Sunday, December 18, 1994

Champions Prep Room 5

13:07 PM

Percival Ebonwood's POV

"Sorry, I'm late. I was running a few errands for the professors," I said as I noticed a bored Athaliah sitting on the desk. "Hopefully you didn't wait too long."

Athaliah, waking up from her slumbering state, just looked at me. She radiated an air of annoyance and displeasure. Displeasure of me not arriving on time.

"Really? Why did they not ask me to help? I had been sitting here for the past half an hour, waiting. Why didn't they ask me?" Athaliah said it in an uncharacteristic manner.

I've been around enough girls to know what is happening. I really shouldn't answer back, as it'll make this worse, but I absolutely love the way they just implode. It brought a type of joy that very few things could replicate.

"Maybe they thought they needed a student of a higher calibre? You know, a student that does really well on a task they set."

She was definitely going to implode. And she did. Athaliah had a colourful array of words to describe me. Some of the insults hurled at me I had never heard, and some definitely hit me deep. As much as I liked watching girls implode, I now have to deal with the fallout. And how do you handle the fallout? Easy! You need three things: chocolate, a hot water bottle, and a weighted blanket.

Using the surrounding objects, I transfigured a weighted blanket and an empty hot water bottle. I used the water conjuring charm to pour water into the plastic container and cast a warming charm on it. Reaching into the depths of my pocket, I retrieved the finest chocolate man has ever created from my hidden stash: milk chocolate Godiva.

I threw the hot water bottle at her, and she surprisingly managed to catch it. I levitated the weighted blanket and covered her. Opening the bar of chocolate, I passed a piece to her, as I also enjoyed it. The effect was almost instantaneous. I can't exactly put into words what happened. But imagine taking sweets from a baby. I just start to wail and fley my arm, trying to get everyone's attention. And now picture it in reverse. That is what I think best describes the situation.

As I waited for her to return to a semblance of normal, I observed the room. Whoever designed this room had excellent taste. The prep room was an inspired replica of Valdiani's workshop, minus a few of the more dangerous items. Who is Valdiani, you may be wondering?

Valdiani was the greatest philosopher, astronomer, and inventor of the time of the Greeks. He was the father of the concept of a heliocentric solar system, charted star maps that are still in use today, and gave us a preliminary understanding of the greater unknown. The reason why most do not know his name is due to the Muggle Greeks taking his research and claiming it as their own. Though they were on the more political path and published research that conformed to their society's beliefs. Who could blame them?

But this workshop/prep room was a work of art. The classic Greek high ceiling, arched windows, and a willow and maple flooring were some of the first things one noticed when looking into the room. Surprisingly, this room has oil lamps instead of everlasting candles. Again, props to the designer.

Tall mahogany bookshelves were lined on the left wall with enough old times to make a Ravenclaw drool, but not this one. I actually have most of these in my collection at home. My magical home, of course. How would I explain the existence of these books to muggles?

There were several antique telescopes near the window, with a shelf of various astronomical instruments such as sextants, astrolabes, and armillary spheres displayed on it. Below the shelves was a table with equipment such as compasses, callipers, and drawing instruments.

But what really got my attention, save for the golden egg, was the centre table. Although it was made out of cobblestone, it was masterfully and tastefully carved. It depicted scenes from Greek history, famous figures, and even had some poetry engraved on it.

Focussing my attention back on the reason why I was here, I glanced at Athaliah and then at the egg. Athaliah had calmed down significantly. I handed her the rest of the chocolate bar. She gobbled them up before starting to speak.

"I figured it out. It only took ruptured eardrums, and me getting annoyed," Athaliah said.

"Do tell."

"No. It took me a week. I'm not just going to tell you the answer. I'll give you an hour. If you can't get it, you owe me," the Durmstang girl said.

"Deal," I said as I approached the egg. I placed my hand on it and twisted it. I removed my hands as it slowly opened up to reveal a vinyl.

The vinyl started spinning, and the egg produced low and base heavy sounds. It sounds like a Weird Sisters song, but on steroids. It was surprising that it produced such loud sounds for such a tiny object. But I guess you could claim it was the work of the sonorous charm. As the tune progressed, it produced an unpleasant but bearable, high pitched screeching. Nothing to the point where you would rupture your eardrum.

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And how wrong I was! The moment after I thought this, the pitch and volume increased. I did start to hurt. My first reaction was to cover my ears, but it got louder and louder. I saw Athaliah wearing ear mittens. I guess she came prepared. Anticlimactically, I closed the egg, and the sounds stopped. I waited till the ringing died down.

"That was something," I said.

"Your time is ticking."

"I already figured it out."

"What?!"

"Probably something like putting it under water should solve it," I said.

"How the fuck did you figure that out so quickly? That took me, like, five days," she burst out as she stood up in a hurry.

"Quite easy. One of the biggest clues was the fact that it was a vinyl. I assumed the clue was a song of some sort. Then came the first bit of the song. I'm guessing that was the ensemble before the actual song. The first high-pitched bit was the singers harmonising, and the final bit was them actually singing. The fact that it went from really low to really high suggests that the song should be played in a different medium. The two most common mediums on Hogwarts grounds are air and water. Since air does not work, it should be water. And also the fact that you said you ruptured your eardrum," I explained.

