28 Chapter 28: Magic Crests

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15 October 1991, Hogwarts

Before leaving the room, Harry pointed his wand at his book and cast the translation spell. Suddenly, the words of the parchment shuffled around and turned into 'An Explanation of Family Magics.' Harry grinned to himself as he went back to his common room before Filch would find him. It had taken him the entire day, but he had found what he was looking for.

Although Harry wanted nothing more than to devour the book in his hands, he needed to get back to the common room as soon as possible. He was already very close to missing curfew, and he definitely didn't need the fourth years and sixth years on his case for losing points because he was too impatient to read the book in the common room.

Still, he was glad to have found the book, or at least beat the challenge needed to do it. Harry was very glad to have modified the charms on the self-writing quill to copy books. Honestly, it was a challenge to see if he could find a way to bypass the wards on the book without actually breaking them. Oh, it was very slow, but it was better than having to explain to Madam Pince why he needed advanced books from the library.

It was an extremely good achievement, especially after only a month and a half of magical learning. If it wasn't for him cheating with his magical hearing, he would have never even come close to modifying a spell to that extent. Honestly, it was unfair how good Harry was at magic compared to his classmates. But if there's something Harry knew for a fact was that people were not born equal.

Harry slowly snuck down in the night to the dungeons and barely missed curfew. Thankfully, he was able to make it in time, but he had practically run the entire way to the common room.

As soon as Harry arrived, he was accosted by his friends. Blaise practically ran towards him, "Where the hell have you been?"

Choosing not to answer any uncomfortable question, Harry simply put his hands in his pocket and shrugged, "I got lost on the path of life."

That seemed to make him and the girls speechless. They just gaped at the young Potter unable to muster a response for a good minute until Tracy blew up, "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN YOU GOT LOST ON THE ROAD OF LIFE??"

Harry again shrugged, "Maaa, Tracy, don't get so worked up. I just decided to explore the castle a bit, walking around aimlessly, getting lost in the beautiful path that is life, letting the currents take me away and lead me."

"So, you explored the castle for the whole day?" Daphne responded with a deadpan tone.

"Well, I did at first, then I went to the library for a bit, and then I was just going to find you guys but then a black cat crossed my path, so I had to take the long way round. I somehow ended up in the Astronomy tower since the cat just wouldn't leave me alone. Then an insane knight called Sir Cadogan said that this was the same cat that led him to his death, which is why I just kept trying to escape its grasp." Harry elaborated.

"You could have used a spell to make it go away," Blaise remarked.

"And risk hurting such a cute little kitten just because of its colour. That's very racist of you, Blaise." The green-eyed boy remarked with a sly grin on his face.

"Racist," the boy thundered, "Harry, I swear to Merlin…"

Daphne just hit the boy in the shoulder, "He's messing with you, you idiot."

"Well, it's still not a nice thing to do. We still don't know what he was doing?" Blaise answered with a pout.

Harry gave his friend a grin, "I wasn't really lying. I explored the castle for a bit, went to the library to research a spell I was trying out, then finished my assignments for the weekend, and practised a bit of charms. I kinda lost myself in a book before I realized what time it was, and ran back here."

Blaise gave him a glare, "You could have just said that. What's with the whole black cat story and the road of life stuff?"

"Oh, I just wanted to see your reactions. I have to say that I wasn't disappointed," Harry replied with a smug grin.

"You're a jerk, Harry," Tracy grumbled at him.

Harry just laughed and they all continued the night with their usual nightly conversations. The young Potter almost forgot about the book. Almost, being the key word. He had tried to read the book before going to bed but he realized why translation spells weren't commonly used. Yeah, the spell worked but that didn't mean that it worked well.

The spell seemed to have categorized the words in each language and just mapped them together, grammar be damned. Oh, there was a semblance of sense there somewhere, but not enough to be read casually. Honestly, it reminded him of when he had tried to translate entire articles using online translators. It made the text understandable, but only after some effort trying to decode it.

Reading the translated book will require patience and hard work, and Harry was too tired after an entire day of researching for such an undertaking, which is why he just went to bed.

The very next day, Harry exited the room before his classmates and took an early breakfast, choosing to read the book in the library and take some notes as well.

He was done by the end of the day and the content was really dry. Honestly, Harry didn't understand a lot of the technical magical theory inside, but he at least understood the premise of magical crests and a basic understanding of how the Samhain ritual worked.

