"Seriously? An entire floating castle? How would you even try and make something like that?" Harry asked, stunned, almost convinced his mentor was pulling his leg.
"I was young and foolish, but it wasn't particularly hard to create. A bit of alchemical runes to convert the gravitational energy applied to the castle into power, and then another controlled conversion to turn some of that power into kinetic energy to keep it in the air."
"Surely that cannot work? I'm fairly sure if you tried that, you'd spin away into space without gravity. I know that much from my old science classes." Harry countered.
"Ah, I see your confusion… The answer is, yes a Muggle couldn't just magically neutralise gravity and expect to stay stationary over the Earth. But also the answer is no, as we are not Muggles. You have to understand, the Muggle laws of physics are just one law of nature we have available to us.
"Where magic is concerned, our planet might as well be an infinite flat plane. Gravity in this sense is purely a downwards force. The realities of our real world hardly matter for this."
Nicholas' explanation wasn't an entirely new concept to Harry, but to scale such an understanding to such a large scale was mind boggling.
"Can… So I can just make something fly like that? Just use some runes to stop gravity?" Harry asked sceptically.
"Well, yes, but it does come at a cost. Although my castle was smaller than you'd likely imagine, more of a small manor, every stone brick was covered in the runes. If you're curious, it will all be in Perenelle's Grimoire. I can't say I'd recommend it, but yes, in theory you could.
"But, for now I'd suggest focusing on your shield, you've done that last rune wrong."
Wincing, Harry looked down and fixed his mistake, putting more focus back on his work. He couldn't get the image of defying gravity out of his head, but he wasn't going to let that sabotage his current project.
"What happened to your castle then? Because I would've thought I'd have heard of that before."
"I donated it to Beauxbatons, although it doesn't fly anymore of course. I believe they now use what remains as a building for enchanting lessons, which has far more prominence than what you'd find at Hogwarts. If you ever do find yourself on the Beauxbatons campus, you can see it for yourself."
"I'll be sure to do so." Harry replied, as he stood up with the almost finished shield. The golden wooden base was almost completely swallowed up by the silver mithril, save for a small patch of exposed wood on the front of the shield.
Handing the shield over to Nicholas, he let the man carefully examine the complex sigil pattern, checking for any flaws. With the amount of magic they'd be feeding it, Harry feared any flaw could become lethal.
That was just the risk he'd had to accept, when he'd vowed to gear up to face Voldemort as an equal. But they could still do their best to mitigate the danger.
"So, your castle, I take it you'd just fly away from danger?" Harry asked.
"Hmm? Oh, yes that was always the plan. Of course, it turned out it was hard for anyone to find a home that is constantly moving. However, we had to live a utilitarian lifestyle while in the air. As you should know by now, the magic we use comes from the Earth, from the land itself.
"The further away from the land you travel, the less magic you have available. It made life difficult for us, especially as I was still dedicated to learning magic's secrets. But, in terms of avoiding Dark Lords? I would say such mobility is unquestionably the best defence."
"Would you recommend it for me? If I made something like a flying castle?"
"No… No, I would say such an endeavour would be ill suited for you. While you are unquestionably my apprentice, our personalities are dramatically opposites, where it matters. Do you ever think you could sit amongst the clouds to avoid your Dark Lord, knowing he was killing those you knew down below?"
"I could bring those I care about into the castle with me." Harry replied hesitantly.
Nicholas leaned in, shield forgotten as he scrutinised Harry's face. The lines around his eyes deepened, conveying a mix of understanding and concern. "You could, as I myself did. And yet those I cared for, they too had people they knew, and wanted to save.
"So eventually they all left, except for my Perenelle, and my son's youngest daughter. But no, I do not feel you could live as I, because you by your nature are not a coward."
Scoffing, Harry waved away Nicholas' statement. "I hardly think you're a coward either. Especially after all you've done."
"All I've done, and yet everything of note only happened once I'd wasted my youth making the Stone you now bear upon your Perenellion Gauntlet. At the end of the day, I likely feared death just as much as your Dark Lord. I would hide and wait for safer times to arrive, then put myself at risk."
Nicholas' eyes bore into Harry's, revealing a vulnerability he'd seldom shown before. "You, for all you are significantly younger, have already faced more danger than I. I am a coward, Harry, and I am not ashamed to admit it. Ask me any question on magical theory, and I'd gladly entertain you. Ask me to fight, to take a stand, and I'd laugh in your face."
