Summary: Everyone knows the story, the Potters attacked and little Harry left with his relatives. But what happens when the last Potter stumbles upon something left behind? What does someone with no preconceived notions about Magic do when they find out that it's real? Do they follow along just like everyone else? Or do they find their own path? Harry Potter did always like to make things!
Rating: M
Word Count: 261,923
Status: Ongoing
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13435630/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Artificer-Legacy
Chapter 1: Life with Relatives, Discovering Magic
Harry Potter, age eight, lived at Number Four Privet Drive with his Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and Cousin Dudley. The Dursleys are his only living relatives and Harry had ended up living with them after his parent's deaths. All Harry knew about his parents passing was that a family friend had gotten them killed. Supposedly Harry had a Godfather that had hunted down the family friend and brought him to the police, but was severely injured in the process. If his supposed Godfather ever awoke from his coma Harry would be given the chance to live with him. But it had been seven years and the supposed Godfather still hadn't shown up.
The Dursleys were a normal family and proud of it. They took Harry in fed and clothed him and sent him to school, all perfectly normal things for a family to do when taking in an orphaned family member. Vernon worked at a company called Grunning's that made drills and supplied them to large construction firms in bulk. Petunia was a stay at home mother and looked after Dudley and Harry. All in all a completely normal family, Vernon had recently renovated the attic for use as Harry's new bedroom. The small second bedroom on the second floor was better to keep for guests. Vernon had been advised that the resale value of the home would increase with a fully finished attic bedroom by a colleague at work. If the smile on the large man's face after the appraisers left was any indication his colleague had been correct.
So now Harry was situated in his new bedroom with all his things neatly put away. If Harry had anything he liked better about his new bedroom it would be the increased space and the larger window that overlooked the backyard. He looked forward to being able to see the stars at night. Harry was a fairly perceptive boy, especially for his age, so he'd noticed over the years that while his Aunt and Uncle took care of him they still kept him at arm's length emotionally. They never got very attached to him and he sometimes caught them looking at him if something odd happened for no apparent reason. But Harry couldn't really complain about his life much. He was fed, clothed, educated and left to play when his chores were done.
"Harry, we're going to have to store a few of the old boxes back up here again. There isn't room in the garage for the car with all the boxes in it." Vernon informed his nephew as he carried up a cardboard box with the words 'School Things' written on the side in marker.
"Ok, Uncle Vernon. Do you need help?" Harry asked politely.
"If you'd bring up some of the small boxes that would be brilliant." Vernon nodded as he placed the 'School Things' box in the furthest corner of the attic bedroom.
"Alright." Harry replied as he made his way down the short staircase that Vernon had replaced the old trapdoor with. The brand new wooden door that separated Harry's room was at the top of these stairs and it made accessing the new room much easier. It was only about twenty minutes later that the furthest corner of Harry's new room had about a dozen cardboard boxes stacked against it as well as eight shoeboxes filled with bits and bobs Vernon and Petunia had collected over the years.
"Well dinner won't be ready for another two hours, wonder what's in some of these?" Harry wondered aloud as he approached the cardboard boxes. Going through a few of them revealed ordinary things, a few holiday decorations, some extra winter clothes, old baby toys from when he and Dudley had been toddlers. It was only when Harry looked into the first box Vernon had brought up, the 'School Things' box, that he found something interesting. Old leather bound books, quills and inkwells, a strange type of heavy paper he thought might be called parchment, and most curiously a notebook that had the word 'Notes' written on it with a name under it. The name is what was truly odd to Harry, 'Lily Evans' was his mother's name before she got married according to Aunt Petunia. But the sisters had grown apart after they went to different Secondary Schools. As far as he was aware neither sister had kept the things of the other. Unknown to anybody at the moment there was a box nearly identical to the one Harry was browsing through sitting in the Potter Family Vault in Gringotts. It was filled with Petunia's old Secondary School textbooks and other school supplies.
