Chapter 48 - Setting Up Office, Lovegood, Return To The Icy Vault
The link is also in the synopsis..
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After his first day at Hogwarts, the owner of A.I.D services walked to the office with a suitcase in hand. He hummed a tune as he inserted the key into the key slot, turning it to unlock the door. The lock clicked to release the bolt that secured the door to the frame.
But the door wasn\'t unlocked, as there were a couple more things Quinn needed to do to unlock the door. He placed his hand on the door and funneled magic into the door. Before leaving last year, Quinn had fused the wood of the door to the wood of the frame by using transmutation, forming a weld between the woods of both structures.
Lifting his hand up to lift up the four wooden planks that barred the door from opening.
Finally, Quinn held the handle on the door and was about to push the door open when he got jolted with a stun of lightning.
"Fu-, motherfu-, shit, bloody hell, Merlin\'s saggy balls I forgot about that," heaved Quinn, his face all scrunched up in pain, clutching his hand and jumping up and down. There was a charm on the door handle that shocked anyone who touched it.
Quinn angrily disabled the charm on the door after recovering from the shock. He grabbed the handle and was about to push the door but stopped.
"Did I place something else in there?" After a few seconds of thinking, Quinn determined he was safe and entered the office.
White sheets covered the entire office furniture, and some dust flew in the room because of the sudden disturbance of the opened door. Quinn looked to the right and saw the big glass wall, which used to have a door slot to enter the workshop, but now didn\'t have a single opening. Quinn had sealed the door slot when he left for the summer break.
He walked to the glass wall and touched it to transmute a door slot into the glass wall, making a rectangular opening into the glass. He stepped into the opening, entering the workshop, which too was covered in white sheets covering the table and cabinets.
He sat down his suitcase on the floor and gathered his magic as he walked around the familiar room, smiling the entire time.
Quinn clapped his hand once, and the room came to life as white sheets in the office and workshop flew up and folded themselves into a neat stack on the floor. A wave of magic hit the entire classroom-turned-office-and-workshop and cleaned every nook and cranny of the room, eliminating the dust in the room.
Every drawer and door of every cupboard and cabinet opened and went through the same cleaning process, turning the entire room into a squeaky clean place.
The suitcase on the floor fell to the side and opened up with a dozen or more clicks of locks unlocking. It took a while before things flew out of the suitcase.
Various types of tools, vials of potions, reams of papers, other utensils, and all kinds of things that once filled the cupboards in the workshop once again took their rightful place in the workshop. Quinn again filled the file cabinets that he had emptied before leaving with documents and manilla folders.
In the office, decor adorned the walls. Furnishing the look that Quinn had decided for the office. With a snap of fingers, the chandeliers on the roof lit up the room, everlasting candles shining the room with their flames.
"Now, this feels right," said Quinn. And, at last, Quinn looked at the door leaning against the glass wall. The door lifted itself and took its place in the glass wall, covering the opening in the wall.
A.I.D was back in business
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Gilderoy Lockhart didn\'t make a positive first or any impression on Quinn. The entire first class, the pompous lying piece of phony lied his butt off about everything. He had wasted an hour of Quinn\'s time, and even though Quirrell and Binns did that last year, they weren\'t annoying as Lockhart.
Quinn hated every second of his Defense Against Dark Arts class and had to hold the urge to stun the blonde bastard into oblivion. He spent an hour listening to the bragging that came out of Lockhart\'s mouth, and there was something about Lockhart\'s voice that Quinn couldn\'t ignore. It was like a mosquito\'s buzz, extremely annoying and hard to ignore.
"Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly\'s Most Charming-Smile Award, my ass," groaned Quinn, rubbing his temple, entering the Ravenclaw common room.
He made a beeline to his favorite chair in the common room and stopped when he saw a first-year sitting in his spot.
Quinn stared at the chair and the first-year sitting in it, and the first-year noticed Quinn staring at him. The first-year kid felt uncomfortable at being stared down by a senior. He looked around, wondering why Quinn was staring and concluded that Quinn wanted to sit in the chair.
