Chapter 6:
"-ake up. Ivy. Ivy." Was someone saying something? Eh, it wasn't more important than sleep.
"Vamme foraime sí." She mumbled back, burrowing deeper into her blankets.
"Huh?" The annoying voice seemed confused. Maybe they would leave her alone then? "Come on, Ivy we're gonna miss breakfast." No such luck. Ivy slowly blinked her eyes open, putting as much energy as she had into glaring at the offending voice. In the past, she had literally set things on fire by glaring at them hard enough. Well, that took far more energy than she cared to muster up right now, and she'd probably regret it later if she actually burned Tonks.
"Lende me er." Ivy complained, closing her eyes again.
"I have literally no idea what you're saying." Tonks replied. Ivy didn't bother responding, already half-asleep again. "Alright then, you leave me no choice. This is for your own good sleepy-head."
The sleepy-head in question merely attempted to burrow ever deeper into her woolen lair in a vain attempt to block out her great enemy, wakefulness. It was too warm and fluffy in the depths of her lair for even a great foe such as wakefulness to invade. As long as wakefulness had no other allies, she could continue to elude it for some time.
Suddenly, her lair was torn asunder, and she was besieged on all sides by wakefulness, cold, and worst of all, her roommate's strident voice. "WAKE UP, IVY!"
Betrayal in her eyes, the defeated fire mage desperately clung to the mutilated remains of her dear sleep. "Whime, Tonks?" She turned her pitiful gaze to the woman who had been her ally just the night before. Now she had stolen her most precious blanket, aiding her enemies in bringing about her ruin. "Whime?" Tonks rolled her eyes, Ivy's pain lost to her cruel dismissal.
"It's Nine O'clock already, we have less than an hour left to eat breakfast." She replied, as if that somehow excused her cruelty. "Come on, get changed and let's go." Ivy groaned in defeat. With a herculean will, she mustered the might to crawl out from the ruins of her lair, and flop on the floor next to her bed. She decided then to give her traitorous roommate one last chance to make up for her villainous deeds. She limply raised her hand into the air above.
Tonks snorted, but she grasped Ivy's hand in her own, and dragged her limp body upright. "Mára arinya." Ivy greeted her roommate blearily.
"I have no idea what the heck you're saying Ivy." Tonks replied dryly. "Speak English please."
"Nányë?" Ivy asked hesitantly. "Bime i valaina, ni'm vamme!"
"That's still not English." Tonks retorted. The young girl's eyes widened in shock as the last night's dream hit her in full force. She remembered writing this entire language into existence to bridge the gap between science and magic. There wasn't any language on Earth or the several dozen other planets she'd visited (She knew because she'd learned them all) that could handle the requirements of her Ultron's software, although she had taken some inspiration from the Kree hardware that ran the Supreme Intelligence…
At the same time, she remembered learning Quenya, Sindarin, and Westron since the moment of her birth. She'd been a master of using words and songs to affect the magic of the world, and she'd used that to forge her Rings.
She also remembered only knowing English. Yet, it was an unavoidable fact that she'd acquired the knowledge of several more languages overnight.
There were magics out there, Ivy knew, that allowed someone to learn quickly, but there were often drawbacks to those magics. One of those methods was simply copying knowledge directly from one person to another. However, it came with dangerous side effects like headaches, personality changes, and in some cases even permanent brain damage. This was because no two people thought or learned in the same way. Someone else's brain had already encoded the knowledge in a way that the recipient's brain had to work to understand and interpret. The risks were lowered slightly among similar people, but it was not an encouraged method of study. What if, however, that person was yourself?
There was definitely precedent. To get around methods of extracting information, spies, criminals, and all manner of people had been known to copy, hide, and then erase their own memory. In almost all cases, the copied information slotted back into place as if it had never been erased in the first place. Then again, Ivy was not recovering her own memories, but rather downloading memories of her alternates. They would be extremely similar, but not exactly the same. On top of that, the sheer amount of information was staggering. At the very least, most of it was technical information rather than actual memories so far. Ivy was very much against remembering some of the things she'd done being a dude. As if summoned by that thought, the memory of an attractive blonde woman lying beneath her naked and sweaty surfaced in her thoughts. She shuddered in a strange mix of pleasure and disgust.