Eager for a chance to know more about his mother, Harry cracked open the notebook and started to read. Harry had a high reading level, one of the best in his class, and was able to understand most of the words. Though several of them sounded like gibberish. But for the next hour Harry read his mother's old school notes and learned that Magic was real. Harry came across terms he didn't understand; Runes, Arithmancy, Occlumency, Potions, Charms, Transfiguration all marked with their own place in the notebook. Looking back into the box Harry found that these unknown terms had matching textbooks. With a strange sort of giddiness at possibly learning from his mother, even if only indirectly, Harry packed the books back up and headed down for dinner. Just as he descended the short staircase onto the second floor Petunia called for Harry and Dudley to come down for dinner. The evening meal was filled with chatter between the three Dursleys with occasional input from Harry.
"So, Harry, did you enjoy the day camp this summer?" Vernon asked his nephew. Vernon had paid just under three hundred pound sterling to send Harry to a summer day camp for two weeks near the end of July. Harry had actually celebrated his Birthday only two days after the camp ended.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon, it was fun." Harry replied getting a short nod from Vernon.
"Good, glad they kept you interested, shows they're doing their job right." Vernon commented. The main reason Vernon had paid for such a camp, besides it being relatively cheap for two weeks of day camp, was because it was a camp that taught old craftsmen skills and focused on helping children become independent and confident. Harry had always been a little closed off from the other kids his age, somewhere between shy and too far ahead of his peers intellectually. This camp was supposed to help kids break out of their shells by teaching groups of children a new skill or craft together. They offered things like needlework, wood carving, the basics of blacksmithing, and even pottery making. Harry had shown prodigious talent in his Arts class in school so Vernon had signed him up for the camp. The boy hadn't been anymore talkative but it gave him somewhere to go for the day for at least two weeks of the summer. Harry had at least enjoyed himself and had tried his hand at practically everything offered, even the needlework course which was considered 'girly' by the other boys his age. Harry had thought learning how to stitch and sew hand been fun.
After dinner Harry went back up to his room and continued from where he had left off in his mother's notes. Deciding to pick up the first book mentioned in his mother's notes, 'Magical Theory' by Adalbert Waffling, Harry set to reading about Magic. He stayed up late that night reading, only stumbling over completely unfamiliar terms and resolving to look up in the dictionary as many of the words that he didn't recognize as he could.
It was the week before Harry and Dudley returned to Primary School when Harry started practicing what was called Occlumency. While Harry didn't think he'd ever met a Wizard or Witch, except maybe that one guy in the top hat who'd given him a bow at the store, the thought that someone could read his mind was scary. So he'd set about trying to practice and learn this Occlumency. The first step involved meditation, a word Harry had needed to look up, so he sat on his bed in the attic and tried to focus on his breathing. After failing the first night and the second, Harry finally felt like he had managed to get his head clear for at least a minute or two on the third night. These nightly meditation attempts bore fruit in late November when Harry finally found himself able to slip into what the book called a meditative state. After continuing to practice throughout the remainder of the year Harry took his first leap into learning Magic when one night he found himself imagining a void of dull light filled with small orbs of slightly brighter light.
'This is weird.' Harry thought as he observed the orbs, each no bigger than a ping pong ball, as they drifted through this space. 'I thought I wasn't supposed to think of anything?' The boy wondered to himself before blinking and finding himself sitting on his bed again.
"What in the world?" Harry questioned himself as he tried to make heads or tails of what had just happened. The next night's session brought him back to the dull void and its numerous floating orbs again. Harry watched on and observed to try and figure out what this place was. He took note that some of the orbs where a blueish-white while the others where a purplish-black. He tried to count them and lost track when they kept moving around. He eventually was able to get a count of one small area and counted thirty two orbs, with about seventeen blue-white ones and fifteen purple-black ones. Just before he opened his eyes in his bed again Harry noticed one of the blue-white orbs and one of the purple-black orbs colliding and becoming a single orb of silvery-grey.
These nightly sessions continued through the rest of winter. Harry would find himself in the dull void and watch the orbs. He'd discovered that the orbs would sometimes collide and form a silvery-grey orb for a good length of time. Though Harry noticed that time may be a bit off considering he never knew how long he was in the dull void. Eventually Harry couldn't hold back his curiosity and touched one of the blue-white orbs. It didn't have a real feeling was the only way to describe it, sort of like trying to hold a breeze. He could move the orb in whatever direction he wanted but other than that he couldn't interact with it. Next he touched a purple-black orb and the feeling was similar, only this one felt like trying to stop a chill in the air with your hands. No substance just a coolness that was there and then gone. Harry's eyes snapped open in his bed again and he flopped back as he tried to sleep his mind buzzing with curiosity.
