"So the first thing you need to learn about sigils is what we call the base rune, which you will need to memorise." Nicholas began, drawing a symbol in the air. "Every future sigil will build upon this rune, so you must get this sigil perfect before we can move on. It is this rune that was bequeathed to you, which is how Perenelle was able to bind an entire magic set into our bloodline."
With a flourish, Nicholas finished the rune, revealing the alchemical rune for the Philosopher's Stone. "When you can create this sigil instantaneously, I'll give you the list of finalised sigils and you can pick which ones to work on. For now, you must guide your will outwards, forming it into the shape of the sigil. Then, you must fill your magic with power.
"As we discussed, it takes extraordinary focus, but we will keep working until you can summon it without hesitation. When you are ready, you can start."
Nodding, Harry held his palm out and let his magic out. It was easy enough to get his magic to stick around, since it was similar to his initial creation of mithril. Fortunately, it was different enough that the Goblet didn't step in and stop him.
But he hit a block the moment he tried to shape his magic into the rune. At first, his magical pane shattered as he tried to distort it, until he finally figured out how to give it enough power to become malleable without trying to liquify into mithrilium.
Not that his task grew any easier. It took him hours of practice before he could create an identifiable circle, which promptly collapsed in on itself the moment he tried to move onto the inner triangle. Drawing power out of the circle allowed it to regain some of its rigidity, but it was incredibly tricky to keep part of the pane malleable and simultaneously keep the rest solid.
Eventually he was able to split his focus enough to have feelers holding up the rigid parts of the pane, while his primary consciousness was focused on sculpting the next shape.
As it was, it was several days later before he could hold the completed rune in front of him, drawing a satisfied smile from Nicholas. "Impressive. Your shapes could do with sharper lines, but you'll improve with time. Well, it seems to me like you are ready to begin powering the sigil."
Gulping nervously, Harry nodded and began pushing power into the rune. Immediately it began to lose its rigidity and lost its form, causing a small shockwave of released magic.
Chuckling, Nicholas patted the boy on the shoulder. "You'll need to keep a tighter hold on that rune. I'd also suggest going faster, once it begins to power up, it becomes volatile. Take too long, and the sigil will collapse as you just witnessed. Try again."
Frowning in irritation, Harry took another two attempts before he had a completed rune again. Concentrating, Harry split his focus numerous times, with each one controlling a feeler that the entire rune was evenly supported. Then with a flick of his wrist, every feeler began pumping magic into the rune.
Just like before, the rune became malleable and rested heavily upon the feelers, but this time Harry could see the magic spreading through the rune and connecting together. It was harder to see than normal, given it was magic moving through more magic.
For a brief moment, Harry thought he had done it, as the last islands of magic reached out for the main mass of magic, when the other end of the mass erupted outwards and forcefully shattered the sigil.
"You need a more even distribution of magic, although with more speed. I'd suggest trying to introduce a higher quality of magic, although more entry points could do the same job." Nicholas advised patiently, looking up from his writing.
Sighing in frustration, Harry went through the process yet again. This time he added a few more feelers and forced as much power as possible into the sigil. Finally, after so many failed attempts, the sigil flashed became a visible construct.
As Nicholas had said, the actual sigil did nothing, but that didn't stop Harry's sense of satisfaction when he finally got to see his emerald green sigil floating before him. The sigil was easily one of the hardest spells he had ever performed, solely because of the will power it took to hold it together.
"Congratulations, that's a huge achievement. You should be genuinely proud that you've managed this in just three days. But, now you need to do it again until it becomes a part of you."
Sighing, Harry began reaching into himself again, ready to make the sigil anew. The frustrating part was that the power consumption was relatively minor, however the feelers to activate the sigil needed their own source of magic and will to be maintained.
"Oh, by the way, your friend Hagrid? I'd suggest talking to Lockhart on his behalf, you said he helped you with your own press correct?" Nicholas mentioned benignly. "Although you may have to consider if potentially revealing Lockhart's secret is worth protecting another friend."
"What's Lockhart's secret?" Harry asked evasively.
"Oh don't play me for the fool, me and Albus have known about Lockhart obliviating people and taking credit for a while now. Albus was planning on exposing him when he worked here, but since he is benefiting you Albus decided to postpone the reveal."
"But surely you want Lockhart's crimes to become known?" Harry protested.
"My dear boy, do you want Lockhart locked up? If he had not become indebted to you, then we likely would've exposed him. But we gain more by keeping Lockhart out of Azkaban and helping you, which he himself knows. Ultimately, the people he obliviated are not suffering.
"If you care for justice, you are well within your rights to report him. He is your ally, not ours. And because we care for you, we won't attack the people you consider allies, in this we will trust in your judgement."
To say the least, Harry was shocked. He didn't except that response from his mentor, although he felt like he shouldn't have been surprised. Both Nicholas and Dumbledore had shown a slight apathy to rules and laws, a trait Harry suspected Dumbledore picked up from Nicholas.
