After dinner on the same day, Luca was taken away by his teacher to sit and recharge a hundred protection rings Fontaine shook out of a satchel with MACUSA logo printed on it on the desk in his office, starting with the one Luca owned given by hand.
“Thank me for finding such a well-paying part-time job, Selina agreed to give you whatever requested and her salary.” tired voice of the vice-headmaster with visible dark circles under his eyes sounded as the man sat down and removed his glasses to massage his nose bridge.
“So, it works?” Luca started his task naturally, expecting a positive result from the moment he heard of the idea.
“Mhm, but one spell completely eats away the entire energy locked inside the runes. Still, aside from Avada, your magic upgrades items as we confirmed last year, I expect a doubling of the durability against other spells and physical attacks. We agreed to immediately recall all those rings for you to take care of from now on in batches, prepare to be tired during this week.” Fontaine played with glasses in his hands and observed Luca as the boy maintained enthusiasm for the first five times standing there, then took a fistful of metal and sat too, doing it slowly.
“I want a weapon.” Luca had this thought from the moment he saw the imposing and cool-looking staff Professor Johnson took out earlier.
“No need to spend a favour like that, I have a lot of them. If you don’t dislike a dagger, even an artifact. Also, it’s another stupid concealment agreement, she wants to protect you, heh, classic politician eager to take credit.” Fontaine sneered a few times and went on to explain exactly what was he doing overnight and for most of the day, the man reflected on himself a little and decided to potentially spare an innocent Pukwudgie as he went to Alcatraz for a trial on a lifetime prisoner there, not aware of the green light’s property to eat away entire power, he chanted again after being blocked and accidentally killed a degenerate dark wizard. After that, he went to the Ministry and summoned already off-work Mrs. Lopez and argued for a while about his apprentice’s reward, then when agreement was reached, he went on to gather rings from the employees there to confirm their effect and bring them back as soon as possible to be experimented with by the Grandest Alchemist. “You suddenly want to cut someone into pieces, what happened?” Fontaine in the end noticed a strangeness in asking for a weapon at the age of 12 and asked.
“I lost in Offense class…” Luca went on to narrate his duel, but at the end of the story, he got interrupted by a shrill voice.
“Can I have some dignity in here, is it so hard to spare a depterifying spell?!” Abigail finally defossilized naturally and started outpouring her emotions on the bastards who didn’t treat a ghost as a person.
“Sorry, we have to check things as they come.” Luca made a sincere face and bowed slightly in her direction as he stood up to fetch more rings, the bad mood of the ghost girl dissipating in half.
“Fine, that was the worst experience ever, I stayed conscious all the time but couldn’t budge. At least as a ghost, I can fly freely, if that gets taken away…” Abigail shuddered all over her transparent body and floated here and there to stay moving.
“Such an old girl still cries, not in my office, please. Twenty-four hours, no change from making statues out of living people.” Fontaine dismissed her casually and went on to comment on Luca’s opponent. “Johnson, that kid… Actually, his style may suit you quite well, you should search for a water-making spell in textbooks for fifth or sixth year, and already know how to infuse objects with transfiguration magic, work on it in your spare time. You lost because of sticking to a bad strategy, wearing him down with counter-curses and maintaining a certain distance between the two of you until his magic runs out would be a sure win, but sparrings aren’t that particular about who comes on top, learn something from it. We will go to my manor this Sunday, choose a couple of options, take whatever fits in your hand.” the vice-headmaster decided to give Luca what he wanted and bring the boy to see his collection resting safely in the vault under his home. Abigail eventually calmed down and demanded the boy to let her cling to his back as repayment for mental damages, Luca put up with the strangeness of being hugged by a ghost until he finished charging an hour later and went to meditate before going to sleep, staying focused on replaying one memory in his mind as the core of occlumency training.
Prohibited from playing, Luca over the week watched from the stands and encouraged his roommates and friends who participated in the junior quidditch selections for their divisions as they performed against a huge amount of competitors, even those who barely clamped their legs around the broom’s pole went to take part in the fun, giving tired Themistocles a headache.