Before Harry could formulate a response, Nicholas spun the shield around to face Harry, and pointed at one rune set. "You only need to fix this rune. The redirect rune should point directly to the centre of the shield, but you're off by a degree or two. Normally that's fine, but with this sigil it'll cause a dangerous overlap."
Scowling at his mistake, Harry furrowed his brow in concentration as he fixed the offending rune. Once finished, he did another quick visual sweep of the sigil before seeking approval from Nicholas. The confident nod he received was a welcome relief, knowing his mentor wouldn't allow mistakes.
Holding his new shield aloft, he very carefully picked up the overdrive generator and sealed it into the exposed slot to form the roundel of the shield. When nothing else happened, they both let out a sigh of relief, before Harry manually activated the sigil.
As had happened in their previous test, the sigil gorged itself on all the power the shield's generator could provide, before swiftly projecting the larger glowing sigil.
Once that sigil had pulled enough earth to bury itself within a wall of dirt, Harry activated a newer far smaller rune sequence, before releasing the sigil. Unlike last time, where the dirt had cascaded back to the ground, his new rune sequence had used a modified hardening charm, leaving a resilient wall behind.
Taking a step back, Harry appreciated the solidity of the wall left behind, before blasting it apart with a flick of his Gauntlet.
"Excellent! it all works as expected I take it?" Nicholas remarked, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of pride and approval.
"So far. Now I just need to hope my shielding charms and runes won't interfere with your sigil runes. This is what I'm most worried about now, and I can't even test it on a separate shield, since my runes will use the wood."
Rather than reply, Nicholas merely smiled supportively, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and placed a hand on Harry's shoulder. The grip, though frail looking, carried a firmness and reassurance that gave Harry the courage he needed.
Giving one final sigh, Harry forced his mind to settle, before a simple thought had his mithril chisel formed within his grasp, summoned from the glittering Eidolon Core on his Gauntlet.
With tool in hand, he set to work inscribing the many runes, reciting many from his memory of the last shield. He started on the back, working until every inch of the mithril was written upon. Only then did he swap to the front of the shield, working around the blocks that made up the sigil runes, to finish his own rune additions.
Unlike the sigil runes, his own runes lit up the moment he finished each set, casting a multitude of beneficial effects. It meant he needed to work in a specific order, but eventually he'd finished the final rune, causing a harsh blue magic to coat the mithril.
Even without his charms and enchantments, the shield was impressive, with runes devoted to as many problems as Harry and Nicholas could predict. All of which would be overlaid with as many shielding charms Harry knew.
"Do you want to give it a full test now, or finish with the enchantments and test it all at the end?" Nicholas prompted.
Harry hesitated before answering, sensing a verbal trap. "I was thinking I'd like to finish it all up, but what would you suggest?"
"Normally, I'd advocate for testing throughout the project, but here I think it would be best to do it all at once. We already know the core runes aren't misbehaving, and your spellcraft would pose little issue. Worst case scenario, you just rip your magic off the shield, and we try again."
Nodding, Harry wasted no time in getting to work, using both his Gauntlet and wandless magic to inscribe his charms and enchantments into his shield. It was one of the many times he found himself missing his wand, which Voldemort had no doubt destroyed in the graveyard.
The nature of inlaying enchantments into the mithril meant the Philosopher's Stone and mithraite Eidolon Core were able to work together just as well as his wand could've, but they lacked the eagerness to help that his wand had possessed.
But, for all it wasn't a wand, his Gauntlet was an exceptional magical foci, which meant in no time at all Harry found he'd finished all the charms. The result was a shield that was almost blinding if he Looked with his magesight, which would no doubt shrug off anything.
Sticking the shield to his mithril arm, Harry turned to face Nicholas, and held his new shield aloft.
"Hit me, the strongest spell you've got." Harry challenged, doing his best to hide his nerves.
To his credit, his mentor merely raised his eyes in surprise, before levelling his wand and fired an unknown spell. It shot forward in a perfectly straight line, trailing a bright blue fire, before it struck Harry's shield dead centre and exploded into a giant white fireball.
Even through his shield, the pressure from the spell hit him like a strong storm wind, while he had to clamp his eyes shut from the bright light. But other than being pushed lightly back, he opened his eyes to being completely unharmed.
The same could not be said to Dumbledore's back garden, which now possessed a new crater around Harry, leaving him on an island of untouched grass.
"Merlin! What the hell was that?" Tonks demanded, running out the house with her wand drawn, hair still in disarray from being disturbed from her nap. The moment she stepped out the door, she came to a sharp halt having found herself standing on the fringes of the chaos, her wide eyes taking in the aftermath of the fireball.
