The Muggle's Rebirth

Passing the exams was simple as pie, especially after I quickly ran through the first-year textbooks, since I'd read them quite a while ago. So after passing all subjects with "O" — the highest grade, I was free. Moreover, they gave me a considerable amount of house points for this, which I decided to deal with in the next academic year. 

We didn't make any special celebration just for finishing first year. We returned home via Floo connection, where in half an hour of wand-waving with household charms we cleaned up the house that had been abandoned for almost a year, and rested until evening.

Now our friends, yes, they really missed their parents. There were surprises too — Jacqueline, Apolline's mother, and Alan, Patrick's father, finally moved in together and announced their relationship. Though that was quite the open secret, to be honest. 

And it was precisely this momentous event we celebrated at a restaurant — not a magical one, but the most ordinary one you could imagine. Apparently, for company, they decided to also celebrate Ariel's relationship with Ludwig, who was also invited. It turned out to be such a friendly dinner.

The next couple of days I pondered and gathered information. I understood that my knowledge was fragmentary and collected from books, where things that are self-evident to masters are often not indicated or skipped — things I keep banging my head against like a fish against ice.

Take those same punchers or other artifacts — when creating them I fumbled around like a blind kitten, making dozens and hundreds of failed attempts. And to hell with the consumables, but it takes a lot of time. Especially what will happen when I move on to really serious and dangerous charms or artifacts? Or if I come across a rare ingredient where I won't have the right to make mistakes?

No, the teachers at school helped, but only with small things — it's not their responsibility to train underage archmages, their duty is to teach strictly regulated material and that's it. The first thought that comes to mind is to find myself a tutor, not necessarily a Master, just someone quite experienced and knowledgeable in artificing.

Ariel accepted my idea with enthusiasm, since she herself couldn't help me with many things, and because of her work as a transfiguration teacher she has to devote all her strength to precisely this discipline, considering she needs to replace the old professor in her position.

The search problem was solved simply — with newspaper advertisements. And considering that in the magical world distances aren't such a problem, we placed them not only in the French newspaper "Magical News," but also German, English, Italian and others.

All because there aren't that many wizards compared to ordinary people, and Masters of the necessary disciplines or at least with skills approaching them can generally be counted on the fingers of two hands, if we only consider France. Moreover, such individuals don't need money, and not everyone will agree to teach students — to make themselves a competitor with their own hands.

However, the first applicants sent their resumes by owl post the very next day. Most of them were people far from being not just tutors, but even from the required skill levels. Just swindlers and dilettantes wanting to get a considerable sum of money for free.

It's good that I specifically asked Ariel not to indicate my age and to add that my level of artificing knowledge is above average, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to fight off the crowd of people who fancy themselves professors.

Actually, thanks to the mail, I quite easily filtered out ninety percent of candidates who can't tell a sig rune from an eihwaz rune. With the rest, it varied — some immediately refused because of my age, some asked for completely unreasonable payment, and some I didn't like in astral sight — no matter how good a specialist might be, I don't want to deal with a rotten person. And there would be no trust in his teaching.

…

"I assure you, you won't find a better specialist! I can rightfully call myself a specialist in everything connected with charms, runes and numerology!" 

Sitting on the sofa and watching how the young man of about twenty was pulling one oatmeal cookie after another from the bowl, I restrained myself by sheer willpower from throwing this pompous asshole out by the scruff of his neck.

And it wasn't just that he was lying through his teeth — I could understand that. But the arrogantly contemptuous look at me and the lustful one at Ariel drove me to the edge. And only my unwillingness to ruin my reputation and my upbringing prevented me from doing what I wanted.

"I think we'll inform you of our decision when we interview the other applicants," Ariel smiled tensely, barely restraining herself judging by her emotions. And she's not casting any charms, yet this Mr. Richardson was already drowning his gaze in her completely covered neckline.

Thank Merlin that not everyone was like him — rather, this was an amazing exception.

"Oh come now, the others can't hold a candle to me, I guarantee it. So let's sign the contract already!" 

Yeah, if Ego could be seen, this guy's would be the size of a planet.

"By the way, I can accept payment in other ways too..."