“No wonder Slate couldn’t pick a good team, look at this crowd!” the triplet couldn’t help but repeat this sentence every day as he filtered through troublemakers aspiring to play with help from his brothers, each responsible for narrowing it down to two candidates for one place before making the final decision at Saturday morning, Knight’s mandated club activity to watch the finalists go head-to-head and later vote who stays, along with whoever cares enough to wake up early to attend among the rest of the house.
Luca spent hours that skipping potions lessons awarded in the library, going through combat and dueling manuals written by retired Aurors, the boy acknowledged his shortcomings in experience and methods, so far, screaming and firing lasers didn’t seem enough for what a wizard should be in his imagination, teaching for junior years limited to that bored him, especially since he never had problems with charms that had a clear purpose and came out as an unambiguous beam. A big, brick-like English-french dictionary accompanied him in the bag, taken out during meals and in the evening, Luca wanted to finish the boring lecture as soon as possible while making it easier to stomach by distracting himself with eating or petting Ringo, his excellent memory capable of taking the information in that half-hearted way.
“What is this for, shik’is?” Thursday night, Luca drew a syringe of blood from his veins behind the closed curtains of his bed as he was obliged to do every day, disrupted by Winnetou with a look of puzzlement sticking his head inside to see the scene. Luca’s hand shook, and he sucked in a mouthful of air with a grimace on his face because of the pain caused by his mistake, exhaling slowly as he removed the needle and faced his friend.
“Why come in, aren’t you asleep for hours?” Luca didn’t know why Winnetou decided to bust inside his bed at exactly this moment nearing midnight, when rest of the dormitory snored lightly in their dreams.
“I felt that you're sneaky, last year privacy didn’t bother you to such an extent as to check for gaps every night and make a fuss.” Winnetou replied in a slightly hushed voice they used and went in to sit with his legs crossed on the bed, two pairs of eyes staring at each other, handsome boys with somehow similar appearances if not for their different skin colour thought what to do in their hearts, Winnetou prepared to sit like that until he gets an answer, Luca calculating if he should come up with a lie or tell the story straight.
“Well, it’s like this…” Luca organized the chain of events and shared in plain words what happened to him. At the end of the uninterrupted confession, Winnetou’s sharp face relaxed and revealed a smile from the bottom of his heart to thank for Luca’s trust.
“I see.” Winnetou moved to leave like that, prepared to abandon Luca to his devices.
“That’s it? Nothing to say?” Luca wasn’t expecting the conversation to end in such an anticlimactic way after sharing all his secrets.
“You don’t need or want my help, right?” Winnetou nodded with understanding and closed back the curtains, the last look of his bronze eyes crossing with Luca’s ruby ones revealed a hint of helplessness and pity.
“Right.” Luca realized that his friend got to know him enough during the year they spent talking and working out together to figure out immediately he would never bring him along when dealing with vampires in the future, putting in danger or harm’s way irrelevant personnel for matters that concerned himself not in Luca’s character.
Saturday, when more than three-quarters of Wampus house went to occupy the stadium and watch their teams be formed, Luca sat for the nth time on the wooden benches far aboveground, eating snacks and listening to the chatter of his housemates evaluating the players. After a brief battle in his mind where fairness and cronyism each presented their arguments, he decided to vote for his friends no matter their opponent’s skills. In the end, to Luca’s relief, most of the Wampus present agreed with him, making Tolkien a chaser, Nathaniel a seeker in junior male teams, Miranda and Nadine a pair of batters in female team, the elegant Italian girl convinced by Miranda’s pleas to try, the batters positions unpopular among girls, she didn’t face a decent rival for it.
“Congratulations, let’s win it all this year!” Luca shouted from the outer circle of surrounding the showing off team’s crowds, feeling great about his friends' chances to shine, especially hopeful for Nathaniel’s role as a seeker, the small, active boy crushed his competition and collected three times the Golden Snitches second place did on Tuesday’s evening, now easily besting his foe by a margin even larger. Luca didn’t know if the career of batters could be promising enough to change the outcome of games, Miranda’s response to his roundabout questions on the topic was a look of disgust and a proud ‘watch me’ said through upturned nostrils.
