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Magic was a supernatural force that changed aspects of the world at fundamental levels while allowing the possessors to perform feats outside the norm — feats like sensing what lay inside the deep, dense stones.
Quinn sat on the pedestal as an exceptional amount of magic flowed out of his body into the stone all around him; every knock and cranny of the vault room washed in his magic, filled to the brim, not a single grain of stone was left untouched by Quinn's magic.
'Uh-huh,' thought Quinn as he channeled Earth magic, 'I'm close.. . I'm really close; it just needs a little bit adjustment.. .'
Icy vault required his Ice magic to be excellent in both pure strength and fine laser control and skill. The Aquatic vault had the same arrangement with the solution to each trial being a mix of strength and skill, albeit each trial gave more weight to one than the other.
But now, as Quinn sat in the Architect's vault, he realized that this room only required pure skill for Earth magic without a requirement for power. Anyone with a decent amount of magic could train fine-train their Earth magic to succeed in this room, and currently, Quinn was close to making a breakthrough in his Earth magic skill. What he was trying to accomplish was to spread his magic into the stone and turn it into a sixth sense that would provide him a 'view' of the entire room.
'The fuzziness is because I lack control over my Earth magic.'
Quinn's magic in the stone shifted at his command — the density of his magic thickened in some places while in some areas, the magic thinned.
'Remember, it's not about the quantity of magic. The vault doesn't require floods of magic. Stigweard Gragg was an architect; he was the Architect.. . a profession that requires precision, calculation, and sureness to bring their creations to life.'
The design and nature of his magic changed. The days of him studying the type of this particular stone were ingrained in his mind, one of the most immersed memory books that he possessed in his mindscape.
'Imagine being present in every particle of stone.. . put yourself in the Architect's shoes.. . remember how to cast magic — focus your intent, apply the knowledge you have learned, and turn imagination into reality.. . and.. . bring about the blueprint, an architect's blueprint.'
Then it happened.
Quinn inhaled noisily as his magic clicked into place. The fuzziness that he experienced lifted in all but an instant, and everything became clear as if he was looking at the insides of the stone walls, floor, and ceilings in a brightly lit environment.
He opened his eyes and whispered, "Illusion.. ." and the next moment, the self-illusion he cast on himself translated his Earth sense into vision — granting him something akin to x-ray vision.
'Illusion magic is convenient like that,' thought Quinn.
That was the last errant thought in Quinn's mind as the awe of the sight in front of him overtook his mind.
"Stigweard Gragg.. . for the love of magic, he really was an architect through and through, wasn't he."
On the day, he had found that there were hollow spots inside the walls, floors, and ceiling; Quinn matched it with the solution to opening the archway but not in his slight imagination did he imagine that the fuzzy hollow would be something like this.
Every inch of the room, except the solid pedestal, was covered in gears of hundred sizes, shafts of different lengths and thicknesses, levers of different configurations, mechanical switches that locked into various places, rotating axils with screw-ends, oscillating half-wheels, deadbolts jammed into cam slots at dozens of sites, locking everything into place.
'The entire vault is god damned lock,' thought Quinn as he couldn't voice it in words.
Just below the pedestal were nine thick plates of stone, each connected to an intricate mechanism that, when solved, would separate the plates from the middle, pulling them apart, allowing the pedestal to sink a level with every solution.
"What a masterpiece," he muttered, "what ingenuity, what creativeness, what must his mind be like for him to create something like this."
Every vault before this had been 'magical' in nature, but the Architect's vault was purely mechanical, without a trace of magic except the fortification of stone and fail-safes in case someone tried to brute their way through the vault. Just the thought of someone turning the entire room into one huge lock mechanism.
".. . I don't know this level of lock-picking."
Believe it or not, he had ordered various locks to pick while doing extra research on Unlocking charms (he followed the same method he taught in DA), but this was another level — this was the level used in complicated safes and.. . vaults.
