Harry Potter: Master of Talismans

Over the next few weeks, I discovered a useful relationship between ignorance and exercise. A morning run made it easier to sit over my books, and several hours with my books made me grateful for an excuse to get up again. Between Hogwarts textbooks and Ken’s notes, I could usually find something I didn’t understand before finishing breakfast.

The brush-wand helped me ask better questions. I could feel an inscription settling into Runebark more clearly, and sometimes notice a problem before the entire attempt was spoiled. That made comparing inks less frustrating. If the result changed, there was a better chance that I had done something different deliberately instead of merely mishandling the brush.

Dragon-blood tree sap gave me the clearest example. It was dark red, thicker than the cinnabar preparation and unpleasantly sticky. I used it to prepare the Fire-Making Spell on another strip, keeping the paper and the inscription as close to my earlier tests as I could. Once it had settled, I took it to the garden and threw it at the same stone slab.

The paper struck, releasing flame which spread across the surface and stayed there. Only a few seconds passed before it faded, but the difference was easy to see. The cinnabar version had produced a compact burst. This had clung to the stone in a narrow sheet, leaving me with a spent strip and several new pages’ worth of questions.

Some of them were too ambitious to pursue yet. A longer-lasting shield sounded useful, but I couldn’t test what an ink did to a spell I didn’t understand in the first place. Delayed release and deliberate contact were equally far beyond the methods I could make work. I wrote the questions down anyway, where they could wait without consuming paper.

The practical work stayed modest. I prepared small batches of the effects I trusted: Force Pulse, simple fire, repair and a few minor utility effects explained in Ken’s notes. A successful preparation mattered more now that I knew how much material I had already used. I kept a small reserve separate from the set intended for testing and recorded failures before allowing myself another attempt.

Identifying the finished slips needed work too. I marked their reverse edges, away from the inscriptions: one notch for Force Pulse, two for fire and a cut corner for repair. The marks were crude, but I could distinguish them without having to study the face of each piece. Trying to mend somebody when I meant to push them away would make a very poor explanation afterwards.

The inks stayed in separate sealed containers. I had no intention of discovering what the black preparation did to a fire mixture through residue left on a careless brush. Dad’s notebooks already contained enough accidents for both of us, and making my own copies of his mistakes seemed an inefficient tribute.

The pouch gave everything a place. Ordinary belongings went in one compartment; the brush-wand, sealed materials and prepared talismans went in the other. I practised finding the right place while moving, using uncharged paper for the throws so that clumsy fingers didn’t waste a finished spell. Reach, grip and balance mattered even when the weapon itself was new.

My old training helped with that part. It couldn’t supply the magical education I lacked, and I tried to remember the distinction whenever a clean throw made me feel competent. Some children heading to Hogwarts had grown up with spells being used around them. I was still pleased when I recognised a term in the textbook before looking it up.

Instead of filling the pouch with copies of the same few effects, I spent more time on those books. I listed spells which seemed relevant to the research and left room beside each description for what I didn’t yet understand. Levitation received a whole page. I underlined the heading, then shut the notebook before the empty space persuaded me to offer it more fruit.

Hedwig arrived one afternoon while I was in the garden. She landed on the table with a letter attached to her leg, waited for me to notice it and then extended her foot as though I were delaying a scheduled service. Emma brought a bowl of water out while I untied the message.

‘Harry’s owl?’ she asked. ‘She’s certainly found us without any trouble.’

‘Hedwig,’ I said. ‘I suspect she’d like us to remember that before she has to come back.’ The owl ignored both of us in favour of the water, giving me an opportunity to read.

Harry had tested his pouch, found somewhere for Hedwig’s feed and wanted to know whether I could meet him before school. He also wrote about the Dursleys. Having discovered that he could do magic, and that a very large friend knew where they lived, they were being more careful about how they treated him. I couldn’t tell from a letter how much had changed, but I was glad he sounded pleased.

I replied that afternoon. Hedwig watched me fold the paper with enough interest that I asked whether she intended to read it before delivering it. Her beak clicked, and Emma laughed from the doorway. I tied on the reply and let the owl carry my agreement back to Harry.

We met several times before September. One afternoon in a park produced a lengthy investigation into whether Hedwig understood insults, though most of the evidence involved her looking offended at perfectly ordinary remarks. On another visit Harry asked to see a talisman work. I used a repair strip on a cracked flowerpot, striking it against the damaged edge, and showed him the joined pottery and the spent paper afterwards.

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‘Can I try the one that pushes things?’ he asked. He was still turning the pot round to find the old crack. ‘I could aim at something in the garden.’

‘That’s how quite a few of my accidents began,’ I told him. ‘You’re getting the demonstration today. I want to understand more before teaching anyone else to do it.’

