//------------------------------// // Chapter 10: Progress // Story: Harry Potter and the Prancing of Ponies // by The Guy Who Writes //------------------------------// He returned to the library with a new saddlebag on his back and a renewed appreciation for the whole 'pack mule' thing. He barely noticed the extra weight. The door, when he tried it, was locked. Rap, rap, rap. "Twilight? You there?" The door opened. "She's in the basement," said Spike. "Doing 'research'." In the brief moment that Spike made air quotes, Silver felt a sudden wash of nostalgia. A feeling of loss. He missed hands. But the feeling left as quickly as it came. Silver chose not to go downstairs. The saying is that one should not have kids, or else wait until after they are grown. There is a reason so many would-be inventors hail from Gryffindor, rather than Ravenclaw. Mr. Book had said something like that when asked about spell creation. Silver didn't know if new enchantments held the same dangers as new spells, but interrupting the process probably had disaster written all over it. Even if they were safer. He went up to his room, locked the door behind him, and hung his bag on his room's coat rack. He flopped lazily onto the mattress. Tomorrow would be Thursday. His mentor's office hours are 11:40 – 11:55 AM on Thursday, for all years, for all classes. He'd have to make the meeting count... or at least ask for a new time frame, like the weekend. Ditching school each week wouldn't work with Twilight. Thankfully school doesn't start until next week. He'll have the next four days to set things up. "Silver!" The sudden noise and touch jolted him awake with a start, adrenaline shooting through his veins, hand dashing to grasp- "I did it! Look!" said the same voice that was excited, but not threatening. And Silver Wing blinked his eyes rapidly. His hoof slowly released his wand, leaving it where it lay beneath his pillow. "Huh?" he asked, ignoring the instinct that would have had him grabbing for glasses. "Twilight? What time is it?" "It doesn't matter!" said the purple pony, voice eager and eyes frantic. "I did it! I made the pouch bigger on the inside than on the outside! Watch!" Silver watched as Twilight took a long ruler and dropped it into a container that, on the outside, only looked half that deep. "And I can put more than one thing inside! Watch!" A few coins, a marble, a quill, some rolled up parchments, and a stoppered inkwell were dropped, all disappearing as they passed the lip. "Can I see it?" Silver asked, holding out a hoof. He had just that moment come up with a scheme that would both advance Equestrian enchantments and let him get back to sleep. "Sure!" Twilight levitated the small coin purse (not the saddlebag she 'borrowed'?) to his hoof. It felt about as heavy as a pouch filled with all those items should feel, even if a pouch this small shouldn't feel that heavy. Not unless it was filled with lead. Or tungsten. "What, no spell to keep the weight the same no matter what you put inside?" he asked. He grabbed a book he'd just finished reading, a textbook too large for the lip of the pouch. He made as if to put the book inside, then watched the lip fail to magically expand. "No widening lip to eat large items?" He set the book aside, put his hoof to the entrance of the pouch, and said, "Ruler." The pouch yet again failed to do what he had come to expect from magical pouches. "No voice retrieval?" He manually reached deep into the pouch, felt around for a moment, then removed the ruler. "No security charm so you can't take out another pony's belongings?" When he looked up from the prototype magical inventory, he saw that Twilight was vibrating in place again. "Voice retrieval..." she repeated. "Widening lip..." Silver grinned to himself, pressed his hooves against his ears, and did his best to ignore Twilight's sudden shout and subsequent storming out of his room – enchanted pouch firmly in her magical grasp. He put his head on his pillow and went back to sleep. "First order of business," said Mr. Book at exactly 11:40 AM the next day. He levitated three circular objects forward. "These are portkeys. Keep them on you at all times. The one etched with a 'c' will take you to this cave. The one etched with 't' will take you to a private location in Ponyville. The final one leads to an anonymous patch of sky a mile or so above Ponyville." He presented a fourth band, separate from the rest. "And wear this fourth band over Ms. Memory's form, so it does not stand out." Silver put the plain-looking armbands around three of his four legs, then used the fourth to cover his friend who had been given the alias 'Memory'. "How do I activate them?" "Passphrases. Very simple passphrases. Activate Cave Portkey, Activate Town Portkey, Activate Sky Portkey. You must be touching them when you speak the words." Silver thought for a moment. "I guess I won't be saying those by accident in a conversation. And if somepony overhears me, I'm already