Chapter 51: Runesmithing
Christmas break ended with little fanfare, but left us with a lot of new things to worry about. Having Harry know about the basilisk ahead of time would hopefully change things for the best. And I'd been able to give him several vials worth of Petrification Draught before he went back to Hogwarts.
Sirius and Remus were also now completely onboard with me and extremely wary of Dumbledore. Though the presence of the former did make things a bit worrisome. Would the crazy Minister of Magic unleash the Dementors again to search for Black? Or would common sense prevail? Odds are we'd be disappointed.
New Years rolled around as well, and it was now officially 1993. So that meant we'd have to step up our game when it came to production quotas. But it also meant that new experiments had to be conducted.
And that was why, in mid-January, I was in a workshop filled with high-tech equipment, ready to begin a brand-new set of tests. With me were several individuals including Remus as my head of security, but also a few engineers and workmen that knew of magic whom I'd hired after the Christmas break.
Sirius Black was also here in disguise. Amazing what some hair dye, a shower, and a shave could do to change a man's appearance! The reason he was here was because he was interested in becoming an investor in my business. He'd been skeptical at first, but several demonstrations and successful experiments had been slowly changing his mind.
"Alright, Laser Rune Experiment 24… start!" I said, making sure the polarized glasses were securely placed over my eyes.
A button was pressed, and a beam of bright light was fired at a thin sheet of steel, carving a series of runes into the surface. Yes, that's right, I was using lasers to engrave runes in order to try and create a magical object!
The difference between laser etching and laser engraving is that laser etching used heat to raise marks on the surface of an object, like bumps and ridges. Meanwhile, laser engraving used heat to remove materials to create deep marks, like grooves and divots and dimples.
In this case, the laser was engraving the runes. Runes worked better that way, I'd found. Less chance of them getting damaged too.
A minute later, the sheet of metal had the runic sequence for Lumosengraved upon its surface. If it worked, the runes along with the steel would glow as if under the effects of a Lumosspell for several hours before needing to recharge.
A fan blew wind onto the steel to cool it as it was extracted, and then an eyedropper was filled up with some of Cauldron Remedies very own recipe of Hair Growth Potion. It was squeezed out and dripped onto the runes, a faint sizzling coming from the still hot metal. We all held our breath as we watched and waited.
"Experiment 24… success," I said as the runic sequence lit up and began to glow as the magic in the potion activated the runes. Cheers erupted and I let out a sigh I hadn't know I'd been holding.
Once more, I'd proven that it was possible to carve runes using lasers. A laser engraver could place the runes onto a sheet of ordinary stainless steel, and then it would only need a spark of magic via a potion or wand to activate.
Furthermore, because a laser could make the runes faster and more precisely than a human ever could, very rarely did a rune sequence come out wrong. It was usually a fault with the material that resulted in failed experiments rather than a problem with the person doing the engraving.
Now admittedly runes that were hand carved by a witch or wizard had an average of 25% improvement in output and longevity, possibly due to magic from the runesmith bleeding over, but it was such a modest dip in efficiency that unless you needed that extra 25% for something that demanded it like a ritual or whatnot, then machine or laser carving was the way to go.
'Now I have to figure out a way to use this discovery,' I thought to myself. What would I do with this knowledge? How could I leverage it? More importantly, how could I monetize it?
"Alright, you've proved me wrong," Sirius admitted when the experiment was over, grabbing my attention. "Apparently Muggles can do magic."
"Surprising, isn't it?" I chuckled.
"I'll say. My mother would be turning in her tomb if she could see this," the scion of House Black laughed with vindictive glee.
"Don't you mean rolling in her grave?" one of the engravers who'd worked on this project asked, and Sirius shook his head.
"Nah, graves are for commoners and Mudbloods, as dear old mum would say. My family has a mausoleum," the lord of House Black explained.
"I do not miss that sort of mindset," a Squib who was working on the project with us griped.
"Neither do I," Sirius agreed with a hearty nod of his head. "And you, Mr. Rose, have an investor."
"Wonderful!" I said, taking his hand and shaking it. "Shall we adjourn to the office to discuss matters further?"
Sirius and Remus walked with me to another room, and then I had Inky pop us over to my room above the factory. The two wizards then cast a couple spells to dissuade eavesdroppers, and we took our seats around my desk.
"What do you plan to do with this discovery?" Remus asked when we were alone in the office.
"A good question," I admitted. "I'm not entirely sure, beyond ensuring all of my factory equipment has runes added. They'll set up to be powered by the wards around the building, so I won't have to worry about constantly recharging them. After that, however, I want to work on trying to find a way to turn them off. I have some ideas, like a dial or sliding blocks that would move runes out of sequence when not in use, so I can disguise some of it as technology. But I'm open to suggestions."
"Making toggleable runes? Crafty," Sirius praised. "I think Lily was working on something like that before… before the incident."
"Indeed? She sounds like an incredible witch. I truly wish I could have met her," I sighed. Both men nodded sadly.
"Let's talk about some good news," I suggested, and they agreed quickly. "I've finished another batch of Oath Binding Ink, so I can finally start hiring new workers. And this time, I've enough of the stuff I should be able to hire a couple of mages."
"I have six you might be interested in," Remus said. "Three are werewolves, and another has a kid who is a werewolf, but they're solid workers who had good grades at Hogwarts. They're also Muggleborn, so they've no interest in running to the Ministry if they find a way around the contracts."
"I see. And the other two?" I inquired.
"Half-bloods, but they suffered a lot from Pureblood bigotry in the Ministry. One was fired for a mistake his superior made, and the last was sexually assaulted by her boss, and quit afterwards when they refused to do anything about it."
