While the political machinations of the Ministry churned on in the background, a quieter, more profound revolution was taking place within the hidden sanctuary of the Room of Requirement. The grand challenge of Project Chimera—the spaceship—had stalled on the twin problems of a durable vessel and a sustainable, independent power source.
Having solved the material problem with their theory of a magic-infused Muggle alloy, the trio now focused their combined intellect on the heart of the vessel: the magical engine.
"The issue is bleed," Hermione explained one evening, pointing to a shimmering, holographic projection of their latest failed design. The projection showed a crystal power core leaking faint, uncontrolled wisps of raw magic. "We can generate immense power, but we can't contain it perfectly. In the vacuum of space, that magical radiation would be like a beacon, not to mention a potential danger to the ship's own systems. We're building a leaky magical reactor."
Daphne, who had been studying ancient goblin texts on enchanted containment, nodded in agreement. "Every material we use to build the containment dome has a certain level of magical porosity. It's like trying to carry water in a sieve. Some of it will always get through."
For weeks, they were stumped. They tried reinforcing their containment fields with layers of protective spells, but it was like trying to patch a dam with sticking plasters. The sheer, constant output of the magical generator they had designed was too much for any standard enchantment to hold indefinitely.
It was Ariana, during a late-night session of quiet contemplation, who approached the problem from a completely different axis.
"We are trying to build a better wall," she murmured, her eyes unfocused as she stared at the glowing projection. "That is the wrong approach. We should not be trying to stop the radiation from leaking out. We should be persuading it that it has nowhere to go."
Hermione and Daphne looked at her, confused.
"Think of it from the perspective of the magic itself," Ariana continued, her mind beginning to assemble the pieces of a new, elegant theory. "It is pure energy. It seeks to expand, to move from a high-energy state to a lower one. A physical or magical barrier is simply an obstacle to be battered against. But what if we created an environment where the state outside the barrier was perceived by the magic as being even more hostile and high-energy than the state inside it?"
"You want to… trick the magic into staying put?" Daphne asked, intrigued.
"Not trick it," Ariana corrected. "Convince it. With logic." She began to sketch a new diagram in the air with her wand, lines of silver light forming a complex, multi-layered sphere. "We don't just build one containment dome. We build two. An inner dome and an outer dome."
She pointed to the inner sphere. "This is our reactor core, containing the power-generating crystal. It is shielded with standard containment wards." She then pointed to the space between the inner and outer spheres. "This inter-space is the key. We don't leave it empty. We infuse it with a constant, low-level, but incredibly chaotic, 'static' magical field. A field of pure, unstructured magical noise."
Hermione's eyes widened as she grasped the concept. "The magical energy from the core will see the chaotic static field as an unstable, undesirable state to move into!"
"Precisely," Ariana affirmed. "It will be easier, more efficient, for the energy to remain contained within the stable environment of the inner core than to try and push through the chaos. And the outer dome is a final layer of physical and magical shielding, containing the static field itself. We are not just building a wall. We are building a wall with a moat of pure chaos in front of it. It was a type of insulation of magic."
It was a brilliant, counter-intuitive solution. They were not fighting the magic's desire to escape; they were using its own nature to persuade it to stay.
The implementation took another month of painstaking work. They designed a new set of runes— runes of magical dissonance and entropic fields—and etched them into the inter-space of a small, prototype containment sphere. When they activated the core crystal this time, the results were perfect. The power auras held steady. The tell-tale wisps of magical radiation were gone. The containment was absolute. They had built a contained star.
"The power problem is solved," Daphne breathed, a look of awe on her face.
"Which means we can now address the next primary system: life support," Ariana said, her mind already moving on. "Oxygen."
"We've been working on the runic transmutation theory," Hermione said, pulling out another set of notes. "Converting trace elements into a breathable atmosphere. But the power requirements are immense, and the risk of mis-transmuting something into a toxic gas is significant."
"Again, we are trying to create something from scratch when a simpler solution exists," Ariana said. She walked over to another large piece of parchment and tapped a section of the spaceship's blueprint labeled 'Aft Storage & Environmental Systems'. "We do not need to create air. We just need to move it."
She sketched a small, sealed, empty chamber within the ship. "This section will be designated the
Atmospheric Exchange Chamber. The interior walls will be covered in a dual-array of runes."
"A dual-array?" Hermione asked.
"Yes. The first array is a simple, powerful spatial tethering rune, keyed to a specific location." She looked at them. "For example, the air one thousand feet above a calm, uninhabited meadow in the Scottish Highlands. The second array is a simple Switching Spell, constantly active."
Daphne's eyes lit up. "A Switching Spell… like the ones we learned in first year?"
"Exactly, but on a grand, conceptual scale," Ariana explained. "The spell's function will be to continuously swap the contents of this sealed chamber with the air at the tethered location. Every few seconds, the stale, carbon-dioxide-rich air inside the chamber will be instantly swapped with a full chamber of fresh, clean, oxygenated air from Earth. The pressure and composition will be regulated by a third set of atmospheric runes. The result: a continuous, inexhaustible supply of perfectly breathable air, for as long as the power core is active."
It was another moment of stunning, elegant simplicity. She had taken a basic, first-year charm and repurposed it to solve one of the most complex problems of space travel. Why create air when you could simply import it?
Hermione and Daphne stared at the design, then at each other, then back at Ariana. The hurdles that had seemed insurmountable just weeks ago were being dismantled, one by one.
The project was moving forward. The engine was designed. The life support was conceived. The empty shell on the blueprint was slowly, logically, and brilliantly, being given a soul. The moon no longer felt like an impossible dream. It was starting to feel like an inevitable destination.