doing something wrong." Mystery Book nodded. "And you shall practice each portkey at least five times." "Um... how? Silver thought portkeys were one-and-done. You could put multiple portkey enchantments on the same item, he'd read, but not more than ten. And that was if you kept each portus local and weak. "Those are not single-activation portkeys," said Mr. Book. "The technical term for the enchantment, translated from Mandarin, is the recursive portus. They can be re-used if they are intact and charged. Breaking them will activate them, so you will be careful, and you will not use that method outside emergencies. They are currently empty of magic. Refilling them will be your first lesson, followed by practice." "Sounds like a plan. But before we start, I've got a bit of housekeeping of my own. I'm going to start school next week, so could we reschedule our weekly meetings? Sometime over the weekend, maybe?" "I was going to suggest that after the lesson," said Mr. Book. "But now is as good a time as any. Saturday and Sunday mornings at nine will give us plenty of time to work. That does not mean you are getting out of today's lesson." "Wait, two days?" "If you want to progress rather than regress, you require at least two days of rigorous training and practice each week. I will not always be able to teach directly, but I should at least be able to get you started each day, or leave lesson notes if I am unable to attend. Today is a trial run. Once you know how to recharge a portkey, I shall leave for an hour, and you will familiarise yourself with the portkey system until I come back." The best way to describe this part of the lesson would be 'tedious.' Or maybe 'busy work' would say it better. It had to be done, and it was best done right away, but it took little skill, thought, or effort. Just time, concentration, and conscientiousness. The best part was practicing the sky portkey, because it gave a nice change of scenery and shot him high in the sky, where he could glide for a while. But even that was beginning to lose its charm after an hour. It was a natural part of the learning process. The whole point was for the charm to be lost, for the portkeys to feel natural and habitual, like breathing. As a side note, he could now say with certainty that portkeys ate all your momentum, which he really should have noticed back when he snapped that portkey on the broomstick above Azkaban. The momentum change was probably part of what made them so disorienting. He was running low on magic by the end of the hour. Recharging a portus is magic intensive. Probably around as intense as casting thirty colloportus charms in a row, come to think of it. Mr. Book hadn't failed to plan for this. The two charms he'd be learning in the second half of the lesson do not require great reserves of magic. They aren't difficult due to precise incantations or intricate wand movements, either. Low magic, simple words, easy wand motions. But they won't be easy. They are, supposedly, going to be difficult in the same way that apparition and transfiguration are difficult. Silver asked what that meant. "You will be learning how to hide your wand." Mr. Book drew his own. "There are two relevant spells. The spell Vajinus," his wand disappeared, "to dismiss your wand to a known location, and the spell Emergo," his wand reappeared, "to retrieve it from that same location." (Pronunciation: Va-jin-us, E-merge-o) Silver noticed the problem right away. "Um... does that mean I'll be casting Emergo without using a wand?" "Yes." "But didn't the books say that wandless magic is something most adults can't do?" "Yes." "And... you expect me to be able to do it before we're done for the day?" "Yes." ... "Is there a trick to it?" "There are indeed a few general tricks to learning wandless magic. But the Emergus charm is different." He adopted a lecturing cadence. "Your friend was able to perform free transfiguration during her first day of lessons. Though exceptional, that is not unprecedented. It was, perhaps, a decennial occurrence in the twentieth century. However, such a feat would have been outright impossible when Hogwarts was founded. Free transfiguration, according to Rowena Ravenclaw, is a delicate art. Even the brightest students required months of study before they could hope to impose form onto substance. Merlin himself might have been shocked to hear that an eleven-year-old had done such a thing after only a single learning session. And yet, in this age, in these 'fading' times, it has been done multiple times. "You might argue that children of past eras would never have been as intelligent as you or your friend. Yet even the least intelligent students of today can make some progress in less than a month. The obvious inference, therefore, is not that students have become more intelligent, but that teaching methods have improved. While ancient magics have been lost, common magics have become more and more refined over the centuries." Silver tilted