It was April when Harry made his next break through with the orbs in the dull void. He'd had the idea to try and push the orbs together. He soon found out that orbs of the same color didn't merge with each other. But after pushing a white-blue orb and a purple-black orb together to form a silvery-grey orb he'd gotten curious. Making a second silvery-grey orb he'd tried pushing the two together and found himself with a larger silvery-grey orb. Harry watched on for a while, the larger silvery-grey orb took some time to finally separate back into two blue-white and two purple-black orbs. Almost twice as long as a single silvery-grey orb. Blinking open his eyes Harry went back into his mother's notes and books trying to learn as much as he could about Magic to see if he could find out what the dull void and the orbs were.
Harry actually found himself happy that he and his mother shared an opinion. In 'Magical Theory' it was purported that magic was only able to be truly controlled with a focus, like a wand. But the book also mentioned Accidental Magic; magical things happening when a child had an outburst of emotion, making his mother wonder what the difference was in her own notes. Wandless Magic was briefly described as possible by powerful Wizards and Witches, but his mother had wondered what the difference between Wandless Magic and Accidental Magic was besides the obvious direct control of Wandless Magic. Harry found himself agreeing with his mother's thoughts that Accidental Magic was just Wandless Magic without the intent and control. Meaning a focus wasn't strictly necessary to perform Magic.
Harry continued to experiment with the orbs in the dull void. It had become obvious that no mention of the place existed in his mother's books so he'd resolved to figure out what he could himself. It was the first day of summer vacation when Harry put his most ambitious experiment into motion. When he became aware of being in the dull void again he started pairing up the blue-white and purple-black orbs into silvery-grey orbs. Then he counted the silvery-grey orbs as he paired them up and merged them together. He'd discovered that a large silvery-grey orb wouldn't merge with a single silvery-grey orb, only with a silvery-grey of equal size. All told Harry had counted one hundred twenty eight silvery-grey orbs, meaning the original number of blue-white orbs and purple-black orbs had to have been two hundred fifty six evenly divided between the two colors. Harry merged each of the silvery-grey orbs together taking them from one hundred twenty eight to sixty four on the first pairing. From there it was simply halving the number each time, sixty four became thirty two. Thirty two became sixteen. Sixteen became eight. Eight became four. Four became two. Finally two became one. When the merging was finished Harry had a silvery-grey orb about a meter in diameter. Harry smiled at making the large silvery-grey orb before the large orb pulsed and Harry snapped his eyes open in his bed. Harry immediately felt the most exhausted he'd ever been and only briefly glanced at his bedside clock before collapsing asleep.
Harry groaned as he woke up and felt slightly off. Looking around he spotted his bedside clock and noticed it had been around an hour and forty minutes since he'd fallen asleep. Looking himself over Harry felt as if something had changed about him. Almost as if he felt lighter? Maybe stronger? Whatever it was it hadn't done much for Harry's exhaustion and the boy quickly removed his glasses and fell back to sleep.
"Harry, are you feeling alright?" Aunt Petunia asked as she knocked on Harry's bedroom door the next morning. Getting no response from her nephew Petunia opened the door and found her nephew still asleep. Walking over to the bed she placed her palm on Harry's forehead to check his temperature. Feeling no sign of fever Petunia shook the boy awake.
"Huh? Oh! Good morning Aunt Petunia." Harry mumbled as he woke up and reached for his glasses.
"Good morning. I know that its summer break but that doesn't mean you can sleep in all morning. It's already past normal breakfast time." Petunia admonished him as she turned to walk out of the room. Looking over at his bedside clock Harry was surprised to find that he'd slept in for more than an hour and a half past his usual wake up time.
"Sorry Aunt Petunia, I'm getting up." Harry apologized as he pushed his covers back.
