Chapter 15
“Hermione, do you know where I can purchase about…” Harry began, calculating something in his head. “Let’s call it sixty. Sixty feldspar granite rectangles that’re five inches long and three wide?”
As Harry spoke, Hermione looked up from the book she was reading, her face growing more and more confused, her mouth opening ever so slightly.
“No, Harry.” She began, slowly. “I do not know where to go if you wanted to buy sixty five-by-three rectangles of feldspar granite. Why did you think I would?”
“You know things?” Harry said. “Anyways, guess I’ll have to go with what Lovegood suggested.”
“Why do you need so many stone tablets? And since when did you start wearing gloves?”
“Uh, first, better for you not to know. It’s related to a crime I’m going to commit. As for the gloves, they’re a recent thing. I enchanted them.”
“I take it you’ll be using your odd shadows to stay safe during the crime?” Hermione said, sounding for all the world like a beleaguered mother.
“Of course!” Harry answered, looking scandalized. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really need to find Lovegood.”
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“I still want to know how you have contacts with a remote clan of Highland Dwarves!” Harry whispered as he and Luna crept through a forgotten tunnel leading into the cave system that was part of the mountain range surrounding Hogwarts.
“Well, Uncle Sheo and I had been anticipating some form of movement by the Princes for quite a while, so he helped me make some connections that would prove useful if needed.” Luna responded cheerily.
“This is what I get for becoming coworkers with someone who experiences dimensional hyper-sanity.” Harry muttered to himself.
“Aw, not even acquaintance?”
“Coworkers.”
“Associates?”
“… Tolerable. On a related note, do these dwarves you know happen to do construction work?”
“Occasionally. A sepulcher, I presume?”
“Naturally.”
“Naturally what?” A gruff voice asked as Harry and Luna emerged from the tunnel into a cave.
Looking at the figure, Harry was struck by how accurate Tolkien had been. He was short, well-built and had a perfectly groomed beard. He was wearing dark red brigandine, with a leather pauldron on his right arm, and a warhammer slung behind his back.
“That can wait. I take it you have the supplies, Angvar?” Luna asked, face suddenly filled with a bladed smile.
“I might.” The dwarf, Angvar apparently, grunted. “Ya ain’t gonna see nuthin’ if I don’t see appropriate compensation. You know how much of a ball ache it is, making alla’ those tablets?”
“Hmm.” Luna replied, seemingly thinking. “Well, you see, if I show you everything you may just take it all. You show half of the tablets, I show half the payment. If everything is satisfactory, we finish the exchange.”
Angvar’s response was a grunt and slamming his fist against the cart next to him, causing another dwarf to carry one of the crates down.
“Harry?”
At the prompting, Harry walked up to the crate, giving it two sharp knocks, before opening it up and taking out one of the tablets to examine, placing it back down, nodding in the affirmative to Luna.
In response, she pulled out a bag from her pocket filled with a variety of gemstones, gold and a quarter of the shed basilisk skin. Once Angvar gave the bag a once over, He nodded at his companion to deposit the second box, at the same time Luna pulled a second bag out of her pocket.
“Now, on to other things.” Luna said, allowing Harry to step forward.
“Do you do construction in addition to stone masonry?”
“Nah, but my cousin Vili does. Why?”
“I need someone to build a sepulcher complex, one with an empty temple room at the end.”
“And you’re what? Fourteen?” Angvar snorted, clearly amused.
“Perhaps, though I’m far from what you might think you’re dealing with.” Harry began, sacrificing a few points he had gained recently. “Tell me, how’s Gwynn?”
“How do you-“
“It must have been such an ordeal being disinherited for marrying him, what with him being of the Folk.”
“How do you know about Gwynn?” Angvar demanded.
“I suppose you could ask the same question about dispelling the thirty-two charms woven into the first chest.”
“Bullshit.”
“Go ahead and try to feel for them if you don’t believe me.”
In response, Angvar swung his warhammer off his back, and hit the stone crate with a few experimental swings, looking increasingly concerned at whatever response he received.
“How the hell did you do that?”
“Like I said, I’m not quite what you think you’re dealing with, Angvar Hammerfist.”
“Let me see those gloves.”
“No can do. They’re a trade secret.” Harry replied. “Now, when can we expect contact from Vili Hammerfist?”
He and Angvar participated in a stare-off, Angvar clearly wanting to look at the gloves, that lasted about five minutes.
“He should be in contact within the month.” Angvar replied, finally relenting.
“Wonderful.”
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“Ya know, I thought we’d be doing the heist now, not… whatever you’re doing.”
“Yes, well, that would mean going near something that is tied to Mehrunes Dagon without a disposal method, which will take a while. While that may not mean much to you, I would rather throw myself into Apocrypha’s Ichor Sea or go into The Feral Gallery while the exhibits are loose.”
“And this is a disposal method… how, exactly?”
“It’s a thrice layered method.” Harry said, putting his pencil down and pulling a roll of paper out of his bag. “The first layer is designed to act as a sort of combination Faraday Cage and blast shield. The inner two layers are designed to facilitate and to create a feedback loop of Padomaic and Anuic energies to disrupt the matrices of the Wand.”
“And you’re manually carving them… why, exactly?”
“Because I can’t perform the Gouging charm, and the stones have to be untouched magically until they have to be charged.”
“That’s…” George began, trailing off.
“Harry, that’s a first-year charm.” Fred said, picking up his twin's line of thinking. “It’s barely more complicated than shoving through magic without a Twisting.”
“Be that as it may, I am unable to perform it.” Harry sighed. “It’s part of the trade off.”
“What trade off?”
“Of being able to perform Tamrielic magic.” Harry said, glancing at the twins when they failed to respond. “You didn’t think it was a net win, did you?”
“I mean, we kinda did.” Fred responded sheepishly.
“Wait, does that mean the same thing’s gonna happen to us?” George asked, concern gracing his face.
“No, it won’t happen to you. Well, not yet, anyway. You haven’t been suffused by the Padomaic nature of the Princes for long enough yet, thus you can’t manipulate magicka yet. In contrast, I’ve been actively anchoring a Prine since my parents died.”
“Okay, but how does it work? Like, do you get less… magical?”
“No, it’s more akin to a dam.” Harry began. “The pathways through which magic are channeled are still there, they just get… clogged up, I suppose. The more magicka I channel, the more dams form in those channels.”
“So… you’ll turn into something like a squib?”
“That… isn’t entirely accurate, but it’s close enough. Now, I really need to get back to work.”