Instead of thinking about it further, Harry formed the rune, ready to begin again.
"For Merlin's sake Harry, can you stop working on those runes for just ten minutes? You've already gotten them working, why do you need to keep making them?" Ron whined in exasperation.
Ron was meant to be helping Vincent duel Daphne, but had stopped when seeing Harry carving the runes on yet another pair of pebbles. Harry was already surrounded by several of the rune stones, most of which had been depowered.
"Because I've only got an hour to do the task, Ron." Harry explained patiently, "Every second I can save when writing these runes is an extra second to compete." As he talked, Harry pressed both palms against the pebbles, hissing as he burned the runes into the stone.
It turned out that learning Sigils had led to a discovery with his rune making. By 'preloading' the runescheme like how he loaded a sigil's rune, he could use his magic to print the entire runescheme in one go.
Just like his sigils, preloading a runescheme was extremely complex, meaning it could take up to three times as much magic to create. This meant creating a runescheme the old way with a chisel was still better… unless you were on a time limit.
Letting his magic flood the suspended runes, he was able to drastically raise the temperature of his magic, easily melting the imprint of the rune into the stone. If it wasn't for the fact the molten stone kept burning his hand, he'd consider using this method more, just to show off.
Daphne had also tried to learn his new method, but she not only had problems with holding the rune together with just her magic, she had also struggled with mentally drawing the runes mirrored.
For the specific runeschemes for the Breathing Stones, the mirroring was not an issue, given the protean runes required it anyway.
It was as George had explained: "Runeschemes that require protean charms are like patterns on two floors of a castle. When seen from the ground, they both need to look complete, but if you look at them from the sky then the protean charms should line up. When they do line up, the two patterns should turn into one complete scheme."
By mirroring one of the runeschemes, they would seamlessly merge together. Harry still needed to mirror one rune, but for him that was a simple process. However for someone who didn't have his mithrilium, like Daphne, forming two separate runeschemes was far too difficult to be practical.
Burning the schemes into the stones took only a few seconds, so Harry was finished before Ron could turn back to his duel. Even as Ron fell from Daphne's stunner, Harry had already used an 'Appendage minor burn healing charm' on his palms.
It was an extremely specific charm that Harry was well on his way to mastering. Fred had taught it to them after the first time Harry had burned his hands with the runes. The twins did not explain how they had found the spell, but it did exactly what it said.
As with all magic, the more specific it got, the stronger and more efficient it became. From helping with the runes to teaching them healing, the twins had provided so much help. Harry wanted to do something to repay them, but for now he knew he needed to concentrate on the task.
"The good news is, now that I know I can breathe underwater, I can start learning how to swim." Harry announced cheerfully, earning him stunned looks from his friends.
"Bloody hell, you don't know how to swim?" Ron demanded, "Harry mate, this task is underwater, you should've started learning ages ago!"
"There are ways to move underwater without knowing how to swim, but if I couldn't figure out how to breathe it wouldn't matter how well I can swim." Harry defended himself.
"Right, you need to learn immediately." Daphne stated firmly. "Does anyone know a place to swim in this castle, otherwise Harry will have to learn in the lake."
"The elves might know, other than Dumbledore, they know the school best." Neville reasoned, looking up from where Luna was teaching him how to paint.
"Right, well you better go ask them, Harry." Daphne nodded, shooing him out of the classroom.
"I set up this room, you know, you can't force me out of it." Harry protested even as he summoned all the runestones into his pocket and started leaving.
"Yes yes, now go out and find somewhere to swim, then we'll teach you."
Playfully grumbling under his breath, Harry made his way to Dumbledore's office, stopping only when he reached the gargoyle guarding the tower and realised he didn't have the password.
Sighing, Harry conjured a piece of parchment and wrote a quick message asking to be let in. He then used a delivery charm to fold the parchment into a paper airplane, which then flew up into the office.
A few seconds later, the gargoyle leaped out of the way and the staircase started to rise.
"Good morning Harry, is there anything I can do for you?"
"Good morning sir, as a matter of fact there is. You see, it's come to my attention that I may need to learn to swim quite urgently, so I was wondering if there was anywhere to swim within the castle?"
"Ah, that is quite an interesting issue. You see, according to the castle, history and the previous headteachers, there is no swimming pool within the school, excluding the prefect's bath. However, you may remember that excellent room of chamber pots I mentioned at the Yule Ball? Well I know for a fact there was a mighty impressive pool there.
"Unfortunately, I have yet to find that room again, for all I know one may only come across that room once in their lifetime. A shame too, I consider one of my greatest achievements to be my mastery of the breast stroke, but I find it so hard to find time to enjoy the act of swimming nowadays. Of course, if you were to find it, you would be well within your rights to use the room."
"Would the elves know, sir?"