"Breakfast his still on the table, it'll be a little cold now but you should still eat it all." Petunia instructed as she left the room. Harry quickly followed and went to eat his breakfast.
Harry spent the next night diving into the dull void again. Finding his large silvery-grey orb again Harry was surprised that not only was it still together but that it had what appeared to be branches coming from it and disappearing out into the void. Inspecting the branches brought the same feeling as touching a silvery-grey orb, a sense of rightness and stability that couldn't be emulated by any object that Harry knew of. Deciding to try and experiment a bit with this new situation Harry set about trying to make the orb and branches react. He found that small spots of light travelled from the orb and through the branches from time to time. With a bit of thought Harry realized that he could make these lights travel from the orb and through whichever branch he desired. After playing with this new discovery for a while and not being able to do anything else with the orb or branches Harry blinked and was sitting in his bed again. With a sigh he took off his glasses and went to sleep.
Waking up again the next morning Harry put on his glasses and headed down to breakfast. Uncle Vernon had asked him about attending the same day camp again this summer to which Harry agreed. He'd learned the bare basics of the skills and crafts the camp offered last year. This year he hoped to build on his knowledge a bit more. When Harry finished his chores for the day he'd retreated to his room to read more of his mother's books on Magic. With her notes he slowly understood the basics of Magic and was hopeful to find a way to practice some of the things described in the books. Seeing the book he'd left off with the night before Harry walked towards it and raised his hand to pick it up. The book suddenly jumped from its place on top of the 'School Things' box and into Harry's outstretched hand. Startled by the sudden movement Harry dropped the book and stumbled back a few steps. After a moment to calm down Harry walked over and picked up the book. Not seeing anything different about it than normal he realized that he might have just performed Accidental Magic. With a smile Harry placed the book on top of his bed and walked several steps away. Holding out his hand Harry tried to make the book come to him again. The results weren't promising. The book stubbornly refused to move no matter which hand Harry held out or how much he mentally demanded the book to move.
Harry's practice with his Accidental Magic didn't make much progress before he went off to the day camp again. Over the course of the two weeks Harry learned more of the skills he'd enjoyed last year. Pottery was fun but took a while to get right. Needlework was neat as they were learning how to knit and would be finishing up a scarf or a knitted cap, camper's choice, before the end of the camp. Carving was more challenging as you couldn't simply erase a mistake, you either had to work with it, around it, or start over. But learning how to etch their names into small planks of wood was fun. Blacksmithing was something they could only watch. Harry didn't mind as he was fascinated by the way the blacksmith heated and shaped metal. Watching the creation of even simple items like hinges or hooks was impressive to the young boy. Soon enough the camp was over for the summer and Harry was back to trying to practice Magic for the remainder of the summer break.
'Why won't the stupid book move?!' Harry pouted mentally as he still couldn't get the book to come to his hand like he'd done before. 'I just want it in my hand, why is that so hard?' The boy questioned only to feel the book smack into his hand that was hanging by his side. "Ow!" Harry groaned. "Why did it do it this time?" he questioned as he rubbed his hand. Quickly picking up the book and tossing it back onto the bed Harry tried to figure out how he'd made the book move. After mulling it over Harry felt like he might have an answer. "If this works I've been overlooking the obvious." The nine year old muttered as he raised his hand and thought of the action he wanted to happen. 'I want the book in my hand.' With barely suppressed glee Harry caught the book as it flew towards his hand. With a quiet cheer, so as not to disturb Aunt Petunia downstairs, Harry celebrated his discovery. 'I have to think of the action I want to happen! Not about the book itself!' He mentally crowed in delight as he tossed the book back onto the bed and pulled it back to his hand again. With muted laughter Harry spent the next hour pulling objects around his room towards him with his magic.
Over the next month Harry practiced with his newly learned Magical Skill. After the first three days of bringing stuff towards himself he'd tried doing the opposite. The initial result had been Harry's pillow smacking into the wall on the opposite side of the room. But with a month of practice now under his belt Harry could even move things from one place to another around his room. Levitation was the word Harry had found in the dictionary that matched closely with what he was doing. So he'd dubbed his first bit of Magic as Levitation. He'd been slightly embarrassed to find mention of a Levitation Charm among the Charms textbook and realize that such simple Magic had, of course, been discovered long ago. But at least he could do his without a wand! He wasn't pouting!
