Two weeks in Paris, and here we are, fully satiated with impressions, returning to England. Midday. Light cloudiness, weak wind, possible precipitation in the evening—such was the forecast for this day. First thing, as soon as we left the airport, we headed home. Being a guest is good, as they say, but home is better. But Hermione was clearly "harboring" some thought. About what? Unclear. What will it lead to? A mystery altogether! But it seems to me that sooner or later this thought will come out, and we will be able to discuss everything with her. With Hermione, not with the thought.
But I didn't plan to sit at home for long, because I have an unsolved problem left, and something needs to be done about it. Or rather, not like that. I had a rough idea of what my headache was connected with, but no one has let me near mediwizardry, local healing, yet, and I can't apply my own methods because of, well, my own problem. In the end, as soon as we returned home, washed, changed, had a snack and all that, I went to Diagon Alley. Yes, independently, without supervision—parents were convinced of my responsibility and independence, and Hermione didn't tell them anything.
Sitting in an ordinary route bus, I reflected. My thoughts were quite simple, philistine—why didn't Aurors come to us, since we were at the "crime" scene? Either they don't really know how to track someone down, and didn't even think that a potential criminal could think of hiding from the crime scene on the Knight Bus, or they aren't really looking for anyone. Could it be that this whole farm in the tent had government approval or cover, remaining illegal? Well, you never know? Secret services there, or some other enthusiast researchers, of course, on a direct but unofficial government assignment? Quite possibly—the elf shard has seen worse dirt.
Second question—my magical abilities. They, of course, haven't gone anywhere, but it seems that human physiology doesn't really cope with such loads, because with direct use of internal energy for magic on naked will and imagination, this very load on the nervous system is directly proportional to the volume of energy used, the area of impact, and inversely proportional to the accuracy of imagining the required effect.
I cannot say with certainty in what specific time frame my brains will rebuild for my own capabilities. Generally, it was quite stupid to think last academic year that I could eliminate all Dementors in one fell swoop—I would have died, as is now visible. Well, and if I hadn't died, I would have returned to the state of a vegetable due to abundant brain damage. In general, in case I have to use such non-specific images in willful magic without spells and formulas, I need to create healing artifacts so as not to suffer like this later.
Third question on the agenda—with which energy to conduct the affinity ritual? This question is very important, and only because of this I still haven't come to a decision. Of course. Among other things, what hindered was that a sample of energy is needed for the ritual, and far from everything can be obtained in a world where it seems they haven't even heard of such things. Yes, one can create the desired effect through neutral magic, and then draw the necessary energy from the working effect, but again, memory shards are not particularly full-fledged, many effects are presented there extremely abstractly... I can come up with something myself...
The bus drove up to the stop I needed, I got off, and headed to the Leaky Cauldron—a couple of blocks here. It was quite noisy on the street, lots of cars and people, but this is normal, since Charing Cross Road is one of the central streets. Not quite "central," no, but not the outskirts of London either.
All this hype and movement around by no means contributed to the smooth flow of thoughts, so I just moved to the pub, which took me no more than ten minutes.
The Leaky Cauldron was, as always, not particularly pleasant. The specific atmosphere of a medieval tavern contrasted with a more or less modern bar counter and cabinets with drinks behind it. Aromas of stewed, smoked, and fried dishes hovered here, and a dozen and a half visitors, which was not much for a pub, with pleasure, or maybe without it, drank, ate, talked, or all of this at once.
"Good day," I smiled at the bartender behind the counter.
"Good day, young man," this gray-haired bartender smiled, wiping the counter. "Shopping?"
"How else? Can't cast magic, but reading, or dropping into a cafe for a portion of ice cream—just the thing."
"Ha, true speak," the bartender smiled even wider. "Pass through."
Generally, as I understood, reporting to him is not at all necessary, but such a thing puts me in a pleasant light. Why do I need the bartender's good opinion? And why not? It's not difficult for me.