"Mmm. They sound like good candidates," I said slowly. "And do they have many attachments to the magical world?"
"Some, especially the Half-bloods, but not enough that they would spill the beans."
"Makes sense. Do you have any info on what they can do, magic-wise?" I inquired.
"Here are their resumes," Remus said, passing them over, and I quickly looked over what was written. All in all, decent looking folks. The Muggleborn even had references from the few jobs they'd managed to work in the mundane world, and I resolved to contact them. And they'd all managed to finished a couple N.E. , which was good, as that meant they had a firm understanding of spellcasting which would definitely help as I began to try and find new ways to market magic to Muggles.
"Alright, let all them know I'll be inviting them over for interviews. Make sure to tell the ones who have lycanthropy about the mandatory time off and free Wolf's Bane Potions," I said after a moment.
"I already have, that was what convinced them to let me put their names forward," Remus said with a smile. "Thank you for that, by the way."
"No problem, I think it's literally criminal the way werewolves are treated by the Ministry. People like Greyback give 'em a bad rep," I replied with a shake of my head. "Now, any ideas for new potions?"
"Have you considered trying to make Skele-gro?" Sirius wondered.
"I have. There's a pretty simple recipe I found. It's just milk, bonemeal, and figs." I confirmed. "Does not have a long shelf life, however. Only lasts a week after being brewed."
"That would be tricky to sell," Sirius muttered.
"But a potion to mend bones would be better sold to hospitals directly in the first place," Remus pointed out, causing me to think it over.
"That might work… I'd have to make a lot more per batch to keep up with demands, though," I said.
"I can help with that," Sirius said. "My family has some properties in England which could be repurposed. And I'd be happy to lease it to you for a reasonable sum."
"Ah, that's thoughtful, but I don't think a mansion would be the best place to set up an industrial scale potion's lab," I said.
"Good thing I'm not talking about mansions, then," Sirius chuckled. "The Blacks made their early fortunes as cursebreakers and ward-forgers. And we had a bunch of buildings out in the countryside we used as test sites where we'd experiment with curses and wards and how to break 'em. Most are abandoned now, and we could rebuild on the land they sit on for whatever purposes we need."
"That could work," I said slowly, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. "And actually, we could use some of them for our own experiments. Testing certain things in London won't be easy."
My mind drifted to the runic weapons I'd been thinking about for a while now, and having a secret spot out in the countryside to test that idea out would be ideal.
"We'll put a pin in that, then," Sirius nodded.
We spent several more hours discussing things, such as the terms and conditions for the investments, as well as other projects we could start researching.
Sirius couldn't exactly invest a lot of money at the moment, as while he had full access to his Gringotts funds as the lord of House Black, people would notice if he tried to extract any of it, and the goblins weren't so eager to work with a known criminal if it meant the Ministry would breath down their necks about it. But he could still get into Grimmauld Place, and there were plenty of treasures in there for us to make use of in the meantime. He could also give us permission to use various Black properties, though he and Remus would have to check to make sure they were safe.
One idea that Remus had thought up had sounded interesting, and that was finding a way to reduce pollution and the build-up of garbage. I'd already had some plans for something like that, but discussing it with the two older men had helped me iron out several details I'd looked over. Namely, how we'd set things up and what spells and magic would be best.
That was why, when the meeting was over, we'd decided that the next business we'd embark on was going to be finding a way to use alchemy and magic to turn trash into treasure. We'd be helping the environment by recycling, and making money off of it in the process. Win-win!
I was, however, starting to have a lot less time on my hands to do much. I was already stretched thin with classes at Oxford and running my business. I needed more time!
'Messing with that sorta stuff is a bad idea, though,' I thought to myself back home at my apartment that evening. 'Even Flamel didn't touch that topic all too often, and the few times he did only prove how dangerous it could be. I simply lack the means to create anything on my own.'
'The only option is to use pre-existing methods of time manipulation. But I only know of Time Turners that aren't that dangerous to acquire, but Ministry would never let me have access to one,' I grumbled. 'The sole Time Turner I know of that'd be available in the near future is in Hermione Granger's hands in the 3rd book, and I don't know for certain if that will still happen. But if it does… I just might have to find a way to steal it in order to get any more work done!'
'If only there was a way to make a knock-off Hyperbolic Chamber like from Dragon Ball Z using runes and enchantments,' I sighed to myself. But I had no idea where to even begin to start with something like that!
Rather than grumble to myself about finding a way to bend time to my whims, there was a lot of homework I had to do, and I pulled out the textbooks and worksheets for my classes to get it done before they were due.
As I opened up one of my history books and idly flipped past the section about the invention of punch cards and computational technology, an idea struck me from out of the blue.
'Computer code is a lot like arithmancy,' I thought to myself, and I was unable to shake it from my head.
There were differences, of course, but the language of ones and zeroes of binary was able to do incredible things purely through numbers. And coding for software, at least what I remembered from my previous life, had been able to the same. Almost like runes, in a way, where long strings of symbols could express all sorts of things!
'Could there be a way for me to combine arithmancy and runes with computer code and create spells powered by electricity instead of magical energy?' I wondered to myself. 'I could add some Philosopher's Stones to the circuit boards to act as a converter, turning electrical charges into sparks of magical energy. Of course, so I'd need to find a way to turn magic into electricity and vice-versa, but once I found a way to do that, the skies were the limit!'
Computers able to cast spells! Advanced technology able to combine magical effects to make them even better!
'Okay, seems like I've found my next path to pursue.' I mused to myself as I began to scribble several complex arithmancy equations in the margins of my worksheets.
My homework could wait. I had more important things to do!
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