"Really? You figured all that out after listening to it once?" She asked.

"Yeah," I said before scoffing. "Did you actually believe that? Fleur told me she saw you leaving the Champion's bathroom with the egg looking all giddy. It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together. And the bathrooms, they're on point."

"I know, right? They're so huge. Whoever decided to lean on Roman and Greek design should get a raise," she said as I successfully changed the topic before she hit me with the water conjuring charm. "Did you think you could change the topic easily?"

"Yeah. I thought I could get away with it," I said as I dried myself. "What does it say?"

"Listen to it yourself."

"Why did I dry myself then?" I asked as Athaliah shrugged.

Transfiguring a piece of parchment into a bowl, I placed the egg in it before filling it with water. Once it was submerged, I plunged my head into the bowl and twisted the egg open.

§§§

Come, seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

And while you're searching, ponder this:

We've taken what you'll sorely miss,

An hour long you'll have to look,

And to recover what we took,

But past an hour, the prospect's black,

Too late; it's gone; it won't come back.

§§§

"Any ideas?" Athaliah asked as she moved the bowl away from the table and left the egg where it was.

"You had a week to ponder this. Tell me ideas one by one, and I'll tell you if they're stupid," I said as she nodded.

"My first idea was to use the bubble head charm. Make a bubble around me, swim to the bottom, get you, and be done," the Finish girl said.

"Do you know how much air you would need?" I asked, as she shook her head. "You're essentially going to make three trips to the bottom of the lake. One down, one up, and one with me. You would need the same volume as about five of these rooms. And also, you are forgetting about the pressure. The bubble head charm does not pressurise your air, so you'd have a really high chance of killing yourself. There are some variants of the bubble head charm that can deal with that, but I would trust them for the depths I'm predicting for this task."

"What if I transfigured myself into a fish? Or maybe a shark? They like fresh water bodies, right?" Athaliah asked.

"Sharks are mostly saltwater animals. If you want to transfigure yourself into a shark, then you have to pick either a bull shark or a river shark. Learning the anatomy of these sharks will take a lot of time, which we might not have," I said before moving onto the main point. "Assuming that I'm going to get kidnapped and be tied up at the mer-village at the bottom of the lake, your fins are not going down any untying."

"What about partial human transfiguration?" Athaliah asked.

"Similar to the last idea, your human parts would probably implode due to the increasing pressure as you descend," I replied. "Any more ideas?"

"Gillyweed?" she questioned.

"It does mitigate most of our problems, except for the fact that they are going to introduce some challenges. I'm guessing we are going to fight some creatures. Your webbed hands won't be able to grip your wand properly. Also, spells are less effective under water'" I said.

"What do you suggest since you just poo pooped my ideas?" Athaliah asked.

"I suggest a modified SCUBA equipment," I said.

"What's SCUBA?"

"SCUBA stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, and we are going to modify it so it deals with the problems we mentioned before," I replied.

"How?" she asked.

"First, we need a base layer: the wetsuit. Usually, this is made out of neoprene; however, we are going to use Bewilderbeast hide. This would actually provide protection, be waterproof, and counteract buoyancy," I said.

"Is that not really expensive?" Athaliah asked.

"Yes, but I have enough to create three iterations," I replied. "Next is oxygen. Muggles use a tank, and we are going to expand the space inside it to hold more air. The base module we are using is 80 cubic metres and should last up to an hour at a depth of 40 metres. An undetectable extension charm should increase it enough to last way longer and allow you to go deeper. We will use a normal regulator, and the breathing aspect should be fine."

"What about the pipe?" She asked.

"The oxygen pipe can be upgraded, but it shouldn't be a big worry. After the test run, we'll see if it needs any changes. Next is the mask. Well, just charm it so it allows you to see in the dark and see in the infrared spectrum," I said.

"Will I be able to use my wand?" The girl asked.

"How good are you with swords?"

"I used to do fencing when I was younger. My swordsmanship teacher is teaching me more practice techniques," the girl replied with an excited gaze.

"I have a friend that can get us a magic blade or two that we can attach to the suit. It'll be better than the wand," I said.

"How will I know if I have enough oxygen left? Or if my suit is damaged in any way?"

"Good point," I said while scratching my head. "I don't know."

"Could we not use something similar to a two-way mirror? If you put wards on the suit, if it's damaged, it can display in the mirror," Athaliah said. "We could either put it directly into my helmet or on my wrist. Whichever one is easier. However, the only problem is my magic. I don't think I'll last that long."

"I have a solution to that. I'm currently working on a proprietary magic storage technology, and I think we can employ it in this scenario," I said.

"Is it safe? I'm not putting my life at risk if it can explode on me," the girl said with an exasperated expression.

"It shouldn't do. As long as you are not rammed by a force of 4000 newtons, you should be fine," I said.

"So I'm good?"

"Yeah."

"When will the first prototype be ready?"

"I'll give it to you as a Yule present."