"Ivy?" Tonks asked.
"Ah." Ivy grunted. "Go on without me. I'll be up in a minute." She responded, focusing intensely to make sure her words came out in English.
"Okay then." Tonks replied, already on her way out the door. Ivy sighed in frustration as soon as her roommate was out of earshot.
Apparently, her encounter with the kaleidoscope had given her more than a headache. Objectively, that was only positive. A headache and a bit of difficulty speaking English for a little while in exchange for knowledge she would have had to spend years studying? Any magus would be a fool to turn down such a trade. However, Ivy wasn't a magus. For her, the work put into learning her craft was worth more than just the knowledge she gained. It may have been uncommon for someone of her age, but she already knew what she wanted out of life – She would create a blade better than all others.
Her alternates definitely had knowledge that would help. The Rings she had dreamed of forging surpassed what her own talents could produce by far. Even the other man she had dreamt of knew a great deal about metallurgy that she did not. Without even heading to the forge to put that knowledge into practice, she knew that her talents had been advanced by at least a decade in a single night. But that knowledge wasn't hers. She hadn't worked for it. She had stolen it. She had cheated. Even if it was her that had worked for that knowledge, it still wasn't Her. Any blade she created now wouldn't be a blade made solely by Ivy herself. It was a matter of pride. Until the day where she could improve upon the knowledge she gained, then she would just be faking something a better smith had made.
Furthermore, it wasn't just knowledge of blacksmithing she had absorbed. There were more languages in her head now than she'd known even existed. Those would certainly be useful, and cheating to learn them didn't really sting her pride as a smith. But for now, she couldn't even speak English without concentration. She was also worried about what else she might have learned, or how it might have changed her personality.
Before this morning, she had only known of sex from a highly detailed and clinical speech that she really wanted to forget Aunt Petunia had ever given her. She hadn't even had her first crush yet. Just now, she'd caught herself checking out Tonks' butt as she walked out the door. Did she like girls now? Was she attracted to men too? Would she have been attracted to one or both if she hadn't inherited these memories?
… Was she in love with someone from a different universe now?
No, she didn't think so. At least, nobody came to mind when she thought about it. Did that mean her alternates never fell in love? What did that say about her? If they ended up alone, was she also destined to be lonely? The first man she dreamed about didn't have anyone. He'd created Ultron because he was alone. And the second man… His fate had been tied to the Rings. He would always be connected to the Ring Bearers, but that didn't mean they were friends. 'To bear a Ring of Power is to be alone.' She vaguely recalled from somewhere.
No. Ivy thought. I will not be alone. Above all else, Ivy was loyal to her friends. That was the very quality that the sorting hat had decided made her belong to Hufflepuff. A sudden thought struck Ivy and she grinned. She couldn't take pride in anything she forged until she surpassed the decades of knowledge and experience that she had inherited, but at the tender age of eleven, she'd already figured out how.
Who said a Ring Bearer was always alone? Her Ring Bearers would never be alone.
Breakfast came and went quickly. Ivy hadn't reached the Great Hall until Nine Twenty, and the food vanished at Nine Fifty-Five. To her own astonishment, she'd managed to demolish three servings of scrambled eggs, two plates of hash browns, four cups of orange juice, and more bacon than she cared to count in that time. Catching note of Tonks' similar surprise, she chuckled nervously and patted her stomach. Perhaps her mental exertion the night before had made her hungrier than she thought.
With breakfast over, Ivy resolved to talk to Dumbledore about the new issues that had cropped up overnight from her encounter with the Kaleidoscope. However, before she could approach him, he stood to address the hall. "Now that our meal is concluded, the time has come to kick off a new year of learning here at Hogwarts. First years, if you would all remain here, your first lesson will begin momentarily. I strongly suggest that the rest of you remain here as well." Dumbledore paused for a minute as a few students left the gathering. Many more than Ivy thought would had chosen to remain, including Tonks. "Without further ado, I turn you over to my old friend, Nicholas Flamel." A few students briefly clapped politely as the new professor stood and made his way to the front and center of the hall. Ivy sighed, and sat back down in her seat. With all the chaos in her mind she'd completely forgotten about Professor Flamel's lecture.