Harry continued to practice with his magic throughout the rest of the school year. He'd even started checking out fantasy books from the school library for ideas. Any idea he wanted to try and replicate he'd first browse through his mother's Charms textbook for, to see if an equivalent spell existed. That was how Harry learned to summon fire. Of course he only practiced this outside in the woods behind Privet Drive. But with practice Harry could not only summon floating orbs of fire but even hold a fireball in his hand. That discovery had brought about a level of excitement that had Harry recreating scenes from the fantasy books he read. Tossing a fireball around was truly quintessential for a wizard! Harry was absolutely sure of this fact!
It wasn't until the summer that Harry had felt like he had made progress on his original goal of Occlumency. Now when he dived into the dull void, which he had finally realized was a magical representation of his mind, he noticed that the branches coming from the silvery-grey orb had actually encircled the area he always appeared in. Trying to see from the other side had been difficult but after almost nine months of practice Harry had been able to get a glimpse of the outside. What he guessed to be his mind was now encircled by hundreds of branches and their offshoots. His mind was apparently enclosed in what amounted to large thorny brambles. If brambles were as unrelenting as steel and made of pure magic. During this brief glimpse he also noted that almost a dozen large branches still reached out into the void. His only guess was that these branches connected his magic directly to his body. It could explain his sudden control over Magic when he didn't have a wand and no instruction in Wandless Magic.
One summer evening Harry had been looking through his mother's Charms text book again when he noted the mention of the most basic Charm that Hogwarts, the school of Magic his mother attended, taught to First Year students. The Lumos Charm was something so simple and easy that most students learned it in their very first Charms class. Harry liked the idea of being able to produce light on demand without the risk of burning anything like when he summoned fire. So he'd set about trying to figure it out. It had taken him less than an hour to figure out how to replicate the spell. All the Lumos Charm really was at its core was Magic being shifted into the visible light spectrum. That was a term Harry had learned in Science class the past school year and to find out that it could be applied to Magic opened up a whole new set of questions and curiosities for the boy. So Harry spent the better part of the evening playing with the Lumos Charm, making it brighter or dimmer and even changing the color of the light emitted. Incidentally the changing of the color was actually the hardest part. The white light of the Lumos Charm was apparently the easiest color for Magic to take when it entered the visible spectrum. Adding in the intent of specific colors had been difficult at first but it wasn't as hard when Harry imagined the colors as a sliding scale. Slide the Magic down the scale and the light turned darker colors, slide Magic up the scale and you got brighter colors. Harry had made his own light show by the time he'd turned in for bed.
It was once again July and Harry was happy to be sent to the day camp again, two more weeks of learning crafts and skills. At almost ten years old he was now allowed to help the blacksmith by working the bellows. Seeing how interested the boy was the older man had even let Harry swing the hammer a few times to get a feel for the task. Harry couldn't describe the rightness he felt when he got to strike the red hot metal. Decked out in a safety apron and face shield with thick insulated leather gloves Harry got to strike the metal until it bent into the correct hook shape. His wood carving had progressed as well, now able to actually carve simple images and etch words and sentences into wood. Needlework he was doing well in too. The ladies teaching the group, mostly consisting of girls, had commented on how well he handled the needle. Fixing up a pair of torn pants had only taken him an hour and the stitching held up even when he tugged on it. Pottery he could do well enough but it didn't hold his interest as much as the other crafts. The instructor had chuckled when Harry had handed in a nicely formed vase and commented that he was doing his family name proud. Harry had gotten a chuckle out of the joke, after all a Potter being good at Pottery was a bit of dry humor that Harry could appreciate.