This asshole winked lustfully and that was the last straw in my cup of patience. I understand what stereotypes exist about veela, but to speak so openly about it and offer payment in kind?

Taking my wand in hand, I whispered the words of a laxative charm: "Diarrheus." I think a couple of days on the toilet will set his brains in the place where they should be.

"Oh, excuse me!" His stomach gurgled, after which he ran headlong out onto the street, afraid to embarrass himself on the spot.

I went to close the door that Richardson had flung open and saw an elderly, intelligent-looking man of indeterminate age on the threshold, who had frozen with his hand raised.

…

"Hello, does Mr. Marlow live here? I contacted him about the advertisement," he politely inquired of me.

I looked him over from top to bottom, but so that it wouldn't look impolite. A smoothly shaven wrinkled face, short-cropped gray hair, Greek profile, English accent and quite expensive, though not new, suit.

A brown tweed jacket with checks, pants of the same color and a gray bowler hat raised in greeting. Moreover, you couldn't say the man was poor or rich — perhaps this was just his favorite suit.

In his hand was a black wooden cane with a head carved from ebonite in the shape of a snarling dog's maw. But the most interesting thing was different — he was one of the few people whose emotions I couldn't feel. He wasn't emotionless. , it was just completely not my level.

[ Image ]

And when I activated true sight, I almost recoiled — he was no weaker than Gaunt! True, unlike my former employer, his aura was neither dark nor rotten, which calmed me.

"I am Mr. Marlow, Mr. Phineas Black, please come into the room," I smiled at the man who was surprised for a split second. Well yes, no one expects an "experienced apprentice" to be a twelve-year-old kid, even though I look fourteen.

After my invitation, he stepped inside with dignity.

"Would you like some tea, Mr. Black?" I asked him.

"I wouldn't refuse. If it doesn't trouble you, add milk and two spoons of sugar."

"It won't trouble me, wait a couple of minutes," I said, heading to the kitchen.

This applicant was completely different from the rest. He was proud, confident in himself, but not arrogant. He behaved openly, as if at home, but didn't create an impression of impudence like the previous one. Well, let's see how things go further.

"What did you do to Mr. Richardson?" Ariel whispered with scary eyes so as not to involve our guest.

"Let's say he'll have a lot of time to think about his behavior. And now, let's not keep Mr. Black waiting."

After Ariel promised to talk about my inappropriate behavior later, I helped her carry the cups with aromatic pu-erh.

…

"You're probably confused by my age?" After introducing ourselves to each other and talking with my mother about the weather, how the guest got here and other insignificant but etiquette-necessary things, I decided to get down to business. I don't like conversations about nothing.

"Please forgive me for my frankness, but I admit I'm truly surprised by your age and appearance. But I don't see a problem in this either," he said honestly.

More often they say no, what are you talking about, everything's fine, but in their emotions they're contemptuous or condescending. I don't like such people, though if there were really good masters among them, I would have tolerated it.

"Oh please, I understand well how I look in the eyes of strangers and I like your frankness. And to dispel your misconceptions, I'll ask you — have you heard of 'Magical Veela Bracelets,' 'Sleep Bracelets for Werewolves' and 'Safety Bracelets for Brooms'?"

"I've only heard of the first two, but they weren't particularly interesting to me since they're created for other races. But the last one is indeed good work, though not without flaws and for a mass product, of course."

"I don't want to boast, just stating the fact that I created the first two together with my mother, and I made the last one personally."

"At such a young age? Commendable," Black replied. Not trying to praise or needle, just stating a fact.

"Thank you, but the problem is that I understand my shortcomings and my limit — such mass products. And while we have enough for bread and butter, my desires extend to more distant horizons. And for this I need fundamental education, which only a Master can teach or..."

"An old pureblood family," Phineas finished for me. "I'll warn you right away, I have no right and don't want to reveal many family secrets. But what you're asking for, I can teach you. But I have a proposal, and if you agree, then I'm willing to even reduce my payment and reveal some family secrets not connected with dark magic."

He pronounced the last phrase with disgust. Quite interesting that a representative of a dark family hates dark magic.

"What proposal?"

"I'm looking for a student."

