Artificer

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, but I play in his world. If you recognise it, it's Rowling's.

A/N: Hello everyone! I'm not too fond of overly large, immersion breaking author's notes, so I'll try to keep 'em short. First order of business; to the reviewer sarah-rose76646, someone noticed! The fic I read almost immediately before suddenly finding myself inspired to write was actually one of jbern's. 'Bungle in the jungle' is a really good fanfic, and the whole first-person harry I have going is a direct consequence of me liking how he did it. So if you haven't read it, do so! He's a far better writer than I.

Secondly, I'm going to apologise again for the typos and other hideous mistakes that creep in here and there. I'm trying to get into a good read-write-proofread-post rhythm, and yet still finding myself instead just posting whatever my brain manages to leak out onto the keyboard. I blame my bad organisational skills.

And lastly; wow! Looking at the number of reviewers, followers and…favoriters? Favorers? Whatever. Anyway, the numbers might not look impressive, but it's a really gratifying feeling whenever my phone beeps and I find evidence of another person liking my work. So I'd like to thank you all!

Now back to your somewhat regularly scheduled fanfic.

Chapter 6

The walk to transfiguration was one of the easiest I've had in a long time.

"But it was three feet of parchment! How are you supposed to write three feet about transfiguring metal from wood?"

Ah, the bliss of ordinary conversation, of people acting normally despite my presence.

"For goodness' sake Ronald! Haven't you been paying any attention in class?"

Being able to stand in a crowd with no whispering behind my back, no disdainful looks, no outright hatred of my presence? Absolute bliss.

And I have Luna to thank. Well, maybe not entirely, but inspiration has to come from somewhere, right? It took a lot of time, brainstorming and cursing, but I was completely unable to figure out her ability to be ignored by everyone. So instead, I created my own.

Notice-me-not charms are among some of the most generalised charms in existence. As opposed to being the name of a single spell, it simply refers to a whole collection of spells which more or less do the same thing; in this case, making someone unable to mentally process that the affected thing exists. Powerful and disciplined wizards will often claim to be able to ignore them as a whole, but this is normally in error, since being able to ignore every single charm of its kind would probably break someone's mind ten minutes into the Wizarding world.

You see, the spells change depending on what is being hidden, why it's being hidden, who it's being hidden from and most importantly, how vital the thing remains hidden. In our first year of Defence against the Dark arts, we were supposedly taught a very simple version of the charm, which when cast on an object would cause anyone seeing it to think it was 'normal'.

It was a spell exempt from the restrictions on underage source up until about nine years ago, as its main use was so that a Hogwarts student could keep their books and homework hidden in 'plain sight' as it were.

On the other extreme is a spell, or more accurately a ritual-based charm, which given my backstory is more than familiar; the Fidelus. Where standard charms really only work if you're exposed to it, the Fidelus affects magic itself – no matter where you are, or how powerful you claim to be, if you're not meant to know, you literally cannot know. It's powerful to the point where a person will actually go out of their way to come up with another explanation for the apparent lack of knowledge, which is why it's so damned powerful.

All you have to do is be willing to not only share a secret you'd normally keep from everyone, but to give up the knowledge yourself, even if only temporarily. A harder sacrifice than most would be willing to make.

But those are both charms that hide things that people want to keep hidden. The truly all powerful versions are far more common in day to day Wizarding life, to the point where most people don't even know they exist. After all, how long would you be able to spend in a room with five right angled corners yet straight walls before you deemed yourself insane? Or be able to comprehend a place which doesn't rightly exist, such as an unplottable location? If a secret is important enough to prevent the mental breakdown of anyone viewing it, then the most powerful wizard in the world would tell you that room only has four corners, and change the subject.

So when casting these spells, what do you not want people to notice? If you cast it on yourself, will someone become confused at your apparent lack of clothing? Skin? Do you risk drawing even more attention to yourself, when the very nature of the charms weakens the more people that realise something is missing?

And so came into being the first of what I hope is many, many creations made in the Room of requirement. People around me can see me, hear me, talk to me; they could describe me right down to the way my hair sticks out at the back, and not once realise that they don't know who I am.

Of course, if someone is looking for Harry Potter, they know he's here. But once they've seen me, they stop looking and move on.

Their ignorance is my bliss. Bliss. I love that word.

Of course, the biggest problem is that I am still here. Their minds might skip over the details, evade the subject much like with a time travelling third year I knew, but charms, in the end are like rules. They're made to be broken in some form or another. The weakness of the one I'm using? If someone needs to know the secret, if they have good reason to know the secret, they won't skip over it so much.