Entering the dead end in the backyard of the pub, took out my wand and knocked on the necessary bricks in the wall. The passage opened, and I didn't hesitate, passing into Diagon Alley. Looking up, I shook my head—it was sunny here. Maybe ask the Headmaster about all these phenomena? Maybe we really cross into another dimension in such places? This is more than real, whatever opinion one has about wizards and their abilities along with knowledge.
Deftly maneuvering between motley wizards hurrying on business or looking for necessary goods, I quickly walked towards the hospital. Acquaintances, seemingly none, nothing to be distracted by, but I remembered in time that Khrustik is staying with Ernie Macmillan, and I can only contact him in this way—pureblood, not familiar with the telephone. Which means I need to look into the post office, which is just on the course... Yes, any shop here is one way or another "just on the course"—you can only turn into Knockturn Alley here... Strange place, and the sign at the necessary turn was clearly spoiled by some vandals many years ago, tightly drawing extra letters to the name, completely changing its meaning...
Looking into the post office department, I marveled at different owls sitting on perches here and there, and looking at me so funny, benevolently. Behind the counter sat a lady of Balzac age on a high stool. I don't know how she is with independence, breadth of views, and openness of expression of feelings, but she tried to look very neat and worthy, which seemed a little inappropriate for such an establishment.
Quickly writing a note, paid almost a Sickle for express delivery and left the post office, heading to the hospital.
In the hospital hall, as last time, sat patients with various injuries or curses. Some looked funny, and some could cause vomiting urges in unprepared people. I didn't examine anyone, heading to the reception, behind which stood an elderly lady in a lime robe, and without much enthusiasm made entries in one of the folders.
"Excuse me, ma'am."
"Yes, young man?" she asked neutrally, looking up from the documents in the folder.
"I need a consultation with Healer Smethwyck."
"A second."
The lady took another folder from the vertical rack, opened it, and quickly ran her finger along the rows of tables.
"Only in an hour is there a free slot. Sign you up?"
"Yes, be so kind."
"Name, surname?"
"Hector Granger, ma'am."
The lady quickly wrote me in.
"Already examined, or for the first time?"
"Already examined."
"Good," she made a couple of notes. "You may go through. Room two hundred and seven. You will be called in an hour."
At this, the lady clearly made it understand that our communication had come to an end, and I went up the wide stairs to the second floor, where I walked along the corridor to the desired office and sat on a bench—now I can think, and I will think about energies.
You can't do affinity rituals endlessly. No, it is more correct to say that you can do them, but with each new ritual the duration of the period of full establishment of connection increases. Life energy took one year. It is quite possible that another energy will require a year and a half or two years. Then from two to four years, and so on. One should choose what will be truly useful, or at least a little universal. Otherwise, one can take fire energy, I don't argue, and it would be powerful and spectacular—with its help my fire spells will become significantly better in all parameters. But why? Whom to burn out, or in front of whom to show off?
Thought and thought, and stumbled upon an obvious problem—I don't know what spells exist here, in this world, at all. I have already milked the elven memory for full-fledged and concrete knowledge, and everything else is on the verge of vague sensations, images, results, which means there is not much sense from this—with the same result I can simply imagine the desired effect and recreate it through willful magic. With dwarves it's about the same—I know what the final result of the activity of a cool artificer should be, but how to come to this result? That's another matter.
There are a bunch of "cool" energies, undoubtedly, and if I didn't know exactly the minuses of those known to me, I would have already grabbed death—would have killed some animal, even if it wouldn't have been easy for me, and that's it. Only the remnants of my sanity are dear to me, and this energy even in small concentration is capable of causing pain and suffering in various forms to those whom it touches, and energy leaks from the body during banal life activity take place.
Useful would be spirit energy. Not the one cultivated in comics, but specifically as magic, energy for communication and interaction with the spirit world. This would be useful for a healer. But here again the question of preserving sanity arises. Communication with spirits is not a conversation with a person. This is complex interaction. And spirits no longer possess logic and principles of thinking of those creatures they were in life. Such communication blows the roof off easily—can't hold it. At least I don't know how.
