54 - Research and Development
Chapter Fifty-Four
Research and Development
After the revelations of the previous day, Sunset used Tuesday mostly to relax. There was still one thing she needed to prepare for the following day, however. Using all her knowledge of masking spell matrices and of the magic used in this world, she designed a short range tracking spell that was almost impossible to detect, especially for local magicians that weren't even looking for it. She would place it on Quirrell to ensure he came nowhere the stone without her knowledge.
With that spell ready to be placed on the teacher during their D.A.D.A. lesson the next day, she could once more get to her personal projects. It just so happened that the following day would also include a lesson of Astronomy. In her first lesson, she had vowed to find a spell to improve her eyesight for that very purpose, but thus far she had always been too busy.
Conjuring a hoof – no, hand, she still slipped into pony terminology on occasion – mirror, she got to work. She still remembered that she, first of all, needed to find a way for the charm to not make her eyes glow. Introducing light pollution was the last thing she wanted.
She went through a range of scanning charms. Aura sight, dark vision, enhanced perception, medical scans and any others she could think off. No luck. Each and every one lit up her eyes with either the teal of her regular magic or the pale gold of her still recovering light magic.
That was another item on her to-do list, finding a way to kill dementors. For a moment she was stunned by the revelation that she was calmly contemplating ways to kill. Then she reminded herself that dementors weren't alive and she'd been trained to kill undead for years.
Still, none of that was a solution to her immediate problem. Lacking a scanning spell that didn't make her eyes glow, she would have to find one that suited her purposes and suppress the glow manually. It would be a bit of a hassle, but that was life.
Both Harry and Luna, fortunately, were in the common room with her and quite willing to let her scan their respective eyes to copy their improved perception of detail and increased reception of light respectively. Both of them were partly based on biological structures she had no hope of copying, but she could replicate the magical parts of their abilities.
It took a few hours, but in due time the first prototype of her spell was ready to be tested. Standing atop Gryffindor tower, she stared out into the still young night, looking out onto the school grounds, reasonably impressed.
To her normal vision, the school grounds were dark, but the moment she fired up her spell, she could see most of them quite clearly, using nothing more than the light coming from the castle windows. Seeing how making out singular leaves and needles in the trees of the forbidden forest was also remarkably easy, she was confident that the spell would work to her satisfaction.
Conjuring her mirror once more, she sighed. Now came the tricky part. Suppressing the glow in her eyes.
Copied from natural mechanisms as it was, the spell didn't cause a glow anywhere near as strong as those she had tried earlier, Neither Harry's nor Luna's eyes glowed, after all, but it was still an intentional use of her magic and, as such, caused a glow.
She would need to find a solution, preferably before the next day's Astronomy lesson.
Dismissing both spells, she made her way back downstairs and sat back down in the common room, looking at the spell matrix diagrams carefully, there was a magic run-off causing the light somewhere. She just had to find it.
《What're you working on, sis?》
Sunset turned to see Hermione leaning on the backrest of her armchair, looking over her shoulder at the complicated diagrams. 《Just trying to find the run-off. It's better than what I had before, but my eyes still glow when I use it.》
《Hmm, can you show me what you have so far?》
《Sure.》Like so many times before, the two took each other's hands and guided a bit of magic into them. As usual, their eyes widened a little as the spark of magic opened up the familiar connection.
Both of them took a moment to enjoy the comfort, then they both returned their gazes to the papers on the table. With the connection between them, Hermione could see the diagrams as Sunset did, and Sunset, equally, shared in the insight of her sister.
Neither of them knew exactly where the idea came from, if it was Sunset's, Hermione's, or emerged from the link they shared, but regardless, both of them suddenly grew excited as they accessed Sunset's knowledge of Equestrian illusions. More specifically, invisibility spells.
Sure enough, there were run-offs in those spells too, but they didn't cause the caster to glow. That would, after all, somewhat defeat the point of an invisibility spell.
The emitted light was masked, not suppressed, but hidden. Once they understood how, it was child's play to apply the same masking to Sunset's new spell.
"So, how's it going?"
Both of them were startled from their triumph and lost focus on their connection. After a few seconds to recover from the shock of being once more alone in her own mind, Sunset turned to see who had interrupted. Harry and Luna were looking at them with curious expressions.
"Oh it's going alright. I think. Sorry, usually we're a bit more careful about disconnecting."
"Oh were you doing your sister connection thing?" Harry, just like Luna, understood what she was talking about, both at the Burrow and in Equestria they had seen Sunset and Hermione link like this several times. Apparently it was a bit disorienting to lose connection so suddenly.
