As the spring break approaches, most of the school buzzes with anticipation. However, for the mundane studies class the fact that they will not be going home for a holiday is starting to become apparent. One of the Ravenclaws has started to become unbearable, as she has insisted that they all need to start revising for the Hogwarts exams soon. For Susan and Daphne there was an additional stress, Harry decided that they were good enough at the basics to move onto the next age and power related things.
Susan and Daphne sceptically look at the desk arrayed with matchsticks, "Harry, you know we're doing feathers into combs now, don't you?"
Harry smiles, "This isn't transfiguration. We're testing your aptitude for illusion today. What you need to do is pull a tiny wisp of the mist out and wrap it around a matchstick. Once you've done that, push your image of what it's supposed to be onto the matchstick and make the mist take that shape. When you've run out of matchsticks, try doing it with only the mist."
Susan looks at Harry, "How exactly are we supposed to do that?"
"I don't know, that's what you need to work out. This isn't like Roman magic, where I can say do this and this will happen. To be honest, this is an area that I struggle with, though transfiguration has been helping. If you show an aptitude in it, I'm going to ask Evie if she can teach you, as she's absolutely brilliant with illusions. I started with leaves rather than matchsticks, and was turning them into gold coins. It's the same thing with whatever you want to anchor the mist to."
Daphne nods thoughtfully, "Can you show us?"
Harry frowns in thought and then smiles, "Sure." With his brow furrowed in concentration, mist forms around the desk and seems to sink into it. As the desk becomes visible again, it has turned into an antique Georgian writing desk, complete with drawers.
Harry smiles sheepishly at them, "There you go, as I said, I'm not very good at illusions."
Susan gapes, "Harry, if that's not very good then I'd hate to see bad."
"Yeah, well, try the drawers. You'll find you can't lift up the handles, or pull out the drawers. Evie can do all this, and make it feel and smell like the real thing, as well as having working drawers. This is where Transfiguration is helping me."
Harry pulls out a coin and concentrates hard, slowly, over the next 5 minutes, it is surrounded by mist, and when the mist clears there is a matchbox. With a smile harry pushes the drawer of the matchbox out through one end.
"There, I did it. I need a sit down now."
Susan and Daphne share a worried glance, and Daphne says, "Erm, if you're exhausted, should we be doing this? We're not magically as strong as you are."
Harry waves his hand, "You've got magic to spare for this. It's like when you started each of the other skills. What I just did takes me a lot more control than it might do you. If you don't work with things that are supposed to be able to move, like hinges, drawers, matchboxes, that sort of thing, it should be easy enough. Oh, and nothing living. Don't start making living things until we have adult supervision, as we don't want it to get loose and possibly breed."
"Um, breed?"
"Uh huh, while the mist may evaporate in sunlight, until that happens the creature will be alive. Mum told me more than a few horror stories of monsters created to defend a town or village, and then having to hunt them down and destroy all of them because a few got away. Anyway, let's get you started and we can try glamours tomorrow."
Daphne nods, "I've heard you and Morgana talking about glamours before. What are they?"
Harry thinks for a moment, "Hmm, glamours are sort of like illusions for living creatures. Except not. The fairy tale of the Princess and the Frog, that was a glamour. As is Beauty and the Beast. In Snow White, the queen uses a glamour to appear to be an old crone. I'm using a minor glamour to hide my scar and some of my physical build. Another way of thinking about it could be, you can use an illusion to turn a hovel into a palace, but you can use a glamour to turn yourself into a dragon. I don't know how accurate this is, but mum says that the difference between glamours and illusions made using the mist, and those done with pure magic, is that the skilled wielder can carefully pull the mist out of the illusion or glamour, leaving the changes in place. Or they can bury it inside waiting for a trigger to release it. While those that use only magic can either continue to supply magic, or the change will unravel over time."
"Harry, didn't you just say that these glamours and illusions will evaporate in sunlight?"
