"Well, I wasn't sure what materials were available, but I decided on a few things; A basilisk scale, for its magical resistance. Something of an occamy for its Choranaptyxis ability. An erumpent horn, allowing the sword to explode maybe. Thunderbird feather for lightning or speed. Then finally the dementor ash, to try and copy their powers." Harry listed, going over the items he'd like for his sword.
"Hmm, very good. Unfortunately the basilisk and occamy would be mutually exclusive, but you weren't to know that. I'd be wary of using anything of the erumpent for a sword, as it's just as likely to explode within your hand, but if I was you I'd come back to this idea for a future project. An arrow or javelin head would work fantastically with an erumpent horn imbued.
"As for the occamy, I suspect you could copy its power with your mithril, making it unnecessary. Nevertheless, you provided some good examples, especially with your currently limited knowledge of the subject."
Reaching into a separate pouch, Nicholas started removing a few items, which had been vacuum packed in plastic. For Harry, it was a surreal moment to see his ancient magic teacher, within a still far older chamber, use a quintessential muggle invention.
"I find the vacuum seal helps isolate the items better than any magic could hope to match." Nicholas explained upon seeing Harry's bewildered expression.
"Now, first we shall be imbuing the brass with the required elements to form our alloy: orichalcum. The primary metals needed to make the most basic alloy are iron, gold and tungsten. Now, these alone make a fairly weak alloy, but it is the magical materials added that make it powerful.
"We already have the blade, and I thought several of Fawkes' feathers would suffice, making good use of its ability to lighten the heaviest loads. I would've liked to also use the phoenix's regeneration and fire, but that would be best symbolised by its ash.
"As we both already know, dementor ash and phoenix ash react… violently. I'd be wary of mixing the two within the sword, especially for an unsure advantage. I took the liberty of deciding that the dementor ash would be the most beneficial, but if you disagree we could swap them round?"
"No, I agree with that. Although, aren't phoenixes also creatures of purity?"
"Indeed they are, which in my mind would tip the balance in the phoenix's favour, barring one thing." Nicholas agreed cheerfully, removing a new vacuum packed item, this time a silver spiral horn.
"This is a freely given unicorn horn. As it is now, this would easily sell for around 5.4 million galleons, which is why I'm doing the ritual instead of letting you do it. As I'm sure you can understand, even with our nearly infinite gold, that is not an easy sum."
"Why is it so expensive? We use powdered unicorn horn in potions and that seems quite cheap in stores!" Harry exclaimed, shocked at the price. With that one horn he could've bought over 1,000 copies of the Dursleys' house.
"Ah, because the horn you use in potion is technically called an inert unicorn horn, which are harvested from dead unicorns. No, much like their blood, the unicorn must both be alive, conscious and consenting to the removal, else it becomes heavily cursed.
"Due to this, there are three people alive capable of obtaining a freely given horn, and even then they rarely get a hold of one. Fortunately, I happen to be friends with one of those three, who was willing to trade.
"Alongside providing its weight in gold, I designed a replacement horn for the donating unicorn. According to Mr. Scamander, this particular horn was causing 'growth issues', which was causing the unicorn immense pain.
"Because of its freely given status, this horn has near unequalled purity. When imbued into the alloy, it will transfer the unicorn's natural immunity to dark magic. With luck, this blade will be completely unaffected by all dark magic. Seeing as we are doing this to replace your mithril's severe weakness to dark magic, this will be a massive boon, despite the cost."
"I didn't know unicorns were immune to dark magic." Harry replied in awe, looking at the horn in a new light. With this new metalomancy, Harry was already mentally redoing a lot of his previous projects, mainly focusing on his shield.
"Few do." Nicholas answered, an odd waver briefly entering his voice.
The next item to be revealed was a large plastic bag of dementor ash, which Nicholas struggled to keep ahold of. Unlike the other plastic packaging, the ash's plastic had what looked like a dark blue burn mark across it.
"Even in the strangest of places, the dementor ash reminds us there is always more to learn." Nicholas announced cheerfully, regarding the ash fondly as he put it to the side, "You may already know, but muggle plastics emit something of an anti-magic layer.
"Of course, this layer isn't strong enough to defend against any sort of focused magic, but for items like this horn or the feathers, it can completely contain them. Despite the plastic being vacuum fitted to their shape, neither the feathers or horn is actually touching anything.
