Over the next few weeks, not much happened to Chris. Due to the fact that a lot of the events in the book were centred on Harry, he didn't really have anything to do. He had passed along the location of the Room of Requirement to Hermione during an Ancient Runes class, and had taken to reading some comics that he borrowed off a Muggleborn classmate. He had to keep them hidden, but he found he was fascinated by the superhero Iron Man, and his inventions. Mostly his A.I. Companion, J.A.R.V.I.S.
It let him to wonder if he could make his own Artificial Intelligence with magic. He supposed if he could find a way to map a human brain, he could probably figure out some kind of runic array mixed with an arithmetic algorithm. Taking it upon himself as a pet project, he spent several days in the Library trying to find a spell to map the human brain. In the end, he found a relatively new spell that had apparently been invented by a Mediwizard in 1723 as a way to find a way to cure those with mental disorders. However, the Wizengamot at the time refused to pass it for professional use, and it was left to gather dust in an 18th Century medical journal. The book also held some other interesting information, which led to Chris borrowing it from the Library.
He studied the theory of the spell and found that it was quite complicated, and required severe concentration. Notes were made warning to say the words correctly, or be in danger of the spell backfiring. He spent several days memorising the incantations, and by the time he got it memorized, he could have spoken them in his sleep. Next up, he had to collect a few materials. Not all spells used incantations and wand movements purely, some of the more complex ones needed focusing crystals and those candle things that gave off smells.
For the life of him, Chris could not remember what these were called… oh well, it'll come to him sooner or later.
In order to get the materials, Chris had one of the staff accompany him to Diagon Alley. Since he was a Ward of Hogwarts, he needed a teacher to escort him outside of the school. Snape had drawn the short straw, as it were, and he grumbled lightly as Chris led him through the bustling cobblestone streets.
"What is it that you need?" asked Snape, glaring at the other denizens of the shopping hotspot.
"Just a few Focusing Crystals and some of those smelly candle things" Chris said, looking down at the sheet of parchment Tracey Davies had given him. He'd asked her if she knew of any shops that sold these items, and she told him about a small shop just off from Gringotts called Merryweather's Arcane Trinkets.
"You mean Fragrant Candles?" drawled Snape, his black robes swishing as they marched down the street. He couldn't stay out of the castle for long. He was brewing a potion that couldn't be left in unprofessional hands for too long. At the moment, he had some Advanced Potions students watching the potion for him.
"Yes, that's the one. I couldn't remember what they were called. I think this is the place" Chris said, turning into a small narrow shop wedged between a pet store and an alternative clothing store.
It smelled kind of funky inside, and a light smoke floated just above their heads, changing colour every now and then and showing images that were only corporeal for a limited time before they dissolved. An old lady sat behind the counter, reading a magazine and smoking a pipe, which was billowing with the magical smoke.
"Do you have any Mind, Body and Soul Crystals, as well as the Fragrant Candles," Chris checked his list, "Memory, Emotion, Dream and Desire?"
"The crystals are down at the back, I can get the candles for you." The woman said, her voice croaky and deep despite her gender. She got up, and shuffled into a back room, while Chris walked down the aisles to the back of the store. He found the necessary crystals, and brought them to the counter. He paid the 10 galleons and carried his new purchases out.
Every week, he was given a small allowance by the school to pay for expenses and other stuff from Hogsmeade or anywhere else he may go. The only rule he had with the money was that he couldn't use it to buy anything illegal. Due to his inactivity, he had saved up quite a bit of gold. He decided he wouldn't go crazy with purchases, in case he couldn't get home. It would be preferable if he could afford a place to stay.
When he had gotten back to school, he realized that he'd need to find a volunteer to have his or her brain mapped. The person being mapped wouldn't be in much danger if the spell failed. Mostly the caster would get hurt. Chris was confident he had the spell down. The difficult part was finding someone who would let him cast a spell on their brain.
