Not My Magical World
Chapter 6
Harry stood in his lab beneath Potter Manor, a large room with concrete columns running its length and a solid marble floor. Fluorescent lights connected end to end ran along the ceiling.
Shelves lined the walls, containing the subjects he had studied in the realm of knowledge. Using a ritual, he pulled his library into reality, although the materials needed cost him a small fortune. Tables sat throughout the room, holding different ingredients he had picked up on his travels.
Plants hung from the columns, wrapping around them like a snake.
At the far end of the room sat his unfinished generator. The top was removed, showing a spiraling circle of runes that grew smaller as it approached its center.
If one looked closely, one would see thousands of runes in each line of the circle, compressed to form a thin wire. Between each rotation of the ring was more runes, but these were of blocky design and looked more like circuits than magical formula.
In one corner sat his Rune Forge. A pyramid with its top open. A ring sat above the square opening of the pyramid, three pistons aimed towards its center, creating a small hole.
A thick cable ran from the pyramid's base to a podium with an angled top.
At the opposite end of the room sat the shelf containing his mini suns and purifiers.
Shaking his head, Harry flicked his hand. The iron cages holding the house elves appeared stacked in a neat pyramid against one column.
Harry grabbed a mortar and pestle from a nearby rack and moved along the tables containing different ingredients. He moved gracefully, picking up dogwood petals, blessed water, a dove feather, freely given unicorn blood, and salt from the Dead Sea.
Placing all of these ingredients in the pestle, he mashed them until they formed a fine gray powder. Stretching out his hand, he summoned a glass bottle with a large base from a shelf. Pouring the powder into the bottle, he repeated the process until it was all but 2 inches full.
Harry grabbed the large powder bottle and moved it before the cage containing the house elves. Sitting the bottle down before the cells, he knelt so that he looked the ethereal being in the bottom cage in the eye, the one that had spoken for all of them, "I need each of you to add a bit of yourselves to this mixture. As of right now, you have a connection to Henry, and I need to use that connection to summon the contract and break it."
A pale purple film covered Harry's pupils as he stared at the house elves. Their short bodies flared, causing Harry to step back and close his eyes. "Listen, don't just force your energy in there. Force the energy of the contract that binds you there as well."
Opening his eyes against the light, Harry watched over thirty pale streams of energy mixed with the flickering flames of the contracts spiral into the glass before the cage.
Throwing out his hands, Harry wrapped a layer of pale purple power around the glass as the energy of the elves mixed with its contents. A miniature explosion erupted in the glass, putting pressure against his hands as the contents transformed into thick, bubbling, bright blue energy.
Lowering his hands, Harry stepped towards the bottle, eyeing the cracks in the marble floor beneath the glass. Kneeling before the bottle, Harry noticed fine cracks along the surface, each one infused with a bit of the liquid or energy inside, "Looks like you have become part of the ingredients now; I just hope your edition doesn't throw everything into jeopardy."
Lifting the glass with his power, Harry moved over to the pyramid. Setting the bottle on top of the pyramid, Harry moved to a nearby shelf and grabbed a piece of Willow and a block of elder. Slipping the wood into his pocket, he moved over to another shelf.
He then grabbed a bit of silver, some copper, and some tin. He held them in his hands and crushed them into a fine powder. Keeping his hands closed, he walked over to the jar and allowed the powder to slide into the contents.
Kneeling beside the pyramid, he pressed the side of it, and a panel slid away, revealing a cube inside. Placing the wood inside the cube, it slid shut with a hiss, and he rose to his feet.
Taking a deep breath, he moved to the podium and placed his hand on the blank space. Harry's body stilled as his mind was pulled elsewhere.
–XX –
Harry stood on a circular platform, thousands of runes spiraling around him, forever shifting and glowing with pale purple light.
Before him sat a large table, and floating above it was his instruments, a small tennis ball-sized orb of tin, a marble-sized ball of silver, and a bronze sphere. Above all of it floated the ritual energy he had created with the help of the house elves.
Over the last six years, he learned he could manipulate energy and matter with his mind. However, because of the weight this world put on him, he could not use his powers to their fullest extent, so he created the Rune Forge.
With this device, he can break down objects, transforming their molecules into runes and putting them back together, which would turn them magical, or he could forge an entirely new object by shifting the components into runes and putting them together like a puzzle.
Using existing elements instead of pure magical energy made the cost less and put less strain on his mind.