"So did you talk to Potter? I can't believe the greedy git did that to Charlie. Their dragon reserve's been having trouble with money, and he goes and steals a bloody dragon from them?"

It's like those moments when you just know that someone's stood behind you, that someone's heard you disparage them in some way. In this case, I get to watch the idiot's face as he suddenly realises who the green-eyed, black haired Griffindor that's casually stood across from him actually is.

Wait for it.

"Bloody hell!"

The best bit is that as far as anyone else is concerned, I'm just another faceless student. Not that Ron needs help cultivating a reputation of yelling at random people. My intent to hex him in some embarrassing manner subsides, and Ron's need-to-know privileges get revoked by magic itself.

Beautiful.

"Ron, what are you yelling about?"

"I thought…I…I don't know?" He fixes his 'Do my homework?' look onto his face and turns to Hermione, hoping the reasons for his actions are covered by her 'Know-it-all' status. Obviously they're not, as she huffs and ignores him.

At least know I know how Luna copes with spending half her time like this. It's bloody hilarious.

"Potter. A word?"

Sighing, I reach up to my neck and remove the dragon fang maintaining my anonymity. No use attempting a conversation with someone who keeps forgetting who you are.

"Potter, the champions and their partners will be opening the ball." The Transfiguration professor began.

I'm tempted to feign ignorance, or at the very least replace my charm. But she's expecting a response…

"Why?" I ask, dumbly.

She spluttered! A small victory. "It is tradition Mr Potter and you will do what is expected of you as a representative of the school. And if that means you have to find a dance partner, then that is what you will do. Are we clear?"

I skim over the list of girls within the school that I know the names of, and who don't hate, fear or loathe me. Then I strike off any girls who I only know from 'Boy-who-lived-to-have-fangirls' moments, then Luna for the simple reason that people would begin asking why I was dancing my myself and completely miss the point of the whole thing. The biggest downside to maintaining mental lists of things is the dumb, glazed expression that seems to become default when using them.

"Mr Potter, do you understand?" She sounds irritated. Reminding myself how many people are on my list, I can't really get her hopes up though.

"No." Short. Eloquent. A veritable masterstroke of diplomacy, if you ask me.

She sounds exasperated. "And what is it you don't understand?" Bah, foiled.

"Well," I begin, planning out a counter argument. "Cedric, if I remember correctly, is in a relationship with the Ravenclaw seeker, Cho? This means he will have a date. Fleur tends to have most guys falling over themselves just by walking down a corridor or being in a nearby room, she won't have trouble getting a date. Victor is an international Quidditch star of whom any Quidditch fan in the castle would love to go with…do you see the pattern here?"

It seems she doesn't.

"I, on the other hand, seem to inspire fear and loathing in people, no part thanks to the inactions of some people," I level my gaze at her, "after my name came out of the goblet. So why is it important for me to go? To have a 'cheater' and 'attention seeker' opening the ball?"

I should stop. I've spoken one too many righteous tirades lately, too many more and it'll become a habit. I'm too young for a soapbox damn it all!

"Be that as it may," I can hear her forcing the words, "It is your obligation as a champion to attend. I will not have you showing the school in a bad light. Are we clear?" Ok, one last one and then I stop.

"Isn't it's the school's obligation to assign a member of staff a champion trusts as a mentor for the year? I can't help but notice all the other champions have their headmasters or heads of house…"

"As the deputy headmistress I'm too busy to take on another duty, Mr Potter, which is why Albus assigned Mr Moody to you. Isn't that…"

"Another duty? Like House assemblies, regular meetings with the members of your house, being available if a student comes to you with concerns? Things like that?"

Sighing, I replace the necklace. Maybe the sorting hat was right. I wonder if it would resort me if I asked nicely?

"Mr Potter? Where…" I'm already outside the door.

Things are not as they seem.

That could be the motto of the Wizarding world. After all, how else is it that they can make fire that doesn't burn? I know fire. I happen to like fire. I know what it is, why it is, and what it does.

Wizarding fire isn't like that. Wizarding fire is a manifestation of light that looks like fire, which happens to normally be quite hot. But if I cast incendio, does the fire give off smoke? Does condensation form from steam? No, no it doesn't. Magic 'Fire' can create real fire if it's hot enough, but it seems that somewhere along the way, someone thought they knew what fire was, and designed every bloody fire spell in existence to only look like fire. So, when a spell's power variable isn't the size of the fire but its heat, a weak spell is just a pretty light. And it's not just fire!

