Chapter 256: Flight & Gringotts (1/2)
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The link is also in the synopsis.
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A gentle breeze blew in a moorland with rolling hills with low-growing vegetation with clouds flying low in the sky above, drifting carelessly with the wind that rustled the scrubby bushes and the carpet of purple and red flowers of heathers in bloom. In the depth of those lands, away from the grazing animals and the herding shepherds, stood Quinn alone without a sound other than the occasional song of a bird perched on a stunted tree.
This spot had become a routine visiting spot for him in the two weeks Quinn had been visiting the location for the purposes of being alone, away from all peering eyes.
”Let's give this one more try,” he said, looking down at the floor. A soft breath of wind blew down, and the grass around Quinn's feet bent away from him. Quinn clenched his feet, and the wind beneath his feet grew stronger. The grass strands were now parallel to the ground they laid their roots in. ”Alright, time to puff it up!”
With a burst of magic, the forces of winds, bearing the power of thrust, took Quinn's feet off the grass. He stood still, his back ramrod straight with his feet joined together like a soldier standing at attention.
Quinn kept his chin straight, but his eyes stared down below at the ground, slowly moving away from him. He remembered the first few days when even the initial task of taking his feet off the ground was a toilsome task that he failed for a countless number of times (countless for others, he exactly knew how many times he failed.)
”Okay, this is going good,” he muttered, and that's when everything stopped being good. Quinn had mastered the part of lifting up from the ground, but what he hadn't got the manoeuvrability down, he couldn't turn or, in fact, move in any direction other than up. For the nth time, he tried to move, but immediately, the winds went out of control, and his ascending body was thrown into a frenzy.
He sighed — he had screamed in shock a lot in the past two weeks — but now, he couldn't be bothered with it. A blue light covered his body, cutting his momentum, and guided his body gently onto the ground.
With his body flat against the ground, Quinn stared above at the blue sky, his lips pressed into a white line. Ever since in the Architect's Vault's third room, where he had achieved flight in the state of rage, Quinn knew that he could achieve it again, and this time without anger fueling his magic.
He sat up straight and thought back to the last two weeks of continuous failure of achieving flight through wind magic.
According to Quinn's own personal classification, there were two ways to perform a task through magic. The first one was what he called the direct method, while the other one he termed the indirect method. To take an example, cutting an object through a severing charm was the direct method, while cutting via wind blade was the indirect method.
The same went for flight. Quinn's method of flight was the indirect method through wind magic.
'I wonder if Voldemort's method is the direct method or if he's also an indirect method,' he thought. The direct method to flight would be a spell/magic solely crafted for flight, and while Quinn knew from the lore that Voldemort had achieved flight, he didn't know if it was true flight.
”Whatever, not that he will tell me if I ask him,” Quinn sat up from the ground, ”or, maybe he will if I ask nicely and well.. . join him,” he chuckled, ”yeah right.. .” Quinn shook his head and got up, stretched his arms, and once got to practice.
The winds contorted under his influence, again picking up power to do his bidding. His body rose in the air like it did every time, and like every time, his control was thrown asunder.
”What am I missing?” he sighed, and just for a change, instead of using Arresto Momentum, he conjured a bubble around himself with his body locked in the center, always staring up. The bubble bounced off the ground, springing across the moors freely, without a course of direction in mind. ”Don't tell me it's something so cliché as that, would it?”
Quinn popped the bubble and landed on his feet.
”No harm in trying,” he said. ”Now, how did it go? The wind is free, the wind is boundless, the wind is without restraint. Yeah, let's see if the jargon works.”
Quinn loosened the muscles in his body, changing his stiff posture to the one he was most relaxed. The winds blew, and Quinn furrowed his brows. Keeping his body loose felt conflicting from what he was doing. He stopped the ascent and kept his body hovering only a foot above the ground.
Thomas Edison had once said, 'I have not failed. I've just found ten thousand ways that won't work.' And the man's words did connect with Quinn — he was no stranger to failure; he probably failed more than any individual on a daily basis. But every failure gave Quinn some insight into what he was doing wrong.
He thought back to what was shared in his myriads of failed attempts.
'How do I look at flying?' he thought. 'It wasn't like a bird, no that was a different principle. Planes' flight principle doesn't work either. Jetpack? Well, yes, I have been using thrust to gain altitude, but I have been doing more than a simple jetpack.'
Jetpack's flight method was the closest to his application, but a real-life jetpack was nowhere versatile enough to match its fictional counterparts, and he wanted that versatility.
'Is there a method to achieve that versatility? Hmm.. .'
An idea struck him. It was an inspiration. A strange inspiration — an inspiration from a wrong time, a time he never thought he would draw inspiration from.
The memory of his body leaping from the Astronomy Tower surfaced in his mind. He remembered the sight of Friar's panicked face and what he felt at that moment. There was dormant thought of trusting his magic, but there was another one, standing in the shadow of the first thought.
'Surrender myself to my magic.' At that moment, it was just Quinn and his magic, and in some ways, he had surrendered the control he kept so tight.
”Let's try it,” he thought with his intentions evident in his clear eyes.
Quinn loosened his body completely, and instead of using his muscles to control his body, he used wind. His face, which had tucked down because removing strength in his neck, rose up with winds — like a marionette puppet, the winds controlled his body.
In Quinn's terminology, he was currently using the indirect method to control his body. Using his muscles was the direct method while using the wind was the indirect method.
”This is uncomfortable,” he said, ”but we can work on that.” But it was working; he could feel that he would be able to fly freely if he tried right now.
”Let's fly,” a smile appeared, and the winds took charge.
With a few grass strands below his being uprooted, Quinn flew — not only did he ascend up, but he began turning in directions. He turned parallel to the ground, and with a thought, he launched himself forward like a flying superhero.
”Woohoo!” he yelled as he twisted and turned in the sky; it was exhilarating and exciting; it was like flying in his animagus form, but a bit different — in his animagus form, flying had come naturally after a while without much effort, but this took an effort to keep flying.
”Yeah, this is uncomfortable,” said Quinn, hovering in the air. His movements were choppy, and if he turned too quickly, his body would abruptly bend, and it hurt. ”Need to find a method to correct it. How did I do it in the vault?”
He closed his eyes, thought back to the vault, and began a simple three-step thinking process — Observe, Reflect, and Make. He thought back to what he did instinctively during his rage; he had already done this before, but now, he hoped to get additional insight with a breakthrough.
In his memory, he felt the wind against his skin. It was similar to what he was doing now, but it was different. 'It's heavier,' he thought and reflected upon his observation, 'it's like I was displacing the wind inside the sphere.'
In anger, he had formed a sphere of high-velocity spinning wind, but that wasn't feasible in his standard form. That sphere took too much magic and concentration to keep operational and was more of a result of Quinn's desire to be safe, with the wind sphere's primary feature being protection and the flight being a by-product.
His mind then took him to the Great Lake, specifically how he used water magic for swimming. He would cover himself in a teardrop of calm water and manipulate/push the surrounding water to move. Quinn wondered if he could apply that same method here in flight.
”Okay, this is enough for today,” said Quinn before turning his sights to the horizon. Now it was time to test it.
He turned himself available invisible and went off. He flew above a distance above the tree, eighty feet above the ground, looking at the scenery as it zoomed past him — the hills, cows, buffalos, sheep, their shepherds, rock mounds, among other things suitable in the moor. Quinn entered the countryside with houses and small communities and flew over people living their lives, leaving behind only a gust of wind on the ground.