(Arcane Tinker) Chapter 23: Soaring High

AN: Like the other AT chapters so far, this isn’t part of the weekly schedule. Tomorrow will be an AWM (EM Vol. 2) chapter, like you guys chose in the last poll.

Chapter 23: Soaring High

6th October 1991, Hogwarts

He walked towards the Room of Requirements. He needed to study exactly what it was that he did to try to replicate it again. He had a lot to think about, after all.

Dean stood in the Room of Requirements, panting in exertion. The room’s form had changed slightly in the last few weeks, with the appearance of a new testing area that he had access to, something that he now realised was extremely useful. He ducked down as a familiar shield zoomed from the other side of the room, trying to hit him, which bounced off the floor before continuing its endless trajectory.

Grumbling to himself, the young wizard took out his wand, “Immobulus!”

Immediately, the shield stopped in its tracks, allowing him to jump and grab it back, and shaking his head, “Note to self: altering the enchantments to repel kinetic energy makes the shield bouncy, but the trajectory is too random to use.”

He quickly noted that down in his notebook, before sighing and putting everything away. He looked at his watch and quickly realised that he had lost track of time.

It was the weekend, and he spent most of the morning trying to figure out his enchanting slightly more. So far, the shield was his greatest success, but also his greatest hurdle. The confrontation with Jack’s weird gang had allowed him to pass a hurdle, the ability to actively be able to enchant objects, only it came with some very concerning caveats, mainly that he had a very hard time replicating the feat.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it. It was that it seemed like there was a requirement of some sort to be able to successfully enchant an item. It took learning a few spells to figure out what made the shield special, and he ended up learning a few detection spells from the library to figure it out, and even then, it was mostly guesswork. The shield was a medieval one, made of wood, like one he imagined being used in a joust. There was something more about the wood itself, something that made it accept enchantments more easily, which was missing in most other items he had access to.

Even then, he could only enchant a single property at a time while he was touching it. He was easily able to shift the repelling enchantment against magic or against kinetic energy, but couldn’t add anything more to it. He felt like he could do it, but that the shield itself couldn’t sustain it. He likely needed better materials, but those were expensive, and he was all but a penniless orphan in a stranger’s words.

He looked at the portrait of his mother, her soft smile and movement acting as a balm to his soul and spoke up softly, “I’m stuck for now. Either I need more control or better materials, which means more gold.”

He had moved the portrait permanently to the room. He noticed that the room allowed him to leave some items there for ease of access, which he could take out later. He hadn’t really wanted to keep his mother’s portrait, one of the things he treasured most in the world, in the dormitory with four other boys. He didn’t trust Ron to try to snoop in, especially since the boy was strangely hostile towards him.

It was also a motivation to see her whenever he could, and with it, study more in the Room of Requirements. He gave her a smile, and he put the shield back on the table. He would work on it more. “It would have been nice to add a summoning or control feature. Can you imagine? I’d have been like Captain America?”

He turned towards his mother’s portrait and could almost see her smile turn from her normal one to an amused one. He shook his head and spoke up softly, “Goodbye, Mum.”

With that done, he exited the Room of Requirements and made his way back to the dormitory. Hopefully, he’d have time to take a shower before the rest of the day. Normally, he’d have spent more time in the Room practising since it was a Saturday and he didn’t have any classes, but unfortunately, or fortunately depending on who you asked, today was their first flying lesson.

Harry had been all but buzzing in excitement at the idea. To be fair, his family was known to love flying, seemingly most having a personal magic related to wind or flight in some way. Apparently, his parents had let him ride a broom in their garden on his sixth birthday, which Dean felt to be a little reckless given his age, but injuries were treated differently when there were spells that could heal in seconds or at least stabilise until taking a trip to the Hospital.

Thankfully, there wasn’t anyone in the showers, so he was able to take one easily enough before making his way down to the Great Hall. It was a narrow thing, but he made it with a few minutes to spare.

The Great Hall itself was almost empty, which made sense given that Breakfast was over and it hadn’t been lunch yet. Only first years, specifically the Gryffindors and Slytherins, were there, and Dean slowly made towards Harry when he saw him chatting with Seamus of all people.

Harry perked up when he saw him coming over, “Hey mate. Cutting it close, huh?”

“Lost track of time, sorry,” Dean sheepishly apologised.

The other boy immediately understood, “Any progress on the thing?”

“Less than I’d liked. I’m trying to get more control, but it’s pretty hard. Things have gotten sort of out of hand today, but everything was fine, thankfully.”

He’d told Harry about him practising his Enchanting every morning. His best friend was astute enough to know that being an Enchanter was a big deal, and a pretty dangerous one, too. He had been one of the few people whom he’d told about his personal magic on the Express. If he knew then what he knew now, he wouldn’t have told anyone. In a way, Dean was on a time crunch to protect himself until someone accidentally let something slip regarding his message, instead of the normal routes of a member of the board looking at Hogwarts paperwork.

Still, he didn’t regret that Harry knew. It allowed him to explain why he disappeared sometimes to practice his magic, and the other boy was pretty understanding of the pressure Dean was under, even if he was disappointed that he wasn’t told where he did his practising.