Taking a deep breath, Harry stretched forth his hands.
The runes around him flashed, shifting into six tentacles, three on either side of him. They joined together as one, attaching to each temple.
His body stiffened, his eyes flying open and glowing a solid purple color with the blue runes running across them.
With a flick of his hand, the tin and copper broke into bits of metal. He maneuvered his fingers, guiding the particles together and transforming them into bronze. The pieces of bronze shifted into runes, and the runes began to move together, forming an old-fashioned key.
As the last of the runes fell into place and the key solidified, the block of silver floated forward, shifting into a star.
Glancing to the side, an orb of runes with a ring of runes floating around it emerged from the wall of runes swirling around him.
This construct was the product of six years of work. The Hundreds of compressed runes were designed to work together for a specific task. He called them magical nanobots, or mage bots for short. This particular cluster was designed to construct a body out of provided matter.
The runic cluster moved to the silver star, sinking into the metal, giving it a golden glow. With a flick of his finger, Harry guided the star to the hole at the bottom of the ring. As it fitted into place, the runes that made up the object flared, shifting into a new alignment.
With a click that resounded in his mind, the ring fell to the table.
Moving the key to the side, the pieces of wood he had placed in the machine appeared before him. Sweat ran down his brow as he began using the wood's natural grain to create a runic array, something he learned was possible from Henry Hollows.
Magic was about manipulating the rivers of mystical energy that ran throughout the universe. It was also about symbolism; for this project, he needed what Willow and Elder wood symbolized.
Willow symbolized freedom, while elder symbolized rebirth.
As the runic array finished forming, beams of light shot from Harry's hand, spiraling together as they hit the wood. With him providing the extra energy, the wood grew longer, becoming a short 4-foot-long staff.
"Now comes the hard part, merging the key with the natural runic array," his vision shifted, allowing Harry to see the swirl that made up the array.
The key floated up, sinking into the wood until only the three notches on the end of it were visible. As the key settled into the wood, Harry very gently shifted the array in the wood to line up with the critical runes in the construct.
There were two critical runes, one where the shaft connected to the ring and another just below the notches.
The new object flared as the array lined up, and the array became visible. Unbidden words spilled from Harry's lips, "I name you word breaker."
The words spilled from Harry's lips formed out of pale purple energy. The words sank into the center of the staff, and pure white light shone from it. The last thing Harry saw before being pushed out of the machine was runes encircling the words.
–XX –
Harry stepped back from the podium, sweat drenching his dark purple shirt and matting his dark hair to his head. Tiredly, he lifted his head to the rings above the pyramid.
The staff floated in the center of the ring. The notches of the key sat at the top of the staff while the ring sat at the bottom.
Harry held his hand out; his arm jerked as the staff flew into it.
Flexing his fingers around the smooth wooden shaft, Harry moved over to a clear spot in his lab.
Shifting his foot forward, two rectangular pillars rose from the floor with the sound of stone grinding on stone. With a thought, stone flaked away in the center of each rectangular post, revealing a runic circle with a star in its center. The stars had five points, each of which pointed toward specific runes.
Harry thrust his left hand forward, and Henry Jacob Hollows appeared standing in the center of the pillars, bands of iron wrapped around his wrist and ankles.
With a flick of the fingers of his right hand, Henry placed his arms on top of each pillar. The symbols carved into their centers flared as the iron merged with the stone.
Henry's head rolled on his chest as Harry manipulated his body, the compulsion to sleep keeping him unconscious.
Standing the staff before him, it stood straight up as Harry backed away. Releasing a breath through his nose, Harry spread his arms wide.
"Iure vincendi contractum domus elves vendico!"
Henry's body stiffened, and his mouth opened wide as he exhaled. Streamers of blood began to fly from his mouth, weaving together to form something.
Harry watched the creature near Henry's heart writhe in pain as this happened. The flaming veins from the beast dimmed from a bright orange to a thin red.
Henry fell to his knees as the blood stopped, and his body crumbled to ash as Harry stared at the contract before him.
It was on glistening red parchment that dripped blood, and angled black symbols made up its letters.
Grabbing Word Breaker, Harry stabbed the contract. Red lightning arced around him and over the contract as blue light shone from Word Breaker's point of contact.
The staff shook in Harry's hand as the parchment began to shiver. The black symbols that made up its words shifted into a screaming face.