"Good morning students." Professor Flamel began. After the mumbled chorus of 'Good morning's' he received in response, he continued. "I have ever been a scholar of magic. My studies began not in Alchemy, but in the humble art of Arithmancy. I sought to understand magic in a way none before me ever had by studying it through the lens of science and logic. This is what led me to alchemy, the branch of magic ruled by science and logic. I became so talented in this field that I was able to create what was long regarded as the pinnacle of Alchemy, the Sorcerer's Stone. And when I reached this peak, I sought to apply my utter and complete understanding of the very fabric of magic itself to other pursuits.
"It only took me four days to realize that I hadn't learned a single thing about magic. The stone that others viewed as the pinnacle of alchemy, I viewed as the symbol of my failure. I very nearly smashed it to pieces then and there in anger. I had thought that the ninety years spent studying it had been wasted, and that my life's work had all amounted to a pale mockery of what I had set out to achieve. Back then, it was merely basic arithmetic that stayed my hand. An average wizard typically lived around one-hundred and twenty years back then. One-hundred and twenty minus ninety meant that I should only have thirty years left to study magic. However, one-hundred and twenty minus ninety, plus infinity, meant that if only I used the stone, I could study magic for as long as I wished.
"Over the next five-hundred and eighty-four years I have continued to study the subject, and have come to the conclusion that magic is very simply a part of the World. What I didn't understand in my youthful hubris was that science and logic are a separate part of the world. Certainly, there are areas where they overlap, but that is merely a sliver of each of them. There are sciences that cannot be applied to magic, and magics that cannot be applied to science. The greatest example of this I have found is potions and chemistry.
"Some of the older students among us may know what happens when you add mercury and a tadpole to aqua regia. With the proper timing, heat levels, and stirring, you get a potion that will temporarily de-age someone. This is because of the magical properties of these ingredients. Also, don't try this potion without Professor Snape's approval, without proper technique, it can go catastrophically wrong. That aside, what do you think will happen if a muggle combines these ingredients with the same techniques, and why?"
Several older students raised their hands, in addition to the girl looking for Neville's toad on the train. It took Ivy a few moments to recall her name was Hermione.
"You." The professor pointed towards an older Slytherin.
"Marcus Flint, sir." He introduced himself. "Nothing will happen, because a muggle can't activate the magical properties of the ingredients."
"A textbook answer." The immortal teacher nodded. "And also, completely wrong. Anyone else?"
Only three hands remained in the air. "You." This time, the professor pointed to a Gryffindor student.
"Lee Jordan, sir, and it will still brew into a potion. There are some potions with actively magical ingredients that don't need to be brewed by a wizard." He answered confidently.
"You are correct," The professor paused for a second. "That some potions with actively magical ingredients can be brewed by muggles. However, none of the ingredients of the de-aging potion are magical. Does anyone else care to take a guess?"
Only two hands remained in the air, one belonging Hermione, and another student Ivy didn't know. "You." The professor said.
"Hermione Granger, sir." She answered. "And the mercury and the tadpole will dissolve in the aqua regia because it's a potent acid sir."
"Correct." The professor said. "Five points to Ravenclaw.
"You see, everything in the world has physical, chemical, and magical properties. Aqua Regia has the chemical property of acidity, and the magical property of change. Mercury also has the magical property of change, and the tadpole represents the property of youth. When these are properly combined, the resulting potion has the ability to 'change to youth'. All spells in the world work based on the magical properties of things. Among magi, it is nearly impossible to cast a spell they do not have the elemental affinity for, and even for wizards it is a little more difficult to cast spells you do not personally have affinity for."
A wave of muttering swept through the crowd at the topic of magi. Even Ivy, who was not exactly the picture of social grace, could pick up the unease that single word caused. The new professor had definitely lost the interest of a few of the crowd.
