Our line advanced, and we became one step closer to the customer service counter. A very high counter; even in this trifle, the unfounded arrogance of the bloodthirsty shorties is traced.
"Besides that," McGonagall continued speaking. "Goblins make magnificent magical cold weapons, as well as other products from different types of metals and steel. The powers that be in those times decided that losing such masters was of no benefit to anyone."
"And was the last goblin product created long ago?"
"Strangely enough, but since the time of the last rebellion almost nothing new has appeared. But, it is worth noting, Mr. Granger, that their works cost very much, and the intended purpose is combat. In our time, this direction of magic is fading due to uselessness."
Uh-huh, sure. I totally believed that. It's just that these shorties, if I remember correctly, apply their truly serious magic through mass sacrifices of sentients with a magical gift. No opportunity to rebel implies no opportunity to capture wizards and other gifted ones in sufficiently large quantities. Well, that is if one believes the shards of the elf's memory, and there is no reason not to believe them; the resemblance of those goblins and these is striking. That is if one does not count the clothes.
"Clear. The threat of another, but now bloodier rebellion was calculated as insignificant, considering the possible but just as ephemeral benefit in the form of artifacts."
"There are a number of other reasons, Mr. Granger, but they are not so significant. And consider," McGonagall looked strictly at me while we advanced in the line. "That I am by no means an expert in history and politics. I cannot even assume what guided the wizards of those times in reality, but it was definitely not pity. Those were not the times."
We finally reached the counter and quickly agreed on the currency exchange. The rate was one Galleon to five pounds. The financial system here was as the English love; a bunch of coins with denominations not multiples of each other. Gold, silver, and bronze. Galleon, Sickle, and Knut. Naturally, the scant memories of the dwarf helped to see with ease a magical alloy, not gold, and fakes in the precious stones being sorted by goblins nearby. Everything here is entourage and props, a theater of one people.
The next item on the shopping list was a student trunk. A good functional thing in local realities. Can be a table, a wardrobe, a chest, a suitcase. Divided compartments with space expansion, ease of use, cheapness. The professor immediately shrank the trunk with some spell and took it with her. I must not forget to enchant the backpack for space expansion.
Next, we bought sets of textbooks for the first three years and put everything in the same trunk, momentarily enlarging it back. Ingredients for potion-making were acquired and sent to Hogwarts. Also for three years; I have practice ahead in them.
Various consumer trivia in the form of parchments, quills, ink, various instruments, and a telescope we bought in a shop of various sundries, and the school uniform with several robes in a shop with the corresponding name: "Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions."
The selection of a magic wand is complete nonsense. Or rather, the nonsense is the procedure, while the concept is mostly correct; a wizard cannot choose just any ready-made magical instrument if it is not made specifically for him in advance. Especially this is true for a magical instrument from organic components. Wood identical in appearance can differ so much structurally that it will impart almost opposite properties to energy when passing through it.
In general, in the slightly dusty shop of a certain Master Ollivander, I stood for a long time in the middle of a dimly lit hall and pointlessly waved wands handed by a strange gray-haired old man in a brown old-fashioned three-piece suit. The old man was simply bored, although I saw perfectly well in his gaze, looking deeper at times, perhaps... Saw that he could select a wand even without sorting through them; he sensed and understood the tiniest shades of energetics. And so I was not surprised when I got a thirteen-inch acacia wand with a unicorn hair core. As soon as I took it in my hands, a bright sheaf of multicolored sparks broke from the tip of the wand, and Ollivander literally lit up with joy.
"A wonderful wand, Mr. Granger! Strong and versatile, although it does not accept dark magic, yes. How pitiful that you lost two years of the wonderful time of first childish discoveries in the world of magic."
Thanking Master Ollivander, the professor and I left his shop and headed back to the Leaky Cauldron, or rather, to the passage to the ordinary world. At its very border, I turned around, peering intently into Diagon Alley, the wooden houses, signs, and strangely dressed people.
"Mr. Granger?" Professor McGonagall stood next to me and waited for me to step across the border first. "Has something happened?"
I looked and compared what I saw with what was deposited in memory. Magical cities, tall white towers of the human academy of wizardry with its shining spires, perfect cleanliness, magnificent roads, impressive but unpleasant-to-an-elf architecture, a healthy and joyful population. Even cities and villages far from the capital or trade centers seemed no worse than modern metropolises in terms of quality, perhaps. But here? Infantile devastation...
"Fugitives."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Wizards are fugitives. I see before me a hastily thrown-together gypsy camp that ostensibly displays its uniqueness, as if proud of its disastrous situation."
"I do not recommend you voicing this thought among wizards," the professor looked strictly at me when I turned to her. "Even if it is true to some extent."
She sighed, and checking with a quick glance that no one was nearby, continued.
"We, wizards, desperately cling to the false thought as if we were not driven into a corner, but we ourselves withdrew from the world. The truth is that we withdrew ourselves, but was it by our own will?"