"Ugh. Who? Where?" Hermione, evidently, was a more shaken than Sunset was. The two looked at each other. "Oh, sis. Wait, sis? Something isn't right here. Am I you? Or me?"
Sunset was now also staring at Hermione. "I'm ... not sure. But I think we can sort it out." She held her hand out to Hermione, glowing with magic. After a moment's hesitation, Hermione took it in her own and activated her own magic to open the connection. After a moment, the glow around their hands faded again and they let go.
They both turned to Harry and Luna. Sunset moved to explain. "There we go, that's better. I think when you startled us out of our connection, we were a bit too interwoven, so parts of my personality got stuck in Hermione and parts of hers got stuck in me. Good thing reconnecting fixed it."
Hermione nodded. "Yeah. Good to know it's that easy to fix. Still though, that was very confusing. We should probably make sure we don't get interrupted next time."
"Probably, yeah. Anyway, the spell should be ready to test out now, but it's a bit bright in here for that."
"Yes," Luna agreed, "it takes me five minutes every morning to let my eyes adapt."
Hermione looked at her with a stunned expression. "Oh so that's why you do that!"
"Time is up. Each of you fill a sample bottle with your potion in its current form and place it on my desk, then you may pack your things and leave. Miss Shimmer, I would like a word with you."
Sunset leaned against the wall to wait until the remaining students had filed out of the room. Her telekinesis had made cleaning up and packing her things as trivial as it was quick.
Finally the last Slytherin, Vincent Crabbe, she noticed, left the room with a glance back at her, leaving her alone with Professor Snape. "I must say, Miss Shimmer, your device, what was it you called it?"
"The portable hearth, professor."
"Right. Your portable hearth is working fantastically. I have already managed to successfully brew three potions that were previously only theoretically possible. I have also spoken with a few other potion masters, acquaintances of mine, and they have confirmed that they would buy such a device should it become available. Only advanced potion masters would, mind you, so it would be a niche market, but if you can refine the design, it should sell regardless. Both in wizarding Britain and beyond."
Sunset nodded thoughtfully. "I suppose that's true. Is there any issue you noticed, anything you thought of?"
"Perhaps. The potions I have tried here were exceptions, most potions that are advanced enough to require such fine regulation of temperature take weeks or even months to brew. In Hogwarts that isn't an issue, but in other places it might become a problem."
"You're worried it might run out of charge. Possible I suppose?"
"What would happen if one tried to recharge the device while it is running?"
Sunset rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "A sudden power spike might carry through to the fire, cause a sudden increase in temperature. I'll see if I can find a way around that. Did you notice anything else?"
"No. Everything seems to be working as expected. A simpler variant might also be appropriate for amateurs. Your device is far more convenient than a regular fire. I can't count the number of times students messed up a potion because they were too distracted by the fire they needed to take care of."
"I'll see if I can make a simpler version. Thank you, professor."
With a nod, Snape dismissed her. She picked up her bag in her telekinesis and let it float over to her, before walking out of the room.
"Oh. Miss Shimmer!" At the door, she was stopped by the teacher's voice.
"Yes, professor?"
"Your work is remarkable. Fifteen points to Gryffindor."
"There you are sis, what did Professor Snape want?"
Sunset sat down at the table next to Hermione with a relaxed smile. "He just gave me some feedback on the hearth. I'll have to see if I can incorporate it. I need to finalize the design anyway."
"If you need any help with that, I'm pretty good with visual design."
"Thanks Dean. That would be helpful."
"No problem. I'd like to know what exactly you did anyway. All I saw was that you were messing around with a bunch of electronics and using a wand as a soldering iron."
"A what?"
All eyes turned to Seamus who was looking at Dean in confusion. "It's a tool muggles use to melt metal and build electronics," Hermione explained.
"That's that stuff that doesn't work around Hogwarts, right?"
"Except when it does," Sunset confirmed with a snort. "It really isn't too hard to make it work anyway. You just need to know what kind of interference the magic around here causes and how to filter it out. That's it."
"I literally understood none of that."
Ron shook his head. "Me neither."
"I think it's because we were raised by magical parents," Luna helpfully pointed out.
"Possible," Harry admitted, "I think I understood some of that. At least the words sound familiar."
Hermione sighed while Sunset just chuckled lightly. "I can show you later. Let's eat for now."
