74 Harry Potter : Chapter 73: New Addition II

There was no hissing cloud of steam erupting by the concoction, no flash of light rush of perceivable magic, but Rubeus seemed content with stirring his brew clockwise with the newly quenched piece of iron.

"Maybe it'd be better if I knew how to forge steel, or if I figured out how to do the same with gold or silver, but they melt as such low temperatures..."

...

While Rubeus rambled, Tom's mind was rushing through his most recent slip: he had mentioned another creature, but what could he be referring to?

"The potion is meant to reinforce the purpose I tried to forge the blade around, but I won't be able to tell if there are working differences until I try the knives quenched only with water from this one." Hagrid talked almost to himself, only to be interrupted by Riddle.

"If you're not referring to bones from the Hydra, which is what you're having problems with in the first place..." Tom began with understanding gleaming in his eyes and a faint silver of respect appearing on his face as he realized what his tallest companion was talking about.

After all, it wasn't like Hagrid had many magical creatures at his disposal to craft his fabled tools, it could only mean that he had carved out everything of use from the muggle werewolf he had killed during his most disastrous attempt at finding a cure for Lycanthropy."

"Werewolf bones." Hagrid confirmed, "But I'm not sure whether using them as the blade itself or only as a handle: they do come from a cursed creature, I don't know if they'd corrupt the Hydra's parts in some way."

"And maybe you hope to be able to coax the 'Rule of the Hunt' out of those bones." Riddle nodded, still somewhat disgusted by the topic of rendering a creature by hand, but intrigued by the magic itself.

"Is the same principle of the ritual, isn't it? Since the body's magical resistance destroyed your conjuration, and assuming that the flesh itself resists ordinary tools, you're trying to ritualistically create something holding a meaning powerful enough to accomplish what you need without corrupting the rendered parts."

As Tom had foreseen, it was at once simple and impossibly complex.

The detail of werewolf bones however, reminded him sharply of how mercenary Hagrid could be when push came to show: he didn't know how his tallest companion had come to know the muggles he was now trying to cure.

But Tom knew that any normal person would have been at least briefly saddened by having killed one of the two, and that taking apart its corpse surely wouldn't have appeared even in their wildest nightmares. How quintessentially Slytherin of you, Rubeus.

"Using my wand as a mallet is fundamental, as I've never hammered iron before."

"Where did you get the iron?" Tom asked idly, still enjoying the admission of the apparently self-taught smith. How carefree can he be with telling me things that any sane person wouldn't even consider, and that any madman would keep close to his chest?

"I've hopped around a few villages and farms, and took nails, horseshoes..." Hagrid shrugged, "I've melted everything with a really hot flame and used a transfigured stone stamp to realize the billets, now I tried to coax the metal around its final purpose, instead of coating the finishing result with the enchantment."

"Seems like a lot of work for a relatively minor gain." Riddle arched an eyebrow while he was still trying to come to terms with the strange trust that Rubeus had displayed.

"I had assumed you'd just use spells, or contract a professional for a cut of the gains."

"We still need a chimaera to truly explore what your storing-ink can accomplish, don't we? Never mind your idea of building a ship to reach new places to explore." Rubeus argued back.

"Besides talking with Slughorn, I thought about writing to Ollivander, maybe he's interested in creating wands that aren't of phoenix feather, dragon heartstring, or unicorn tail hair. I know for sure that one the continent there are wands made with Veela Hair."

"Veela?"

"Humanoid people." Rubeus replied, "They're more or less harpies with song capable of ensnaring men, I think."

Tom hummed thoughtfully as he walked over the table holding his finished results: "You think that selling directly to Ollivander might earn us more?"

"I was thinking of slowly easing my way into learning the basics of wandcraft." Rubeus replied with a sly glance while he finally fished the finished product out of the cauldron.

"If my experiment with the forge works, it'll confirm my idea about how to craft specific magical items, but a wand... the sheer versatility is something that I can't even begin to grasp, and I observe mine extremely carefully when I cast: yet I have no insight."

Riddle heard clearly his vexed companion, and he was forced to let out a chuckle of his own: "It's always knowledge with you, isn't it?"

"In some cases, it's far worthier than any amount of gold, isn't it?" Rubeus replied distractedly, his dark eyes closely examining the last result of his handiwork before setting it down with a satisfied grunt.

"We could also talk with Slughorn to sell the parts." the sly glance Rubeus gave Tom clearly implied that he'd be Riddle the one tasked with that particular conversation, "As he can probably point towards buyers that won't scam us and won't bring the Ministry on our heads, and we'll also need an account at Gringotts for the transactions."

Tom's sneer clearly expressed how enthused he was about having to interact with goblins, and his expression turned into an outright glare when Hagrid spoke: "Despise them all you want, but I've yet to see a wizard forge steel like theirs, never mind build such massive underground structures."

"Won't the carcass spoil by the time you finish with your experiments?" changing the topic, Tom kept the greater part of his focus on why Hagrid would be so open about the fact that he had carved up a werewolf he used to know.