After the two weeks of day camp had ended Harry, still happy about getting to make things, decided to look into the Runes and Arithmancy books again. Both tomes had mentioned crafting Magical Items or Enchanted Objects in them and after two weeks of getting to make stuff Harry was interested in trying out this branch of Magic. The first thing Harry had figured out was that Arithmancy was Magical Math and it made normal Math seem simple and easy. While Mathematics played a large role in Arithmancy the inclusion of Magic tilted some of the calculations into having answers that would be deemed incorrect in his Math class at school. Runes was basically learning another alphabet, with each symbol having its own meaning or even multiple meanings when it was written next to other runes. There were also, according to his mother's notes, other written languages that could be used for magical purposes. Egyptian Hieroglyphics were a form of Runes, as were the Chinese Kanji symbols used in China and Japan. India had many ancient scripts that could be used in Runes with Devanagari being common among both Magical and Non-Magical people. It seemed that any script could become capable of holding Magical Meaning if enough Magicals learned and used it over time. The length of time seemed to be roughly five hundred years or more of use before script could have Magical Meaning imprinted onto it by anyone; though his mother speculated that the amount of Magical People that used the script played a large part in determining how long before it became capable of attaining Magical significance.
Harry spent the next few months studying Arithmancy and Runes while also learning a couple extra Charms. So far he'd learned how to replicate a Lumos Charm, the Incendio Charm, the Water Charm Aguamenti, the Levitation Charm Wingardium Leviosa, and the Knockback Jinx Flipendo. For some reason when Harry performed his Wandless version of Flipendo there was no loud bang like the text described. He'd retreated to the woods behind Privet Drive to practice it expecting the noise but it never happened.
His studies into making Enchanted Objects were going about as well as could be expected. Finding out, from the Runes text, that certain materials couldn't hold magic or that only certain materials could be used for certain effects had hindered his ideas. There were plenty of rocks Harry could use for enchanting and the forest behind Privet Drive was a wealth of at least a few different species of wood. But you couldn't just etch a few Runes into any old rock and make a talisman, charm, or trinket. Likewise you couldn't make a staff, scepter or wand out of any regular old branch. Arithmancy was required to figure out the best size and shape for any Enchanted Objects based on the material used to make them. Harry had used his burgeoning skills in both Runes and Arithmancy to craft a single, very simple, trinket for himself. He'd gotten the idea from one of the fantasy novels he'd read from the library at school. Harry had made a Hiding Stone, a small mostly flat stone with only four runes etched on one side, the four runes in question being from Elder Futhark; Naudiz for Need, Algiz for Protection, Mannaz for Man, and Odal for Estate and Possessions. When all four were etched correctly by a Wizard or Witch and imbued with magic it produced a trinket that made the person carrying it less noticeable. Alternatively it could be placed on another object to make the object in question less noticeable. It was easy to see through if a person wanted to find someone, but no one would notice the bearer 'out of the corner of their eye' as the saying went. Harry carried it around at school a few times and noticed the sharp drop in the amount of times he was called on to answer questions.
Excited by his first success, while pretending the eleven failed attempts he'd had didn't happen, Harry sat on his bed that night to take stock of his Occlumency. Once in his magical mind representation Harry set about looking at his 'bramble defense' as he'd taken to calling it. The branches had grown further outwards while layering over each other to increase the protection around his mind. The branches connecting to his body were larger than the last time he'd checked them as well. Returning to the silvery-grey core he tried to take another measurement by eye. Harry roughly estimated that his silvery-grey core had doubled in size since he first made it, now sitting at almost two meters in diameter. He really wished he could accurately measure his magic, or mana as several of the fantasy books had referred to it. Harry liked the idea of calling the energy behind his spells and other magic by a name like mana. It gave him something to focus on building up besides his knowledge. Like a measure of how magically strong he was, though he still had no way to actually quantify his mana so that he could measure it aside from trying to estimate how much bigger the silvery-grey core was.
"Wait that's it!" Harry exclaimed to himself as his eyes snapped open in his bed. If he didn't have a way to measure his mana he could just make one! All he had to do was decide on a basic unit of measurement and count how many he had, but what to use as the basis?
