A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - The Philospher's Stone

by gerandakis


59 - Wards

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Wards


At precisely nine AM, just as agreed, Sunset faded into existence in the Teachers' lounge. There, she found Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Vector already waiting for her.

"Good morning."

"Ah, good morning Miss Shimmer, so glad you could join us," Flitwick greeted merrily. "I do hope you've had a pleasant holiday."

"Oh, it's been quite nice so far. Are we expecting anyone else?"

"Well," McGonagall spoke up, "it would seem Severus is following his habit and being fashionably late ... and Albus, I suspect, is just late."

"Yes," Professor Vector agreed, "he has seemed a bit busier than usual lately, hasn't he?"

"Indeed." The gathered professors only noticed Snape's arrival when he spoke up. "Good morning."

Snape shared a quick glance with Sunset, both of them aware of why Dumbledore had been busy lately. McGonagall's eyes lingered on them for a while longer, but she didn't say anything.

Fortunately, before any further questions could come up, the door opened again and Albus Dumbledore finally arrived. "Ah, everyone is here already, I see. Good. Please apologize my delay. I had a matter to discuss with Aurora."

"That's quite alright Albus. We didn't have to wait long."

"Thank you, Minerva. Now, we all know why we're here. Over the years, the wards of Hogwarts have been upgraded several times, I myself have touched them up here or there several times in the last few decades. Still, it has been over three centuries since the wards protecting our fair school had their last full upgrade. When Miss Shimmer here recently brought them up with me and how some of the spells they include are simply obsolete these days, I realized that they are well overdue for another.

"Since all of you are well aware of Miss Shimmer's ... heritage, I don't need to be coy about. Miss Shimmer is here to provide her expertise with the spellcraft of her homeland and include the protections it can offer into the school's wards. Now, Filius, I believe you had an idea where to start?"

"Yes, Albus. Some of you probably noticed that this place and a few other locations around the castle aren't as cold this year as they have been around this season in previous years."

"Yes, Filius, we noticed." McGonagall rolled her eyes. "And we also noticed Miss Shimmer applying a set of charms causing that effect wherever she went. I conjecture that there is a relation there?"

"Yes, there is. Miss Shimmer, would you explain?"

"Of course." Sunset drew her wand and quickly projected an illusion of the relevant spell matrices. "It's a relatively comprehensive suite of thermal insulation and regulation magic placed on most Equestrian buildings these days. Applying some of the magical principles this world knows that mine doesn't has made it marginally more effective, but that's about the extent of the changes in this case."

"Thank you," Flitwick picked back up. "I would suggest starting with this spell. It's one of only a few that we can just straight up add rather than use to replace an older version. I take it I don't need to spell it out for you that that makes it much easier. I figured it would be a good point to start."

"Thank you, Filius," Dumbledore spoke up again. "Now, before we start I need to ask that you run any modification to the wards by Septima and Miss Shimmer first. Septima is our expert on spell efficiency, and the more efficient we can make our wards, the more powerful they will end up being. And Miss Shimmer can apply the magical principles known to her homeland that are unknown to us to improve the spells.

"Now then, let's get started."

The headmaster lead the way to a secluded area in the dungeons beneath the castle. On the way, he explained that they were headed to the primary keystone. Each of the school's wards was placed first on the primary keystone that provided the power for the spells and linked them up to the one currently controlling them – the headmaster, in most cases – and from there mirrored onto an array of twelve secondary keystones distributed around the castle that were responsible for actually applying the wards to the castle itself.

After a final door that only opened to a few specific spells and through the application of four separate physical keys, they finally stood before the large, heavily enchanted quartz crystal that served as the castle's keystone.

Everyone cast their own advanced aura sight charms in short order and took up positions around the keystone.

"Miss Shimmer, would you apply the spells here first?"

"Of course."

"Good. Now everyone, please, watch carefully. There are six of us and twelve secondary keystones throughout the castle. It will be up to each of us to apply these spells to two of them. Miss Shimmer, go ahead."