Quinn jumped down from the pedestal and put his hands to his sides.
"I suppose I need to learn how to pick safes now," he said while sighing but with a big smile on his face.
This was going to be different; he could feel it, and it made him excited all over again. He was going to learn something new, and that made his body fill up with giddiness.
"This is going to be grand."
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The Golden Squad exited Hagrid's house after having a good long chat with the recently home half-Giant.
"He was in bad shape," said Hermione sighing.
Ron snorted in response, "Bad is saying it lightly. I'm pretty sure he had his ribs broken." Broken ribs weren't a severe injury in the magical world, but it was terrible anywhere if the injury was left unintended for days or yet more than a month, as in this case.
Hagrid's hair was matted with congealed blood, and his left eye had been reduced to a puffy slit amid a mass of purple-and-black bruises. There were many cuts on his face and hands, some of them still bleeding, and he was moving gingerly, which made Ron suspect broken ribs. It was evident that he had only just got home; a thick black traveling cloak lay over the back of a chair, and a haversack large enough to carry several small children leaned against the wall inside the door. They saw Hagrid himself, twice the size of a normal man and three times as broad, limped over to the fire and placing a copper kettle over it.
"We should inform Madam Pomfrey about him and tell her to heal him before Umbitch gets to him," said Ivy deciding the best course of action.
The other three nodded. Umbridge had been overbearing these days; it was like she was out looking for even the smallest things to blow them out of proportion.
"But to think that Voldemort has been going after Giants," said Harry, "I wondered why someone like that bastard was so quiet, but it seems he was trying to get the Giants to his side."
"Never knew that the Ministry was on a lookout for Portkeys," said Hermione. It took a month to get to the place where Giants lived, and because anyone associated with Dumbledore was being monitored, Hagrid couldn't take a Portkey to the location and had to physically travel there.
Hagrid had told them that when he, along with Maxime Olympe, had reached the largest tribe of Giants on this side of Europe — a total of eighty Giants.
There were hundreds of tribes of Giants dotting the entire world map, but because they lived in small groups, it wasn't feasible for Voldemort to send delegations to each tribe as giving gifts to every small tribe was too costly and required too much effort; that's why this eighty Giant tribe was the only attainable option and thus was the one where Dumbledore sent Hagrid and Maxime to.
Hagrid and Maxime presented the Giant chief, Karkus, with gifts to garner his and the tribe's support — Giants loved magic, but because they couldn't perform it, so they liked to collect magical items; Dumbledore had sent a branch of Everlasting fire to help them to keep warm in the winter and cook food. Other gifts included a goblin-made helmet for the chief of a battle-hungry race and a great roll of old dragon hide.
Unfortunately for the Order of Pheonix delegation, just when Karkus had finally sat down with them Hagrid and Maxime to listen to them, tragedy struck — Giants weren't meant to live in tribes with more than a dozen members, and it seemed like an outsider bearing gifts had offset turmoil in the large tribe as the very next night, there was great inner-fight in which a dozen Giants died along with Karkus, the chief.
Giants were a violent race and had no qualms about killing their fellow members over food, best sleeping spots near warm fires, women, and that's why Giant tribes weren't larger than a dozen Giants each as that was the highest number a deep mountain or forest could adequately provide for without inciting in-fighting.
The next day, a new chief was elected, Golgomath.
The new chief, it seemed, was on a power roll and wanted to assert dominance to consolidate his position as the head, as the moment Hagrid presented them with their final gift (a great roll of dragon skin), Hagrid and Maxime were captured and hung upside down. They only escaped because of Maxime Olympe whipping out her wand and injuring their captures before making a break for it.
That was the end of Hagrid's and Maxime's talk with the tribe, as Giants hated the wizardkind. The humans had been hunting Giants for a very long time and were one of the reasons why Giants had gone through a great thinning in population worldwide. The moment Maxime had used wanded magic, any chances of communication were closed.