"I'm afraid this is a serious request and I can't answer you with agreement or refusal just like that. I'd first like to ask about the reasons for your proposal, what you want to teach me, and get to know each other better for starters. After all, I might disappoint you and not be capable of meeting your expectations."

It probably looks strange when a kid calmly and seriously talks about such questions. But I'm hiring a tutor for myself, so Ariel is here more as support. It just so happened that the relationships in our family developed not as between son and mother, but as between friends equal to each other.

And then I noticed he was smiling.

"Are you joking? Or is this a test?"

"It's good that you guessed, Mr. Marlow. Of course, I don't just offer apprenticeship with me like that. You should know how many youngsters have burned themselves on this, foolishly agreeing right away. Though I wasn't lying to you, and you correctly said that we need to get to know each other better.

"And my reasons are quite obvious — I'm too old. Since I was expelled from the Black family for unwillingness to engage in dark magic and humanistic views on ordinary people and squibs, I can't pass my knowledge to them, and I don't want to, to be honest.

"I have no children, my wife died long ago, and I don't want my labors to remain in vain and perish with me in the grave," he told in such a calm and even tone, as if he didn't care. However, if he's an occlumens, and most likely he definitely is, it costs him nothing to control his emotions.

"I understand you and will try to justify your expectations," I bowed slightly in respect.

…

I liked the first lesson — the old man knew his business not only in terms of artificing, but in terms of magic in general. Which only confirmed my theory about concealing truly important and fundamental knowledge from the rest of society.

Right away he found many errors in the charms and runes I was forming:

"Mr. Marlow, what do you put into your runes?" he asked me, watching as lines of runes appeared under my wand.

"In what sense?" I didn't understand.

"Runes have many meanings, the same rune can be interpreted differently. Let's take the 'sig' rune for example. It means strength and victory in the Elder Futhark. In an artifact it can both increase the power of applied charms and be used as their completion. Therefore, it's very important to clearly imagine and put your will, confidence in how exactly this rune works."

"Use the power of mind?"

"You could say that. But not quite. Will is not only mind, it's confidence in your strength and power as a wizard. You only use mind, which reduces the power of your runes and charms."

"I'll try."

Before me lay a piece of wood — a blank for training. I decided to remember everything. How surprised I was when I opened true sight. How frightened I was by Gaunt. How slowly, over years, I built up my strength.

But behind all these trainings, somehow the main thing got blurred — I am a wizard and I change reality with my will! All these charms, runes, they're crutches!

Pointing my wand at the blank, while not using it, as well as not using nonverbal charms, but only my will and magic, I wished for it to light up. The reserve went down by two-thirds, and it glowed slightly!

Black understood what I had done and satisfiedly stroked his smooth chin with his hand, nodding to me. And I saw with astral sight that there were no runes, no built-in charms — the piece of wood was glowing by itself!

"Now you understand. But this is only the very beginning and basics. I'm surprised how with such a level of education you can make artifacts at all. But okay, this isn't to offend you, but my indignation at modern schools and ministry policies in general."

How, how? By trial and error and hundreds of experiments. And about education and politics, I got hooked.

"May I ask a question?"

"You already asked one."

"And one more?"

"That's already two questions, but you can ask a third," this... old man suggested with devils in his eyes.

"Was education different before?"

"Hmm," he answered after thinking a bit, "Many disciplines have been banned since that time, and 'insignificant details' have been gradually removed from books, which supposedly didn't interfere with studying magic, but when trying to do something more serious than brewing potions or using ready-made charms create almost insurmountable difficulties."

"Like putting meaning into runes?" I inquired.

"That's only the tip of the iceberg. Compatibility tables in potion-making, numerological matrices for charms, permanent transfiguration and much, much more. Yes, all this can be found in books, but which children will look for all this? Especially not knowing where it is and why they need it?

"But then such a wizard's foundation will be shaky — and you get another muggle with a wand. All the more commendable is your desire not to become one. But enough praise, we still have a lot of work," he said, frowning. Apparently, this problem worries him greatly.

"Yes, sir," I answered, and we proceeded to further discussion of runes.

***

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Thank you for the help with the power stones!!!