Well, magical crests were amazing inventions that became popular after the burning of the library of Alexandria and became commonplace for practically all influential magical families in Europe after the fall of Rome. Crests existed far before, but during these events, many magical families were either massacred, and their libraries were also pilfered by the invaders. So, measures were taken so that magic wouldn't be lost once more.

To be perfectly honest, magical crests were repositories of magical knowledge that is passed down in the bloodline. With every birth, a smaller crest is born, but the archive of magic can only be used by the head of the family, whose crest tended to act as a control one. Usually, the head of house only allows his heir access to the knowledge within, in case a member of the family chooses to marry into another one or is just punished. Every member of the family that could add something to the magic – by creating a new spell, brewing a new potion, and so on – would record it into the crests for no reason.

However, the way they are designed almost guarantees that any possible blood relation would be able to inherit the crests in case a family is massacred and thus, the knowledge wouldn't be lost. However, these crests need to be activated first to formally be part of the family. They are activated when a member gets his own wand and waits until the age of thirteen for it to integrate into the child's magic. Afterwards, the magic will slowly trickle in, allowing the heirs to access to gradually learn their personal magic until the age of seventeen when the magical archive is entirely made available to the heirs.

It was the way old families safeguarded their personal spells and magical discoveries while making them available for their descendants. Books could be stolen, and the spells inside could be replicated, but with a crest, no one would be able to access them.

Although, magical crests don't need to only have information inside. There were theories in the book about people putting artefacts and family heirlooms inside the crests to make sure that they are not stolen. However, Harry had no idea how that worked, and he wasn't eager to find out. Yeah, the young Slytherin was advanced for his age, but not enough to mess with things like that. Some of the conceptual crap that came with making a magical crest, was very hard to understand especially when he had a hard time understanding the introductory chapters because of how the translation spell worked.

If he needed to mess with magical crests in general, he would need to learn Old English, and that was an undertaking on its own. Harry decided to put it into the back of his mind, and only do it if he finds out more knowledge of magic written only in this language. He was already learning Latin on his own, adding in another dead language just wouldn't be fun. Especially with how much he's probably going to memorize during his Runes Electives, he wouldn't want to burn out, would he?

Still, the upcoming Samhain ritual wasn't really a ritual, not in the classical term. Technically speaking, a ritual is the predecessor to wand spells that are more art than science. They heavily involved runes and sacrifices to shape and channel the magic, which didn't make it any better or worse than using a wand. It was just so much harder than wands simply became commonly used.

No, the Samhain ritual was just an unlocking. It didn't really have to happen in Samhain, only for the subject to drink a potion that relaxes the magical flow and for an outsider of casting the standardized spell to unlock the crest, which already existed connected to their magic in a dormant state. The crests didn't need to be unlocked on Samhain, only for the subject to be between the ages of eleven and thirteen.

The experience is widely considered to be unpleasant, from irritating to agonizing. It depended on both the wizard and the crest, and it was impossible to know how it would work. There were also a few peculiarities that came with every crest. Sometimes the creator of the crests adds in a little extra condition to inheriting parts of the family archives. Sometimes a crest would be barely more than a small peculiarity for generations only for a descendant to fully unlock it later.

However, that wasn't the same as family magic. The spells inside a crest could be replicated if one knew the theory. Family magic was unique for everyone who had it and was built on the dedication of an entire magical line to a certain field of magic until it became a part of their own blood. After centuries, the families start to develop certain traits that naturally came to be. Things like mage sight, metamorphmagus and Parseltongue, occurred either naturally or with some large-scale ritual to be passed down from parent to child, and no one would be able to speak it. There is a reason why Parseltongue was so revered in pureblood circles. These abilities are the epitome of what made a magical family prestigious.

Honestly, Harry didn't know if the Potter family had a magical crest, but it's most likely true. There was no risk to trying it if he didn't have one, but in the house of the snake, it would be akin to being a second-class citizen.

The young Potter sincerely hoped that he would end up having a crest, if only for the potential spell available inside. At least, now, Harry understood what Blaise and Daphne were talking about when they referred to the Samhain ritual. He probably even knew more than them thanks to the book.

In the end, Harry would need to wait until the end of the month to figure out more. However, he put the issue to the back of his mind. His curiosity was now abated, and he had more assignments to finish to compensate for the research time he used up the previous day. Afterwards, well, he did promise that he would spend the day with his friends, after all.

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Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.