And as Hagrid and Maxime hid in caves to heal themselves before heading out, they chanced upon the newly arrived Death Eater delegation. And they had sent a familiar face, Macnair, which was why Golgomath didn't hang them up on sight; the rest was handled by a series of gifts to appease and impress the new chief.
"In the end, Voldemort got the Giants' support," said Hermoine worriedly.
The four fell into silence as their minds turned in each's imagination of the repercussions of Giants falling into Voldemort's hands. Giants were hard to kill or even subdue.
"Hey, isn't that West there?" said Ron, breaking the silence as he pointed a short distance away from Hagrid's house.
Harry, Ivy, and Hermione turned to where Ron was pointing, and they saw Quinn leisurely walk out of the Forbidden Forest trees while stretching his hands over his head.
"Isn't he cold?" said Harry commenting on Quinn's attire; he only had a shirt and pair of pants on him, and they were already in peak snowing season.
Ivy raised her hand high and reached out to Quinn loudly, who stopped in his tracks and turned towards them. They say him raise his hand and wave back.
"How're you four doing today," said Quinn as both parties met halfway. His eyes went to where they previously stood and saw the smoke churning out of the hut's chimney, "Looks like Hagrid's back at Hogwarts. I suppose now that I'm here, I'll say hello to him."
"He has just returned," said Harry hiding a jump in his voice, "and is tired from his travels.. . we should probably leave him alone to settle back and rest; Hagrid did say that he wanted to get in a good nap in his own."
Hagrid's Giant adventure was a secret mission given to him by Dumbledore. It was wise if the news didn't spread, given Umbridge's close proximity to Dumbledore and Hagrid. Harry feared that if Quinn saw an injured Hagrid, the word would spread because they couldn't keep him quiet without telling him the reason behind the injuries.
"Is that so; then I'll just greet him when I see him in the Great Hall," said Quinn shrugging.
"Why aren't you wearing more clothes. It's freezing out here," said Harry changing the topic.
Quinn looked at his attire, and it was indeed not weather-appropriate, but on the other hand, he wasn't feeling cold right now, so he once again shrugged,
"I'm feeling fine now, but you're right.. . my clothes do seem out of place," he took out a wand and conjured a robe around his body, "do you guys feel comfortable now?"
The Golden Squad were confused, but they nodded.
"What were you doing on in the Forbidden Forest?" asked Ivy curiously.
Quinn tapped his pant pockets and smiled, "I was collecting a herb or two for making potions. Forbidden Forest is a great place to pick out some great herbs, and you know what the best part is; it's one hundred percent free."
The Golden Squad stared at the West heir, who was making a proud impression at saving money on potion ingredients.
'They seem to be buying it,' thought Quinn observing the Golden Squad. He couldn't tell them that he was stalking the magical wolf tribe that lived in the Forbidden Forest, watching them, their civilization, and their culture.
The clothes on his body were actually his transformed Noir-Suit, and he had, without any reason, turned them from a dark-forest camo to casual shirt and pants.
Last year, he had made plans to observe the tribe, and this year, he was executing them. His motive was to study the wolves and see if they held a clue to cure Lycanthropy in werewolves. They were the descendants of two Lycanthropy mating under the full moon in their werewolf forms. It was a good possibility that their unique birth could help solve Lycanthropy.
These wolves essentially had their human forms eliminated by birth, sure their intelligence came from the human side of their parents, but there were plenty of non-humanoid species with human-level intelligence. If these beings could have their human physical traits removed, why couldn't Lycanthrope be cured of their wolf aspects?
"So, did you guys inform Hagrid about Umbridge?" Quinn asked as they walked towards the castle as Quinn lazily waved his fake wand back and forth, shoveling snow out of their way.
"We did," said Harry, "Hagrid said that he has some interesting stuff planned for the year.. . I just hope Umbridge would find it interesting as well."
"I doubt it," said Ron scoffing with raging disdain. "She seemed chummy with that Grubbly-Plank lady; she'll try to make Hagrid's life difficult."