Harry nods, "I did, which is where the purely magic illusions are better. During the day we need to constantly supply mist to our constructs unless we wish to bury the mist inside. Truth be told, I haven't worked out how to do that yet. I'm sure that when I do, it will be the simplest thing ever."
As the two start to work on this new technique, Harry watches them and talks them through their visualisations when they get stuck.
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Marianne looks up from her homework at Harry as, along with an exhausted Susan and Daphne, they're the only ones in the dorm, "Harry, you know we have the stone. Do you think we should try and find the creator and maybe see if they have the notes needed to undo whatever they did without killing the person inside?"
Harry nods, and levitates a couple of chocolate frog cards over to Marianne, "Probably, this would probably be a good place to start."
Marianne pouts at the cards, "It's so unfair that you can do that, and when I try it just hurts."
"Marianne, it will just take time. You're already well ahead of where mum thought you'd be, so just keep practicing what you can and you'll get there."
Daphne yawns, "Excuse me. The first time I levitated something without my wand, I felt like I'd just carried Hermione's book bag to the 7th floor and then down to the dungeon, twice."
Marianne laughs, "I really don't understand that girl sometimes. Did you know that mum2 had to have a stern word with her about starting to revise for exams too early? She also complained to Marie about the fact that none of our magic is written down anywhere. Sometimes I really want to print out a copy of Mary's Room and have her write an essay about it."
Daphne looks confused, "What's Mary's Room?"
Harry sighs, "It's from a philosophy book on mum's bookshelf. Basically, imagine a room that is enchanted so that it's impossible to see colour inside it. Mary has grown up in this room, and she has studied the colour red. She knows everything there is to know about it, except what it looks like. One day she's allowed out of the room, and she sees a child playing with a red ball. Has she learnt anything?"
Susan laughs, "Obviously! She's learnt that she has no idea what colours look like."
Marianne flips the two cards over, "Oh, hey, the headmaster worked with Flamel on his uses for dragons blood. The other card also confirms that Flamel made the philosophers stone. Harry?"
"Hmm?"
"Why did you have these cards handy?"
"Because the idea of finding him and beating the tar out of him had occurred to me already. If it occurred to me, then it would probably occur to you too."
"So, why haven't you then?"
"Where does he live? What does he actually look like? How powerful is he? Your idea of finding his notes so we can release the prison without killing the occupant is much better."
Daphne looks worried, "Harry, what if whatever it was, was imprisoned because they were on a rampage?"
"Then we open it with mum and Airmed around. They can't be doing well after all that time in the stone, so even if they're aggressive, they should be able to deal with it."
"But, what about the rules?"
"Daphne, the reason I wanted to know the rules wasn't so that I wouldn't break them. It's so that when I do break them, it's for the right reasons rather than just because I didn't know any better. Saving someone is a good reason in my mind."
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"Good morning everyone, and welcome to Edinburgh University. For the next two weeks we have the science and computer labs at our disposal, along with a standard classroom."
The mundane studies group all look around with interest, as most of them have never seen the inside of a university, let alone a science lab.
A few minutes later, Morgana leads them into a spacious room with heavy square wooden benches. Each bench has a group of 4 brass taps in the centre, along with electrical points built into the sides. Along one side is a bank of large windows, with sinks placed in front of them. At the other end of the room is a long bench with a blackboard behind it, a glass fronted cabinet that looks like it opens into another room on the other side. Finally, on the other side of the room to the windows, there's a door that's slightly ajar.
In the technicians room, Skye smiles as another rookie teacher fumbles their way a safety briefing.
"… Finally, the two most important rules. Number 1, no food or drink inside this room. Nothing in here should ever be put in your mouth, and you should always wash your hands at the end of class. The second rule is absolutely no magic in here, no matter what sort. We don't know how it could react with experiments we will be doing."
Skye frowns and stands up, before walking into the lab, "Excuse me, but what sort of rule is no magic?"