his head. "I'm not sure if there's a muggle equivalent to the first part of that pattern, but the second half is textbook scientific progress. So wandless magic doesn't qualify as ancient lore?" "No. Thus, it has been refined. And the methods for teaching Emergo have developed far more drastically than the methods for all other wandless magics save one. Like Free Transfiguration, the Emergus charm has been learned in one day." "I... see..." Silver thought for a moment about what that implied. "Is Emergo the first wandless spell that most wizards learn?" "No. That would be Apparition – the only wandless spell an average spellcaster learns how to perform. If a wizard knows two, expect the second to be Emergo." "Got it. Does that mean you can never trust a disarmed wizard? Is it a security concern that some opponents can summon their wands anywhere, anytime?" "The spell does not allow you to summon your wand under any circumstance. You must know its exact location, just as you must know a desired destination before you can Apparate there, and most wizards will not know the exact locations of their wands once they've been confiscated." "But... if it's possible to put a magical trace on someone else's wand, couldn't a talented wizard wandlessly trace their own wand so they always know exactly where it is?" "Standard practice in the auror office is to dispel all traces from seized wands and establish a ward that prevents remote summoning. The healer of our school did not know this, thus my mockery. Not that it would have hindered me if she had." So that's what that was about. "Okay... and you said there are tricks to learning wandless magic in general? I didn't find anything like that in the library." He'd found the opposite, in fact. Plenty of warnings about how it was a super-advanced thing well beyond the reach of a student. "Nor could you have. They are of my own devising. Hints composed after decades of practice. Many of them I wish I had discovered a great deal earlier. All of them I use today. None of them violate the Interdict of Merlin. Until you are sworn by unbreakable vow not to be stupid in certain ways, this shall be one of your primary lessons. Are you ready to begin?" Silver took a deep breath. His first true magical lesson, from the most powerful magus in the world. After missing the opportunity before, he sure as heck wasn't going to miss it this time. Or devote anything less than his full attention. "Yes." And the lecture began. "In standard spell-casting, Mr. Silver, you access your body's available pool of magic, push a portion of it through your arm, and focus that energy through your wand. You speak words and make gestures to shape the magic as it exits. It is similar to the process of using your lips and tongue to shape your voice into words. If you wish to cast wandlessly, you must shape each spell somehow else. It is almost akin to learning a new language... though not quite. The closest analog would be sign language, as it is entirely different from vocalized speech, yet can accomplish the same thing. The wandless arts are likewise different from all other magical branches, even as they encompass them. It takes time to learn and master, but it should be learnable at any age, in theory. If I were restricted to the body and magic of a first year, I would still be able to do it. But I should warn you that this has never technically been tried before. We are exploring new grounds." "I don't mind being the test subject of your theory," said Silver. "So long as the theory is solid." Mr. Book nodded. "In learning wandless magic, most start with a finger, for obvious reasons. But that is poor practice. There are only a very few spells that a beginner can reliably cast with a finger." The thestral raised a hoof, and a white light appeared at its tip. "Lumos, for instance. But not many others." "Can Somnium be learned that way?" "It can," said Mr. Book. "Your guess is correct. You will learn to hoof-cast that invisible offensive spell despite the bad practice, for obvious reasons." "So what's good practice then?" "Some wizards would answer that question with Legilimency. For those who can learn to read minds in the first place, it is simple enough to further learn how to do so without a wand. And starting with the eyes as your magical focus has other benefits. You will find that weak, targeted spells are best performed through the eyes. Accio. Wingardium Leviosa. Ventriliquo. It was my preferred method in public settings as the defense professor." Wow. In retrospect, that matched up with many observations. "So... I'll be learning Legilimency?" "Eventually. Eye magic is delicate. Should something go wrong, the dangers are intense, immense, and permanent. Anything as strong as a Stupefy would render you blind, and such injuries are notoriously difficult to heal. One mistake, one instance of overconfidence, one moment of negligence, and you might never see again." Silver gulped. "You will not be practicing