"The reason wizards are even capable of spells without having affinity for them is because wizard-kind are like a single magus." Professor Flamel raised his voice above the din. The students went silent. He hadn't re-taken their interest per se, but he had certainly gathered their anger. "Magus society has always looked down on first-generation magi, or muggle-born students. And it is because of this that wizard-kind were created. Two-hundred or so like-minded magi gathered together to pool their research and show up those magi who thought they were better than the rest of them. They quickly found out, however, that if they cast the same spell at the same time, it was less and less powerful the more people who cast it. However, instead of disbanding and focusing on hoarding their own research and knowledge like the magi who looked down on them, they decided to find a way to overcome this limit.
"They could not find a way to make their spells register as different than each other, but they were able to find a method to make themselves register as a singular entity. The magic crests of magus families each contain the spells of their ancestors, embedded in their magic circuits and added to the crest. Passed down through each generation, more and more circuits and more and more spells are added. The first wizards each sacrificed a single magic circuit to create a communal crest with all of their spells, and more importantly each of their affinities. The next few generations also were required to sacrifice one of their circuits in order to connect to the crest until wands were invented as a pseudo-magic circuit already connected. Their diligence and sacrifice are what allowed future generations of wizards to look down their noses at the magi who struggle desperately for every scrap of knowledge they have. Remember that there are two sides to every story students."
The professor cast a stern gaze out at the crowd. One or two students looked chastised. The rest glared back.
"But I digress." He continued, giving up for the moment on convincing them that not all magi are inherently evil. "Now, all humans have two inherent magical properties; Their element and their origin. Your origin is what you begin life as, and it continues to influence you throughout your life. For example, someone with the origin of 'traveler' would be constantly moving as a child, and find it difficult to settle down in one place as an adult. This typically manifests in the form of impulsive actions. Whereas someone without the origin of 'traveler' might take months to plan a vacation, our example person might frequently go missing at the drop of a hat. Becoming aware of what your origin is makes these impulses much more difficult to deny. In our previous example, a 'traveler' aware of his origin would not be satisfied with random vacations, but would never settle down in the first place. Becoming aware of your origin is therefore a double-edged sword; while you will be able to understand and direct these impulses of yours, their frequency and strength may become problematic at times.
"The element of a person refers to what type of magic they are best at. While the most common are the standard five elements of water, fire, earth, air, and ether, non-standard elements exist also, such as lightning, shadow, or metal. The word element is also a bit of a misnomer in a way, because your elemental affinity doesn't have to even be an element. I once met a man with the elemental affinity of 'seal', who was an uncommonly talented ward-master. Are there any questions so far about elements, origins, and magical properties?"
Ivy raised her hand immediately. It was the only hand in the air, and so she was called on immediately. "I'm Ivy, sir." She said. "If magi are nearly incapable of casting spells without the proper element, then what about the rituals that nearly any magus can participate in, or the basic spells like structural analysis and reinforcement that are taught to all magus beginners?" She voiced her doubt. Her element was fire, and she was nearly incapable of any other magecraft, but there were some spells she could perform.
"An excellent question." He praised. "And there are actually three different answers. The first and simplest answer, is that with enough power, you can brute force any spell into working for you. Spells like structural analysis or reinforcement are of such a low cost in the first place that the brute force method doesn't require much power anyway.
"The second answer is that some spells can be cast with multiple different elements, giving it a slightly different effect. Let's use structural analysis as an example. If someone with the earth element were to cast it on a radio, they would have an easier time understanding what the radio is made from, whereas someone with the ether element would have an easier time understanding the enchantments that make it work and how energy flows through it.
"The third way is the one the wizarding crest uses, that is, to have something else with the proper affinity cast the spell for you. There are many ways of doing this, so I'll only go over the two that wizards use: foci, and writing. Foci are items crafted to focus the magical energy from spells. This is what the wizarding crest is. It contains the element of everyone who ever sacrificed a circuit to it, and allows you to cast spells of those elements. However, it does not contain every element in existence. This is where the second method comes in. Runes and magic circles have different meanings based on how they are written down. If done properly, any spell can be cast just by writing it on something and providing magical energy. This can be done with any language, but it is much harder to do with more modern languages because of 'human common sense', which is part of my next topic in this lecture, so before we move on to that, are there any more questions?"
