn't just been Hogwarts students playing around the hall with dangerous spells. Durmstrang had been taking this as a chance to try to show their supposed skill in the Dark Arts. And had been doing a rather good job of it...
Until he'd turned said dangerous curse into a muggle party trick. He could see certainly see why they were letting him get away with so much.
Besides they were also bound to find out about the dragon later anyway, the girl herself had a mischievous look on her face as she quickly understood her position. He idly wondered if the sorting hat had pegged her right...
He turned his attention back to the Slytherin in front of him, the number of spells being thrown both at the blanket to test it's abilities and him, evidently for the same reason, dwindled even further.
His house was probably responsible... How nice of them. Rodrick thought indifferently as he took in the indifferent Ravenclaw in front of him. He hadn't even bothered to look up from his book, likely either listening to something from those headphones of his or under his own silencing charm...
Rodrick's eyes widened slightly as he viewed the muggle item under his mage sight.
It seemed the ex-quiditch captain was darker then expected... For that was without a doubt a dark curse writ in runes surrounding the muggle item.
He definitely recognised it.
It was a spell his grandfather had showed him. Only until now, it hadn't seemed all that useful to use for it didn't work on anything organic, nor did it necessarily have a real use as it was rather... Weak in what it could do.
A magic dampener. Which as the words suggested was a way to cancel set level of magic in a specific area, or as Rodrickc could see in front of him, surround an item. The issue was that, without the proper ink for it's runes it's output was rather low. Meaning it couldn't really cancel out much. It wouldn't even be strong enough to cancel out a Wingardium Leviosa, a spell taught in first year!
Until now, he'd thought it useless. He hadn't considered using it to cancel out the ambient magic coursing through the castle, the very thing preventing any muggle technology from working in the castle.
Something the, up until now, unknown Ravenclaw in front of him had managed to figure out.
A truly terrifying thought. And one he would've quickly dealt with... Had he not done things just as dangerous, for he had created both a portkey capable of passing through the castles wards and a method to apparate through wards aswell. And that, frankly was the tip of the iceberg at this point.
In a way, perhaps fate was simply adapting to him.
He figures out a way to extract phoenix essence? The Ravenclaw figures out a way to rewrite his runic enchantments in order to access said essence. Entirely bypassing the need to figure out Magic Extraction in the first place. All because he'd given him direct access instead. He had wondered what the Ravenclaw had done with the quill he'd given him. For the magical carpet's entire runic signature was made using Phoenix Essence as it's ink-
And then Rodrick saw something that made his blood freeze. For from the inside of the Ravenclaw's pockets, out flew the quill he'd been gifted...
Rodrick's mind whirled through as many answers as he stared, his eyes widening slowly, ahead.
Where on earth had he gotten more Phoenix Essence!?
Rodrick narrowed his eyes, as he focused them on the runic scriptures, in his peripheral making out the shadow of a smile on the Ravenclaws face. The moment his sight landed on the extra set of runic scripture, he felt his heart skip a beat.
The spell shown was the Gemino curse... Ink, in this case the essence, was consistently been created through the Gemino curse in order to continuously power the carpet... Which meant that the second set of runes was a Transfiguration charm. Made to turn whatever was being copied into Phoenix Essence.
Which, as he stared ahead, was definitely possible... Only... There were very few things that he could think off the top of his head that could potentially be transformed into it... Well, really there was only one, though even he hadn't been crazy enough to mess around with it.
Blood. Particular the curse caster's.
There was a reason the Gemino curse was considered dark. Every time something was copied, the original loses a bit of itself. Goods degrade and organics wither.
And this fool-
"Phoenix ink really is wondrous."
Rodrick blinked as he stared at the Ravenclaw in front of him. He knew no one else had heard a word. In the background he could see some people sign to each other in frustration, others wave their wand's about as they attempted to get rid of his new Ravenclaw's words ringing around in his head before a thought quickly replaced them.
He quickly called up his own quill, a keen look in his eyes. The rest simply watched on curious, it wasn't often they caught sight of him so eager... About something.
Interesting things tended to happen during those moments.
Rodrick aimed his wand at the sentient quill as he used the Gemino curse, his eyes focused as they looked for any subtle change in the quills magical signature, narrowing when it seemed to shrink before once agains surprising him as it simply grew back to it's original size...
Phoenix Essence was capable of rebirth... Or in this case, growing back to it's original size. It almost seemed to suck in the magic in the air to do it. Though the clone didn't last nowhere near as long as anything generally created by the Gemino Curse, it still lasted long enough to be used as some sort of energy source... And so long as the ink returned back to it's original size it would stay sentient. Of course it also needed a decent source of magic to drain, in order to use said power. It, like him, unfortunately wasn't truly a phoenix, though that wouldn't really be a problem until after the Ravenclaw, he really needed to learn his name, left Hogsmeade. There was plenty of magic to be had around here after all.
In essence, he had a perpetual infinite source of magic at his disposable so long as he stayed in a place similar to the castle. And with it connected to the quill, it was capable of accessing Hogwart's stores of knowledge, which certainly explained why the carpet seemed to know so many countercurses.
Rodrick could definitely make out a tiny, smug, smile on the Ravenclaw's face.
So, naturally, he did what anyone in his situation would do.
He removed the invisibility charm surrounding the girl and grinned at the priceless look that took over the Ravenclaw's face as he and the rest gaped at the sight of an artificially created dragon.
When the Dragon apparated from the girls hands onto his head, the silencing charm broke from the sheer strain on it.
He idly wondered what the newspaper would say about his new pet. Considering the reaction in front of him.