A few minutes later, once the set of six spells was cast, a heating charm, a cooling charm, a humidifying charm, a dehumidifying charm, an insulation charm and, finally a complex control charm to tie them all together and control them as a cohesive whole, Dumbledore conjured up a map of the castle's current configuration and marked the twelve secondary keystones in six different colors, red for McGonagall, blue for Flitwick, green for Snape, purple for Vector, a sunny yellow for Sunset and a silvery gray for himself, the professors went on their way while Sunset looked at the central keystone and used its connection to find the first secondary one she had been assigned and teleport straight there.

Once again, she shook her head at how easy it was. She would have to upgrade the teleportation wards personally.

She applied the set of spells to the first keystone she had been assigned, then decided to check in on the professors before taking care of her second one. They may be exceptionally skilled magicians, but even they weren't guaranteed to perfectly cast a set of six spells after seeing each of them once.

Since she had shown the spells to him several times before and because of his specialty, she decided to check up on Flitwick last, after a moment's consideration, she teleported to the first keystone Snape had been assigned.

Her prudence proved to be wise, as each of the professors, save Dumbledore and, of course, Flitwick had made a mistake somewhere. After helping them correct them, she moved on to place the suite of enchantments on her second keystone.

When everyone reconvened by the main keystone, the castle had grown noticeably warmer. After a few moments' discussion, they moved on to the next charm on their list.


By noon, each of the five other charms that were straight up additions to the wards was added and the group had had lunch in the teacher's lounge. The professors were still there, discussing what wards to apply next, while Sunset was back at the main keystone, getting started on the upgraded teleportation wards.

It was as she had told Dumbledore. She couldn't create a phasic ward that she couldn't bypass given time. That was not to say, however that it wouldn't be entirely adequate to hold off anyone but those with truly exceptional skill in arcane phase theory. Of course, such wards took time to apply. She'd already been at it for an hour and she suspected that it would take another hour of focused work before the new wards were applied to the central keystone.

Over the next few days she would apply them to the secondary keystones. She simply couldn't take care of them all in one day.

A few minutes before she was done, the professors returned and watched her work until she was done. When the teal light finally faded from the tip of her wand, the five gave gentle applause.

"My goodness," Flitwick spoke up. "I can see the resemblance to some of the basic wards from the book you gave us, but this is on an entirely new level. I've rarely seen a ward that complex."

"Well, this is more or less a direct copy of the phasic wards on the royal vaults beneath the Royal Palace of Canterlot. I spent about a month and a half studying the wards there."

"It shows. I suspect you'll want to put take care of placing that enchantment on the secondary keystones yourself."

Sunset nodded. "Yes. I'll take care of it over the next few days. There are some other things I'll have to take care of and I wouldn't get it done today anyway."


Three days into the rework of the wards, Sunset found herself in Dumbledore's office waiting for the headmaster alongside Professor Vector. She had inquired about the siege wards on the Great Hall that Dumbledore had activated to ward off the troll on Halloween. When asked, Dumbledore admitted that these particular wards were one of the founders' own creations and hadn't been touched since their original installation. Only one written record of their schemes existed.

It was located in the founders' private library. What was now the private library located in the headmaster's quarters directly above his office.

After a good five minutes, Dumbledore returned, a heavy tome in his hands. "Here it is. The schemes for the siege wards should be in here. If I recall correctly they were only applied to key areas of the school because they would have been too power hungry otherwise."

"Well," Professor Vector replied with a smirk, rubbing her hands at the challenge, "let's see if we can change that."

Looking at the spell, two things became immediately clear. It was a creation of the founders and they had been brilliant. The sheer number of clever tricks, the way each bit of the spell was perfectly placed for maximum effects made that fact obvious. It was also over a thousand years old. And that showed just as much. In so many places did the spell do things in such a circumspect way that it was almost painful. There was always a much easier way, but one that, of course, relied on a principle of magic that hadn't been discovered until centuries later.

Over the past two-and-a-half days, Sunset and Professor Vector had formed a budding friendship built on mutual respect of the other's abilities. Both marveled, again and again, at how much they could teach each other. As such, an opportunity to improve upon a spell crafted with such ingenuity, but using such vastly outdated methods was a real treat for them.