"Both are being held up by their own magic being rebuffed by the plastic, leaving them floating in a void. For some unexplained reason, this ash can overcome the plastic's layer. That discolouration is the ash reacting to the plastic."
"What will we be getting from the ash?"
"Primarily, it's magical corrosion ability, allowing it to literally cut through magic. Its chill ability would already be negated by the feathers, while its darkness will be destroyed by the horn. What it will likely do, is poison the blade.
"Finally, I brought some thestral hair. While I doubt its invisibility will work, they too have a strong dark magic resistance. As a bonus, it might grant the sword a minor casting ability, due to thestral hair's use in wandlore."
With a practised swish of his wand, all the hecatomb items flew onto their respective spaces. First the iron bar, followed by the gold and tungsten, each of which were easily heavier than any of the other ingredients.
"As we need to match the weight of the hecatombs and the sacrifice, these metals will make up around 80% of the weight, since we want to replace as much of the brass as possible. When you do these yourself, you'll need to remember that.
"Whether you are designing your own delineation alloy or following a recipe like this, remember 'there is only so much magic can do'. I could easily change this ritual to have only 10% metal, and 90% magic, but the end result would be piss poor.
"Why would we have magic spend a constant effort to overcome the innate weakness of the base metal, when we can spend a smaller amount of magic now to just replace it entirely."
Startled at Nicholas' rare profanity, Harry easily nodded along.
"Good, now we can get started on the magical hecatombs. As you should know, even though my obsidian blade itself did not come from a magical creature, my actions have imbued it with intent. That intent will be our primary focus, since we do not want the obsidian.
"We want its unnaturally sharpened edge, we want that edge to be permanent, but we do not want to end up with a glass blade. Again, we could use pure enchantment to sharpen the blade, the Veela tribes have certainly proven it is possible, but why bother.
"This is however where my own adjustments to this process come in handy. Normally, we would do a clean swap, so the brass sword and unicorn horn becomes a unicorn sword and a brass horn. Obviously the change is a bit more nuanced, but that is mostly how it works.
"My change deliberately unbalanced the transfer, resulting in the remaining brass material and hecatomb bodies being turned into magic. This can then be channelled into the allow."
"I assume this is similar to when we swapped my cloaks over? We took my dragon-skin coat and trench coat, and then ended up with a dragon-skin trench coat, and a coat." Harry checked, running his hand down said trench coat fondly.
"To a degree. Both use the same alchemical principles, although the means of transfer are different. There is some debate about if metalomancy is a subject under countervail transfers, or merely related. For instance, you can make a magical alloy using just an alchemical ritual, such as the electrum alloy.
"It is easier to use countervail transfer to create such an alloy, because you don't need to spend the prep time needed for this ritual. There is another benefit; repetition, which is why they used the countervail transfer method in the temple of Jupiter.
"Any time they needed more imperial gold, they could just place any amount of silver and any amount of gold in the right spots and power it. With this metalomancy delineation anvil, you'd need to redraw it every time, along with balancing both metals. Now, do you want to guess why we are doing it this way?"
"Obviously this is faster, but I'd guess we'd also get more complexity this way? We don't have a permanent countervail, so we'd need to draw a new one regardless. With a countervail, we'd need to transfer each property individually, redrawing the sacrifice every time. So, if the runes were wrong in any of the steps, the entire process would need to happen again."
Nodding fondly, Nicholas placed the unicorn horn as he continued his lecture.
"Precisely. You can do a complex alloy like this using a countervail, such as the weaponsmith factories of China. Much like the muggles, they have an assembly line of countervail plates and the workers pass each result to the one behind them.
"Per day, those factories could make around ten swords similar to this, but they could continue to make those swords every day for decades. It's due to this unmatched industry that allowed China to get by relatively unscathed for almost every goblin rebellion."
During that, he'd placed the sealed bundle of feathers and ash within their own plates. Finally, he withdrew the thestral tail hairs, each a thick and brittle looking black string. If it weren't for the plastic holding them still, Harry feared the hair might disintegrate just by being looked at.
"Now that all the hecatomb items are in place, we can get started. While I said I'd be doing the ritual, I'd like you to do the sacrificing. Because it shall be you using the sword, the magic will be stronger if it comes from you.