He bounced up from the chair, not wanting to fight with an older student, and walked away from the spot, avoiding confrontation.
"Hey, kid," called out Quinn, causing the first-year Ravenclaw to freeze in his spot. He slowly turned to face and saw something thrown at him and instinctively caught it in his hand. The kid looked at his hands and saw chocolate sitting there. When he looked up at Quinn, he saw Quinn not looking at him and sitting down on the chair.
Quinn sat down on his chair and thought, \'Kids are weird.\' Not noticing the reason behind why the kid left the chair.
Quinn slumped down in the chair and looked around the common room. When he looked to his side, he came across a pair of silvery eyes staring at him with a look of distinct dottiness. The girl was extremely close to him and almost startled him out of his chair.
"Can I have a chocolate?" asked the girl with silver eyes.
Quinn studied at the girl, and it took a second, but Quinn recognized the girl.
Stood in front of him, leaning down close to his face, was the girl with waist-length, straggly, dirty blonde hair and a feel about her that made her seem otherworldly.
Luna Lovegood wanted chocolate.
Quinn slowly took out a chocolate cube from his robes and placed it on Luna Lovegood\'s outstretched hand. She sat down on the chair beside him, unwrapped the sweet chocolate, and put the whole cube in her mouth.
She turned to Quinn, and he could see the small chocolate cube poking against the inside of her cheeks as she put it aside to speak, "Thank you."
Quinn nodded, observing Luna as if she was a rare creature, and extended his hand for a handshake.
"Quinn West," said Quinn, introducing himself.
Luna looked at Quinn\'s hand for a moment before taking it with both her hands, turning it so that Quinn\'s palm was facing her.
\'Is she... reading my palm?\' thought Quinn, but let the blonde do whatever she was doing, finding her behavior interesting.
"Your hands are amusing," spoke Luna. Her voice had a dreamy quality. If her words and voice were solid, they would fly and float away like a feather in a breeze.
"Amusing?" asked Quinn, not knowing what she meant by it. He looked at his other hand to see if anything was amusing with it but couldn\'t find anything particularly amusing.
She nodded while tracing the lines on his palm with her fingers, "Very amusing." She moved the chocolate cube in her mouth before continuing, "You love magic, don\'t you."
"... You found that from my hand?" inquired Quinn, watching her still playing with his hand.
She nodded, humming in agreement. Luna pulled on his fingers, popping knuckled while doing so, and smiling when his hand made popping sounds.
"I am sure that you would have no Wrackspurts around you. Your hands say so," said Luna, smiling in delight, but then frowned. "I forgot my pair of Spectrespecs at home, or else I would have been able to see them... maybe I should write a letter to daddy to send them to me."
She suddenly looked at Quinn\'s face and asked, "Can I have one more chocolate?"
Quinn took another chocolate cube from his robes and put the cube on his other hand that was still in Luna\'s grasp. The ever eccentric Luna requested something from Quinn, "Please unwrap it."
Quinn unwrapped the chocolate with magic, making sure that he had his fake wand out. His eyes almost bulged out when Luna leaned forward and ate the chocolate straight from Quinn\'s hand.
\'"Thank you. It is quite delectable," said Luna licking her lips that were stained with chocolate.
"... You are welcome," said Quinn, not really sure how he should feel about the current situation.
"What is your name?" Luna stared into Quinn\'s eyes, silver meeting stone-grey. Usually, in these kinds of situations where he wasn\'t sure what to do, Quinn would take the opportunity to read the mind to get some hold of the conversation. But right now, he didn\'t have that in mind.
"My name is Quinn West," introduced Quinn, even though he already did it once. "And, you are Luna Lovegood."
"Yes." She finally released Quinn\'s hand and now was staring at Quinn\'s face.
"Your father is the editor of Quibbler, right? Can I buy a subscription," asked Quinn, trying to build a connection with Luna.
Her stare changed a little as if looking for something. She looked at Quinn for a good while before nodding, "I would need you to fill a form and pay the subscription fees. I will send it to daddy."
