Chapter 35: Entrance Of The Vault, Icy Corridor, and The Disaster (1/2)
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The break ended, and the Hogwarts student population returned to the castle via the Hogwarts Express. A snowy Hogwarts castle greeted them, with its entirety covered in ice and snow because of the January snowfall. Even in the cold, the castle looked majestic and full of life.
Quinn passed by the common room when he noticed Michael Corner and Anthony Goldstein sitting in front of a foxglove herb sitting in a jar. Anthony had the glass jar in his hand, his other hand on the lid, unscrewing it.
Quinn frowned and immediately whipped out his fake-wand and shot a light Pinching hex on Anthony's hand that was unscrewing the lid.
”Ouch,” squealed Anthony as he rubbed the back of his hand on his robes. Both of them turned to the offender and watched Quinn walk towards them.
”What was that for?” asked Anthony as he frowned at Quinn.
Quinn pointed at the foxglove jar, ”That herb is poisonous. You would definitely have gone to the Hospital Wing if you had picked it with bare hands. It can lead to death, and if Professor Snape found out, he would make your life miserable in the potions lesson,” He waved his fake wand, and the glass jar floated from Anthony's hands back to the table.
”Just a piece of advice, when handling potion ingredients or tending to herbs in herbology, always,” Quinn repeated, ”... always, wear gloves. It is much safer and is an excellent work habit.”
Quinn sat down near them, took out a pair of leather gloves from his robes, and put them on. Micheal's brow twitched; he looked towards Quinn's face and asked, ”You keep gloves in your robes?”
Quinn nodded, picking up the glass jar, looking at the foxglove, ”I have all sorts of things in my robes; gloves is just one of those things.” He looked at Anthony and questioned, ”What are you brewing with a foxglove?”
Micheal took out the first-year potions book from his bookbag and showed it to Quinn.
”We are preparing for the Pompion Potion that Professor Snape is going to teach in our next potions class.”
Quinn glanced at the chapter for the Pompion Potion and smiled as he recalled its effects. ”Ah, the potion that turns the drinker's head into a pumpkin. This was a good one,” chuckled Quinn. Last year, he had used the potion on himself to scare many unsuspecting Ravenclaw's as they entered the common room on Halloween. It scared the crap out of them to see a pumpkin head charge towards them.
Anthony nodded but frowned in criticism, ”Why didn't they teach us this before Halloween? It would have been perfect for Halloween.”
”They teach it after Halloween because the staff doesn't want hordes of students with pumpkin heads on Halloween, though it would be quite fun to orchestrate such a scene,” said Quinn, flipping through the pages of the book. He had learned to brew this potion when he was eight with Elliot at the West Manor.
”Why do they even this type of potion,” asked Micheal, not seeing the practical use of the spell.
”Turning a person's head into a pumpkin sure isn't practical, but the reason it is taught because it is one of the simpler transfiguration potions. Pompion Potion is the best way to introduce this line of potions to students,” explained Quinn as he returned the book to Micheal.
If Pompion Potion was on the simple end of the transfiguration potion difficulty scale, then Polyjuice Potion was on the hard end of the Transfiguration potions.
”Hmm... okay, keep this in mind,” Quinn waved his wand, and a transfigured replica of foxglove appeared on the table. He took out a knife from his robes and removed the cover from the blade.
”You would want to slice the foxglove at a diagonal angle, like this.” Quinn showed the type of cut on the transfigured foxglove. ”This way, you would get maximum surface area on the slices. It is an important part of the recipe for Pompion Potion.”
They did not specify the instruction to slice foxglove in the recipe from the Hogwarts book. Quinn had researched foxglove and its properties, the Pompion Potion, and why was foxglove used in the potion. From all these things, Quinn was able to discover the ideal cut for the foxglove.
”Something as simple as a specific way to cut a single ingredient can change how the potion would end up at the end. Always research the ingredients before you brew,” advised Quinn as he cleaned his knife before sheathing it back into the covers and storing his things back into his robes.