He called that unfair, then produced his curse book to see whether I could explain anything in it. Most of it was beyond us both. We settled for ranking the names by how ridiculous they sounded, which required far fewer qualifications and no further sacrifice of Runebark.

We walked, ate cheap food and argued about whether flying brooms sounded more dangerous than motorbikes. I showed him an unused slip and let him examine it, without attempting to teach preparation. He showed me the progress Hedwig was making in expressing disapproval. For whole afternoons we managed to talk about magic without bringing the conversation back to his scar.

Harry gradually told me more about home. I learnt which stories made him laugh and which brought the conversation to a stop, while he discovered that asking about dentists could derail me for longer than he had intended. By the end of August, I no longer needed to wonder whether calling him a friend was getting ahead of myself. We had already begun making plans for school together.

In the days before departure, Emma checked things I considered checked. Names went into robes, the equipment list was compared with my purchases and the timetable I had started preparing remained blank because, as she pointed out, I didn’t have one. Once I caught her standing in my doorway without asking about any of it. When it happened again, I left the notebook open and talked to her for a while.

It would be strange for her, having the house to herself. I remembered how long she had been part of the family and tried to imagine this same preparation when my father had been the one leaving. The thought made her reminders about meals and coats easier to listen to, although I couldn’t promise that every friend I made would be entirely sensible.

On the first of September, I woke before my alarm. I shortened the morning run and checked the pouch again: robes, schoolbooks, both cauldrons, scales, telescope, quills, parchment and the permitted ingredients. Dad’s notes had required a separate decision. I had spent an unreasonable amount of time considering whether the originals would be safer with me or at home.

In the end I took selected copies and left the notebooks locked away. Most of the remaining Runebark stayed home as well. A modest prepared supply and a few blank slips would let me work carefully at school without carrying every opportunity I had left into an unfamiliar place.

Emma watched the final check from the doorway. ‘All of that in such a little pouch,’ she said. ‘I still don’t understand where it goes.’

‘Neither do I, properly. That’s one of the reasons I’m looking forward to the lessons.’ I closed the compartment and checked that it was secure at my belt. Travelling without a trunk remained a pleasure which hadn’t worn off.

‘And you can wait until the lessons to start experimenting,’ she said. ‘Nothing on the train, Oswald. Promise me.’

I had been preparing an objection about perfectly harmless tests, but her expression stopped it. ‘No experiments on the train,’ I promised. She accepted that and sent me to fetch the last ordinary things we needed for the journey.

We left early. Traffic made this seem less like impatience and more like sensible planning, and King’s Cross was crowded when we arrived. I followed Emma past travellers with cases and newspapers, looking for the gap in ordinary London where the school expected me to disappear.

She knew the method from taking Ken years before. ‘Between Platforms Nine and Ten,’ she reminded me. ‘The barrier won’t look any different. You just keep walking.’

‘That’s what I told Harry.’ I had passed the instructions on during one of our meetings, so at least he wouldn’t arrive looking for a sign which ordinary passengers couldn’t see. His uncle was bringing him, and Harry hadn’t wanted to risk making me late if the Dursleys delayed him. We had agreed to meet inside rather than wait for each other outside the station.

There was the barrier, as ordinary as Emma had promised. I reached towards it and watched my hand pass into the brickwork. People continued walking behind us without any apparent interest, while I withdrew my hand and looked at it as though it ought to explain the experience.

‘Go on,’ Emma said. ‘You don’t want to miss the train after being ready all morning.’

I turned back to her before stepping through. Leaving for the army in my first life had felt like proving something: that I could manage alone, that nobody needed to worry about me, that I was no longer a child. Much of that confidence had been misplaced. This time I was a child, and I knew exactly how much I owed the person bringing me to the station.

I hugged her. She held me without making a joke, and the noise of the station seemed to move farther away. Hogwarts was everything I had been waiting for, but I didn’t want wanting it so much to look like eagerness to leave her behind.

‘I’ll write,’ I said. ‘As soon as I can. And I’ll tell you how it all works once I’ve found out.’

‘Tell me you’re eating properly as well,’ Emma said into my hair. ‘And make sure it’s true, please.’ She let me go and straightened my collar, finding one last thing she could still do before I left.

I promised that too. Then I faced the barrier and walked, resisting the final instinct to stop before hitting something solid. For a heartbeat there was darkness. Steam rolled across my face as I emerged onto a platform full of families, trunks, cages and students in black robes.

A scarlet train stood beside the crowd. Parents were delivering last instructions, older students called to friends from the windows and owls added their own opinions overhead. I looked up at the sign for Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, familiar from half-remembered images which had never included the sound or the smell or the weight of my own pouch at my hip.

I was here, with a wand I could use and a place at the school waiting for me. The train whistled, and I began moving towards a carriage before the crowd could close round me. Then Harry called my name from behind, and I turned to find him.