For some reason, a few people who tried to listen blanched in fear and looked away, having assumed that he’d been practising his presumed fire magic. Dean’s reputation as a pyromancer had grown after he beat that Hufflepuff upperclassman whose name Dean still didn’t know. People grew even more afraid of him, which suited him well enough, since they left him alone, and he hadn’t been harassed by anyone ever since.

Harry looked at them and obviously failed to suppress a snicker. Thankfully, Madam Hooch made her way into the Great Hall and spoke up curtly, “Come along, everyone. We haven’t got all day.”

There was a collective shuffle of feet as the students stood up and followed her out, the mix of nerves and excitement palpable in the air. Dean walked beside Harry, who kept throwing him eager glances, practically bouncing with anticipation

For some reason, everyone looked forward to flying lessons, which meant that bragging became commonplace. It was something that Dean had gotten sick of during the last week, with each story being more outlandish than the previous one.

He thought he’d gotten used to it until he couldn’t suppress his chuckles as he overheard Draco Malfoy’s latest brag, where he heroically avoided being hit by a helicopter. Aside from being surprised that Malfoy knew what a helicopter was, the story was beyond outrageous. Helicopters were rarely used, and even when they were, it was mostly in dense cities during emergencies, which was illegal for wizards or witches to fly near them. They were also very loud, which meant that Malfoy had to be deaf not to notice it.

All in all, either Malfoy was confessing to committing a crime while being too dumb to hear a helicopter, or he was lying. Still, he decided to leave things be, but Malfoy obviously noticed something, “Is there something funny to you, Thomas?”

Huh, this was probably the first time Malfoy addressed Dean in any way, and if he was honest, he was a bit surprised by it. He simply shook his head and coughed out a reply, “Oh, nothing, just a joke I heard. Very riveting story, by the way.”

The boy obviously didn’t know whether or not Dean was mocking him, and just looked back to the rest of Slytherin, continuing another fascinating tale.

Dean shared a look with Harry and gave him a wink, which made the other boy snort once more.

Still, the walk there was spent with Malfoy still looking at Dean with a sneer a few times. Thankfully, nothing came of it, and they finally arrived at the Quidditch pitch without any problem for their flying lessons.

The lessons weren’t mandatory or part of the curriculum, but a requirement from the ministry to be able to buy or ride brooms. One couldn’t own a broom without the license, which would end up being added to their identifying runes when they passed the exams, which were at the end of the year. Of course, rich people could arrange for their children to take them early, but that wasn’t exactly an option for Dean.

This also meant that Madam Hooch wasn’t a real professor in the castle, but an employee of the ministry who was in charge of the school's Quidditch tournament and flying lessons. With that in mind, she was very rarely in the castle, staying only for her duties for a few hours before leaving.

He was broken from his thoughts by Madam Hooch’s loud voice, “Well, what are you all waiting for? Everyone, stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."

Dean turned towards the twenty brooms lying on the ground in neat lines, before making his way towards one of them. They certainly looked like they’d seen better days, but then again, most other brooms had as well.

He couldn’t help but roll his eyes when he heard Malfoy speak up loudly, “Are these even proper broomsticks? My father says that anything that is not a Comet or a Nimbus shouldn’t be considered one, never mind a Cleansweep, or whatever in Merlin’s name these things are. Imagine not having a proper broom to fly.”

For some reason, Ron’s hair started to smoke again, which had become a bit of a comical sight. Dean couldn’t help but wonder if that was the extent of his magic and hoped for his sake that it wasn’t. People were judged on their personal magic, and this was no other.

Neville thankfully spoke to him to calm him down, and Dean turned towards Harry, hoping for an explanation, but the boy was in his own world, staring at the sky.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say, 'Up!'"

"UP!" everyone shouted.

Dean did the same as everyone, and everyone’s brooms rose into their hands, the command being enchanted into each broom. Everyone seemed to smile at their success, but not Dean. Dean’s eyes widened completely the moment his hand touched the broom, almost overwhelmed by the enchantments on the broom. He couldn’t really understand most of them, but it was like seeing a piece of art, a very delicate balance of every piece of magic, overlapping in a way that he’d never thought possible.

He wished to continue observing the enchantments, but decided otherwise. Instead, he focused on Madam Hooch, who was showing them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips.

Finally, they were allowed to fly up, and Madam Hooch gave the signal to do so, hoping to hover around. Dean activated the enchantments and smiled to himself at how responsive the broom really was.

Surprisingly, nothing really happened, and their flying instructor just gave them exercises to do in the air, while she helped a few people who were struggling, which included Sally-Anne, sadly. Dean was in his own world, mostly looking at how the enchantments shifted and how he could alter them very slightly to get different results. He only did so when he was near the ground, just in case anything went wrong, but he felt like he was making a lot of progress by just studying a broom. Who would have thought that flying lessons would help so much? It was like practising with his ring, but far more complex, and it was wonderful.

Of course, that was when he heard a loud yell and saw Ron Weasley losing control and barreling towards him at extreme speed. Because, of course, something would have to go wrong.

AN: Like I said above, this isn’t part of the weekly schedule. Tomorrow will be an AWM (EM Vol. 2) chapter, like you guys chose in the last poll.

As for this chapter, I decided to add a bit of action to spice things up a bit. As usual, I don’t mind rewriting this depending on your feedback, so please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.