It was no secret that Ronald Weasley disliked the new Care for Magical Creatures' Professor. That dislike increased when Grubbly-Plank's inspection went surprisingly smoothly, with Umbridge being the least amount annoying she could be. Credit to Grubbly-Plank for being a good Professor and staying entirely out of politics.
"Speaking of.. ." Hermione jutted her chin forward, and the group looked up to see Umbridge standing in the Entrance Hall with a clipboard in her hand, scribbling things while looking around the Entrance Hall.
"What's she doing?" muttered Harry suspiciously.
"Some sort of inspections to find out.. . probably to undermine Dumbledore's upkeep ability of the school," Ivy garnered a guess as the group consciously turned into a different direction.
"But isn't she chummy with Filch?" asked Ron.
"This is Umbridge we are talking about; she won't hesitate a single second in betraying Filch; that woman is lower than a fleabag," said Harry with a nasty humph.
Filch, as few knew, was a Squib and thus couldn't use magic. Even though house-elves were excellent in upkeep, if Umbridge could find something directly related to Fudge, she could connect it back to Dumbledore and get him a demerit — a severe problem in these dire times. While Filch was in charge of cleaning, Dumbledore was in charge of Filch, and with Dumbledore's inability to retain a DADA Professor, it would seem like Dumbledore wasn't adequate in his role as the Headmaster.
"Ah, children, what might you be doing here, dears?"
The five stopped in their tracks, and four of them released groans and whines. They turned towards the High Inquisitor walking towards them with her stumpy legs, looking funny to Quinn, but he held back the smile, chuckle, laugh, and guffaw.
"What can we do for you, ma'am?" asked Quinn pleasantly, refusing to say the word Professor but still getting by just below the line.
Umbridge looked at Quinn up and down, and a sweet smile stretched over her human-like face. A shine of vigor shone in her eyes like a child finding her favorite candy.
"May I ask why aren't you in your school robes, Mr. West," said Umbridge.
"You may not," said Quinn shortly.
".. . You don't have your uniform on nor your outer robe."
"And there's nothing wrong with that."
"You're a student of Hogwarts, Mr. West," said Umbridge stressing her point.
"That I am," said Quinn smiling, "I'm even a sixth-year Prefect."
"That will be a detention, Mr. West," said Umbridge, smiling widely, giddy.
"As I said, I'm a Prefect, I know the rules," said Quinn smiling in return, "After classes for the day ends, students are no longer required to wear their uniforms.. . for reference, it's Policy Sec 1, Clause 1.5, Page 8."
He had memorized the rules years ago in case he was caught in some trouble and needed to weasel his way out. Umbridge reeled back in dissatisfaction. She, of course, hadn't bothered to read Hogwarts student rules and regulations.
"I'm the High Inquisitor—"
"And as I said before, you don't have the authority over the things you're trying to enforce.. . I expected more from the High Inquisitor," said Quinn non-chalantaly before clasping his hands in front, "Now, we'd leave you to the important work you're doing and leave as to not waste your time."
Quinn immediately walked away without waiting for a reply. The Golden Squad followed after a beat. They had heard that Quinn had shut down Umbridge, but this was the first time seeing him in action.
"That was a little weak," said Quinn in retrospection, "I could've gotten in a jab or two more; I will make sure to remember that for the next time."
The Golden Squad had no words for him except a strange sense of admiration and reverence.
Back in the Entrance Hall, Umbridge fumed in silence. She was getting angrier by the second. Her interactions weren't going well, and she was always on the losing front.
"Just because he's from a powerful family doesn't mean he can get away with this," said Umbridge, gritting her teeth. "He's just a kid.. . a naive, disciplinable rude brat," a glint appeared in her eyes, "he wants authority, then I will give him authority."
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Quinn West - MC - Bringing past projects to fruition.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - Mid-terms over!!!