Back we moved the same way; pub, bus, home. Parents were still at work, but this has been normal recently. As I understood, almost immediately as soon as I was transferred for treatment to the Hospital Wing of Hogwarts two years ago, my parents frantically began working in their dental clinic, and now it is expanding quite quickly and even has branches. Well, I have something to think about and work on.
As I planned recently, I need to conduct a so-called initiation with the dimension of life. For this, I leaned out the window and plucked a couple of leaves from a tree branch growing by the house. Next year it will already be tapping on the window in strong wind.
Easily "folding" my bony little body into the lotus position, placing a leaf on each knee and taking a leaf in each hand, I concentrated on my internal energy. Easily finding that "string" that needs to be pulled for energy transfer, I poured crumbs of it into the leaves. This is necessary, as the leaves themselves carry practically no energy; one needs to force these crumbs to resonate, decompose the leaves into energy, and absorb it.
Having coped with this stage, I realized that the body is hardly ready to accumulate energy within itself. Ninety-five percent, so to speak, my body is a conductor and capable of projecting energy from the soul, but not storing it. It was simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar to concentrate attention on such an abstract concept as energy and hold it, trying to fit it and keep it where there is no space.
The next stage is visualization of the "Accumulation-Transfer" seal inside the body. A simple spherical seal of three identical runic circles, attempts to recall which caused me quite real stabbing pain in the temples. The seal needs to be activated with accumulated energy. I directed life energy with an admixture of neutral into the seal. My body glowed slightly green.
Now the hardest part; imagination and visualization. Between the soul and body, there is no energy transmission channel as such, but at the same time, there is. Every cell of the body, organelle, molecule; everything has a connection with the soul. But in the ordinary state, this energetic connection is almost completely one-sided; from soul to body. One needs to either build reverse seals around every separate channel and simultaneously activate them for a brief moment, or build one big one around the body. The first is practically painless but unfeasible without the most complex artifacts or, as they say, "level eighty" intellect. Strange phrase, wonder where it's from? I have neither one nor the other, which means we will go the hard, painful way.
Mentally I began to build a sphere of many runic circles in different planes to each other around myself. This took about twenty minutes. I worried that the brain, unprepared for such loads on imagination and rigid fixation of images, would simply give up. There was a risk of passing out. But, to my surprise, I felt no discomfort; the brain digested the load with a bang. Did the experience of gathering the soul from particles play a part? Possibly. Exactly! The brain helped the mind and soul at the maximum of its capabilities for thirteen years! Clear...
Having finished building the sphere, I connected the "Accumulation-Transfer" seal to it, in which the resonance of energies caused an exponential growth of life energy power. Three seconds to activation. Energy leak: absent. Chance of detection of sorcery by locals: minimal. Going into meditation to disconnect the mind from the body is permissible.
Pain. Sharp and strong, unbearable. Bodily and spiritual. It does not allow consciousness to "swim"; it is impossible to pass out from shock, only endure. Disconnecting the mind from the body eliminated the response reaction to pain; the body did not scream and did not twitch, but it was no easier for me because of that.
Interminable two seconds of hellish pain, and everything returned to normal. The seals went out, and the mind returned to the body aching in every subatomic particle. Phantom sensations are terrible but pass quickly. Already after a dozen minutes, I was again sitting on the floor in the lotus position and trying to feel my energy. Judging by sensations, everything went as it should; life energy walked in the soul. The sensations are correct and cannot be confused; it is like understanding that it exists, and that's it.
The next stage is the formation of a magical construct having no name. It forms in the body and is activated by any energy; specifically designed for universality. After activation, the construct merges with the soul and begins to search for the energy needed by the wizard in it. Having found the necessary energy, the spherical construct pulls it all around itself and, by the method of sorting through characteristics, tries to cause resonance in the resulting surface. This causes a spasmodic growth of indicators specific strictly to this energy, and a mechanism of self-defense from destruction characteristic of absolutely all souls activates in the soul; the release of excess energy. Only the vector of energy movement is already set, and the soul will not be able to throw it out through the body.
However, the soul is indestructible. This is a law of the universe proved by elves. The decay effect that I experienced after death requires special conditions which no one in my memory managed to recreate, and even if one manages to destroy the soul, its core, the essence of the soul, will always remain whole. Such swaying of energy will cause no harm; the stronger the resonance, the stronger the soul will become, and the limit is outlined only by the ability of the mind to "digest" sensations and changes. True, after the resonance subsides, everything will return to the initial state with a small correction for a slightly increased density of the soul, but this is a pleasant bonus, the practical use of which eludes my understanding.