So it turns out that something simultaneously interesting, diverse, but at the same time powerful enough is needed. Here lies a Thunderbird feather in my bag. In my wand I have unicorn hair, but it is already processed—nothing to take there. But the feather... Judging by the description of the Thunderbird's capabilities, its energy is akin simultaneously to air, water, and ice, as well as electricity, and its ideological concept is a storm. This should be a very diverse energy, and its addition to different spells of the local school can give very different effects. This is both interesting, and universal, and... Absolutely useless for me as a healer. But unlike everything else, it shouldn't hit the brains, it is quite diverse, and among the options available to me, this is already very, very much.
Take a group of spells with a cutting effect. Specifically cutting, and not separating an object, like, for example, some household ones for sewing. Diffindo—a typical cutting one, the meaning of which is precisely in the cut. What will happen if you add storm energy? No, of course it won't become multiple... Shouldn't, at least. But how much will the effect intensify, will some air blade appear, or a change in quality depending on the humidity of the environment or the water saturation of the object to which the spell is applied?
The presence of such energy will definitely stimulate the desire to explore new spells of the local school, study various subtleties and so on. And at the same time, the energy will be useful to a certain extent... Yes, I think I'll do just that.
The door of room two hundred and seven opened, and an elderly lady came out, leading a perky little girl by the hand, quite a tiny one in a colorful robe. Tiny, but already very independent and talkative.
"Bye-bye, uncle doctor!" she waved her hand, looking into the office, but the madam inexorably, albeit deliberately slowly, led her away.
The office door slammed shut, the girl looked at the madam.
"And not a painful shot at all, Grandma Marie," she spoke joyfully.
"How many times have I asked you not to call me 'Grandma Marie' in public," hiding a smile asked the madam, passing by me and moving away with the girl further down the corridor.
"Why? Grandma Marie is Grandma Marie. Why ca-a-n't call Grandma Marie Grandma Marie?"
I couldn't suppress a smile, looking after them.
The sign with the office number lit up green, I got up from the bench, knocked and entered.
"Good day, Healer Smethwyck."
"Hmm?" a stout elderly man in a lime robe looked up at me. "Ah, Mr. Granger. Come in-come in. Did something happen?"
Entering, I took the backpack off my shoulder and sat on a chair at the healer's desk.
"Headache."
"Happens, of course," Smethwyck chuckled, but got up from his seat, and going around the table, approached me. "I want to remind you that consultation and examination are paid. Just in case you suddenly didn't guess."
"How much and where to pay?"
"Two Galleons. You can here, you can at the reception. And for now I would like to conduct diagnostics."
"Of course," I nodded, took two Galleons out of the backpack and put them on the table.
Smethwyck made an imperceptible pass with his wand, and I felt a magical impact on the head, flowing eventually to the whole body. Similar to what happened last time. But it changed, although, as before, it carried no harm.
"Well then," Smethwyck cancelled the spell and returned to his desk, summoning a folder from the cabinet with his hand. "Lightest, but extensive brain damage."
"Dangerous?"
"Not particularly. Can be compared to a concussion. The latter, of course, can have consequences, but we are talking about an ideal case with full self-recovery," the healer opened the folder, flipped through several pages and began making notes. "Let me guess..."
Smethwyck didn't tear himself away from filling out the sheets in the folder, while talking to me:
"You tried to cast magic on the principle of accidental magic? Most likely, even successfully."
"You are right, Healer."
"Uh-huh..." he nodded. "You know, one rarely encounters such a thing."
"Why so?"
"Oh, it's simple here," Smethwyck put a period in one entry, and took a small piece of paper from a stack on the table. "Usually, with childish wizardry, the impact is quite modest, in small volumes, purposeful. If a child suddenly gets too excited, trying to make an impact truly powerful, by childish standards, of course..."
Smethwyck began to quickly write something on the small piece of paper.
"...then this child will either lose consciousness or perform the required, but then will suffer from migraines."