The torturous sound echoed around the lab, and Harry winced, his shoulders hunching inward.
Rattling drew Harry's attention. Glancing over his shoulder, he found the ethereal house elves thrashing in their cage and orange smoke rising off the fiery chains wrapped around their bodies.
Turning his wrist, Harry let go of the staff as it glowed a luminescent white. The red energy coursing over the contract faded, and the screaming face relaxed, a relieved smile spreading across it, "Thank you," a voice whispered like a gentle wind.
To Harry's sight, the flaming chains unraveled from the house elves whipping into the staff like a winding string. As the last of the chains flailed towards the staff, they grabbed the edges of the contract and pulled it inside.
Red and orange light danced across the staff as it clattered to the floor.
With a force of will, Harry lifted the staff from the ground, red and orange bolts dancing around it as he pushed it toward the cages holding the house elves.
"Grabbed the staff," Harry instructed in a tired voice, "with it, you will be free."
The ghostly figure representing the house elves that always spoke to Harry reached forward, wrapping his pale energy appendage around the staff.
The moment he had the staff in his grasp, orange energy bloomed out of it, consuming the cages in a sphere of power. A red wind whipped around the lab, grabbing ingredients and pulling them toward the globe.
As the ingredients impacted the sphere, it began to change. When the ingredients hit, the sphere of energy began to become bluish-white.
Harry fell onto his butt, watching his stock disappear with whatever was happening in the sphere, "This is going to cost me a fortune to replace."
The wind picked up, whipping around the lab as Harry removed his suspenders and unbuttoned his dark purple shirt. Pulling his shirt off, Harry began to dab at his upper body as the wind helped him dry his body. This process had taken much more energy out of him than he thought it would.
The sphere began to shrink as Harry put his shirt back on. By the time he had finished buttoning it, the orb had shrunk to the size of a softball. Suddenly, it exploded outwards.
Harry raised his arms to shield his face as a wave of blue energy washed against him, sending his damp clothes flapping in the breeze.
When the light faded, Harry lowered his arms.
Thirty 3-foot tall 2-inch humanoids stood before him with Ebony-colored skin, copper-colored hair, and orange eyes. Each of them stood naked, their genitals on display.
Turning his head away, Harry waved his hand.
Pale purple energy flowed over them, transforming into red togas accented with a black border.
Turning back, Harry cleared his throat, "Step forward. Let me know your name. What will you call yourselves now that your bonds are broken?"
One creature stepped forward. The unnamed elf had short copper-colored hair and a narrow nose, his shoulders were broad, and his body was full of compacted muscle, "My name is Dobby Sparks, and we are a new breed of elf, elves with the innate talent to manipulate and build the technology out of raw material."
"Well, Dobby, what will you do now? Your future is your own?"
"I and," he turned away, stretching his hand towards a female elf.
She stepped forward, she had the same Ebony-colored skin as dobby, but where he was packed full of muscle, she was curvy and slender with high cheekbones and a curved chin. Two strands of copper-colored hair fell over her slightly pointed ears.
"Winky will go and free the other house elves," Dobby gestured at the group behind him, "the rest were hoping you could offer them a place to stay."
"I can do better than that; I need workers for a project."
Dobby's eyes narrowed, and his hand tightened around the staff, "We will not be slaves again!"
Harry raised his hands in a placating gesture, "I'm not asking you to, I will pay you and provide lodgings until your people get on their feet, but before that, I need you to prove to me your skill."
Dobby glanced at another spark. With his nod, they stepped toward Harry's generator. In a blur of motion, the unnamed elves zoomed around Harry's generator, pieces appearing in there hands.
In less than two minutes, the generator was complete. Three holes sat on either side of the rectangular device, and a square hole sat in the center of each end. The lid was still off, revealing its spiraling runic interior.
The unnamed elf stepped back, and Harry walked towards the machine. Placing his hand in the center of the spiral, Harry withdrew a narrow circular cylinder.
Curling his fingers, a handful of mini suns floated across the lab from a shelf at the far end. One by one, they fitted into place. The entire cylinder glowed bright yellow-white when the last mini sun fit in.
Squinting his eyes, Harry slipped the cylinder back into the center of the spiral. A hum filled the lab as it clicked into place, and the coils flared to life, the runes in between them glowing white with power.
The unnamed elf stepped forward, picked up the lid, and fit it into place.
Nodding, Harry turned to Dobby, "Let's talk terms."
