Akashic Records
patreon
Harry Potter Squib Tales Chapter 16
🕑 Added 2023-07-04 18:13:08 +0000 UTCChapter 16: Spell Development
“So, what do you think?” I asked eagerly, leaning in to hear Archibald’s opinion on my idea.
“It’s… ambitious,” the squib of House Tarsworth said slowly, giving the item in his hands a close look. It was a jar of Wiggenweld Cream, the Cauldron symbol painted onto the front in green paint.
“And it doesn’t break any magical laws. Or muggle ones,” I said excitedly. “I checked.”
“You believe there is a market for something like this?” he asked. “Medical creams and cosmetics made with magical recipes and ingredients?”
“Semi-magical ingredients at best. And yes, I do,” I confirmed.
“What about patents and passing federal inspections?” Archibald inquired.
“Patenting my recipes is fine, it doesn’t matter if they go public eventually. It’s the manufacturing process that matters. Without that, no one else can turn dittany and tree bark into the miracle goo you in your hands,” I explained. “And I can pass inspections easy-peasy.”
“And what do you want out of this business venture?” he asked me, looking up.
“Money, obviously,” I said, folding my arms. “I want wealth and power if I can’t have magic.”
“Fair enough,” Archibald snorted. “What about schooling? In just a couple months you’ll be starting your final year of schooling. But what are your plans for higher education?”
“Oxford,” I said with a nod. “It’s one of the most prestigious university in England, and using that prestige I can expand my business. I have to start small, sure, but a few rich and influential patrons can make a real difference.”
‘If my luck holds, I can leverage the knowledge I have about Justin Finch-Fletchly to my advantage, too,’ I thought eagerly.
The boy who ended up in Hufflepuff during Harry’s First Year had claimed he’d been slated for Eton before his Hogwarts letter came. And Eton was an extremely prestigious public school that’d had famous and powerful alumni, such as eighteen former Prime Ministers and members of the royal family.
Although I couldn’t attend Eton, there was a wealth of connections to be made with the Finch-Fletchly name alone. They were well connected, a family of wealthy politicians and trust fund babies. All I had to do was use the fact I knew about Hogwarts, possibly leverage myself as a tutor to Justin over the summers, and there were plenty of ways to expand my influence.
“The main issue I have is that mass producing potions isn’t easy, or cheap. You need a lot of people to work for you, and the secrets can’t be kept forever, even with magical oaths and bonds,” Archibald said, snapping me back to the present.
“I have a solution for that,” I assured him. “All I need is help with the legal paperwork and getting a loan, and then I can produce enough semi-magical products to supply my clients.”
“Interesting,” he mused. “And I take it you won’t be telling me these methods of rapid potion making?”
“Sorry, not without a binding contract,” I told him. He just nodded, not insulted by my refusal.
“Understandable,” Archibald said. He picked up the copy of my business plan I’d printed out for him and gave it another look. “I want to look through this again, but I think I can agree to it, tentatively at least. You just turned seventeen, so legally, you are an adult in the magical world and can start your own business, but it’s trickier here in the muggle world.”
“I know,” I said with a sigh. “There’s nothing else for it, though. And, technically, I’m only fifteen in the magical world.”
“True, but the magicals don’t care about us squibs so if your muggle identity says you are seventeen, they aren’t going to look too deeply.”
“That seems lazy and easy to abuse,” I said with a raised eyebrow.
“Tell me about it,” Archibald said with a sigh. “Sometimes I wonder how the wizarding world has lasted this long.”
We shared a chuckle at that, and then he examined some of my other products. “Hair growth cream, acne remover, burn salve… I’ve tested them, and they work as far as I can tell. But besides your Wiggenweld cream, are you sure you can make these in large enough quantity to supply the demand?”
“Absolutely, a lot of the ingredients are normal enough I can buy ‘em in bulk from either the wizarding world or the muggle one without raising eyebrows, so that’s one issue easily solved,” I claimed.
“Alright, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll look into business licenses and suppliers for ingredients and potion brewing supplies in the muggle side of things, and have some store fronts investigated for you, see if they fit your requirements,” Archibald said. “Now, I have to ask, is everything doing okay at school?”
“Yeah, things are great since Mr. Birch got removed,” I said with a grin. “Thanks for that, by the way.”
“No problem. I was surprised when you called and needed by help with getting a man arrested, but it seems to have worked out fine. He was stealing from the school funds and taking bribes to change grades for some students. A lot of people got in trouble for this,” Archibald said with a smirk. “And my office got a lot of work prosecuting him, so thank you for that little Christmas gift.”
“I knew he was scum,” I said with a nod. “Glad it’s taken care of.”
“Indeed. You take care now,” Archibald said, and I nodded back before leaving.
As I left Archibald’s law office, I stretched a bit, enjoying the warm spring sun.
It was Sunday, May 19th, 1991. Just a couple months away from Harry Potter’s birthday, and his Hogwarts letter. A lot had changed since Christmas.
On Harry’s side of things, his grades had continued to improve. He wasn’t going to be a genius, but he was in the top ten of his class consistently. I had plans to have him keep up with his muggle studies even after he went to Hogwarts. He hadn’t been happy, but he saw the benefits.