"It needs to be simple and something standard that can be replicated by anyone to keep all measurements accurate." Harry mumbled to himself as he started pacing back and forth. An idea came to the ten year old when he spotted his mother's Charms book laying on top of the cardboard box he kept all of them in. "That would work!" He nodded to himself as he sat back down on his bed and held his hand in front of himself. With barely a thought a small ball of light appeared above his hand, Harry's Wandless version of the Lumos Charm. "Now I just need to see how little mana can actually produce the spell." With that Harry set about withdrawing mana from the spell. The bright light shrank and dimmed a little each time Harry reduced the mana he used to conjure it. When Harry barely felt any mana flowing to the light it suddenly went out. He tried to reach the amount just before it went out a few times before getting it right. In Harry's hand was a small light no bigger than a pea that barely illuminated his palm.
"This is it, the smallest amount of mana that can actually make a Lumos Charm. Since the Lumos Charm is the most basic of basic spells it should be perfect to use to measure my mana." Harry muttered to himself with a grin. 'But how do I count it?' he wondered to himself mentally. 'I can only keep a few Lumos Charms going at once. But I feel like I could make a hundred of these things. I need something else than can count for me.' Harry mulled over his problem until he went to bed that night.
Harry still hadn't found an answer to his question by the time spring came around. He'd looked through his mother's books and notes and tried to make as many of the pea-sized Lumos Charms as possible only to falter when he got past ten at a time. In frustration Harry turned his last hope onto the fantasy books in his school library. Over a month later he'd stumbled upon an idea in one of the fantasy books. It had a concept called spell-forging in the story that was close enough to enchanting that Harry thought it could work. Spell-forging, according to the fantasy novel, was a method to make magical objects by imbuing the item in question with magic throughout its creation. Runes were then used to add an effect and lock the item into fulfilling that singular purpose. Harry was getting excited this mundane fantasy novel might very well have solved his problem! He only needed to find something he could make from scratch that he could also carve the proper runic sequence into.
Thus Harry's search began to find something he could make himself that was also big enough to carve or etch runes into. In a humorous twist Harry's least favorite craft from his summer day camp turned out to be his solution. Harry stumbled onto the idea to use clay for his project when they'd started using it for Art class. With his choice made Harry had asked Uncle Vernon for some clay to play with one day. Vernon hadn't batted an eye at the request, knowing his nephew's propensity for arts and crafts. Harry had his clay the next weekend and set about pushing his mana into it while shaping it into a square frame. Etching the runes into it after it had partially dried was taxing as he was using a box cutter razor blade he'd 'borrowed' from the school janitor's cleaning cart. The razor's thin edge was perfect for keeping the rune lines straight but dangerous to handle without the actual plastic housing to protect his fingers. Thankfully he'd finished without cutting himself and just had to wait a few days for his square to dry.
"Alright, time to try this out." Harry grinned as he picked up the runic clay square frame. While holding it in both hands Harry started feeding his mana into his creation. Harry was thrilled when he saw a number '1' made of light appear inside the frame. He'd only given the frame enough mana to produce the pea-sized Lumos Charm and it had read the amount as one unit. That meant that his runic sequence had been correctly etched and his Arithmancy calculations were correct. With a smile Harry proceeded to push more of his mana into the clay frame. The ten year old boy watched giddily as the number continued to climb; '10', '25', '40', '60', '90', '120', '150', '180', '210', '240', before it came to a stop on '270'.
"Two hundred seventy mana, huh, I wonder if that's a lot or not?" Harry pondered aloud before feeling his clay frame crumble apart in his hands. "What? Why? What's going on?" He fretted as his creation broke into dozens of small pieces. As he carefully picked up the pieces from the floor he noticed on some of the larger ones that the runes etched into them looked burnt and misshapen. "Was it not able to handle the mana? It was a first attempt, I should probably be happy it worked at all. It could have been worse, at least it didn't explode." Harry sighed as he continued to pick up the pieces and place them in the waste bin in the corner of his room. He'd have to take it out later since emptying their own bedroom waste bins was a chore both he and Dudley had to do. Still he'd done it and now he knew that his Arithmancy was correct and that his runic sequence would properly measure mana based on the unit of measurement he'd established. Maybe he could tweak the runic formula so that he didn't have to be holding the device to get a reading? He'd have to look into that, if he could somehow work his theoretical updated rune sequence into his glasses he'd be able to scan the people around him for magic. He might be able to find other Wizards and Witches! Harry sighed as he tried to calm down this would probably take a while to work out and he had to head down for dinner soon.
