Heart of the Eclipse, Book one: Ascent
Chapter 7
Terra Arcana, Evans family realm
Despite the initial shock, it didn't take long for Lily to get used to the "triplets". This was helped by the fact that Harry – who had decided to keep her name and just let people assume it was actually Harriet or something along those lines – had grown more confident after the change. Lily also had to admit that the three of them looked cute, bordering on beautiful: their curly hair, fluctuating between blood red and ruby red depending on the light, framed the face her daughter had originally had, including the emerald green eyes the twins had inherited from her.
All three were quite active, too. They climbed trees in the forest, ran around the clearing itself and swam at the beach a few hundred metres down the river for several hours a day. Part of this was to compensate for the hours of meditation their studies required, but mostly, they just enjoyed it. Their active lifestyle showed, too. They weren't overly muscular for their age, but their slim, agile bodies clearly showed that they weren't lazy at all. Lily regularly complimented them for this choice.
"After all, magic is shaped by your body, mind and soul in conjunction. The more you strengthen all three, the more magic you can safely use without becoming exhausted."
This had, of course, led to the question of how to strengthen their souls. Training the mind and body were kind of obvious, but the soul? Lily, though, had simply smiled at them.
"This should actually be easier for you than for your peers. The soul grows stronger by enjoying positive emotions and deep connections. Enjoying nature, cuddling, playing or listening to music, art... basically, everything that is important to you and feels good keeps your soul strong. On the other hand, negative emotions can weaken your soul and, in extreme cases, even shatter it. A shattered soul slowly loses its magic and invariably loses itself in the wildlands – a fate most people shudder to even contemplate."
"So... simply by cuddling, we're doing something good for our souls?"
Lily nodded.
"If you want to get the best effects, though, try to constantly stay in a state of light meditation during your day. Nothing deep, just kind of consciously experiencing everything and, more than everything, consciously enjoying everything positive. Basically, your soul grows from experience, and the more intense and positive that experience is, the better it grows. Not quicker, but better."
Terra Arcana, Market Realm
Just a moon before the children would leave for Hogwarts, Lily took them to the market realm for the first time. It was time for their school shopping, as well as the last part of their godparenting: They were to be introduced to the trade system.
"We do have a currency, yes – and please, don't ask me who came up with the dumb idea to use prime numbers for the exchange between the three denominations. Some person of questionable intelligence probably found it amusing to constantly test our maths skills. What you need to remember, though, is that money does not have a fixed value. Most trade is, therefore, a direct exchange of goods, with money as a supplementary system."
All three children nodded – they had already learned that much from Lily's lessons.
"Now, to prevent any disputes, all wares are secured by tying them to certain contracts. They physically cannot leave a shop until a contract is signed, which defines which goods were exchanged in which quantities. You should read those contracts, without exception – some of them contain elaborate traps. Do you, for example, know of the Viking Clan?"
Harry shook her head, immediately followed by the other two.
"That clan was started by the Weasley family some generations ago. The family head back then stupidly signed a contract without reading it first, selling any house the Weasley family might ever own. Since then, they live in beautifully crafted, flying ships. The rest of that clan is composed of smaller families which simply liked the idea of living on a ship – many of these families leave the clan after two or three generations, though."
The children paled slightly when they heard this. The mere idea of something this big happening because somebody wasn't careful when signing a contract... it was horrible enough to ensure that they would always pay attention when signing anything.
"Now, let's begin your school shopping. First, we should go to Madame Malkins' shop – she specializes in unenchanted clothing and weak clothing enchantments for general purposes. Nothing really special, but traditionally, people buy their first set of school uniforms there."
Hermione was confused.
"Didn't we already make those?"
"I had you make several sets each, yes, and I had you keep the two best sets each of you created at home. The rest, though, we will actually trade in at Madame Malkins' – Her shop is one of those where you can sell any clothes you make. The fifteen sets of uniforms each of you can trade in should be more than enough to get you each a wardrobe bracelet."
Wardrobe bracelets were one of the more interesting inventions of Terra Arcana. Among their base functions was the storage of clothes and cleaning those clothes when they were stored in the bracelet. After several generations of improvements, though, the bracelets had become much more complex than that.
Basically, they let the wearer define sets of clothes which were to be worn together, and then define people, groups, areas, events and much more complex conditions for those sets. Whenever such a condition was met, the appropriate clothes were chosen and magically swapped onto the wearer's body.
The real complexity, though, lay within the fact that the bracelets enforced something called divergent perception. Basically, everybody who sees the wearer of the bracelet sees (and, if it comes to that, feels) them wearing the most appropriate clothes depending on the viewer.
For example, somebody could be wearing their bathrobe, and if their employer suddenly came to visit, he would only see them in their working clothes or suit. At the same time, should such a meeting happen in the wildlands, any potential enemy would see both of them in duelling clothes or armour.
The children looked at each other and blushed, causing Lily to sigh in slight exasperation. Divergent perception also made it possible to define a set of people for whom you wanted to wear less than socially acceptable, of course. It was a known possibility, and at least three quarters of those who owned such bracelets probably had defined such a set of people. Luckily, doing so for somebody against their wishes was a fineable offence.
As Lily had predicted, the children had more than enough clothes to trade in for wardrobe bracelets, getting a total of five galleons on top of those from the trade-in.
"You will configure the bracelets in your room at home, not here. Now, there are two things left to buy: your school books and your potions kits. Familiars cannot be bought, and any simple pet will not benefit you in any way, so we will skip those. Everything else is either supplied by Hogwarts or you are supposed to make it yourself."
"What about the dragonhide gloves for herbology?"
"Those are included in the potions kits, along with a dragonhide apron and all knives you will need for potions and herbology."
Terra Arcana, Evans family realm
That evening, the children configured their bracelets. As Lily had guessed, they wouldn't be hiding anything from each other. For everybody else, there was a semi-random selection of generic clothes as well as their school uniform for anything school related.
Before they went to bed, Harry unexpectedly embraced Hermione. She held her close and took a few deep breaths, taking in the smell of her hair and her neck. She finished by kissing her neck where it met her shoulder, the repeated the whole thing with Flora. Both reacted with a small shiver and a smile, then led Harry to their bed and snuggled close to her. All three drifted of to sleep with a smile.
Lily quietly closed the door, which had been slightly ajar.
'Magic is guided mostly by your body and your mind, but your souls might just need all the strength they can get.'
She went downstairs and sat in an armchair the children had made together. Then, she opened the book she had borrowed from her guild's library, sadness filling her heart as she sought for answers in the complex theories contained in its pages.
The book was covered in fine black leather, partly hidden by patches of dust so deeply ingrained by time, they could not be cleaned off even with the most precise of magics. Beneath a barely recognizable symbol, depicting a set of scales balancing a golden sun and a silver moon, fading letters declared the title of the book to be Convergent Elements: On the Role of Elemental Magic in the Great Convocation, which resulted in the Creation of Terra Arcana – A theory by Nicholas Flamel, Apprentice of Alchemy.