any spell other than Legilimency through your eyes until you have come into the fullness of your magic, or until I deem you ready. Which brings me to your actual lesson plan: ambidextrous spellcasting." As in, using his other hand to cast spells? After all that buildup, Silver had been expecting something more... epic. "And... that'll help me learn wandless magic?" "Correct." "How?" "A good question. Once you answer it, once you solve the puzzle, we will continue. Until that point, your sessions will be confined to standard spells, and I will not share any deeper knowledge." "Is this standard practice in magical tutoring?" "It is, just as it is standard practice to write down as much as you remember from the lecture, sufficiently coded of course. It might have contained hints you will only understand later." This took some time. Silver was so focused on putting memory to page, and on speculating angles of attack for this new puzzle, that he'd almost forgotten he still had to learn two whole spells before the day was out. Like Mr. Book said, those spells didn't require much magic, and they weren't difficult to pronounce, but they were difficult to pronounce while visualizing where you wanted your wand to go, or where you were getting it from. He only managed to learn Vajinus by the end of the session. He would have to hide his wand somewhere he could physically retrieve it from until he learned Emergo. "Before I leave," said Silver just as afternoon became evening. "Can you return my cloak and Time-Turner? I've managed to pass off my sleep-cycle as me being tired from the incident with Nightmare Moon, but I don't know how long that'll last." "Here," said Mr. Book, floating the midnight cloth onto his back and the golden chain up and around his neck. "You will keep them secret." "I'll keep their natures a secret," Silver corrected. He tapped the hourglass. "Spimster wickets aren't interesting, but they aren't terrible secrets either. And neither is a cloak enchanted to calm the wearer, but I don't like wearing it around others, and no you can't try it, it belonged to my parents, and can we please talk about something else because this topic is making me uncomfortable." "Hmm. Passable." "I also gave Twilight the idea to enchant a pouch that's bigger on the inside than on the outside. She just made a rudimentary prototype last night, and she's still working on it, but I'll probably ask you to return the contents of my pouch when she gets further." A series of parseltongue questions and answers confirmed that neither pony planned to betray or harm the other, confirmed that Mr. Book was working on the stone and other paths to resurrection, and confirmed that Mr. Silver would practice magic when he could. As soon as he got back to home base, he started the wandless magic puzzle. As expected, left-hoofed casting wasn't easy. Like going all your life writing with one hand, then trying to switch to the other. It would take time. And he probably wouldn't figure out why it helps until he learned how to do it in the first place. "Silver?" Silver switched his wand back to his dominant hoof. He visualised where he'd decided he would keep it when he wasn't using it: beneath a pile of books he'd put in his dresser, stacked in such a way a wand could fit neatly next to the book on the bottom. "Vajinus," he whispered. He'd have to find a safer place to practice. A locked door was not much protection against Twilight discovering him in the act of using a wand. "Yeah?" he asked loudly. "Why is your door locked?" "Working on a project," he answered truthfully, if not honestly. He'd borrowed a few books on the 'Wonderbolts' from the downstairs library, having kept that term in mind ever since Flight Formation said it. Those books were laid out on his bed, and not just for show. He read them in between practicing his spells. Whenever his mind got too weary from reading, he switched to spellwork. Whenever his magic got exhausted from casting, he switched to reading. He'd developed this method back in April, soon after he'd gone back to studying alone. Optimisation is one of his many coping mechanisms. It felt like doing something. Silver dropped down from his bed. "I don't like to be disturbed when I'm reading." He unlocked and opened the door. "What is it?" "Um..." Twilight's gaze drifted to the Wonderbolt book on his bed, then snapped back to Silver. "I finished the extra enchantments!" She levitated his saddlebags onto his back. "What do you think?" "I'll tell you after I run a few tests," Silver said promptly. "Do you have a bag of bits I could borrow? I promise I'll give it back." Minutes later... "Silver," said Twilight, eyes wide. "Silver, that was brilliant!" She dashed forward and gave him a big hug. "You reverse-engineered the enchanting principles in five minutes! It took me ten hours to design a voice-retrieval spell that considered all those edge cases! Not to mention the time it took to actually enchant them! Where did you