"You know what, they just might! I'd suggest going down to the kitchens and asking. Just, do let me know if you find the room?"
As it turned out, the elves didn't know where to find a swimming pool, but they did know how to find the room Dumbledore described. One of the elves took him to the seventh floor corridor, indicating a blank stretch of wall. Confused, Harry put his face as close as possible to the wall, but even with his magesight at full blast, it remained a standard wall.
"Master will need to pace thrice before the wall, whilst thinking of what yous has need of." The elf instructed excitedly.
"But it's a blank wall…" Harry pointed out slowly, wondering if the elf was playing a prank on him.
"Yes, it is sir! But when summoned, it isn't!"
Frowning down at the elf, Harry walked back and forth, thinking of a swimming pool. To his immense surprise, a smooth cedar door started emerging from the stone. However, his magesight was still telling him that the wall was still the same purely white of Hogwarts stone.
Cautiously, he pushed open the new door, letting a great waft of steam escape into the hallway. Waving away the steam, Harry caught sight of what looked like a wood cabin, with a large heated pool in the middle. In disbelief, Harry slammed the door shut and watched it sink back into the brickwork, with absolutely no magical sign of it existing.
Running down the corridor, Harry turned a corner and spotted an ordinary classroom door. Opening it, he was met with a regular classroom, which clearly took up the same space the pool had just occupied.
The entire time, everything still only had intentless white magic, except for the oily midnight blue colour of a boggart that had leaked into the teacher's desk.
Rushing back to where the pool had been, Harry paced again, only for the cedar door to reappear. Cracking open the door just enough to confirm the pool was still there. Nodding in bewildered acceptance, Harry let the door swing shut and ambled his way back to their meeting room.
Given the experience he'd just had, to Harry it seemed only natural that everyone but Daphne had vanished.
"Where did everyone go?" Harry asked in confusion.
"Well, the boys realised they were late for Care of magical creatures. No idea where Luna went. Not all of us can get away with just skipping classes."
"What, I don't skip classes… well okay, I do now, but I used to attend all my classes."
"You barely attended half of your charms classes, and you'd often leave McGonagall's class the moment you finished the transfiguration. You barely pay attention in Astronomy and are still one of the best in class. With potions you used to just sit at the back and do your own thing." Daphne pointed out.
"Well… I was given permission to do all of that! Also, that's all very specific, have you been spying on me?"
"You were the best student in the school who was also a celebrity, of course I spied on you, good luck finding a student that didn't. Now, did you find a pool?"
"Well, I didn't expect this." Daphne gasped upon stepping into the room. To Harry's personal annoyance, she somehow just glossed over the complete impossibility of the room.
"Well, I don't know about you, but I don't have any swimming stuff, so I guess we'll have to use transfiguration?" Daphne proposed, only for two changing rooms to suddenly appear, complete with swimming costumes.
Harry was instantly suspicious, poking his own costume with his wand and running detection spells. To his magesight, both the stalls and costume were made of Hogwarts white magic, which shouldn't be possible given they didn't look attached to the building.
Grumbling, Harry put it on, finding it incredibly comfortable and the exact right size. While the obvious answer was 'magic', he didn't know how such a thing was possible without any scanning magic being used on him.
By the time he exited, Daphne was already waiting for him in the pool, swimming lazy laps. Experimentally, Harry started walking into the pool, which made his mithrilium start feeding the knowledge on how to swim directly into his brain.
It had been a long time since it had done that before, but Harry suspected it was always there, whispering ideas into his subconsciousness. It would certainly explain why he had started to find learning spells so effortless.
As Daphne swam over and started coaching him on how to swim, he didn't have the heart to tell her he had already become competent just by entering the pool.
So, coming up is obviously the 2nd task, where Harry will primarily use Sigils. But I am planning another event, followed by the 3rd task and a (possibly) dark lord duel after that. Now, the whole point of the tournament was to force Harry to learn new magic.
SentinalSlice has already suggested some sort of quicksand spell which I have ideas for, so if you have any ideas / suggestions for other magic that Harry could learn and use for the tournament (And likely use further into the story) which you would like to see, then please either DM me or leave a review!
Things I think need explaining:
- Lockhart: I want to make it clear that morally Nicholas and Dumbledore are questionable. Nicholas alone has shown he has no issue bypassing or ignoring ministry law, so long as it benefits himself, such as convincing Harry to do an illegal ritual.
- Sigils: Based on Doctor Strange magic visually, but the base sigil (The irl alchemy symbol for the Philosopher's Stone) Is very similar to this story's icon.
- Harry's Mithrilium: During the battle in the chamber of secrets it helped guide Harry to making the sympathetic statue of the basilisk, then later helped show him how to possess his mithril. My interpretation is that it will do its best to keep him safe, but most of the time Harry is capable of that himself, but there are a few times such as when he wants to swim, where the mithrilium will step in.