"That\'s it?" asked Quinn.
"That\'s it," replied Luna.
"Alright, thanks."
Luna got up from her seat and left, saying nothing.
Sitting in his chair, Quinn wondered what just happened. He met Luna Lovegood, gave her chocolate, had his palm read, got complimented that it was amusing, asked for a Quibbler subscription, and all this happened while he got caught up in Luna\'s pace.
"... Huh?" was all he could come up with in the end.
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- (Scene Break) -
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The first thing Quinn did after getting some free time was visiting the Icy vault. The Icy vault was as miserable as ever. A hellish cold place that no same human would like to spend time in.
Quinn silently put on thick layers of clothes that he specially stitched up himself for enduring the cold in the vault region. Putting on his glasses, he stepped down the stairs. His spiked boots provided Quinn with the grip needed on the iced floors.
Immediately a freezing chill hit him, trying to sap the heat from his body, but Quinn fought back with Blood magic heating up his blood throughout the body. The blood flowed through his body, keeping the body warm, sustaining his body in the harsh cold.
Quinn walked towards the snowflake icicle, not minding the cold one bit. He had become used to it, and if Quinn ever thought about this fact, he would wonder what was wrong with him.
He glanced at the snowflake, and it began to shake, and in one fell swoop, the ice came apart and changed into water vapor. The next second, the cloud vapor turned into a lump of magnesium metal, falling onto the frozen floor with a thump.
Quinn\'s magic pushed on the gates with his magic, and halfway through, ice spears shot from inside with the sole intention of killing Quinn, but they stopped mid-flight and dropped to the ground as Quinn walked inside the vault.
Immediately, the temperature changed, and Quinn\'s Blood magic gradually adjusted his body temperature and bought it to a natural temperature, making sure that the sudden shift in condition didn\'t cause problems in his body.
Immediately, Quinn shed down the layers of clothes and walked around the vault, observing Absolute Zero floating in mid-air, contained by the runes and charms inside the vault.
"Alright, nothing has changed. Good, good," said Quinn as he retrieved a case from his clothes and kneeled on the floor, setting the case on the floor.
With a single click, Quinn opened the case. Inside the container were seven pieces of metal.
Quinn took out three spherical metal balls from the case and looked around the vault, focusing on the vault walls.
"Here goes nothing," said Quinn before rolling the ball on the ground. The three balls rolled their way in different directions. The movement of the three spheres was unnatural as they adjusted their path until they reached the decided spot and came to a sudden stop.
The next second, the three spherical metal balls reconstructed themselves into three pyramids of similar sizes. If seen from above, the three pyramids were in a triangular position. Each one at the vertices of an equilateral triangle, with Absolute Zero in the middle of said triangle.
Quinn took a deep breath before raising his hand in front of him. Three soft streams of continuous magic made their way to a metal pyramid each. The pyramids started to glow in a green light; the light grew stronger until Quinn cut off the magic supply.
"Okay, do your thing," whispered Quinn, hoping that his creation worked according to its purpose.
The three pyramids started to hum, and after a few seconds, thin beams of green magic shot in different directions towards the vault\'s wall. Small bursts of magical light shot one by one, making contact with the vault\'s circular wall.
Quinn inhaled a deep breath when he saw the runes etched into the wall glow in an icy blue light. Thousands of runes of various sizes illuminated the vault.
"Okay, okay, it works," Quinn spoke fast and moved faster as he took the three more metal pieces from his case. These pieces were triangular discs, and Quinn slid them on the floor. They repeated the movements of the previous pieces and arranged themselves in a smaller triangle.
The triangular metal discs received magic from Quinn, but this time the input was much more intense and longer, and the output was also much drastic. The triangular discs shot glowed and hummed just like the pyramids, and the intensity grew until the discs emitted circular waves of magic.
Quinn clutched his hand when he felt the vault faintly shake and looked around with gleaming eyes as he watched the runes on the wall switch places, rearranging themselves on the wall.