The essence of these manipulations is that the entire infinity of the plurality of dimensions is located in one, so to speak, plane. The soul and the spiritual plane of the world are closest to energetic dimensions, therefore one has to work through it. When the energetic load in the soul from the work of the magical contour becomes sufficient, then for a brief moment the soul will be able to "touch" the necessary energetic dimension to release pressure into an identical environment. Like is drawn to like, as if bending, denting the universe to the necessary dimension. But such manipulations with reality do not pass without a trace, and therefore between the soul and the energetic dimension, in my case, life, a weak but practically indestructible connection will be established. My task will be to stabilize and secure the connection.
The problem is that this might happen in five minutes, or maybe in an hour. One can simply go to bed and sleep; one won't sleep through the moment of connection establishment...
Having reached the bed, I simply collapsed on top of the made blanket. I wanted to close my eyes already when I felt a sharp tremor, and a viscous wave of diverse sensations passed through my whole body. The connection is established. Fast, but not phenomenal; it is a matter of chance.
Strengthening and stabilization of the connection occurs in a simple way. One needs to use the energy of the dimension evenly and for quite a long time. Evenly and for a long time. Usually, they simply give an amulet with an accumulator crystal and a magical contour for even pumping of the necessary energy for this. However, I have no such thing. I lack a lot of things, but the point is not at all in poor preparation; I don't know where one can get anything magical and familiar here, and accumulator crystals were always expensive. Especially since one can manage on one's own, for life energy is not some fire; there is always an application. Here, for example, is my body.
Diagnostics says that it is in order, but that does not mean it is ideal. There is always something to clean, improve, optimize, and in the memories of the elf who walked the path of a wizard and healer, there are a couple of techniques and methods for improving the body to the state of an ideal; a mandatory procedure for elf infants. They are born as ordinary children, except perhaps heredity is good. But up to twenty years, so many different manipulations of a preventive nature are carried out that after this age bar of twenty years and with periodic preventive cleaning and care for the body, the elf turns into a non-sick and unaging creature with anomalously high sensory characteristics and a clear mind. And many years, sometimes lasting centuries, of self-improvement of both mind and magic, as well as the body, make elves so ideal visually too. And some think, they say, born an elf means you're a looker. Naive, although elves are not ugly by nature either.
So even now I use one of the magical constructs on my body. Minor Purification. The name conveys the essence; the genome and body are cleaned of garbage a little. But I understand this no longer with the memory of the elf, but of those few people who lived in the times of space expansion. True, their memory is quite useless; a consumer structure of society. These shards gave me mainly only dissatisfaction with the backwardness of the world around, but their understanding of the genome turned out to be useful; it showed what exactly elves changed with magic. Funny how scant knowledge of different eras fuses into something whole. The human genome, unlike the elven one, is simply monstrously cluttered with garbage, traces of virus activity, and similar useless, but also not harmful mutations. However, one cannot remove them so simply either. For example, the DNA of a human and a chimpanzee are more than ninety-eight percent similar. It is precisely these two percent that determine the difference between these types of living beings. But not only the ratio of genes is important, but also the location relative to each other. The slightest ill-considered change can lead to both incredible success and grandiose failure, and the second is most likely. So, what to do? Memory of shards, give a hint?
And memory gave a hint; do not climb into this for now. No necessary knowledge. Following the confidence in my own healer experience acquired from the elf, I almost made a mistake. Maybe everything would have gone normally, but it is better to gain knowledge. Alright, time to activate the construct.
Now, for a week, I will have to go to the toilet more often, drink more water, and eat well. The first week is cleaning the organism, removing various micro-cysts and other obscenities. Then, during another week, a smooth restructuring of the genome from obviously harmful genes capable of causing diseases if not in me, then in the next generations, will take place. Nothing super-radical, and simply radical too; junk is removed and instead, based on available genes, something useful is selected. Some minor improvements will be there, of course. Vision that won't worsen with age, a wider range of hearing, and so on. Increase in endurance and the proportion of muscle strength to volume, but completely insignificant, one can neglect it. Slightly stronger bones, slightly more effective work of the body in general. A sort of Captain America on minimum settings, if only I knew who that is...
After this, the construct will turn off and disappear. In two weeks the channel with the life energy dimension will stabilize, while I will undergo an initial course of treatment. Genetic changes themselves will come into force, God willing, in two or three years. External changes most likely won't happen at all; possibly proportions will change a tiny bit, but everything can be attributed trivially to growing up. The only thing that will need to be done every week is to reactivate the Minor Purification complex. And so until all changes pass, and then, until age twenty, once every three months. Otherwise, there won't be much sense from all my manipulations. And now to sleep...
August is a beautiful time. I always liked this time of year. Always, but not now. I am used to a different climate, and here, in England, everything seemed somewhat wrong to me. Now cloudy and foggy, now scorching heat. But man is such a creature—he gets used to everything. Gradually I got used to it too, considering frequent trips to the city with my parents, where they told me and showed me absolutely everything; from parks to museums and theaters. It was interesting. It seems parents tried to show me as much of the world around as possible before I leave for ten months to a castle amidst the hills and forests of Scotland; if one believes my sister's letters, Hogwarts is somewhere there.