what goes on within the walls, I
Ursa slipped her hand over the cover, old and worn as it was. Engraved in fading gold, tarnished with the pudgy fingers of children who weren’t like her but shared her blood, were the words, Runic Language for Beginners. It was in English but it was the only book out of the three she's been recommended to read that was. Regardless, she opened it to the first page.
It started by explaining how, exactly, runic arrays work. The shape mattered, whether it be a triangle or a circle or a square, and the material it was done in mattered but to a lesser extent; as long as it had magic, from blood or from naturally occurring sources, it would work. What changed was the potency of how it worked and if it had the possibility to leak over and spoil.
Circles are often used for group rituals, such as the solstice. The number of casters is determined only by the size of the circle and goes according to as such, and the book listed the diameter against the number of people. Ursa tried to think of what a big circle would look like, in the dark shade of the lands that the Black family-owned, but she couldn't fathom it. Hypothetically, there could be any number of casters but in that case that the people exceed the predicted diameter, the runic array must account for any failures. They are one of the three that allows for one caster, with no extra cost.
Triangles are used in three-caster groups. Two overlapping triangles allow six, and three allows nine and so on and so forth. They are the most stable of the standard patterns and are used most often. Most beginners stick with either square or triangular arrays. The following picture depicted a group of wizards standing around an indecipherable array, magic frothing around their palms. Triangular arrays are also one of the three that allows for single-caster use only, with the idea that the caster uses either the ambient magic of an area or gives the total magic given if three casters were to use the array.
Ursa knew this; there are many wards around her home. Most are wards cast with wands but all wards fall with the death of their caster, and so to circumvent this, her mother and her father are keyed in to provide slivers of magic for upkeep.
Squares, and here a nice little square is illustrated. It’s rather faded, but she’d rather not listen to Druella’s scolding on why she drew over the book, require four casters. They must have four casters, unless the caster has extremely high magical reserves, in which case the caster could hypothetically power the array by themselves. Squares are used often in older places, fueled by ambient magic in the area, and are mainly barrier wards, concealment wards and destruction wards.
The very last one had no illustration that Ursa could see, pentagon arrays are used often in the building of houses, castles or main buildings such as the ministry. They are rarely used beyond for large-scale projects and are capable of having several different arrays within them. Pentagon arrays are, under no circumstance, to be used by beginners due to their complicated nature. They are, though, one of the three that can be fueled by a single caster. When awoken, pentagon arrays stay active until they are either physically destroyed or the caster is killed.
A long blonde hair fell down onto her page and Ursa slammed the book shut, narrowly missing her fingers. Narciss smiled down at her, but the mischief was hidden in her silver eyes. She narrowed her own eyes back at her, suspicious. “When did you get back?”
“Why? Did you miss me?” Narcissa flickered her gaze over the three books, sprawled over the library table. There were two; one located near the window, with four chairs and one in the very centre made for multiple people. “I didn’t know you’d moved on to more… complicated matters.”
“Yes, well. Miss Maybelle wanted me to get a headstart on my peers.” What she didn’t say was she had pestered the woman until she gave in. “I was trying to get started before I was interrupted.”
Narcissa didn’t laugh - because, recently, when she had started coming and going to Malfoy Manor, she said that it was beneath her - but her lips quirked in the way that Ursa knew signalled amusement derived from her suffering. “Of course. Of course. I’ll be on my way out.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” She grumbled, watching her sister saunter down the bookshelves, opening the book once more. Powering Runes, was in big bold letters next to the description of runic arrays, runes can be powered by any magic but the type can sometimes occur a reaction if the material works against it. For instance, a blood-written rune powered by somebody else except the wizard, their closest family relatives, or the ambient magic found in nature…
Narcissa waved at her. “Make sure to come down from dinner!”
Ursa refused to curse her out, but it was a very close call.