A Web Of Magic

Magnus spent the first few days of his summer vacation playing with Fred and George. He would have likely continued doing so but the twins blew up a cauldron in their room trying to brew something. Needless to say, Mrs. Weasley wasn't pleased and now they are grounded for the rest of the summer. So, Magnus spent most of his time doing his own studies and experiments at home while sometimes visiting his house in Hampstead. He did occasionally go out to Diagon Alley under disguise to pick up some supplies.

Today Magnus stood in his backyard with his Dowsing rod. Just yesterday he used Dowsing divination to find treasure in his house just for the heck of it and found 50 galleons buried under the greenhouse. This roused the treasure hunter in him and now he's ready to scour his backyard for more buried goodies. He closed his eyes and chanted in his head,' Lead to treasure.'

A few seconds later, he felt a tug from the rod which he gleefully followed. It led him to a tree at the edge of the property. It was an old tree with trunk the width of his body. The tree had a hole in it from which he sensed some movement. Magnus was too lazy to pull out his wand so he stretched his hand and made a beckoning motion. With a squeak, a squirrel came floating out of the hole. Since it was just a harmless animal and not some magical creature like he suspected, he just threw it back in.

He prodded the Dowsing rod and it pointed to the roots of the tree. 'Is there something under the tree?' Magnus made scooping motion with his hand and the soil below was dug up neatly and deposited on the side in a mound. It was a nifty trick he developed as his proficiency in wandless magic increased. He already went through the whole book given by Mr. King and the rest is only up to him to practice and develop which requires time.

After a few scoops of soil, he found a small buried strongbox. It was the type that went out of style probably a century ago. He made sure there was nothing else in the ground and refilled the hole. By the time he was done, there was no trace of a hole being dug before. A quick cleaning charm later, the box was as good as new. He took it back into the house to look at its contents. There was just a lock as security which he swiftly unlocked. He performed a coin flip just to be safe and the result showed positive with no danger. The box had only a leather-bound book. Magnus decided to read the book the traditional way and not spend any points on it. No need to waste points when he had enough time to read.

He closed the book an hour later. It was a diary of one of his predecessors, Gregory Webb. Gregory was the head of the family when they first came to Britain from France. According to him, they escaped from France as their enemies found their trail and came to Britain. They changed their family name from Weaver to Webb so as to not leave any traces. Back then the Webb family was still rich and was initially successful in establishing themselves in the British magical world.

It all went well until Septimus Malfoy, the then advisor and puppet master of the Minister of Magic, interfered. Gregory made a deal with Malfoy back then to gain support and protection in exchange for gold. It was a common practice among the pureblood families. Septimus agreed and all went well until he got greedy. The Webbs were suddenly accused of being foreign dark wizards and their properties were forcefully confiscated. Gregory fought back but Septimus threatened to leak information about them to their enemies so they could only endure. They wanted to relocate from Britain, but their efforts were thwarted when they were attacked whenever they tried to cross the border. They could only give up when their blood-curse activated and the rest is history.

Magnus felt a complex emotion as he read through the diary. In the end Gregory urged his descendants to get revenge and restore the family if they got strong enough. Magnus can only smile wryly. He can't do anything right now even if he wants to. He knew about the Malfoy family, there's almost no one who doesn't know about them in the magical world. The Malfoy family is one of the ric.h.e.s.t families in all of magical Britain. There's almost no one who can shake their position and certainly not a student like him. He can only leave it for later when he grew up. 'This list is only growing longer,' he thought deprecatingly. The whole ordeal gave him 10 impact points.

A few days later, Magnus finally finished reading the book Bonds of Flesh. It was an interesting read that increased his Healing, Transfiguration and Potions. They were now close to reaching the next stage. Unfortunately, the book just stopped when it reached the most interesting part. It introduced something called the Flesh-suit. It was a perfect disguise item, but the instructions on how to make it was supposedly only in the advanced version of the book. 'Where am I supposed to find the advanced version? Should I go back to Africa to search for it? No wait, it may not be so. The book is in English, so it's not necessarily an African book. Let me check through divination.'

He closed his eyes and thought, 'The book is in Africa' and flipped the silver coin. It came as a negative. 'Good, now I'll check for England.' He flipped the coin again and it came positive. 'That saved a lot of time. Hmm, where in England though? Well, there is Diagon Alley in London, so let me check that first.' He flipped the coin again and the result was positive. 'Brilliant! It's in London. Is it in Diagon Alley?' The result was a negative. He tried a few more time but the result was the same. He gave up after a while. He can't just keep checking for all locations in London, that'd take forever. So, he could only wait till his Divination increased in level.

He spent the rest of his days trying to increase his knowledge and level-up his schools of magic as much as possible. Even his birthday was spent by himself as the Weasleys didn't know when his birthday is. He successfully leveled his schools of magic to the next level just a week before school started again. His gains were particularly good when Healing, Divination and Mind arts leveled-up. When divination reached Lv3, he gained knowledge that would help him find the second book of Bonds of Flesh.

Magnus placed the newly purchased a highly detailed map of London on the table and took out a tube of pure silver powder. He entered a meditative trance as he touched the Bonds of Flesh book with one hand and poured the silver powder with the other. When he opened his eyes, he saw the silver powder in a mound on the map. 'So, 2nd Street Holborn is it?'

The next day, he took the subway to Holborn. When he reached the 2nd Street, he used the Dowsing Rod to guide him. It might have looked weird if he was in his original form, but he disguised himself as a well-dressed elderly gentleman with the charm "Hominum dissimulato". A walking cane did not look out of place in his hand. After a few tries, he finally ended up in an old muggle bookshop. He took out the first volume as per the instructions and he felt a pull just as the book said. But the pull wasn't towards the bookshelves but towards the back area.

The shopkeeper was an old man who didn't move from the counter. Since the view of the back area was covered by the bookshelves, Magnus easily entered and retrieved the book from the storage area. The book would look like any other book to those who do not possess the first volume, so the shopkeeper didn't see anything wrong with it. Magnus paid and quickly returned home. He had high hopes for the book as [Instant Read] put it at 200 points cost. Usually such a cost only involved advanced magical books. And the book didn't disappoint. Other wizards might call it a dark book, but to Magnus it was all good knowledge. It was soon time to go back to Hogwarts.