After a quick demonstration of the electromagnetic disturbance caused by the plentiful magic around Hogwarts and an explanation of its effects on electronics, the group sat down in a corner of the common room around a table where Sunset projected an illusion of the prototype hearth and its control device. The table itself was covered in papers, both the blueprints for the devices themselves, but also the schemes for the various enchantments and plans for the electronic circuits in the control device.
Sunset looked at the plans, then let the illusions of the outer covers on both devices fade, showing the internal systems. "Now hold on. I need to modify this so it can be safely charged while it's on." After a moment, she let the illusory control device fade to focus on the hearth itself. "Don't need that, the charge can't get through the link. Only need to worry about this. Now if I move the charging port to be over here, I can connect it to the other side of the internal reservoir, then the reservoir itself should work as a buffer and stop any spikes."
She quickly drew the modifications into the blueprints with pencil held in her magic and restored the illusions to completion. "Now, any ideas?"
Dean leaned closer to the illusions. "Maybe add a ring on top of those spikes, would probably make it easier to place a cauldron on it."
"But that would trap the hot air and mess with the temperature, wouldn't it?"
Sunset glanced at Hermione. "It would, but if we put a profile on the ring that leaves gaps between it and the cauldron for the heat to escape, we can get around that." She quickly added just such a ring to the design. "Any idea on visuals?"
Dean quickly grabbed an empty piece of parchment and the pencil Sunset had dropped and started to draw. After a moment he held up a sketch. How about rounded edges and corners? Like a playing dice cut in half.
Sunset looked at the sketch, then reshaped the illusory hearth to match. Harry nodded. "I like it, maybe a matte white colour?" The illusion changed again. "Yeah like that."
Luna spoke up next. "Could you make it so the flame can change colour? That could indicate how hot it is."
Sunset nodded slowly. "I think I can make that happen. Yes."
Ron looked at the control device for a moment. "Could you move that illusion so it's on the table. At the edge where you'd place it?"
The illusion moved. Ron got up and stood next to it, mimicking the motions of fiddling with the controls. "Maybe tilt this a bit."
"And put a frame around the glass cover," Dean added.
Sunset nodded. "Would make it easier to mount the hinges. Let's also round off the corners to match the hearth itself. There we go. Any other ideas?"
Nothing.
"Good. Then give me just a moment to copy this into the blueprints. Then I'll get to figuring out how to make the color of the flame change depending on temperature."
Dean tossed the pencil over. She caught it in her magic and got to editing the blueprints.
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I don't know about you, but this sounds fairly difficult to me.
Huh anyone else got a tony stark vibe from that last part ya know the holograms he uses I was thinking about them moving a hologram around like tony does around the table
I was about to snark at you about the color and temprature of a flame depends on "fule/oxigen" ratio but then I remembered that this is a magic flame so that kemestry lesson was tosed out the window.
But it might be some thing to think about.
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Well Starlight picks up her everything so just her back can't be that hard, probably painful, but not that hard.
Sunset is an Artificer.
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I cant tell if "kemestry" is a joke or just a spelling error.
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Why thank you very much.
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both.
They could introduce a timer, or give it the ability to program different temperatures over time, like first 10 mi utes 125', the 40minutrs 90', then a day 50' and so on, programing heat will make sure a wizard or witch go out while their potions cook themselves, it has electronics, it can be done.
9656647
Yeah, it could be done, but programing that with buttons and switches could be tricky. Once they figure out magical computers, that'll be on the list ...
Careful there. Feature Creep is a thing.
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Yes, yes it is.
That dastardly phenomenon that keeps you from ever releasing what you have...
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When, and where?
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I suspect the fact that most unicorns wouldn't appreciate being put in a box probably has something to do with it ...
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They could do that ... or they could use, y'know ... puppets
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That could work. But who would buy a TV that could only play one movie?
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Still, complicated enchantment, costly and time consuming ... only the rich could afford it.
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You asked for TV, not cinema. Remember the spell Twiligth used to expose Rara's manager? (can't remember his name) Ponies have cinema.
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Sunset Shimer even has the right color scheme!
She is... Iron-Mage!
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I think Tony Stark needed to know a bit more than how to handle switches, potentiometers and LEDs ...
I would just like to thank the author for acknowledging the intelligence of the teachers at Hogwarts. It is a rare thing, indeed, in a "X at Hogwarts" story.
9657509
that's because in most fics the Teachers come preinstalled with Idiot-balls.