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“Here’s my apartment, my home, my love nest!” Sunday evening, Fontaine theatrically stood with arms open wide to embrace the pathetic-looking wooden toilet Luca already knew to be his dwelling in Iverstead, the boy clapped to award his teacher’s efforts to shock him. “Those are names of people and intelligent creatures my team saved over the decades, come.” Fontaine pointed in passing at the giant tablet that stood beside the black hole of the entrance, and beckoned at Luca with the same gesture, touching the boy’s neck while they passed the door simultaneously.
“Anti-theft measure?” Luca asked while looking around inside the building, decorations, sofas, and standing sculptures in bronze wood mixed with soft red carpet over every inch of the floor and plenty of light provided by a crystal chandelier hanging in the middle marked the spacious foyer, making it exude a feel close to the Wampus’s common room minus everpresent cats.
“Not a powerful one, more of an alarm. Real security looks like this.” Fontaine went forward to cross another door, after which a staircase leading up and down led them to descend in front of a steel gate covered densely with runes that faintly revolved around two handprints placed on the right height for humans to touch, which Luca’s teacher did, at the same time chanting a load of absolute nonsense, numbers mixed with random letters, repeated three times in a row, until the gate opened, revealing a crack in the middle where Fontaine pushed, droplets of blood strikingly eye-catching on the previous clean surface left inside the handprints.
“And what would it take to break in?” interested Luca asked as another, normal-sized door emerged in front of his eyes as he followed inside the rapidly narrowing short corridor.
“There is no history of a lone wizard breaking into the trifold-authenticated vaults of Bulwark company, they need a team with at least two experts supervising to set up and crack, and even then, absolutely can’t do it without notifying the owner.” Fontaine took out a modern-looking silver key from his pocket and opened the second door, Luca who now knew to expect the third one wasn’t disappointed as he witnessed a wall of black in front of them, his teacher squatted in place and froze for a while massaging his temple with one hand, second one taking out the wand.
“What’s this lock…?” Luca muttered to himself, shortly after observing his teacher putting the tip of his wand in seemingly random points on the black surface that lit up green one by one, standing up and measuring carefully from the sides, top, and bottom. At last, his teacher made the barrier disappear and shook his head slightly, visibly relaxed from the tension his body exuded while trying to remember the exact positions of the nodes he was supposed to activate, to go inside. Luca followed to see a mid-sized room filled with gold on one side and racks of weapons on the other, cabinets extending both sides of the entrance, two lacquered statues of men made of wood in front, one of them hairless, holding a bone knife in his hand, the other one wearing the same robe as his teacher did, Luca instantly recognized them as two of the Twelve Aurors, Fontaine and Weiss.
“All things here have the newest enchantment technology packed inside, choose.” Luca’s teacher ignored everything else and went to pick up a sword for his apprentice from ten available in different sizes and styles, the boy’s sight stayed glued to the knife he knew wielded by a hero in the past.
“Why is an artifact collecting dust?” Luca asked, the unconventional shape of the dagger not enough reason for it to be forgotten like that.
“That, I can’t recommend it. Lost half the use as no demon or cultist stupid enough to come like a moth to flame stayed alive at the time, it’s a legend that fellow demonic forces flee from the moment they sense it. I can’t use it either, a person can control only one overly powerful item.” Fontaine lifted his head from comparing swords held in his hands and looked at the thing in question briefly. Luca gave up on it after a short reasoning, the dagger unsuitable for him, and strolled to observe the cold weapon arsenal on his right, short and long spears, one and two-handed axes, a massive club, and a war hammer with a spike on one side. Swords occupied half of the wooden stands closer to the end of the room where his teacher stood.
“Feels nice.” Luca picked up a short spear and stabbed it in the air a couple of times with left and right arms.