"Oh, hello Tonks." Harry greeted, doing his best to pretend nothing had happened, knowing it would infuriate her.
"Don't 'hello Tonks' me! I felt the entire cottage shake from that spell. What in Merlin's name were you two up to?"
"I'm afraid to say this is my fault, Nymphadora," Nicholas interjected bashfully, glancing at Harry. "You see, Harry and I wanted to test out his new shield. But, I fear, I might have underestimated the power of my spell after all these centuries."
Turning slowly, Tonks took a moment to take in the sheer destruction Nicholas had caused, her face apparently stuck in a dumbfounded expression.
"As you can see, the experiment worked great." Harry called cheerfully, moving his shield out the way to reveal his continued health.
As he'd half expected, rather than act relieved at Harry's survival, Tonks' instead raised her wand and began firing spells at him as fast as she could. Grinning from behind his shield, Harry weathered the storm, with each hit increasing his appreciation for his work.
Being a descendant of the Black family, Tonks was a fair bit above average in terms of power, and yet Harry could barely feel the spells impacting his shield. The one thing the shield absolutely couldn't protect him from was Tonks' attempts at transfiguring the ground below him, but instinctively clenching his Gauntlet neutralised that attack.
The embedded glowing Philosopher's Stone easily pretended any foreign transfiguration attempts within its radius, even if it stopped Harry using the foci for a counter attack.
But, when all he wanted to do was test his shield, the ability to counter attack was unnecessary. Instead, he easily moved the shield to intercept the metal balls Tonks had launched at him, where its momentum reversal properties caused the balls to instead bounce backwards.
Even when Tonks had resorted to a stream of fire, his shield held the flames at bay. Given Harry had designed that specific defence with the Horntail from the Triwizard Tournament in mind, the relatively peaceful attack was unnoteworthy.
Finally, Tonks defeatedly lowered her wand, thoroughly exhausted from her exertion. "Fine, you little punk, your shield works. I'm just going to go back to bed now. Don't make me come out again." She warned, waving her wand between a smug Harry and sheepish Nicholas.
"Thank you Tonks, sleep well." Harry called, getting an exceptionally rude gesture in reply as the backdoor slammed shut.
Amidst the still smouldering crater, a mix of pride and joy swelled within Harry. His usual satisfaction of a successful project, however, was now tinged with a detached determination. Completing the shield marked the stepping stone for the next project, all to build another layer of preparation against Voldemort.
"I trust you consider your shield satisfactory, Harry?" Nicholas mused, shuffling over and repairing the garden as he went. "I certainly wouldn't want to be on the end of that lady's wand."
"Of course not." Harry scoffed, doing his part to undo the damage Tonks had caused. "No offence to Tonks of course, but I've been able to withstand her spells myself for a while now. No, this shield needs to defend against the attacks I cannot block myself… So do you feel up to casting that blue spell again?"
Huffing in disbelief, Nicholas shook his head in dismay. "Harry, my boy, I must admit I'm a tad wary of invoking Nymphadora's wrath again. She's a formidable witch, and I fear I shant enjoy her response…
"How about we relocate to a more secluded area? Perhaps back to the Scottish Highlands where we can test the shield without the risk of disturbing our good friend Tonks or this garden further. What do you think?"
"Sure, that could work. Just wait here a moment." Harry replied, before rushing inside. Nicholas didn't have to wait long for Harry to return, now adorned with his full breastplate underneath his trenchcoat, with a spear stuck to his back.
With some alarm, Nicholas said, "I assure you Harry, I have no intention of us duelling to such a degree you'd need such weapons. Indeed, if we were to duel, I'd be the one needing such protection."
"This is just in case we get attacked while outside the wards. Best case scenario is none of this gets used, but rather have it and not need it, than be dead, right?"
Sighing again, Nicholas merely held out a hand for Harry to grasp, deciding any argument would be fruitless. He'd love nothing more than to prove to his apprentice that such defensive measures were unnecessary, but when it came to Harry, such statements always seemed to turn to ash in his mouth.
Things I think need explaining:
- Anti-Transfiguration aura; I'm not sure if it's a canon concept, but basically most strong wizards can stop transfiguration happening in a radius of them. Mainly, this would be why Dumbledore can't just turn Voldemort's robes into stone etc. It's just the Philosopher's Stone, and by extension the Gauntlet, can make an incredibly strong aura.
Discord: kC3mbSpcsx (Take this link code, and then inside discord go to add server, join a server, and paste it there)