I Walk Alone,

Chapter 7, Great Minds

The new year was much like the old year. Classes continued. Severus continued to have skirmishes with the Gryffindor Gang of Gits, and he spent his time after classes and at lunch with Raislen and Heather sharing books or talking of books and spells. More so with Raislen, because Heather only hung with them at lunch and rarely after classes. She openly if half jokingly admitted to only socializing with Raislen for his books.

"I'd hang with you more, Severus, but your always with him and if I hit him every time he calls me HeatherToy, he won't survive it."

"You could just give up on hitting him," Severus suggested hopefully. He enjoyed spending time with both of his friends equally, after all. That and when Heather wasn't about, Raislen was restless or wanting to rope Severus into helping to hunt her down which inevitable led to her being annoyed and hitting Raislen.

Heather shook her head. "Won't happen. He gets me too angry and he refuses to stop calling me that. He's a prat. He's lucky he has books I want to read."

Severus knew better than to argue, and just shrugged. Heather and Raislen had their routine well developed before he arrived at Hogwarts and there was no changing it. Instead, whenever Heather chose to socialize with her girlfriends from Slytherin or Ravenclaw rather than hang with the two of them,Severus began trying to distract Raislen from fretting over where she was. When Raislen would suggest looking for Heather, Severus proposed another activity instead.

"Or we could invent a new spell! I bet we could come up with some brilliant concepts if we put our heads together," he told Raislen one day after classes as they sat together in the Slytherin common room. Raislen stared listlessly into the fire.

"I bet HeatherToy would have some good ideas to contribute as well, though," he said.

Severus nodded. "Certainly. But we can start working on something, and when we tell her of it at breakfast tomorrow, she'll be so impressed that she will want in on whatever we're doing."

Raislen turned his large green eyes from the fire to regard Severus. "You know, Kid, that's not a bad idea at all! Did you have something you'd like to start working on?"

Severus considered. "Well I would like to come up with a trick for conjuring books from home. I have trouble making the conjuring charm work when the books are too far away."

Raislen nodded, frowning thoughtfully. "Distance does make things difficult. You're fortunate that your attempt didn't work. Once I tried to conjure a book from my grandfather's vacation home in Greece, and half the pages were torn when I got it to me."

Severus shuddered, extremely relieved that his own attempts had failed. Shredded pages were far far worse than failure.

"I think that when an item is too far away to allow the proper magical connection, the conjuring can't take," Raislen mused. "So we need something to amplify the connection."

"A link of sorts," Severus said, struggling to explain the concept that was forming in his mind. A linking charm from the item to the magic of it being conjured by whoever applied the charm. If we put a linking charm on a book, linking it to our magic, I bet that would allow us the connection required to conjure it from a great distance. It will recognize our magic and respond properly."

Raislen nodded. "I like it. Do you know a linking charm other than the one that allows two people to link for casting a more powerful spell?"

Severus shook his head. "No. Just that one. Of course there is the one that connects two magical objects but that one won't give us the proper connection to activate the conjuring. I am wondering if a modification of both of those might work. Considering our objective is to link a wizard to an item."

Raislen grinned. "I'm up for trying, but we should begin with a book we don't like just in case it explodes on the first attempt!"

Severus chuckled, nodding. "That sounds wise."

Raislen bounded to his feet. "I'll go and write Dad at once. I plan to ask him to send me a book from home to try the spell on. Once we link me to the book, I shall send it back home via owl post then try conjuring it."

"What book are we going to potentially explode on our first attempt," Severus asked. He was beginning to feel excited at the idea of inventing a charm with Raislen. Perhaps if they invented enough brilliant spells together, they'd be rich and famous. Then Severus could provide lavishly for himself and his mother. Everyone would know he and Raislen for the most brilliant wizards of their generation and Grandfather Prince could go hang along with the Gryffindor Gang of Gits. They would all be sorry they'd been so horrid to him. All of them would know how much smarter he was than they would ever be.

"We have a really boring one on Wizarding opera," Raislen said, making a disgusted face. "I'm going to ask for that one. If anything befalls it, the world will be a better place. I hate opera! Magical opera is no better than Muggle opera. They both make your ears hurt and never have catchy tunes."

"Didn't some wizards help to fight a war once with wizarding opera," Severus asked. "By shattering glass as well as ear drums and bodily organs of the enemy?"

Raislen shrugged. "Yeah but I can't sing so I don't care."

Severus chuckled, nodding in agreement. "Fair enough. It shall never be relevant to us, after all."

"That's right, Kid," Raislen said gravely. "You and I shall just have to come up with even more unique ways to harm our enemies."

Severus brightened. "You mean it?"

Raislen nodded gravely. "You bet I do. As soon as we perfect this book conjuring situation, we'll move right on to something more dangerous. What sort of Slytherins would we be otherwise? People will need to know not to mess with us, especially with the way the world is today."

Raislen lowered his voice, glancing around to be certain no one was listening to them. He'd told Severus more than once that though Slytherin wasn't the only house by far to hold Voldemort supporters, it did likely hold the most. It was a thing that Raislen, Heather and Severus all found embarrassing. Slytherin was a grand proud house, and had been so long before the likes of Voldemort. "Want to come with me to the owlery," Raislen asked. "After I write my dad, we can start sorting out ways for combining those two linking charms. By the time he gets that opera book to me, with any luck, we'll be ready to give it a go. With the two of us working together, the trial and error should at least go faster." Severus nodded and stood, eager to get started. As they left the Slytherin common room, Raislen chuckled gleefully. "Even if we just perfect a book exploding charm, think of the pranks we could play and the weapons we could make. It'll be the book is mightier than the sword."

Severus cringed. "Just let's always make very certain that it is a very bad book. The worst sort of useless piece of rubbish."

"But of course," Raislen said. "What do you take me for? I adore books as much as you do, after all. I would never harm an innocent book."