13 Jan 2022, 04:51
The Weight of Knowledge
A couple of weeks after the Christmas holidays found Julian walking the familiar path to the charms section of the library. Though there was some small amount of research to be done for some of the homework they'd already been set, Julian had an ulterior motive: he'd been struck by a sudden fascination with the subject of enchanting objects. In particular, he was curious to know how charms that enchanted objects to behave in a particular way when something else happened worked, even if he suspected such magic was probably still way beyond him--would you need a particular spell to go with a particular trigger, or were there more general spells? Julian could imagine all kinds of combinations of trigger and actions. It seemed like having a spell for each would be quite impractical.
Unsure of where to find the answers he sought, Julian simply picked up half a dozen books with promising titles and started carrying them back to a table, pausing only to grab a book that might contain relevant information on the Slowing Charm for his charms assignment.
Not being a particularly strong boy, his trip back to the table was a precarious one, walking extremely slowly and involving a significant amount of stopping and ducking into aisles to let other students pass, lest his attempts at walking around them tip the pile off balance and end with them scattered on the floor. He really did not fancy ending up in detention for damaging a book, though hopefully--if the worst did happen, his trusty mending charm would keep hin from that particular fate.
It was during one of those stops that he realised he recognised one of the students he'd just stopped to let through. It was the guitar-playing third year he'd met during the talent teaching event--Henry. Julian could hardly claim to have made much progress on the skills Henry had taught them since he'd last seen the boy since he didn't even own a guitar on which to practice, but he still offered the other boy a polite nod of greeting.
"Henry, hullo," he said. "How's Loki?" Loki, Henry's cat, had easily been the most memorable aspect of the event, having earned the distinction of being one of the best behaved cats Julian had ever seen. And he would know; he did have a pet-minding business (of sorts), after all. "You wouldn't happen to know a spell to make these lighter, would you?" he added. Henry was only one year older to Julian, but he couldn't help but feel like that was more than enough time to handily dwarf Julian's knowledge of spells. "Although I wonder if we're allowed to cast any spells on library books." He frowned. He couldn't remember whether the rules allowed or disallowed it explicitly.
Unsure of where to find the answers he sought, Julian simply picked up half a dozen books with promising titles and started carrying them back to a table, pausing only to grab a book that might contain relevant information on the Slowing Charm for his charms assignment.
Not being a particularly strong boy, his trip back to the table was a precarious one, walking extremely slowly and involving a significant amount of stopping and ducking into aisles to let other students pass, lest his attempts at walking around them tip the pile off balance and end with them scattered on the floor. He really did not fancy ending up in detention for damaging a book, though hopefully--if the worst did happen, his trusty mending charm would keep hin from that particular fate.
It was during one of those stops that he realised he recognised one of the students he'd just stopped to let through. It was the guitar-playing third year he'd met during the talent teaching event--Henry. Julian could hardly claim to have made much progress on the skills Henry had taught them since he'd last seen the boy since he didn't even own a guitar on which to practice, but he still offered the other boy a polite nod of greeting.
"Henry, hullo," he said. "How's Loki?" Loki, Henry's cat, had easily been the most memorable aspect of the event, having earned the distinction of being one of the best behaved cats Julian had ever seen. And he would know; he did have a pet-minding business (of sorts), after all. "You wouldn't happen to know a spell to make these lighter, would you?" he added. Henry was only one year older to Julian, but he couldn't help but feel like that was more than enough time to handily dwarf Julian's knowledge of spells. "Although I wonder if we're allowed to cast any spells on library books." He frowned. He couldn't remember whether the rules allowed or disallowed it explicitly.