The healer put a period, took his wand, touched the piece of paper and something like a seal appeared on it. One, and there are already two pieces of paper. Holding them in his hands, Smethwyck looked at me, smiling slightly.
"Humans simply lack the mental capacity for strong impacts. Let's take an example, albeit not entirely correct. Let's imagine that a normal healthy brain of a wizard can control and manipulate a certain volume of magic without harm to itself. Let the number be thirty."
"Suppose," I became interested in this thought.
"By itself, the brain, relatively speaking, maintains simultaneous activity of its various sections within five-six percent, and with stress and mental tension... let it be ten."
"Okay, let it be."
"Eh, love understanding patients," Smethwyck cheered up fervently. "Suppose that at these ten percent, the wizard's consciousness can control and manipulate a volume of magic of twenty. This is the peak of consciousness capabilities."
"Caught the essence. Peak of consciousness capabilities, but not the peak of brain capabilities."
"Pre-cise-ly," Smethwyck nodded. "Consciousness is simply incapable of showing proper concentration and accuracy of thinking for powerful manipulations, and as a result, the brain does not suffer at all. Unless the wizard himself gets tired mentally. Your story is different..."
"Oh, it seems I understood."
"Don't doubt it, but allow me to voice it," Smethwyck smiled, turning the pieces of paper in his hands upside down. "Your brain works quite well with consciousness and this very consciousness can harmlessly load it very, very strongly. Simultaneous activity for you can reach fifty percent, and that's not even at peak. These small but effective differences in the organization of the brain structure, caused by your past condition, allowed, as I understood from diagnostics, even to slightly increase the brain's limit in magic. Remember those conditional thirty units? For you it is, let's say, forty—not the most researched area, hard to make correct examples."
"Nothing terrible, the main thing is to catch the essence."
"Also true. So here. Yes, the brain can work with larger volumes of magic without harm. But consciousness activity allows using even larger volumes. And this is where you found a scythe on a stone—consciousness subordinated magic, and the brain deflated. Don't know what exactly you tried to do, but it was clearly something large-scale."
"To some extent..."
"You can not say, it's not important. What is important is that you risked damaging the brain. Multiple micro-strokes, ruptures of neural connections, death of neurons—easy. Your case is rare, but takes place. There are several potions accelerating brain work. Casting magic while taking them is forbidden. But... Some wizards, whose work involves combat magic or some monster hunting, take the potion and cast. Noticeably more powerfully cast. Risking simply 'burning out' during casting."
"And what should I do?"
"Stop playing with magic and persistently engage specifically in wand disciplines, moving on to more and more powerful and costly spells. The human brain adapts," Smethwyck shrugged. "Considering some of your minor peculiarities, your brain will adjust to magic flows quite quickly. Five-seven years, maybe a little more—hard to make forecasts. In the seventh year, turn to Professor Flitwick, if he doesn't intend to leave the post. He will be very happy with a lover of wandless magic. Ah, yes. Even when switching to casting without a wand, try to cast not on the principle of accidental magic, but recreating wand spells. This will still require a lot of mental resources, but will reduce the load on the brain, roughly equalizing them."
"I understood, Healer."
"That's excellent. And I also see that you are not taking Nerve Regenerator. Right?"
"Yes," I confessed.
"Listen to me, Mr. Granger," Smethwyck became serious, although the twinkle in the corners of his eyes didn't go anywhere. "I tell you as a future colleague—stop screwing around and listen to the recommendations of a more experienced, possibly only for now, healer. Drink what they say."
"Understood, guilty."
"Eh... Youth. Here you wish them well, and you all think you're smarter. Here," Smethwyck handed out the pieces of paper he held in his hands all this time. "Recipe for Nerve Regenerator and a couple more potions to restore brain damage. Keep one for yourself—instructions are there. And refrain, I beg you, from experiments with childish wizardry. And if you so want to encroach on Merlin's laurels, train without a wand specifically recreating spells, and not spontaneous 'wants'. Hope we agreed?"