\'Let this work,\' thought Quinn, his heart beating hard with both excitement and a tinge of fear. He had made thorough preparation with triple-checking every calculation and decision. But, there was always a chance that thing would fail, and it would release Absolute Zero from its containment, killing him immediately.
It took maybe ten seconds before the runes stopped arranging themselves and the new arrangement glowed brighter with a burst before settling down.
Quinn moved his eyes to his six pieces and urged, \'Come on.\' The moment the thought ended, all six metal pieces shot continuous beams of magic towards the Absolute Zero. His breathing hitched as there was a screeching sound from the Absolute Zero, but nothing happened as everything calmed down.
The six metal pieces, three pyramids, and three triangular disks were now connected to the rune formation of the room and Absolute Zero.
Quinn exhaled heavily as he silently watched six beams of magic light connecting Absolute Zero with his metal structure.
He made the metal structures with runic magic. He had etched runes into the metal composite, giving them the functionality to change the rune formation of the vault to add a feature of his choice.
"Phew... that was stressful," said Quinn as he stood up from his spot and walked to the place just below the floating Absolute Zero. He had the last piece of metal in his hand.
The last piece was a circular disc with an indent in which you could horizontally fit a thin cylinder. If you looked closer, you would see faint impressions of runes on the surface. The faint patterns were present on every metal piece that Quinn brought.
Quinn squatted under Absolute Zero and placed the circular disc on the ground, and immediately it moved to calibrate itself to the six metal pieces around the vault.
He went into his clothes and retrieved a small silk pouch. He loosened the string on the top and tilted the pouch for a thin gold cylinder to fall out. Quinn felt the weight of the gold cylinder in his hand for a moment before placing it in the indent of the circular disc. The metal moved around the gold cylinder and clutched it snuggly.
Getting up, Quinn moved away from the circular disc, walking towards the gate of the vault, and stood beside his cold clothes. With his finger raised, he shot a single burst of magic into the circular disc.
"Commencing the last phase," as Quinn said those words. The circular disc shot six beams of green light, one to every metal piece. The second the beam hit the six pieces, every piece shot similar beams to the others, connecting all to each other.
Above in the air, the Absolute Zero showed activity as rings of icy-blue energy appeared around it. Every ring was made up of the cold energy from the intense energy of Absolute Zero.
The temperature in the vault dropped as Quinn activated Blood magic to protect himself, his hand crossed across his chest, observing every change with an eagle eye.
The rings started to revolve and rotate faster around Absolute Zero. After a dozen seconds of acceleration and intense humming from the Absolute Zero, a laser of energy as thin as a human hair shot down at the circular disc, more specifically at the golden cylinder.
*Tink*
It produced the sound when the energy hit the gold.
*Tink* *Tink* ... *Tink* *Tink* *Tink* ... .... .... *Tink* *Tink* ... ... *Tink*
With every hit on the gold cylinder, it produced a sound. The hair-thin energy kept hitting the gold cylinder for a few minutes before it finally stopped, and the rings of energy around Absolute Zero also absorbed back into it. The temperature also rose back to normal.
Quinn waited for half a minute before uncrossing his arms and walking towards the circular disc. There was a cold fog around it, and the surrounding ground was also frozen.
"Hmm... too much energy was wasted. The concentration of the laser wasn\'t optimal. There was abundant leakage. I need to improve the design and rune formation for the next use," noted Quinn, as he observed the circular disc and the surrounding area.
The gold cylinder detached itself from the circular disc as Quinn moved closer. Quinn looked at the gold, and as he expected, it wasn\'t frozen in ice layers. But, the cold mist emanating showed that it was extremely cold.
Quinn\'s mouth curved into a grin, and his eyes gleamed with delight,
"It worked."
His eyes locked onto the gold cylinder floating above his hand.
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Quinn West - MC - Has his hands on something amazing.
Luna Lovegood - Eccentric Ravenclaw - "Hmmm~ Hmm~ Hnmm~ HNMm~ hnHMh~."
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The link is in the synopsis!