Finally, after several hours of complex arithmancy, careful spell construction and at least half an hours' worth of double and triple checking, their work was done. The new siege wards were completed and they would not share the efficiency problem of the original. They could be safely applied to the entire school.

Hogwarts was a castle. But once those spells were installed, one command from the headmaster would turn it into a fortress.

With their work done, Sunset returned to her own project, she still had five of the keystones left to enchant, and she had just enough time to deal with one more before sundown. Professor Vector, meanwhile, went to show the fruits of their labor to the headmaster and Professor Flitwick. The three of them would handle applying them to the keystones.


It was done. Their work was completed. All the enchantments were set, each of the keystones aligned, every spell cast. Now only one step was left.

To deactivate the keystone and power it back up. Then, and only then, would the new wards take hold.

All of them had their eyes lit with magic, prepared to witness the activation of one of the greatest and – now, at least – most modern ward setups on earth.

With a wave of the Headmaster's wand, the keystone lit up brightly for a few seconds, then fell dark. Each of them shuddered slightly at the rush of power. At the feeling of the wards all around them suddenly vanishing.

Another wave of Dumbledore's wand reactivated the stone. Lights of all colors flashed through it for several minutes, before the enchanted quartz resumed its usual pale blue glow, but much brighter than they had gotten used to for the past five days. Then, twelve motes of light came shooting out of the top of the crystal and began spinning around it in a circle. After a few moments of dancing around the primary keystone, the twelve lights rushed off, spreading throughout the castle.

None of them needed to be told, that they were headed to the other keystones. A shudder ran through the castle as the ancient wards gradually returned. It took about half an hour for the wards to return to full strength, and, during all that time, they were fully active. Even the siege wards covered every wall, door and window in the castle, giving them all a slight silvery sheen. A side effect of the modifications.

Finally, the keystone came fully active and the light faded back to it's usual, dull glow. In the process, Dumbledore regained full control of the wards. It took him only a few moments to get the wards set up to work as he had planned. In short order, the siege wards were placed back in stand-by, the new thermal regulation wards, now under the headmaster's full control all throughout the castle, were set up for a pleasant temperature, and all the teachers were keyed into the new phasic wards.

After a moment's consideration, he keyed Sunset into the phasic wards as well. After all, there was little point in not keying her into wards she could bypass given time, especially since she also had a phoenix as a familiar that would bypass them anyway.

With everything set up to his satisfaction, he nodded to the gathered teachers. Testing out how Sunset's work, each of them teleported to their own private quarters in short order. Finally, only Dumbledore and Sunset stood next to the keystone.

"Miss Shimmer, if you would accompany me to my office."

"Of course. We did get done a little sooner than I expected."

Dumbledore chuckled as he re-locked the door to the primary keystone. "Indeed. I suppose our improvements really do show. The wards used to take longer than that to power up."

With the door locked once more, they both teleported to Dumbledore's office.

"Now, Miss Shimmer, I thank you for your assistance. Your expertise has been invaluable. This has been a most enlightening experience."

"Absolutely, I learned plenty of things myself. Oh that reminds me. Twilight came by for Christmas with the Weasleys, she brought along a message for you. From Princess Celestia. I wanted to give it to you sooner, but I kept forgetting." She reached into her bag, pulled out a sealed envelope and handed it to him.

Recognizing the seal as magical, Dumbledore drew his wand and tapped the seal. He wasn't surprised at the small burst of magic when the seal broke. It was clearly that of the princess. A proof that the letter hadn't been opened by another. Not uncommon on confidential messages. Once it was open, he put his wand away, opened the letter, unfolded the sheet of clear white parchment inside and began to read.

"Ah yes. It would seem Princess Celestia wants her 'local agent' to check on the defenses for the stone, to ensure they are adequate and will last until the trap is ready." He nodded. "Yes, that may be a good idea, Quirinus managed to get me under the influence of a Confundus Charm on Halloween. If he managed that, he may well have managed to sabotage our efforts to safeguard the stone itself in a similar manner. Very well. I'll arrange for the Professors that helped with each of the defenses to meet us tomorrow. We can show you the defenses then. I actually was about to implement my own defense. I'll use this chance to take care of that."