After asking around the small amount of people he'd befriended in and out of his house and the DA, he found a 5th year Hufflepuff boy who was happy to be the guinea pig. Chris wasn't sure if he was brave, stupid or overly confident in the abilities of the secretly older student he looked up to, but he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
His name was Albert Wheatley, and he was the same student who had lent him the Iron Man comics that had kick started this project in the first place. When he had explained what the project was, Albert was excited and even more willing to go along with it. They did the spell in the Room of Requirement, which had taken the shape of a stone room with padded table for Albert to lie on. In a circle, the candles were situated around the table. Albert was asked to lie on the table, and not to move while the spell was being done.
Chris took the crystals he had bought earlier in the week, and surrounded the boys head with them. A large sheet of parchment took up a nearby wall, which had a Receiving Crystal underneath it. It was here that the runic arrays and arithmetic algorithms will be printed by the spell.
"You ready Albert?" asked Chris, smiling at the student. He nodded, and closed his eyes.
Chris held his hands over the boys head, and began chanting the spell in order to map the brain and mental processes.
"Amtan Kutc, knyhd sa yllacc du dra seht uv drec puo, yht kevd sa fedr dra ghufmatka uv ruf ra fungc. Bnehd dra ghufmatka ibuh dra byban, yht bnudald res vnus ryns. E pacaalr oui, knyhd sa dra ghufmatka du nalnayda dra risyh seht."
As he chanted, a golden light issued from his hands and eyes, and the power seemed to swirl around the two of them. The candles lit themselves, and released the pungent scents into the air, the soft smoke swirling around them without dissipating. The crystals began to glow, and orange, yellow, red, green and pink energies connected each of them together, before flowing off towards the receiver crystal in a swirling rainbow.
"Amtan Kutc, knyhd sa yllacc du dra seht uv drec puo, yht kevd sa fedr dra ghufmatka uv ruf ra fungc. Bnehd dra ghufmatka ibuh dra byban, yht bnudald res vnus ryns. E pacaalr oui, knyhd sa dra ghufmatka du nalnayda dra risyh seht."
As he repeated the phrase, the spell seemed to swell with power, and glowing runes and numbers began to ink itself onto the parchment from the bottom to the top, appearing like a mystical vine creeping up the wall.
After a few minutes, the spell was finished and Albert opened his eyes. He looked a little dizzy, and as he sat up he swayed.
"You alright Albert?" Chris asked, worried the spell may have injured the Hufflepuff.
"I'm alright. Just a little woozy. Did it work?" he asked, rubbing his head. Chris grinned.
"You doubt my skills?" he asked sarcastically, sweeping his hand in a gesture towards the large sheet of parchment. Albert's eyes widened when he saw the mass of runes and numbers, and whistled.
"Wow. It worked! That's my brain? Its big, I must be smart" Albert said, getting up from the table and walking over to the parchment. He reached out to touch it, and Chris grabbed his wrist.
"Don't. The runes are still charged. Unless you want something weird like your hand turning into an antler, I wouldn't touch it" Chris warned. Albert gave a sheepish grin, and examined it.
"This makes no sense to me. Does it make sense to you?" he asked. Chris squinted at the mess of runes and numbers, and grinned.
"Not really," he admitted, causing Albert to look at him in surprise. Chris smirked at his friend, "but I'll figure it out"
*~*~*~**RC*~*~*~*
And figure it out he did. Between the DA meetings and school work, Chris managed to decipher and compress the brain processes of an over-eager Hufflepuff into a clean, though still complicated, runic algorithm. Halfway through, he had idly wondered if this counted as Necromancy, before squashing that thought with the reassurance that he wasn't using a deceased brain, just a written copy of a volunteer. While the algorithm took up three rolls of parchment (he had to revert to parchment when he realized he'd fill up half of his notebooks with the writing) it was much more compact and neat then the original creation.
Now that he had successfully mapped the human brain, he had to build a casing for it to reside in. He decided that he could build something better later and transfer the A.I into it, and just start off with a basic shell.