Harry’s home life hadn’t improved significantly, but from what I could tell, the Dursleys hadn’t tried to punish Harry for getting better grades than Dudley recently, and had been rather quiet, hardly spreading any nasty rumors about him. Not that anyone really believe them, as far as I could tell. But it was nice to see them being ‘nice.’ For a given value of such.
My own grades were in tiptop shape. I remained the best student at school, and the teachers had become docile after I’d gotten the vice-principal kicked out. Sam and I had worked closely together after Christmas as well. He’d been excited to learn about magic, and learning that runes and potions didn’t need much magical potential had made him badger me into teaching him. He was actually really good at potions, too. Cooking and potions were pretty similar, being both an art and science. Sam had been a real help in researching ways to reduce the amount of magic needed to make certain potions and other products.
Home life wasn’t too bad either. Mom was as loving as always. Rudy was a Third Year, and kept out of my way. He was a Slytherin, which was sad but expected. I was worried he might be making some unpleasant ‘friends.’ I prayed that he didn’t fall in with the Death Eater Juniors that I knew were in Hogwart’s Dungeon. I didn’t want to make mom cry, after all, and she would if he became a Death Eater and I had to kill him for it. He was young, and could change. Hopefully.
The Weasleys were nice, as usual. Charlie was graduating at the end of this year, and Bill was already working for Gringotts as a Curse Breaker. I’d sent Bill some lore about curses I’d dug up from the Hunch Family tomes as a Christmas gift, which he’d been very enthusiastic about.
Percy was sadly becoming distant from me. My lack of magic meant we’d be drifting apart, but his desire to be part of the Ministry, even as young as he was, meant that he was falling in line with their dogma early.
‘At least Charlie, Bill, Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny still like me,’ I thought to myself. The twins were as fun-loving as usual, and Ron just couldn’t wait to get to Hogwarts. He’d already been chatting excitedly about becoming friends with Harry Potter, to the envy of Ginny.
I was suspicious about how deep Dumbledore had sunk his claws into the red heads, because it had been very coincidental that Ron had just so happened to stumble on Harry on the Hogwarts Express. Plus, his claim that the other rooms were empty was bogus. The train was made to hold way more students than currently attended, and magic could expand the sizes of the compartments. No way it’d been full as he’d claimed. Not unless every compartment held only a single child.
I was less suspicious about Mrs. Weasley talking out loud and ‘accidentally’ helping Harry find his way to Platform 9 and 3/4ths. She really was just that loud and talkative. And she did have a soft spot for trying to help without directly helping, so she’d probably seen the poor boy and how lost he was.
Still, I didn’t want to think about my only magical friends becoming twisted by the old man’s schemes, so I decided to think about something else. Namely, my work with selling potions to muggles.
For my business side of things, I had taken Sam’s advice, and gotten his mother’s advice on advertise and other helpful insight into growing my business. She’d had a lot of useful info for me, and I’d judicially applied it. I’d gone posters and t-shirts printed, and attended craft fairs and markets. My sales had risen, and I was making over a thousand quid every time I went out to sell my products.
To further my potential business prospects, I’d invested in inventing new methods of mass-producing potions. I’d discovered two things. One, that stainless steel worked just as well as brass cauldrons. Second, I could brew potions using magical stirring rods, which took care of the need of a magical person for most of my potions.
I’d made a few stirring rods for that purpose by experimenting with etching runes onto hollow tubes of steel that were filled with cores made of dragon bone and unicorn horn. Both were expensive materials, but even a few inches of dragon bone could provide the magic for a multi-gallon vat, so long as they were spaced out evenly and attuned to the runes.
Not to mention that the runes themselves could even be covered up and thus hidden from anyone not in the know. So long as the runes existed, they could provide the magical spark needed to brew my potions.
And, thanks to my studies with alchemy, I figured out a few materials I could synthesize as the stirring rods cores to replace the dragon bone and unicorn horn. There was one, called Orichalcum, which was a golden metal substance
The most important thing I’d made was a machine that could be programmed to stir one of my Magi-Rods (Trademarked!) in accordance to the recipe. Adding and preparing the materials was a bit trickier and had to be done by actual people, but slicing and grinding ingredients to be added to what were essential giant soup vats was something anyone could do, though squibs would be needed for handling certain ingredients.
My studies with runes and arithmancy had progressed in leaps and bounds alongside my potions and alchemy research. I didn’t want to brag, but I was probably at NEWT levels in terms of all four disciplines. They worked synergistically, and meant even I, a squib, could use magic to an extent.
Though my favorite recent discovery was the gift my mother had given me a month ago for my birthday. It was a book on the Japanese talisman art known as Onmyoji. I’d assumed it was like Japanese runes, but it was so much more! Similar disciplines but unique enough with their own twists!
Best of all, I discovered I could use my own blood to power single use Onmyoji talismans. They weren’t powerful, but I could cast Stunning spells, Sleep spells, Binding spells, Lighting spells, and more.
As a squib, I couldn’t use a wand, but there was still enough magical energy in my blood to power special runes and Onmyoji talismans. This was the key to me developing my own ways for magic. I hadn’t found a chance to test my newfound knowledge, but I did carry around a bunch of paper talismans in my wallet for emergencies.
I got onto the bus, and rode it home. There were things I had to prepare. I was excited. Very, very, excited. The future was coming, and I would embrace it with wide open arms.