Morgana turns around with a smile on her face, "An eminently sensible one. After all, how can you do physics experiments if things don't fall down?"
"Everything falls down if it's inside a gravity well. Even orbit is a type of falling."
Morgana shakes her head, "Only most things fall down, some things like hydrogen and helium, go up. Still other things won't fall because other forces are acting on them. Magic is one such force, however, it's not one we can measure with scientific instruments."
"Oh god, please don't tell me you're one of those new age wiccans who believe in fairies, pixie dust, and magic."
Evie chooses this particular moment to get upset and appear, "I'll have you know that fairies are very much real, as is pixie dust."
Skye stares at the tiny person that's floating in front of her, before turning around and pressing the emergency ventilation button and opening the windows. As she does, Evie follows her, "What are you doing?"
Skye starts, then turns back to the class, "I'm sorry, there must be some sort of chemical spill. Please could you all evacuate the lab and we'll bring in a team to find the source of the chemicals."
Morgana, who was about to implicitly agree while not actually agreeing, puts her head in her hands.
Dora shakes her head, "You know, technically I should contact the DMLE to have the obliviators correct this exposure…" Marie, on the other hand just walks over, takes Skye by the hand, and disappears into the Mist, "…Or we could do that. Morgana, have you explained the Statute of Secrecy to Marie?"
"Dora. Given that you are going to be responding to prayers in a few months, how exactly do you propose dealing with the statute of secrecy while still answering those prayers?"
"I um…"
"Once you've thought about it, I think you'll find the answer is you can't. They are inherently incompatible with each other. Instead, you can do the age old thing of calling them miracles, and avoid using your wand." Sue Li puts her hand up, "Yes Miss Li."
"Does this apply to us as well?"
Morgana clenches her fists to avoid face palming for forgetting the children were watching for a moment. To buy herself time to think, she walks back to the class and leans against a bench, "I think the answer will be maybe. If you are using a wand, then the laws of the magical community come first. However, if you are using the magic we're teaching you, try to keep it to a minimum in the mundane world. However, once your magic finishes maturing you may find it strongly suggests that you use it occasionally. At those times you'll need to use your best judgment."
Kellah puts her hand up, "How do I learn this new magic?"
Morgana smiles at her, "Give it time for me to see that you didn't just apply for the class because of how strong I am magically."
Kellah slumps, "Oh, I wanted to join before that, but my parents wouldn't sign until they heard how strong you are from someone else."
"Then you have nothing to worry about. I'm sure that your results will speak for themselves."
Marianne sighs as Justin puts his hand up, "You were speaking about prayers and miracles, do you believe yourself to be a god?"
Yep, the only actual Christian in the class, "Goddess, and that's what humans called my people. I'd much rather that none of you spoke of this outside this class and the Greengrass' family. Myths and Legends call me The Morrigan, though many of them were written after I retreated from the world. Yes Miss Granger, that does mean that I was alive before books were invented. Though the Romans used scrolls. No, I'm not going to prove it. Especially not here. As proving it tends to lead to the DMLE becoming very upset that I've disabled their magical detection grid again. No, I'm not reading your mind, I just know the sort of questions you're likely to answer. Yes Harry is my son by blood, ask a member of the magical community about blood adoption, our method is more thorough."
Justin asks quietly, "Is this why I had to make that magical promise?"
Morgana nods, "In part. The church wiped out my people in a genocide of both life and culture. I trust you enough to teach you, but I can't trust everyone in the church that you may come to trust."
Marie returns with a shaking Skye who's holding a seashell and a French newspaper, "Sorry about that, I think the technician believes in magic now."
Morgana sighs, "Come on everyone, let's go to the normal classroom with, what's your name honey?"
Skye stutters badly, "Skye, w…was I really just in France?"
"Does it matter where you were? Or is the news paper and shell more important? Come on, let's go and sit down and get you a cup of tea."
Then students all share a variety of glances as they follow Morgana out of the science lab and down the hall to the normal classroom.