“Take it, all made on a whim I had, but a sword has to be your main tool, can’t teach anything else.” Fontaine handed over a classic longsword measuring fifty inches in length to Luca, who due to long-term training with similar ones, instantly fell in love with. The boy executed several sequences of slashes under the watchful eyes of his teacher ready to correct his posture and look for incompatibility. “Stop, that’s perfect. Now, listen to how you can activate the effects. Pour magic in this one, it shrinks, grow back here, here - make it blunt for sparring, here - activate added cutting charm for the blade…” Fontaine took the metal covered in shining blue runes that almost made it look like a Lightsaber and went over a dozen functions switches for were engraved on the hilt with a distinct shape to never mix them up on a crucial occasion.
“Don’t blame me for emptying the room then, but aren’t those too heavy to use with one hand? Give me some potions too.” Luca learned a lot about various methods to increase aspects of physique temporarily, potions being the cheapest and most reliable way for wizards, ineffective for creatures already superior because ingredients used in brewing them often came from creatures themselves, sacrifices for warlocks, blessed items for forces of the Church, and unknown, bizarre possibilities where dimensional contractors get granted powers.
“Since we’re here, might as well arm you completely indeed.” Fontaine shrugged and shrank the longsword to hand it over to Luca, who pocketed it into his unintentionally tight jeans to a look of disapproval from his teacher. “Still don’t have a good robe that can transform itself, I see, but as a wizard, you should wear robes, end of the matter, always, even at weekends. I admit that school ones aren’t pretty, so buy a unique one today, am I not an amazing example of how they boost a person’s image?” he swirled on the spot like a princess, spreading the twinkling clothes to show his apprentice the ceiling of wizarding fashion, Luca had no choice but to nod as he thought that it did seem serious and mature to follow his teacher’s advice and acquire a customized piece of garment, especially as it transfigured itself under Fontaine’s command to look like a leotard, pajamas, and a suit, proving the universality and practicality of carrying belongings inside the stretched pockets of such magical outer clothes.
“How does that work exactly, fabric changes?” Luca didn’t know if it needed to be controlled or perhaps preset during production like the enchantments on his new longsword, short spear, and war hammer he fancied to take away and try to wield or throw at his enemies.
“You asked the professional. Although I'm not overly interested, my family has run luxury apparel stores that specialize in robes for nearly a thousand years, all over Europe and with two branches in America, before the Statue of Secrecy, we dressed many kings and queens. Let me tell you…” Fontaine talked and talked, making Luca touch between his fingers the material of his transfigured robe and elaborating on every complicated process that takes place in order to create a masterpiece capable of accompanying its wearer from cradle to grave.
“What’s the price?” impressed Luca had to get one for himself as soon as possible after such a fervent sales pitch.
“Don’t worry about that, let’s go and fill out the application required, takes a week to adjust. Would be easier to have all this stuff stay with me until our next lesson.” Fontaine took back the weapons with him and grabbed dozens of potions from the cabinets while explaining their effects, the duo left in a hurry after that to catch up before closing of the shop. Following his teacher’s brisk pace, Luca calmly observed chaotic ruins of houses that flanked Iverstead’s dirt avenues - camouflaged villas or shops with thousands of Galleons of daily turnover. Inside the ‘Vêtements Aristocratiques’, a name that pointed right at the business going on within its walls, Luca, after searching through several catalogs that contained vivid pictures of designs for the main appearance of the robe, settled on all-black, with a tight collar revealing only a triangle of skin under Adam’s apple, fastened seamlessly without the view of buttons from the front, with wide cuffs an inch shorter than the wrist for them to never be in the way while maintaining a good distance to keep the holster for his tentacle-wand, a wide black belt knotted on the waist to keep it from feeling too loose, parting under the crotch to wave around intensely with every step taken, fabric ending an inch from the ground, made any longer the wearer would start tripping. The outfit was completed with soft black boots reaching up to half a calf and black creased trousers the sophisticated runes woven into it also provided.
