And the Magic Door
As it turned out, it was unsurprisingly hard trying to hunt anything down on what Harry had dubbed Null Zones. What little he could find were a few forum threads and some random cryptozoologist's personal blog. The earliest reference he could find anywhere to what matched a Null Zone was sometime in twenty fourteen, shortly after a freak meteorological phenomenon in London, right over Buckingham Palace. Since then they had been popping up all over the globe and, according to one of the forum posts, matched up to lay line convergences.
“So Null Zones affect at least some of the material in their bounds.” Harry muttered as he worked on his latest project which lay amid scattered pieces of metal, circuit boards, and wiring. “But that can’t be the only effect of that storm thing.”
At that, he looked at the corkboard on the wall in front of him, which was filled with various reports of odd meteorological phenomena and probability errors.
“So, environmental effects, probabilistic manipulation, and personal level effects.” Harry muttered as he continued soldering. “So, there’s an effect, which has magic as its power source, but how does that power get focused?”
Finishing the last connection, Harry hopped up and powered up his project, took one last look at the board, picked up his device, and headed out.
“Time for a test drive.”
—O—
The test drive, as it turned out, was far easier than he had anticipated. There had been rumors that a local building was haunted, with the ghost only appearing during lighting storms, and only ever being seen through two specific windows. As it turned out, it was two specific pieces of glass that were visualizing the spirit. They were round pieces of two stained glass murals.
Which Harry was currently fitting into some frames. Was what he did vandalism? Yes. More specifically, he had stolen them out of a building that was, kind of, ever so slightly, a historical building. It wasn’t exactly like they were being used by anyone, and he could put them to better use.
The glass was odd, as well. Now, Harry wouldn’t claim to be very knowledgeable on geology, because he found it rather boring, but he was known to dabble when he needed to. The glass itself looked like borosilicate glass, with an odd dichroic element. Then there were the crystal inclusions. Though he supposed it made sense for magical glass to be odd.
“Okay, so, if we flick this switch…” Harry muttered as he finished fitting the glass in. “The perception filter should be active, then we twist the dial one click, two clicks… three clicks.”
Pulling the goggles down over his face, Harry looked around.
“Nothing so far, as expected. But, if we look…” Harry muttered, looking at the magical necklace he had made a staple of his wardrobe. “A slight aura, just like I thought there would be.”
Pulling the goggles up, so that they were resting on his forehead, Harry flipped the power switch off as he walked away from his workbench, grabbed a small book he had bought from an antiques store the other day, his satchel, and headed to his laptop.
“So, first proper magic hunting sesh. Something simple… hm.” He muttered as he scrolled through the notes and articles he had been collecting. “Oo, unusual spate of good luck? Well then, let’s go.”
—O—
It had been roughly a year since Harry had first figured out that magic was something that existed, and he liked to think he had gotten pretty good at magic hunting. Had he had to repair his Thaumic Resonance Sensor a few times? Yes. Had he had to use copper more than he liked? Also yes. But such was the price he was willing to pay. He could remember the last time he had felt so alive.
He had also limited the amount of magic he personally used after a nasty encounter with a wizard that had somehow come to life, leaving his book. So add that to the list of things magic could do, as well as, apparently driving you insane if the person who had brought him to life was any indication.
He was, at the moment, headed back to his lab after dealing with a ghost that had been haunting the nearby library, of all places, when his Sensor started going off again. Flipping the power switch for his goggles, Harry looked around, twisting one of the dials ever so slightly, widening the frequency range of the perception filter.
“Huh, that’s… the Bazaar.” Harry muttered, heading in the direction of the abandoned building, looking down at the Sensor’s display as he got closer. “That doesn’t... what on earth is in there?”
Opening the door, Harry stumbled through, an unusual thing to happen when walking through a door.
“This… isn’t the Bazaar.” Harry said, looking around the room, taking in the shelves to one side, the doors on the other, the long desk in the center that was filled with clutter, and the three other, smaller desks that currently had people at them. “Hi there?”
“Who are you? How did you get in here? And would you shut that thing off!” All came from the man in the corner, wearing a flannel shirt buttoned up, all in quick succession.
“Uh, I’ll give you a name when you give me one, I walked through the door and…” Harry said, fiddling with the sensor, shutting off the noise output. “You have an American accent.”
“Yeah, I’m from Oklahoma, I’m gonna have an American accent.” Mr. Oklahoma responded. “How did you walk through the door?”
“Okay, no, the problem is, no one in Little Whinging has an American Accent.” Harry responded. “Actually, none of the people I’ve met in Surrey in general have an American accent.”
“Surrey? Like Surrey, England?”
“That would be correct…” Harry said, fiddling with a dial on his goggles. “Miss I-am-somehow-tapping-into-the-Clevenger-field.”
“Alright, I think the clear thing to do here is…” The last person began before immediately pivoting when an older man in a suit walked through one of the doors. “Jenkins! Thank god, I had no clue what I was gonna suggest. Someone got in.”
“I can see that, Mr. Jones.” The old man, Jenkins, responded. “What I would like to know is how. Given the upgrades to the Library’s security.”