Personally I saw the magic glow on unicorn horns to be a visual representation of the magic not being efficient. Like with any transfer of energy you get extra things. Like with electrical energy you get heat and light energy and in some cases sound energy, it’s not a 100% efficient conversion. That’s what I saw it as. The sound as well.
I figured that subconscious magic didn’t have a glow because it was efficient. The subconscious knew whatever magic it was using so well that it used it with 100% efficiency - or close enough to that.
Unicorns however used their magic consciously and they didn’t know how to make the various spells they cast efficient, thus it produces light and sound (and possibly heat).
Least, that was always my interpretation of it. Hell, I had the idea to incorporate my thoughts into a story, introduce a character that knew how to make their magic efficient and taught others how as well :3
Wait, they connect their minds through a link? Isn’t that dangerous? Or at least intimate?
...guess that answers the dangerous part.
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Everyone has to start somewhere.
Buffer added: problem solved. Excellent!
I read the bit about magic causing interference with electronics, and it reminded me of some of the stuff I was watching the other day, sparking an idea, but more of a question, really… If magic can interfere with electronics, as a side effect of its use, then doesn't that imply that magic can influence electromagnetic fields? And if that's the case… Can electromagnetic fields influence magic?
What inspired this idea, was the knowledge of how electric currents affect the electromagnetic field. (You probably know a lot of this. Sorry…)
Think of a wire, with a DC current (for simplicity) flowing through it. The wire will have a magnetic field wrapped around it in a tight helix while the current is moving, but not when it is still. Knowing this is part of why making coils of wires is useful, provided that they're insulated wires. Another thing that's useful to know, is that if a magnetic field moves through an electrical wire, it can make the current move, and vice versa.
The most common type of electric motor is made of coils, with some type of magnet. Because, it turns out, that if you have magnetic fields that can be turned on and off when you want, they can be used to move a magnet, because of how magnets work. But of course, this also works the other way around, by using a moving magnet to create flow in the wires of the coils that the motor uses to create magnetic fields on demand. But what is often under-emphasized is that the motion of the magnet is work, and work requires energy. This means, that if you try to make that magnet in the motor, move, there will be resistance that you have to expend energy in order to overcome.
And I think I'm finally to the point where I can get to my original point!…
If magic interferes—or should I say, interacts—with electromagnetism, then can electromagnetism be used to interact with magic? Can knowledge of electromagnetism be used, with knowledge of magic, to use magic, or to even generate whatever magical energy is called?
Can electromagnetism even be called that anymore, if magic is part of the equation? Or am I being silly, because kinetics have been known to interact with it, too, without the name needing to be changed?
…Dangit! I just remembered something else that might be relevant, too. I have to go look that reference up, and come back to link it here.
Edit: In this video: https://youtu.be/K40lNL3KsJ4, at 6:00 you get some context, then a little later, it explains that light is electromagnetic waves. I purposefully looked up this video, using a hint given to me in a comment on another video that one probably wouldn't think was related to light and electromagnetism. In this other video, with a long name: https://youtu.be/dW7J49UTns8, I first heard that apparently, light carries electromagnetic force, or a statement that kinda adds up to that. The video is too long, though, so I can't go through the whole thing for the little mention of this. But the video is mostly about the nature of space possibly being quantum in nature. (Don't look at me like that!) A lot of it goes just a bit over my head.
So what was I trying to say with this whole thing?… Hmm. Oh.
Light, and thus, photons, has something to do with electromagnetic waves. And in this story, magic has something to do with electronics. And use of magic also seems to emit light. Coincidence? I think not!
If use of magic emits electromagnetic radiation in the form of visible light, then might it also be emitting electromagnetic radiation in other wavelengths?
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Redundancy! Just like with DC Comics!
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I have thought of this multiple times. Some day I'll try to incorporate it properly into a fic.
Though there is a slightly more practical idea with this. The brain also creates its own electromagnetic field.
So theoretically, electromagnetic fields would interact with brain signals as well.
On one hand, this opens up some cool things with brain-controlled devices. VR with thought-controlled movement would be amazing.
On the other, it's a bit worrying that electronic devices provide constant brain stimulation.
On a more interesting, third hand, this actually provides some scientific basis to the old wives' tale about different creatures sensing emotions, like fear. I have yet to research how different emotions affect brain activity, but if it is consistent, that would create a consistent field for other brains to "read" the interference of.
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9658645
You know there is a story on here called My Life As A Bipedal Quadruped that goes into this idea. The start of the story has an MRI cause interference with a spell and changing the spells outcome.
9656647
Just hope they don’t burn their houses down while they’re out