"It's quite simple really. You simply really, you'll just need to say is the item name, then what you want from it. After that, you tap the plate with your wand and move onto the next. I'll tell you what to say for each, and you'll only need to repeat after me."
Getting in position, Nicholas gave a firm nod and began, "Iron, for its strength."
Easily repeating the instruction, Harry was excited to see the black chalk start to shine, bathing just the iron in a soft green glow. Quickly moving onto the next, Harry repeated the remaining instructions.
"Gold, for its resistance. Tungsten, for its hardness. Obsidian, for its sharpness. Unicorn horn, for its purity and dark immunity. Phoenix feathers, for their ability to lighten the heaviest loads. Dementor ash, for its magical corrosion. Thestral hair, for its aspect of death."
With each hecatomb glowing merrily, Nicholas stepped forward and muttered a quick incantation in Latin. With an unusual pulling motion, the brass sword rose slightly into the air before the chalk under it burst aflame.
Hidden completely within the yellow flames, Harry couldn't tell what was happening to the sword, even as fainter lines of green fire crawled towards the hecatomb plates. The moment the green fire met black chalk, they too exploded into flame, this time a soft black.
He did notice that moments prior to being engulfed, the plastic melted away, before being absorbed by the flames.
After just a few seconds, the flames began ebbing, slowly revealing a spotless stone floor. Following that, the green fire started withdrawing, retreating back into the yellow flames.
With a large puff of fire, a glob of magic rose outwards, onto to come to a drastic stop. It looked like the magic had crashed into an invisible dome, except there was nothing under Harry's magesight.
If he had to guess, he'd say that the magic was the result of over 13 kg of brass being burned. With the magic trapped, the fire flared before crawling towards the centre.
It seemed like the amount of fire didn't change, it's just where there had been two flames, they merged into one brighter flame. This slowly continued, all the way until the flames were focused into the blade's shape, casting blinding yellow light across the chamber.
"Now, we have to leave it. It will take a few days to solidify into the final product, partly due to my unbalanced modification. This chamber might also affect the time, given the plytchblend in the walls."
"I've never heard of plytchblend, what is it?"
"Young people, what do they teach you? Plytchblend is a type of powdered metal which gives off a fairly steady amount of magic, boosting the area's atmospheric levels. It needs to be alchemically treated to be anyway usable, which makes it extremely expensive nowadays.
"What is less well known is to create gold using the traditional method, you must first turn your transmutation into Plytchblend and control its cascade until you land on gold. Cascade too far or too little and you end up stuck with the wrong element, often lead, mercury or platinum.
"Anyway, Plytchblend started to become relevant over here about when Salazar built this chamber, just a few years after Hogwarts was built. Alchemists had figured out how to get a semi-stable form of Plytchblend dust, which could then be coated onto stone brick.
"The ministry was built from a similar technique, although by then alchemists had used my advancements with alchemy stones to improve the recipe. Using an alchemy stone to control the transmutation, they could get a fairly decent amount of the blend, enough to use it within ceramic glazing.
"Next time you're in your ministry, take a closer look at the brickwork, that green glow is the result of plytchblend activating a paired illuminator. Of course, it was then realised that while the magic given off by the plytchblend was beneficial to us, it was detrimental to most living things.
"By the time the muggles figured out how to harness their own plytchblend, it was already falling out of fashion, especially when the muggles bought it all up for their bombs."
"Plytchblend… that isn't uranium, is it?" Harry asked in concern, suddenly looking at the walls in fear.
"So you do know it! It's certainly called something like that, why do you ask?"
"Because this stuff is incredibly dangerous! Loads of people died in the muggle world from messing with this stuff. I'm fairly sure they used uranium in those world war 2 nukes."
"Ah, ah. Of course, I keep forgetting you were originally muggle raised. Yes, I believe plytchblend can be deadly to muggles, especially when used by other muggles. But, in low concentration like this you'll only be affected beneficially."
"And in high concentrations?"
"Well… you've felt dragon fire already, I'm told the experience is not too dissimilar. When concentrated, plytchblend starts to emit dark magic, eerily similar to dragon-flame. In fact, it was theorised by Albus that some dragons consume plytchblend, causing their destructive breath."
As May ended, he was summoned down to the quidditch pitch, an area that had been blocked off since their duelling tournament. On his way out the castle, he heard Cedric call him.