Hermione's hand was in the air in an instant.
"Miss… Granger, yes?" Professor Flamel asked.
"Sir." Hermione nodded in confirmation. "You spoke earlier about how different magi casting the same spell at the same time weaker, but Ivy listed two spells that are taught to all beginner magi. Why aren't those spells weaker than any other spell? Or are they taught to beginners because they are weakened? If so, how do you understand how much you've progressed if you don't know how many other people are casting the spell?"
"Another excellent question." The immortal smiled. "The answer is that they are actually different spells. The structural analysis spell does exactly what it says, it provides the caster with information about the object they are casting it on. Because no two objects in the world are exactly the same, even if we cast structural analysis at the same time, I am actually casting 'analyze this object', and you are casting 'analyze that object'. In this case, we would both have to cast the spell on the same object at the same time if we for some reason wanted to weaken the spell."
"Why don't magi apply that concept to the rest of their spells then? If such a slight difference makes a completely different spell?"
"That's because this little loophole can't be applied to some spells, and applying it to others would make a spell needlessly complicated or prohibitively costly. Say that we both know the same water spell. It takes three lines to cast the spell, and it produces ten gallons of water. If we both cast it at the same time, it would produce ten gallons of water, but you and I would both only receive five each. I realize that someone else knows my spell, so I change it to produce ten gallons of water in the corner of the room. All of the sudden my three line spell is now five lines long, costs me more energy, and can only make water in the corner of this room. If I want my ten gallons elsewhere, I have to put in all the research to create a completely new spell, and I certainly don't have the time for that."
"But if you think hard enough, I'm sure you could get around those limitations. In this case, you could teach everyone the spell to 'create ten gallons of water above my hand', and it would be a different spell for every person who cast it, right? Then you would only need to spend a little more time and energy to cast the spell, but everyone can do it. Oh, is that the way the wizarding crest works? And magi hoard all their knowledge for just a bit more power?" Hermione passionately argued back.
"I'm impressed that you already understand the fundamentals of capitalism vs. communism at your age. I know far too many adults that don't know the difference." The professor mused whimsically. "But you were wrong about how magic fundamentally works.
"Everything on this world has magical properties based on the will of the world. These can change as the world wills it, but those changes are natural phenomena. We can temporarily override the will of the world by applying magical energy in a specific manner. This is what we call a spell. Because of this, all spells are cast in relation to the world. That's why your solution cannot work. Without a world of your own it is impossible to create a spell relative…"
He trailed off in thought for a moment.
"Actually, it is technically possible, as long as your location within the world remains unchanged. It would then be the same kind of spell as create ten gallons in the corner of the room, except needlessly more complicated by adding distance from that fixed point. However, the moment you move at all, your spell becomes completely impossible to ever perform again. In any case, creating a spell with a fixed location is almost always a very bad idea. There are other variables that can be successfully changed to create a new spell, but there are a finite number of them. In the entire history of magecraft, only a single workaround has been found that allows multiple people to cast the same spell without losing potency.
"The create ten gallons of water spell is limited in it's utility. While the spell is active, there will always be ten gallons of water somewhere in the world. No matter how many people cast the spell, it will only create ten gallons of water total. When a single magus is casting the spell, it is incredibly efficient at its purpose because of its narrowly defined scope.
"If we were to remove the limitation on the amount of water from the spell, we could create a new spell that creates a different amount of water depending on how much energy you use. This spell would be less efficient with magical energy than the spell that creates ten gallons of water only, but it would be more versatile.
"All of the spells within the wizard's crest are the second type of spell. Furthermore, they are all constantly active within the crest, in every corner of the world where magical energy exists. The only thing a wizard has to do then, is to provide magical energy to the correct spell within the crest. Wand movements and incantations help a wizard to activate the correct spell, but they are not necessary as long as a wizard maintains a connection to the crest through their wand, or by sacrificing one of their own magic circuits. I hope that answers any remaining questions you may have had, Miss Granger, because I fear I have drifted quite further away from my lesson plan than I intended."
