HP: Alchemy? Nah, It's Crafting

o(*￣▽￣*)ブMany Thanks to DarkGremlin for becoming a member!♥♥

__________

"What a shame."

Kasenhis shook his head helplessly as he looked at Lupin.

"Hmm? What's wrong?" Lupin asked.

"That bottle of milk didn't work on you. Gonna have to figure out something else."

"No big deal. I've gotten used to it after all these years."

"Tsk, must be tough.. " Kasenhis paused before suddenly asking:

"How long until the next full moon?"

"About two days, give or take." Lupin answered casually.

"Got it."

Without another word, Kasenhis placed a sharpening wheel on the ground, pulled out his Magic Manual, and sat down cross-legged.

"Do you trust me?"

Lupin glanced at Kasenhis, then at his own hand, and without hesitation, sat down and placed his hand on the grinding wheel.

"Hold still."

Kasenhis pressed down on Lupin's hand with one of his own, while the other hand spun the wheel.

One by one, magical symbols flew out from Lupin's palm, drifting into the air before being absorbed by the floating Magic Manual.

"..This book of .. ugh.. yours is pretty impressive..."

Kasenhis looked at the bloodied mess of a hand on the grinding wheel, then at Lupin, who was barely holding on.

"You can scream, you know. The first time this thing got me, I screamed like Tom the cat."

"Ah.. No need. I think I can handle it."

Soon, as the Magic Manual slowly closed, Kasenhis pulled out Dittany and bandages.

The grinding wheel, at its core, was just physical damage. A few minutes with Dittany and it would be fine.

Kasenhis, on the other hand, held onto the Magic Manual, using the Magic Monocle to analyze the symbols on the pages.

Some symbols had labels for "Human" and "Magic", while others were marked as "Beast".

Before long, he had sorted the two types of symbols, but figuring out how to erase them was a trickier issue.

"Is this stuff really that complicated?" Lupin clenched his fist, feeling his hand had more or less healed, before moving closer to take a look.

"Honestly, I think it's manageable. Let's give it a try first."

Kasenhis placed an Enchanting Table on the ground, where three floating Lapis Lazuli stones swirled above it, and then directly shoved Lupin onto it.

Poor Lupin was immediately seized by the Enchantment Table's powerful magic, floating in midair.

"...Uh... what the hell is happening?"

Kasenhis didn't say anything, just flipped through the floating book on the Enchantment Table, which recorded Lupin's three types of symbols.

"…Well, damn…" he muttered in surprise.

"What is it?" Lupin asked.

"…Nothing." Kasenhis shook his head. He couldn't exactly tell Lupin that he'd just made him suffer for no reason. It's not like he had prior experience with this after all.

Last time he used the grinding wheel, it was to grind Ender Pearls. This was the first time he was grinding a person. How was he supposed to know the Enchanting Table would directly display a person's magical symbols?

Still, their previous efforts weren't entirely wasted—at least this time, Kasenhis didn't have to manually identify the symbols.

"All done? Get down from there." He pulled Lupin off the Enchanting Table. "Pack up, we're going to find Dumbledore."

Lupin pressed his lips together. "Has Dumbledore ever helped you perform this kind of… ritual magic before?"

"Nope."

"Then how do you—how did you 'whoosh' teleport like that?"

"I enchanted myself."

"Then just enchant me too. It's just the two of us. You enchanted yourself, right? I trust your craftsmanship." Lupin said.

"How can I be responsible for your life when I can barely be responsible for my own?" Kasenhis frowned.

"I can take responsibility for myself."

"Oh… and then you'd want me to be an accomplice in your death? Besides, aren't you on good terms with Dumbledore? What are you so afraid of seeing him for?" Kasenhis packed up the Enchanting Table and the grinding wheel, then looked seriously at Lupin.

"You're a professor. If one of your best students left Hogwarts and accomplished nothing, spent half his life struggling at the bottom of the wizarding world, and even… never mind, just that part—what would you think of him?" 

"I'd think he's suffered a lot of hardships he shouldn't have had to endure. What else am I supposed to think? Trust me, Dumbledore and I… probably think the same way. Otherwise, how do you think I got the money to hire you as my bodyguard?" Kasenhis explained.

"This doesn't even count as hiring. It's not like you couldn't handle things yourself. It's more like charity than payment," Lupin shook his head.

"Oh, come on. You were going to sell a 5-Galleon crystal for five hundred Galleons. And now you have some kind of moral purity complex?" 

"That's different. Take what you can get, right? I didn't take 500 though, you gave me 10.. Besides, in wizarding business of Knockturn ally, it's not really…" Lupin's face turned a bit red.

"There you go then. Enchanting a human body is incredibly dangerous, you know? Ever heard of 'nine deaths, one survival'? In real terms, that's a ten percent success rate. Now let's not waste time and go."

"…Right now?"

"What, are you worried about the time difference between Brazil and England making him fall asleep? Hogwarts' number one night owl, and you think he'd be sleeping?" 

The next moment, Kasen grabbed Lupin's shoulders and looked at him with a puzzled look: "Don't you know that I can't Apparate?"

"..."

"Not only that, I'm also afraid that you'll run away secretly. The world is so big, it'll be difficult to catch you back." He added.

"Alright." Lupin sighed and pulled out his wand, giving it a wave.

Snap!

After countless Apparations, they popped in front of the castle.

"Now it's my turn." Kasen smiled toothly.

Whoooom...

...

Hogwarts Headmaster's Office...

"I can only say, you've finally decided to see me." Dumbledore smiled as he looked at the two figures appearing in his office, his gaze settling on Lupin.

Lupin nodded and, somewhat awkwardly, sat down in a chair.

"Professor, I have a question. If someone who was once considered a promising student leaves Hogwarts, loses that aura, and spends his years struggling at the bottom, how would you see him?"

"He must have suffered many hardships that he shouldn't have had to endure," Dumbledore answered without hesitation.

"Mm..." Kasenhis made a noise that sounded oddly like a villager's hum of approval, then stood up and placed the Enchanting Table in the center of the office. "Alright, let's begin."

Lupin took a deep breath and stepped onto the Enchantment Table. Almost immediately, the magic lifted him into the air.

"With a ten percent success rate, I'm basically handing my life over to you," he muttered.

Dumbledore turned to Kasenhis. "Didn't you say last time that the probability was closer to seventy-four percent? Maybe even higher?"

"Uh... don't sweat the small details." Kasenhis quickly waved off, flipping through the enchantment book. "Originally, this was supposed to be a job for the grinding wheel. But, well... you're a human, and those symbols regenerate with your body's natural healing process. So, the grinding wheel won't work."

"The only option is to forcibly erase them using the Enchanting Table."

As he spoke, Kasenhis carefully compared the symbols one by one, marking each one belonging to the 'Beast' category.

____________

(～￣▽￣)～Read two weeks ahead:

P@treon: Dragonel