"Of course, Healer. But allow a question. In the African school, sort of, they teach magic without a wand or any other analogues of it."
"No need to compare," Smethwyck waved it off. "They also have their own system. Their magic is based on slow, prolonged willful manipulations, while they also have a system of imaginary gestures and combinations. They tie certain types of magical effects to imaginary 'anchors'... And generally, you can buy a book describing their system of magic—they are sold at Flourish and Blotts."
"I will take note..."
Smethwyck cast Tempus, nodded to himself, and continued:
"Time, Mr. Granger. I have the next session scheduled. And with you we have already moved on to topics far from your health."
"Yes, indeed," I got up from the chair and threw the backpack strap over my shoulder. "I dare not distract you. Thank you for the advice and help."
"Contact me, it's my job," Smethwyck nodded benevolently. "And be sure to get the potions by prescription. You can even in our pharmacy on the first floor."
"I'll do just that. Good day."
"Good day, Mr. Granger."
On that we parted. Going down, checked with the madam at the reception where the pharmacy is here. Looking at me significantly, the madam in the lime robe pointed to a rather large sign above one of the corridors, where besides offices, in large letters it was written: "Pharmacy".
"Apologies," I smiled modestly. "Was inattentive."
My words didn't touch the madam at all, and she returned to work, and I went along the corridor to the pharmacy. Despite the fact that the world is magical, the pharmacy enjoys peculiar popularity everywhere. The establishment itself was sort of in a separate room, and there at the counter stood some old man in a robe, selflessly reading a lecture to a young apothecary about how much greener the grass used to be. The apothecary, judging by the look, was damn glad of my appearance, because with me a reason appeared to finally get rid of the talkative old man plunged into the depths of nostalgia.
"Good afternoon, sir," I handed the prescription to the apothecary.
"Good afternoon!" he nodded joyfully, accepting the prescription and reading carefully. "Oh-oy-oy!"
The apothecary shook his head.
"How long to gather this. No less than an hour... You will have to wait."
"Nothing terrible."
The apothecary quickly disappeared between cabinets with all sorts of potions going deep into the room, and I, feeling a setup with my fifth point, looked at the old man displeased with the disappearance of the interlocutor. The old man shifted his gaze to me.
"Hmm," he drawled. "And did I tell you, young man, that you look like Rosier?"
"Uh... No."
"Oh, cunning beetle he was," the old man smiled with just his lips. "Remember, it was during the landing in Sicily. We provided support to Muggle troops at that time so that they wouldn't croak from Grindelwald's henchmen. Bullets whistled right at the temple, got it, yeah?"
The old man showed with his finger how these very bullets whistled at the temple.
"Zip, zip, that's how it was. Well, and Rosier, it means, went against his cousin then, and there..."
The door to the pharmacy opened and a young girl in a healer's robe, that very lime color, hurried to us. Seeing the girl, the apothecary appeared from behind the cabinets, holding three bottles of different volumes in his hands, and each had its own label.
"Thanks for looking after him," the girl smiled joyfully at the apothecary, and he broke into a reciprocal smile.
"Oh nothing," he waved it off, handing me the bottles. "It wasn't difficult. The main thing is to ask about Rosier."
The girl led the old man away from the pharmacy, saying that it was time for him to return to the ward after the walk.
"Dearie," I heard the old man's voice. "And did I tell you that you look like Rosier?"
"No," the girl smiled kindly. "And who is that?"
"Oh-h-h," the old man drawled readily. "Cunning beetle he was..."
They left the pharmacy, and the apothecary sighed sadly.
"Pity the old man. Catching such an unpleasant curse in old age... Um, that will be three Galleons, two Sickles and six Knuts."
"Good..."
Leaving the pharmacy, and then the hospital, I plunged into thoughts about the health of older generations. Seeing such things is painful and scary. In such moments, a desire appears to help the whole world, but quickly disappears as soon as you return to reality—you can't help everyone, and some shouldn't be helped, and even the opposite. But these are questions of morality again. Now I can go home.
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