"Yes, sir." She nodded happily.
"Very good." The Professor replied. "The last topic we will cover for today will be the magical 'weight' of spells. You see, not all spells are created equally. Simply putting more energy into a spell will not make it stronger than a spell with less energy per se. This is because some magics are more potent than others. Magical energy, age, the will of the world, and human common sense are the most common things that cause this phenomenon.
"Magical energy is very self-explanatory. The more power I put in, the more powerful my spell becomes.
"Now, when I say age, I do not mean that my spells are more powerful than Dumbledore's because of the years I have lived. What I mean is how old the spell or object in question is. All other things being equal, a spell made today will be ever so slightly less powerful than a spell made yesterday.
"The will of the world influences magical weight in two ways – passively, and actively. The passive method mostly only works on objects. If I leave a piece of iron in a fire for a day, it will become slightly more attuned to fire element magecraft. If I were to use a piece of iron that has been sitting in the eternal flame for one million years to cast a fire spell, you should pray that you aren't in the way. The active method is happening around you every day. The will of the world likes itself the way it is, and our spells mess with that order. So, it chooses to press its weight down on our spells until they erode into nothing. This is a constant force exerted world-wide. The world can also throw its weight around to enhance spells it likes, or to make them go away quicker in the opposite case.
"And then we come to human common sense. The most important thing to do when you are casting magic, is to believe that you can. Our thoughts, faith, and beliefs all affect our spells in some way. The effect a single person has, however, is very little. On the other hand, when more and more humans believe in something, it becomes more powerful. This is the main reason why runes, ofuda, and sutras are powerful whereas your English essay has never spontaneously caught fire no matter how much you wanted it to. John the English wizard just doesn't have the acclaim that Odin All Father, the kitsune Tamamo no Mae, or the priest Xuanzang Sanzang all earned.
"That will conclude the lecture portion of today's lesson. We'll take a five-minute break here to catch our breaths, and when we come back, the rest of the lesson will be a Q and A session on what we just learned. If you don't have any questions for me, however you are free to leave. I hope I'll be seeing a majority of you here soon, but if not, I will see you in class. Dismissed."
A/N: The only languages I speak are English, Sarcasm, and half of Spanish. I used online translators heavily here. If anyone wants to correct my grammar or spelling, I'm warning you now that I'm not going to bother reposting the chapter for something like that. That being said, this is what Ivy is saying.
Quenya to English:
Vamme foraime sí: Not right now
Lende me er: Leave me alone
Whime: Why
Mára arinya: Good morning
Nányë: I am
Bime i valaina, ni'm vamme: By the Valar (Oh my God), I'm not
(As an English aside, I spent about twenty minutes trying to figure out how to spell dryly/drily – both are correct, but dryly looks a little better to me)
Procrastinating is my greatest strength. That, and Alcoholism. But it's finally done, so hooray! Also, I wrote most of this in two days, just so you're aware.
This chapter is my best attempt to explain inconsistencies in the magic system of fate, and blend it with that of Harry Potter. If the explanation leaves you more confused than when you started reading it, well you're in the same boat as I am then. The magic system from Fate is a mess, and Harry Potter never really had anything even close to a system in the first place. That said, please let me know if there is something my explanation did not cover, anything that confused you too much, or if I'm just stupid and these two series actually do have some sort of recognizable and consistent explanations.
I mean seriously, how can you say that two people merely knowing the same spell halves it's strength and that every single magus knows how to do reinforcement, projection, and structural analysis yet they still somehow work? It literally only works if you consider each object in the world to have completely different properties that makes the spell different every time you try it. Fate magecraft is complete and utter bullshit. I really do like the series though… Seriously.
Also, I realize that magic in Fate means true magic. Flamel does not mean that every little spell is true magic. It's just that the culture of the wizarding world is different, because they don't have to understand their spells to make them work, the wizard's crest does that for them. Ergo, their magecraft really does seem like magic to them.