He surely understood just how damning that information could be, and he was far from being as stupid as offering leverage so freely. 

Why is he so sure that I won't use this information to have him dance to my tune?

Hagrid's grin flashed like one of his knives in the night: "Minerva and I built that trunk explicitly with the purpose of keeping the result of the hunt inside, surely you remember that I used two different potions to coat the outside and the inside, yes?"

Riddle simply hummed as he lit once more his wand, observing with detached curiosity how the metal glinted eagerly as an answer: cautiously, he extended a hand and kept it above the knives, trusting that sixth sense that stung uncomfortably only to tingle pleasantly as he shifted from a knife to the other.

"If you have a spare knife, I might try some enchanting of my own." Riddle offered, still trying to work out the angle at which Rubeus was working: it was always like that when it came to interacting with him.

It was clear that they had wanted each other alive for their own reasons, but what did Hagrid gain...

"Take the two on the left." his tallest companion replied with a nod, as if he had been expecting the offer. And just like that, the picture became complete and it suddenly made a startling amount of sense.

Rubeus hadn't risked his own and Minerva's life because of a sense of duty, or common human decency.

He had simply decided that he'd gain more on the long term by keeping Tom around and well-disposed towards himself.

Riddle barely smothered his sudden urge to laugh as he collected the weapons pointed out by Rubeus. Once again, like always when it came to dealing with Hagrid, the principle was simple, while the application escaped anything resembling common sense.

It was the same crystal-clear need that had made Hagrid coax Minerva and himself into building the Rùnda.

It was the very same reasoning that held Tom back from organizing an untimely demise for Rubeus.

They simply had both too much to gain from each other's continued existence.

Tom cast aside that revelation and offered a small smirk of his own to the taller and tired wizard: "It's a pity that the plan of building a pocket only we can access by using the Animagus process didn't land anywhere."

"That's just not how that magic works, as you well know." Rubeus pointed his wand at the forge and killed the fire, only to cover both the cauldron with his brew and the barrel of water with their respective lids that were levitated out of the darkness.

"Well have to rely on enlarging charms then, and maybe some other adaptation of... how did you call it? Storing-ink?" Riddle took a step back from the table with his own two knives while Hagrid packed the finished results of that night's work, "Such a banal name."

"You can name it as you want, but it's quick and to the point." Rubeus spoke as he started to walk back towards the house, "And keep the werewolf bones' art to yourself, okay? Marie really doesn't need to know."

"Of course." Riddle enjoyed recognizing how gentlemanly he was being about the abject dehumanizing that was Hagrid's relationship with Paul's carcass, "Would you by chance be willing to craft an enlarged trunk before our return to Hogwarts?"

The bargain was clear as day, but his taller companion was already shaking his head: "Enlarging charms are absolutely nightmarish to cast properly, they're on that blurry line between charms that affect a Shape and a transfiguration that meddles with a purpose, you'd have more luck with studying Minerva's notes once we're back at the Rùnda."

"How so?" Riddle smothered his flash of annoyance, Hagrid wasn't one to downplay his skills when it came to magic, and so insisting wouldn't have been productive.

"The theory, as always when it comes to any charm, isn't impossible to understand: containers a remeant to house objects, and technically, each bag, each trunk, Hell, each pocket, is a symbol by itself. Enhancing something to better perform its given task is simple enough..."

"Except that in this case, of course, it isn't."

"Of course." Hagrid agreed as he turned fully towards Riddle, the bundle of cloth wrapped around his knives held under an arm while he carefully chose the words to explain at the best of his ability.

"The meaning of container is derived from the concept of space. And space is a concept almost as difficult as time to manipulate. Easier because we are beings capable of moving more or less as we wished through space, while time is something that only goes forward."

The taller wizard muttered something about his ever-growing list of topics to research only to return to the subject at hand before Tom was forced to remind him of it: "From what I understood... well, you know how partial transfigurations aren't incredibly resilient, yes?"

"A partial change in Shape weakens the transfiguration as a whole."

"Extending space inside a container is a method that is weak in the same way." Rubeus explained with a frown on his face.

"So it's a transfiguration easy to unravel, and while the charm has a good grip, so to speak, the caster's understanding of the concept of 'space' can only go so far: there is no esoteric meaning behind it, and almost zero flexibility in its application, it's difficult to leverage, rigid, brittle.

The magical tents work around that issue by using some trick that I've yet to read about, but the idea of standing into an enlarged space with what I know now..." the younger wizard made a show of shivering.

"The concealing charms work well with the extension one, don't they?" Tom realized, and then quickly elaborated: "After all any object that holds another is like a lie hiding a secret."

"More like a Riddle hiding a Truth." Hagrid tilted his head as he grinned unashamedly at the small pun, "Minerva's notes will clarify it further, I think."

Tom huffed at the horrible wordplay attempted by his taller companion and turned towards the house, entering first while he was starting to think about the revelations of the night

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