In lieu of a competent advisor, I've resorted to looking at the records of previous Triwizard championships. It seems the first task almost always involves overcoming a magical creature or artefact, just as the final task tends to pit the champions against each other in what is otherwise a race to the cup. My largest concern happens to be with the second one, which tends to be a trial of skill, and to date has the highest number of casualties.

This says a lot when students have to face against chimeras, manticores and in our case, dragons.

Of course I become even more worried after defeating the riddle of the egg. The magic itself was beyond me, but you can only study arithmancy for so long before you recognise patterns within things, and when all those patterns are aligned with one of the primary elements it doesn't leave you with much choice.

The Room of requirement being kind enough to create a small pool for me definitely helped.

So with the line "We've taken what you'll sorely miss", the notorious use of hostages as an 'incentive' to prepare for the task made me scared. Terrified even.

And I suddenly understood the reason for the yule ball. Bollocks.

It's bad enough they risk other students; I'm sure the hostages will be safe, what with all the vaunted safety precautions that are in place this year and the fact that after last year's Azkaban breakout the ministry probably can't afford to look negligent in front of their European peers, but my problem is that they're using the ball to see who we, the champions, actually care enough about for us to rush into a dangerous situation to save. Or failing that, someone we feel we owe for putting up with us.

I hate this damned tournament. Killing a dragon I can deal with, I can plan around, but this?

The worst part is that should I not pick someone, they'll probably go with one of my 'old' friends, someone who I used to care about. One of whom I'm liable to leave in whatever mess they get themselves into and the other… would probably just make the first 'friend' blow a gasket.

So my options are thus. I could avoid absolutely everyone for the next few months, and hope they somehow forget I'm a competitor. I could find a random person I don't give a damn about, feign interest in them in front of a few teachers and hope they don't end up being killed, or I can start spending time with someone who wouldn't be at risk.

I'm sure Hagrid could survive practically anything if he needed to, but he's still not happy over the dragon.

I swing my wooden mock-up of a sword ineffectually at the training dummy. Runes flare up as light purple fire dances along its length. Give me a dragon any day; it'd be easier to deal with than this.

"It's not like I asked him!"

"Oh yeah? Why would he be asking you then?"

And now for another round of fireplace entertainment from the bickering duo of Griffindor. Part of me still wants to jump in and defend Hermione, as I was there unnoticed when Viktor Krum himself asked Hermione to the ball. She turned him down quite graciously, but now…

"Maybe because he noticed I'm a girl you insufferable git!"

The arguments between the two seem to have heated back up again since my chat with her. I can't help but feel accomplished to be honest. Does this make me a bad person?

"And I haven't? You are my girlfriend after all!"

"Then why haven't you invited me to the ball? You've had a week so far, and I've heard nothing! With the amount I've seen you stare over at that French tart…"

Hey, that's uncalled for. It's not Fleur's fault if her lineage forces weak-willed men to drool at her feet, right?

"But I," Ron's face seems to be glowing from embarrassment. I think I heard the word 'robes', as he mumbles out his reasoning. That explains a lot actually. So, I can't help but throw in a barb myself.

"Ron, if it's your robes you're worried about, why don't you borrow mine? A few resizing charms and they'd be fine; it's not like they would fit me now anyway." A few people have commented on my 'growth spurt' as I'm calling it. Thankfully, there have been no rumours about dark rituals or the slaughter of innocents so I think I'm alright mentioning it now. "Your mum picked them out after all."

Hermione's looking at me gratefully, so now I feel bad. She turns to him.

"See? Now ask me to the ball, or I'll go find Viktor." An ultimatum if I ever heard one. But then, he did ask another girl after she left, so an ineffectual one.

"But I…Umm…Hermione," the red tinge to his skin is more anger than embarrassment now. Whether or not he knows that I know that he went into my trunk and shredded those robes after his sister apparently talked about asking if I would go with her, that I don't know. Either way, he's backed into a corner. Yay! "Hermione, would you," it's almost painful to watch. "Would you go to the ball with me?"

"I'll go get those robes now then?" I ask gleefully.

"NO! I mean, umm…I'll…" His resolve lasts all of five seconds before he storms out.

Aww, I was looking forward to tearing him a new one about those robes in front of Hermione. Show's over, folks.

A paranoid man might be suspicious of someone going swimming in a Scottish loch in midwinter.

I, however, simply sigh in acceptance. The task is in February for hells sake. So not only do I have to save someone from…the squid? But now it looks like I'm saving them from hypothermia as well.

Brilliant.