After learning what exactly had gone down Snape deducted points from both Gryffindor and Slytherin as they were both in the wrong but otherwise no one had been punished. Those who had been trapped underground however were now much more fearful of offending Nicks friends and avoided them. Malfoy on the other hand had lost a considerable amount of political pull in his house after news of it spread out. He wasn't a pariah but nobody save his minions Crabbe and Goyle approached him now. On the flip side Daphne and Tracy both gained a lot of pull in their house since they had been tied to Nick.-
After visiting Hagrid Nick and his friends hung out in his workshop though without touching anything this time. Most of them were chatting or playing wizards chess while Nick meanwhile was holding a silver band ring in a vise while he had an engraver in his hand. He was hunched over the vise with a jewelers monocle over his left eye. "What are you even doing over there?" Tracy asked curiously but Nick didn't look up when he responded. "I'm enchanting this ring with runes to see if I can mix my own unique method of enchanting with the normal one." he said as he finished carving the futhark word for water.-
"What do you expect to happen if you succeed?" Luna asked curiously while brushing Steve in her lap. "I don't expect it to succeed at first , in fact I am fairly certain it will actually explode on my first attempt." He said honestly as he loosened the vice and rotated the ring to a side without an engraved word before tightening it again. "Is that normal?" Daphne as concerned for his safety. "It's totally normal , you should see what happens to the bones I try to enchant. Messy business that." he said as he got started carving the futhark word for cold.-
"Why in Merlin's stinky socks would you try to enchant bones!? That sounds like dark arts stuff." Ron exclaimed horrified. Nick scoffed at this though "It's not like I needed to rip the things out of something still living to get them. They are just materials like the snake fangs we use in potions or the dragonhide wizards use to make gloves. They aren't dark in and of themselves but rather can be used for dark things just the same as good ones." he enlightened Ron easily enough.-
"Suppose that makes sense , but why are you having trouble enchanting them if you can make such awesome stuff already?" Ron said confused and all of the others were also curious. "Metal is a dead thing and thus has no innate preferences in terms of what sort of enchantment they will accept. Organic materials like skin , bone and wood however came from living things and thus are the exact opposite in that they very much have preferences. My enchantment method involves infusing the enchantment I choose through the entire material so if the material itself rejects it , bang." Nick explained with a sigh.-
All of Nicks friends look at their wands in surprise after hearing this as they hadn't realized that the wood also had it's own preferences. "But how do you figure out what the stuff likes then?" Harry asked intrigued to see if his wand would give him a leg up in certain subjects. "I have no bloody idea to be honest. I've been trying to understand that myself since last year but I've had no luck." Nick said honestly and with more than a little helplessness.-
"What!?" Tracy exclaimed in shock at this. "I'm flattered that you think I learn everything easily but I seriously don't." Nick joked and Luna giggled. "The fact of the matter is that I honestly have no references for what I am researching ad as a result have no clue where to actually start. To put it simply I am throwing ideas at the problem until one of them eventually sticks , which as you can guess isn't going that great." He said as he finished the rune word and flipped the ring again to write the word ice on it in futhark.-
This was also the final word in the set that would create a burst of ice from the ring after activation. "Why not ask Flitwick for help then?" Luna asked curiously. Nick sighed " I did but he is just as helpless as I am since no one has researched this topic as far as history is concerned so I have to start from scratch. His expertise in enchanting makes him invaluable at quickly going through ideas I hadn't thought of however." he explained honestly. Finally he finished the enchantment on the ring and slipping it on his pointer finger he activated the enchantment on the ring sending a burst of ice at the wooden target he "borrowed" from the old dueling storage room.
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