learn how to do that?" "Books," Silver shrugged. And practice. He'd already done it once, in Diagon Alley. Easy enough to do it again, with greater surety. "You didn't learn it from Mr. Book?" "No, though I wouldn't be surprised if he could do it too. He teaches me other things. Speaking of, I'm going to him for lessons on the weekends from now on." "Can I come watch?" Silver did not pause. A year of being on the other side of conversations with Mr. Book had taught him to not show any signs that he was misdirecting. "Maybe someday," Silver said. "Did you write down your creation process in simple, easy-to-follow steps so other unicorns could replicate the magic?" Twilight's eyes suddenly widened, as if she hadn't thought of that, or had forgotten to do it in her manic rush. Silver suppressed a grin at the successful distraction. Then he chose not to suppress it anymore as he asked, "Or are you keeping the enchantment to yourself?" "Keep it to myself?" Twilight asked, sounding suddenly scandalised. "Why would I do that? The world needs to know!" "Ah yes. Science." Silver nodded sagely. "The universal pursuit of truth and progress. So just to be clear, you won't be finding some very wealthy patrons who would be very appreciative of something this convenient? Or, if that's too much work, how about contracting Rarity for that while you research something new?" Twilight blinked. "I-" She blinked again. "No, Silver, that's not... that wouldn't be right at all." "Somepony is going to profit from this invention, Twilight. That's just how the market works. Couldn't you at least give Rarity a week to get ahead of the competition before sharing it with the world?" "No, Silver," Twilight said, more firmly this time. "I'll help teach Rarity how to do it. That should give her more than enough of a head start. But I'm going to share this knowledge. It wouldn't be right to keep it to myself." Silver frowned. The part of him that said market vulnerabilities always needed to be exploited was often at odds with the part of him that was in favor of the common endeavour, at least in the short term. According to the only book he'd read on entrepreneurship, a successful businessman had to be ruthless – not evil, but cold, at least to the competition. Money going into your own pocket meant it wasn't going into someone else's. Customers only have so much money, and few ever pay for two of the same kind of product. (Unless it's entertainment, like two comic books, or a luxury good, like designer goods. But even then, most consumers still want variety.) "I guess it's up to you," Silver sighed. Her enchantment, her decision. "Maybe it would be a little selfish to keep it mum." Then again, this was a magical world of ponies who had already demonstrated remarkable herd tendencies. Maybe game theory wasn't a problem here. No, that wasn't the right way to think about it. Game theory was always a problem. It always existed, in every society, in every interaction between life forms. But it's possible- no, it is probable that ponies are closer to doves than hawks, closer to the prisoners who cooperate than those who defect. With humans, you almost never see consistent cooperation unless you pair the same two people in the dilemma multiple times, giving them time to learn from their mistakes and build trust. In business, it's called collusion, and it's one of the things that governments have a hard time regulating because it can happen as a natural result of multiple businesses competing in the same market on razor thin margins. Cereal companies don't drop their prices below a certain line, even though cereal is cheap to produce and they could probably tempt more customers from their rivals and increase profit. If they dropped their prices, then their rivals would lower THEIR prices too, and then EVERYBODY loses money. Everybody plays by the same rules, or it's a race to the bottom. So companies eventually cooperate to some extent, agreeing amongst themselves to abide by certain rules, even if they have to learn that lesson the hard way a few times. And then the government comes in and says 'no unfair business practices', and it just makes everything even more complicated. Silver didn't know if the same experiments had been run with ponies, but he suspected it took much less time than with humans to build that mutual agreement. Maybe even no time at all. The human default is initial defection, eventual cooperation, though that was still up for debate, and it also depended on the nation/culture of the sample group, and if the sample 'prisoners' shared that culture. It could be the case that the pony default leans more to cooperation. Only time and experimentation would tell. If it was the case... Silver felt another impulse to grin, and again chose not to suppress it. If it was the case that ponies tended towards cooperation, that would make defection a reliable short-term strategy. He'd have to see if there were any ethical ways of exploiting that.