"Hey, Harry, wait up!" Humouring him, Harry stopped and waited. As the tournament had progressed, Harry found himself paying more attention to the handsome boy. Rather annoyingly, he was an extremely likeable person.
At least once a week the Hufflepuff was in the library, helping the lower years with their homework. It wasn't even the lower year Hufflepuffs. Harry regularly saw students of all four houses attending his sessions, cheerfully working in their corner.
It seemed like the boy was incapable of being mean, which clashed with Harry's natural cynicism. Everyone he knew had some type of failing, everyone.
So, even as Harry genuinely smiled at Cedric, he was mentally scrambling for any sign of a negative trait.
"What d'you reckon it's going to be?" Cedric asked, "Fleur keeps going on about underground tunnels, she reckons we've got to find treasure."
"I don't think so. This is the grand finale of their tournament, they aren't going to do something where we aren't seen… Not again at least. Personally I'd make it some sort of obstacle course, first person to reach the end wins, you know?
"Something that combines beating the dragon with going down to that awful underwater village. They know we all have the power, so they'd want to show that off to the crowds some more." Harry reasoned.
"That makes sense, although if so I know I've already lost. I saw you fight that dragon, seriously - What've they done to my pitch?!" Cedric cried out indignantly, as they entered the field.
Having seemingly decided they couldn't fix the damage done from their duels, a thick looking hedge maze was erupting from the ground.
"Hello there!" Ludo called cheerily, standing in the middle of the maze with Fleur and Krum. "Well, what do you all think? Growing nicely, aren't they? Give them a month and Hagrid'll have them twenty-foot high."
His grin slipped slightly at Cedric's distraught expression, a lesser expression mirrored on Krum's face. "Don't worry, you'll have your Quidditch pitch back to normal once the task is over! Now, I imagine you can guess what we're making here?"
Sharing a brief glance between themselves, it was clear all four of them thought Ludo was an idiot. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Fleur and Krum play a quick game of what looked like rock paper scissors, before Krum grunted out "Maze."
"That's right!" Bagman cried, clapping excitedly, 'definitely an idiot.'
It turned out, the judges' grand plan for their finale was to throw the champions into a hedge maze and see who came out. At least Harry guessed there'd be obstacles.
"But how will the audience see us?" Harry asked, "If these hedges have any sort of serious height, you'd need to be right above us to be able to see us."
"Ah, well you see these hedges will have a nifty enchantment, courtesy of Professor Dumbledore and Madam Maxime. From below, where we are now, you will just see a hedge and fog. But from up high, these hedges will become transparent, granting us an uninterrupted view of your adventures.
"Any other questions? No, we'll go back up to the castle, shall we, it's a bit chilly…"
Taking the opportunity to study the maze, Harry almost didn't notice Krum's presence until he deliberately tapped his shoulder.
"Could I have a word?" Krum asked politely, his accent still thick.
"Sure, what do you want?" Harry replied, intrigued.
"Will you walk with me?"
Leaving the stadium, Krum led him towards the forest, nearing the paddock of Beauxbatons' horses.
Settling against a tree, Krum began "In Quidditch, I always make effort to get to know opponent before game. I have not had chance for that this year, at least with you. I think to myself, now be good time. We build bond of respect, then we can devote ourselves to this task without distraction, then see where future lead."
"Oh, sure, I wouldn't mind that. Does seem a bit counter intuitive if we're meant to be opponents though."
"Ah, but see, I look at problem differently. Victory tastes better if I know opponent is worthy, but defeat less sour for same reason. For instance, I know you duel very well. If this were my Bulgaria, you'd be lorded as great wizard, not fighting pointless newspaper war."
"Thank you, you're very good yourself. I think if you hadn't electrified the arena, I'd never have been able to beat your defence… I take it that the papers are different in Bulgaria then?"
"I would have lost anyway, I saw it then and I see it now. As for our papers, they are less secure, so they are more cautious when reporting on anyone. Our ministry also takes poor view on defamation. We are poor country you see, Grindelwald stole our men and our gold, then left only ruin behind.
"After war, money gets passed around and we think we get gold back, but everyone forgets little Bulgaria. So, we all help each other. I get good at Quidditch, I get invited to higher league. Higher league grants bigger paycheque, so I work even harder.