He scavenged through the Room of Hidden Things, and found a basketball that he transfigured into something a bit more durable. It was a bit of a strange material. He was stuck deciding between plastic and fibreglass, and his magic reacted, turning the basketball into a fusion of the two. So, it was light as fibreglass, and durable as hard plastic.
Next up, he used a cutting charm to cut the ball in half, so he could inscribe the runic brain on the inside. While he was carving it into it, he upped the loyalty towards him. He didn't want the A.I to turn evil and attack him. It took all evening to carve it, as he had to do each bit CAREFULLY, but when he was done, he repaired the sphere and carved an activation rune where the top would be.
"Alright, time for the moment of truth" Chris breathed, and he placed his right hand on the activation rune, before channelling his magic into it. It was the oddest feeling. He felt like the runes latched onto his magic like a suckling infant. He stumbled as his magic felt like it was being dragged from his body. His back arced as his core lashed out at the runes, as if scolding a bratty child. Chris felt pain burn in his hand, and his vision began to blacken at the edge.
'I need… I need help!' he screamed mentally, at least he thought it was mentally. He could have been screaming out to the room for all he knew. He felt a pulse rush through the air, before his vision went black and he collapsed.
*~*~*~**RC*~*~*~*
Chris groaned as he felt little dwarves banging away at his head with hammers.
"Shtop it… ouch…" he mumbled, his speech slurred. What did he drink last night? Was it another Jagerbomb? His brother always said they were…
Wait, brother?
Chris sat up with a gasp, which was followed by a small scream and the sound of something crashing to the ground. Sweat was pouring down his face, and he reached to wipe it away with his right hand. But when he did, all he felt was a blunt stump. He jumped, and stared at what used to be his hand. His hand was gone, and all that was left was a bandaged stump right before his wrist. In his shock, his brain sent the neuro-signal to his arm to make him wiggle his fingers. But no fingers were wiggled that day.
"Mr. Johnson! You should be more careful. You're still healing!" scolded the voice of Poppy Pomfrey.
'Oh dear lord I'm back in the anti-bacterial hellhole again.' He thought to himself.
"What happened?" he asked, light brushing the fingers of his left hand over his bandages. He noticed he also had a few winding scars going up his right arm, which looked a little bit like lightning arcs.
"We thought you could tell us. Your little friend isn't all that informative" Pomfrey sniffed, gathering up the tray and repairing the shattered water jug while vanishing the spilled water.
"Friend?" Chris muttered, turning to his left. Almost immediately he was confronted with a large eyeball with a blue iris.
"Oh hello!" spoke the eyeball, oddly in a cockney accent cheerfully.
"AAAARRGH!" Chris screamed, backing away and falling off his bed. He landed on his injured arm, and screamed out again, only this time in pain rather than shock. Madam Pomfrey rushed over and levitated him back into the bed, before gently pushing the floating orb backwards.
"I said you should have given him some time to recover. He just discovered he lost a hand" Pomfrey scolded the orb. The iris seemed to glide across the surface of the orb in what was unmistakably an eye roll.
"Oh please, I woke up next to the bleeding form of my best friend without my body, and I didn't react THIS badly!" the orb said.
"You were a gibbering mess for two hours" Pomfrey pointed out dryly.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own"
"SHUT UP!" Chris shouted, breathing hard. The two froze and stared at him in shock. Well, Pomfrey was shocked. It was kind of hard to decipher the orbs expressions. "What… what happened?" he whispered.
"While you were creating your talking basketball, there was a clash of magic that caused your hand to… pretty much vanish. The room you were in answered your call for help and created a door next to Mr Potter and Miss Granger. They carried you and this fellow here for treatment. Mr Johnson, what on earth were you doing?" asked Pomfrey, looking quite frazzled. Chris looked at the orb, and realization hit him like a ton of bricks.
"I was… was trying to create an artificial intelligence. Brain mapping. And I think I succeeded." Chris said, shocked. The sphere spun around in shock.
"Really?! Where?" he said. Chris blinked.
"Make that Artificial Personality"