“So, we have Mr. Oklahoma, Mr. Jones, Jenkins and Clevenger field.” Harry said, pulling his goggles up. “And I’d hazard a guess and say magic.”
“How do you know about magic, young man?” Jenkins asked, setting the book he had been holding on a desk.
“I hunt it, that’s how.” Harry replied, beginning to wander around. “Made my own tech to help me as well. Real pain in the ass. Still easier than learning the spells I use. Ya know, standard stuff, exorcisms, binding spells, ways to break binding spells. All that good stuff.”
“Magic is-“ Jenkins began.
“Incredibly dangerous.” Harry cut him off, poking around at one of the shelves. “Yeah, I know, that’s why I limit how much I use. Have since that one wizard came to life. Pain in the ass he was.”
“I’m more interested in your gadgets.” The mysterious Mr. Jones commented. “And call me Ezekiel, I’m not some stuffy old guy.”
“Oh ya know, retrofitted Geiger counter and tape deck hooked up to some Null Quartz that’s outputting piezothaumic pulses. Kinda easy if you’re great with electrical engineering.” Harry replied, tilting the hand that was holding his sensor side to side. “Least, that’s for the Thaumic Resonance Sensor. Goggles use a weird dichroic borosilicate glass with crystal inclusions that act like a perception filter if they get a charge. Add in a variable resistor and you can limit the perception range by altering the voltage output.”
“Yes well, that still does not answer the question of your entrance.” Jenkins said. “And I am well aware it was because of magic, young man.”
“I dunno what you want me to say.” Harry said. “There I was, heading back to my lab after dealing with a ghost, when all of a sudden my Sensor starts going haywire, which usually only happens in Null Zones, I track it down to the Bazaar, open the door, suddenly I’m in, according to you, a library that knows about magic.”
“Not a library, the Library.” Jenkins replied. “Which you should neither be in, nor know about.”
“Hang on, how old are you?” Clevenger Field asked. “Also, my name is Cassandra. Cassandra Cillian. ‘Mr. Oklahoma’ is Jacob Stone.”
“Huh.” Harry said, giving Jacob a once-over. “Thought Dr. Stone would look different. Anyway, name’s Harry Potter, sixteen-year-old magic hunter at your service.”
“Sixteen?” Cassandra said. “And you built your tools yourself?”
“Yes.” Harry said, a touch of offense slipping into his tone. “I am quite certain that this is my own handiwork.”
“Okay, and how long have you been a ‘magic hunter’?”
“Roundabouts a year now. These are some really odd questions.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have developed a theory behind how magic works, would you?”
“Uh… yeah?” Harry replied, seeing an expectant look on Casandra’s face. “I’m guessing you wanna hear it?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Oo-kay then.” Harry said, giving her an odd look. “Well, the base power source is magic, obviously. The thaumic voltage runs through whatever, the spell, the artifact, and produces an effect. By itself the thaumic voltage would give a random effect, or just make something into a magical variety of itself, like Null Quartz, so the thaumic volts have to be encoded into something concrete, by some kind of encoding vector. Sometimes its emotional attachment, most of the time a link to a story or the Principle of Sympathy.”
“That is… shockingly accurate, Mr. Potter.” Jenkins commented. “I do believe you may be thinking along the right lines, Miss Cillian.”
“The Backdoor, is it possible for Ray to set it himself? You know, instead of us setting the door like normal, he chooses where it goes and fires it up?”
“I shouldn’t see why not. It is, after all, just as much a part of the Library as he is.”
“Well, what about the letter? Do you think he might have used the door instead of the letter this time, now that he has it?”
“Woah, woah, woah.” Jacob said. “There’s no way you think he was meant to get a letter.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time, if we’re coming from the age issue.” Cassandra said, looking over at Ezekiel. “And Jake, he’s only had a year, but he managed to make a perception filter with a modulation element. Not even Jenkins managed to modify Victor Finch’s to the point it could change magical frequency.”
“That doesn’t mean he has any experience.”
“Uh, did you not hear the comment about a ghost? Or what sounded like a Fictional?” Ezekiel chimed in. “Fictionals aren’t grade one problems. Sounds like the kid has experience if he dealt with it.”
“Okay, mind not being super mysterious?”
“They…” A new voice began. “ Are Librarians, and this, is the Library. The sole defense against the harm that magic can bring, a solitary bulwark in the whirling maelstrom of chaos that comes with being able to break the conventional laws of reality. And you… do not know what conventional dress rules are.”
“I know what norms are, I just think they suck balls.” Harry replied, giving the man a critical look. “Now, who would you be, Mr. I-still-think-tweed-is-in-fashion?”
“Dr. Flynn Carsen, another Librarian. Well, the Librarian if you think about it from a tenure position. Do Librarians get tenure? Now, why is this British teenager still in the Library?”
“That would be because Miss Cillian believes the Library set the Backdoor to collect him.”
“Well that’s just silly. The Library’s never set the Backdoor, we set the Backdoor. The Library setting the Backdoor would mean it wants Mr. Potter over there for some reason, the only reason the Library wants people is to be a Librarian or Guardian, except we have a Guardian. Two in fact.”
“Well, I think… I think we’re looking at the newest Librarian, Flynn.”