"But first I must deal with the papers. Back home, ministry cannot afford to chase away the wealthy, so papers heavily regulated. Abroad? Not so much. I love my fame, my fans and my skill. Journalists not so much."
"So Quidditch was just a way for you to support your country?"
"No, I play Quidditch because Quidditch best sport. Support is just happy result. Man should love country, but country should love man too. To me, does not seem to be same for you."
"I guess I'm just used to this country being fickle. Still, it's good that yours seems better. So, where did you learn elemental magic? I had to basically teach myself."
"You are self taught? I would not believe it! In Durmstrang, elemental magic is course for anyone capable. Should you wish, I will talk to school governors, get them to grant you position at Durmstrang. Between the two of us, we break every school record." Krum announced grandly, with just the lightest touches of humour.
"Ah, sounds good, although everyone I know is here. Plus, that would require giving up Hogwarts, I don't think I could ever give up a castle this amazing."
"That is true, Hogwarts is beautiful. Much like your purple haired friend from the worldcup. I can see why you'd deal with English reporters for such -" Whatever he was going to say was cut off by a man staggering into a tree nearby, instantly getting both boys alert with wands raised.
"Wasn't he a judge? Isn't he with your ministry?" Krum questioned, staring at the dishevelled appearance of the man.
"Yes, he is. Back again, Mr. Crouch?"
Firstly, happy 100 chapters! Over 3 years, 360k words, 3 note documents and 3 story documents. When I randomly started writing the first chapters in a quick corner of my college, I didn't quite know what I'd started.
For those interested, I'm going to put my general thoughts on the progress of this story after the 'things' section.
Also, a quick thank you to everyone that pointed out the Moody scene in the last chapter. It has now been updated to a point that I am comfortable with, which hopefully now works better with the story.
Things I think need explaining:
- Metelomancy ideas: Another thank you to everyone who suggested parts to go into the alloy. Many of them were stuff I hadn't thought of, and will be sitting in my head for a long time. I can't promise they will all appear eventually, but I am certainly going to try.
- Plytchblend: It is deliberately misspelt from the irl pitchblende, which to the best of my research was an old name for Uranium.
Thoughts
Given how I'm always eager to get onto writing the future of the story, regardless of current progression, I think with hindsight I should've skipped the past far more. But, had I done so when I had started, there's so much of the story that simply wouldn't have existed.
Mithril; it was a device I invented moments before uploading its chapter to fill it out more. Now, 3 years later, it's crucial for my plans.
Nicholas mentoring; I just randomly went "Yeah, that would be cool, given Harry owns his Stone"
Dobby's race; Again, just a brief "Harry giving Dobby infinite magic would be cool"
I think I've reached the point in my own writing where such spontaneous, story changing, devices aren't likely.
You see, when I started, sitting in my class and thinking about a cool Harry Potter idea, all I had was 'Harry and friends fight on the losing side of the revolution'. Feeling brave, I wrote a description for the story (Which still remains basically the same today) and just started typing.
In my head, I had, and still have, the basic beats for "This is how x leads to y", but it would be literally years until I sat down and wrote them down. Once I started writing comprehensive notes, keeping track of what was actually happening in my story, I started writing more notes based on those notes, until it cascades into a full on plot.
I'm happy to think, just from my note documents alone now, I have a completed story. Poorly written and as illogical as it is, there is a story. All I now need to do is turn that note story into a full fleshed story, which I still find fun.
Importantly, my current notes, my current (mostly complete) plan on how to progress from this chapter to the very end, it's only possible because of details I randomly came up with.
So, if anyone is thinking of starting a story, I think I'd now recommend making as many notes as you naturally can. Find what style works for you, and just type what you want. Then, you can add the fancy words around that idea and go for it.
But, crucially, I would recommend starting it. You may think it's bad, or not worthy of being published, but if so, you may not get 'good', until you are already over 100k words in. Having people along, occasionally pointing out flaws or ways to improve, that's a massive boost.
Despite that, write because you want to. Don't base your success on the amount of views or the like, write what you want, because you want to. If people like it, they will come to you, for the way you are writing. It's this philosophy that's kept me here.
I love the fact that so many of you read these chapters, and enjoy every review I get. Whenever I recognise a reviewer's name, I feel great. But, I think even if that view count had reached 0, I'd continue writing because this story is my joy.
Take care, - Darkwolf