“Don’t forget to add a change: Wampus uniform. Also, isn’t it too bleak?” Fontaine reminded the boy because only his artifact robe could become anything he wanted it to be permanently as opposed to under a charm that duration of runs out, as Luca supposed, it had to be programmed into a separate enchantment on any other dress in existence.
“Looks imposing, perfect.” the boy firm in his choice, his ruby pupils lit up at the sight of the design, which left Fontaine humming unconvinced under his nose. Luca proposed to leave a transformation for him to choose, which his teacher gladly agreed with, specifying a modification of brown-red-white colours on a design he hid from the boy, making it a surprise Luca will learn on the day he receives the order. Picking a set of no-maj casual clothes, two-part pajamas, training shorts, and a t-shirt, Luca finally settled on what he could accept, his teacher engaged in sabotage as he pointed at items from the previous century that only a grandpa like him would like.
Exhausted, they went back to Ilvermorny in silence. Pukwudgies guarding the entrance and Floo Point attempted to stop them for questioning, Fontaine responded by incapacitating the bunch with a sneaky transfiguration, his unique trick that he explained to Luca, sending magic so far under the ground from the soles of his feet thanks to his family’s artifact as to make it imperceptible and bursting it out where the unaware victims stand, kneading them freely in whatever shape he desired. A week later, the two stood where the lesson of basic magical defense took place, in a clearing behind the stadium.
“Today we train perception, I enchanted fifty leaves, flowers, shrubs, and sticks three hundred feet from here, have hour to find and give me.” turning an hourglass, Fontaine sat down leaning on a tree and lit up a pipe while Luca scrambled around, sensing and smelling carefully as he walked in circles, the task done perfectly made his teacher have a brief expression of astonishment, evidently intended to fail him and explain the nuances of magic awareness. Giving up on that, the boy nonetheless had to read another scroll with the tips summed up during the long years of searching for magical criminals Fontaine wrote for him laboriously.
Robe received, Luca’s clothing dilemma came to an end for the rest of his life, unless a marriage partner would someday prefer for him to change the wardrobe, as the boy reasoned a possibility when he could need a fresh outfit. He retrieved weapons and potions from Fontaine’s pocket and put them into his own, showing off the transformations in the common room where a crowd of gold diggers recognized the brand and tried desperately to strike a conversation with him, the age of women engaged in a subsequent brawl over the insults they hurled at each other ranging from just admitted eleven-year-olds to fully grown eighteen-year-olds, the situation with spells flying and wands drawn came to an end with Abigail, by coincidence present, flying inside each of the girls to cool them off, announcing by the end that they weren’t allowed to pester Luca under punishment of her overlapping bodies with violators, that brought the collectively dumbfounded room of men that didn’t understand what the sudden fight was for to shiver alongside the girls frightened and chilled by her, a woman’s idea the most vicious.
Learning a water-making spell was fine, but Luca couldn’t control the transfiguration of the absolute river of water that came out of his tentacle at all, tips from Fontaine this time failed to grant the boy immediate results: practice, get a feel for it - the teacher demonstrated by building a detailed copy of the school grounds that rose from the earth in a perfectly smooth motion, smug look that screamed ‘be amazed!’ on Fontaine’s face made Luca sure that this was an art performed many times prior, the boy couldn’t hide his feeling of reverence upon witnessing the sight either way. Over the months, Luca experienced how it felt to watch his friends succeed in quidditch, and the joy of being a fan, Wampus teams that dominated three divisions made it extra refreshing for all the members of the house.
“It feels better to watch than play.” Luca commented after Nathaniel caught the Snitch after twenty minutes in a match against Thunderbirds, Themistocles celebrated the results with a weekly mini-party where MVP of the weekend got to choose a theme or a character everyone had to dress up as. Over the month and a half, Luca attempted to refine his control over transfiguration and learned a lot from his teacher’s tales of fighting in different environments, against varied dark creatures and wizards as the boy smoothly completed assigned every Sunday task. Halloween night approached, the castle and its inhabitants started preparing for it.