Harry's dilemma with his device continued to plague him for the rest of the school year. When summer break started he'd experimented even more with his free time. He'd made dozens of prototype devices using everything he could shape and make by himself. Wood worked up to a point but he had to carry around a pretty large stick he'd bent into a circle around itself. But after a single use it burnt out just like his clay frame, only it actually smoked and smoldered instead of falling apart. The only good news was that his updated runic sequence had worked and he could get readings from a distance now. It was roughly thirty meters, give or take a bit, which was farther than he expected to get so he'd been happy about that. Turns out that Mrs. Figg's cats actually had a little mana in them. The large black and grey one he'd scanned with the wooden hoop had registered a '3' on the light display. This led Harry back to the problem of finding a material to spell-forge and etch with runes that wouldn't burn out after a single use. He thought that stone might work but he had no way to shape stone, so that was out. With no other options available Harry was stuck with his project.
When July came around Harry was again sent to the summer day camp. He was hopeful that he could find something to work with for his project but mainly enjoyed just crafting simple things again. The blacksmith had let him help out again and Harry had used the opportunity to imbue mana into a few small plates of metal no larger than his index finger. He'd set them aside to cool without the blacksmith noticing and retrieved them later. On the second to last day of the summer day camp Harry had innocently asked the blacksmith how glass was made. The older man had grinned at the curious boy before going out back and returning with a bag of sand. The old blacksmith had tossed in a good amount of sand and some other kind of powder into a small metal bucket. The blacksmith then closed the furnace and started pumping the bellows strongly. Black smoke billowed out of the furnace chimney as the temperature inside climbed higher and higher. After some time the blacksmith had stopped pumping the bellows and let it sit and cool. After waiting a while the old blacksmith opened the furnace and used a pair of steel tongs to extract the steel bucket. The old man poured the bucket out onto a metal work table he'd cleaned off while they waited for the furnace to cool. The still soft glass spread out in a rough circle on the table. With a grin the blacksmith handed a geared up Harry a set of steel rods and told him to make the glass any shape he wanted.
Harry nodded and as he slowly shaped the cooling glass he poured some of his mana into it. Bit by bit Harry shaped the glass while pushing his mana into it. When he finished several almost lens-shaped ovals of glass were left behind. It wasn't the crystal clear glass he had in his glasses but it was clear enough to see through easily. With a grin Harry left the blacksmith's workspace with a promise that the old man would finish his glass up so that it wouldn't crack and he'd give it to Harry tomorrow. True to his word the blacksmith handed Harry ten thin glass ovals the next morning and laughed at the beaming smile on the ten year old's face. Harry returned to Privet Drive that night ecstatic with his creations. Maybe now he could get his idea working! Vernon had complained the whole way back about the camp switching its starting and ending dates from the last few years. This year the camp had taken place in the first week of July instead of the third week like it had been before. Harry had wondered about the change but hadn't asked about it, the camp was allowed to change when it ran if it wanted to he supposed.
With his small, thin metal plates and his glass ovals Harry set about making his newest prototype mana quantifier. Oddly enough Harry found that glue could pass mana through itself without breaking down. So he'd simply glued the first glass oval onto a metal plate and slowly carved the update runic sequence into the metal. This took him almost two full days as the metal didn't give way to the blade like soft clay and wood did. When he'd finally gotten the sequence carved Harry had tied the prototype onto the right arm of his glasses so that the oval lens went over the right lens of the glasses. With a deep breath Harry had walked to the top of the stairs and looked down into the living room. Both Vernon and Dudley were watching some show and hadn't noticed him. Harry directed a bit of his mana into his creation as he focused on Vernon. Stifling his gasp when a number appeared on the oval lens Harry mentally cheered at the '1' displayed on the lens. Turning to Dudley the number disappeared and Harry sent a bit of mana into his device again. The number appeared again, another '1', as he looked at his cousin. Harry quietly retreated to his room to celebrate his successful test run.
It was the next morning when Harry picked up the mail that he saw a letter addressed to him in green ink. Turning it over he noticed a wax seal and recognized the name form his mother's notebook, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
-End Chapter-