”Remember it or note it down before I vanish it,” said Quinn to the two first years. The two scrambled, fishing out their parchments to write everything Quinn had told them.
Quinn vanished the transfigured foxglove and said while getting up, ”Always remember to wear gloves while handling herbs and potion ingredients. Now, see you guys later.”
Anthony and Micheal looked at each other before taking out their gloves from their bookbags, wearing them so that they could get a hand on the real foxglove.
- (Scene Break) -
After curfew, Quinn searched the corridors of the fifth-floor, looking for the first vault. He had scoured the fourth and fifth floor with the bare eye but had found nothing out of the ordinary, but after returning from the Christmas break, he had switched his means of investigating by using various detection magics.
Wisps of magic emanated from Quinn towards all walls, floors, and the ceiling. Quinn was walking around, checking his surroundings for illusions, hollow walls, trap doors, heat signatures, out-of-place charms planted into the walls, or any parameter that Quinn could think about and find in books on detection magic.
Quinn walked with his eyes on Recon, checking and making sure that he wasn't seen. When he reached the left-most corridor on the fifth floor, various detection spells returned positive feedback from a specific square piece of wall.
”What do we have here?” said Quinn as he stepped back from the wall, shooting another wave of detection spells on the wall and once again getting positive feedback.
”Great, this is great,” said Quinn, walking to the wall and putting his hand on it, funneling magic into the wall, trying distinct patterns and arrangements to get some kind of reaction.
After trying various methods, the wall gave no reaction whatsoever. It didn't budge, shift, morph, or outright disappear.
”This is the wall. It has to be,” said Quinn, summoning Recon and shifting it to his current position. He placed his finger on the wall's position on Recon, marking it so that Quinn could easily find his way to this area of the fifth floor.
”I need to find a way to unlock this wall,” muttered Quinn, staring at the unassuming wall. It had no distinct features than the surrounding walls, but Quinn could feel the variety of charms placed into the bricks making up the wall.
After observing the wall for another half an hour, Quinn moved away from the wall. He was thoroughly determined to do some research work to find what the charmed wall was hiding.
- (Scene Break) -
”Test #1: Projecting magic in the pattern of {mannaz} alphabet. Alphabet meaning: Man,” announced Quinn as a charmed pen that did the same work as a dictation pen, wrote notes for Quinn.
With his hand on the wall, Quinn sent his magic into the wall. Tracing the pre-decided pattern. A pattern appeared on the wall in the shape of the {mannaz} alphabet.
The wall glowed once, but the glow died down, and the wall showed no sign of change.
Quinn cracked his knuckles and announced to his dicta-pen.
”Test #2: Projecting magic in the pattern of {mannaz} alphabet. Alphabet meaning: Man. Applied in a triangle configuration.”
This time three {mannaz} alphabets glowed on the wall, and when they fully formed, three faint lines of magic joined them to each other. The wall glowed up and died down, but Quinn saw no difference in the wall.
”Test #3: Projecting magic in the pattern of {mannaz} alphabet. Alphabet meaning: Man. Applied in a pentagon configuration.”
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”Test #83: Projecting magic in the pattern of {gyfu} alphabet. Alphabet meaning: Gift. Applied in an off-side double star configuration.”
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”Test #346: Projecting magic in the pattern of {feoh}, {eoel}, and {entrok} alphabets. Alphabet meanings: Castle, estate, entrance. Applied in a linear configuration.”
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”Test #421: Projecting magic in the pattern of {isa}, and {logr} alphabets. Alphabet meanings: Ice and sea. Applied in an overlapping configuration.”
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”Test #613: Projecting magic in the pattern of {feir}, {agni}, {wirl}, and {oen} alphabets. Alphabet meanings: Fire, fire, wall, and open. Applied in a diamond configuration.”
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