faderift | Sixteen books on magic spells

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Sixteen books on magic spells

WHO: Hermione Granger and rifters (or anyone who saw her note and wants to chat)
WHAT: Adelaide is having Hermione find out about magic in other worlds by interviewing rifters ~~for SCIENCE~~.
WHEN: Mid-Drakonis and onwards. There's no deadline on acquiring knowledge!
WHERE: The default is Skyhold's library, otherwise note in the subject line if your character would have arranged to meet her somewhere else.
NOTES: Nothing comes to mind; will change if necessary.

Anyone frequenting the library has probably become used to the curly-haired young girl who's claimed a small alcove as her own. She can usually be found sitting in the corner, nose buried in a book as her brow furrows, attempting to bridge the gap between her worldview and that of Thedas'. It's not always an easy task, and sometimes names and dates get jumbled, which is why she can sometimes be found just a few steps away at the nearest table, books and journals and bits of parchment scattered about as she tries to make sense out of all the reading she's done.

Still, what at first glance appears to be a mess is actually rather organized, and for however engrossed she seems to be in her work, she's always been happy to talk to new people. After all, each conversation counts towards research, even if it isn't in the particular field she's been asked to study. Go ahead and ask around for her if you don't know where to find her; chances are she's hard to miss, and many will be able to point out the inquisitive rifter if she happens to be around.

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Hermione tensed at Lara's explanation. "Do you mean the Philosopher's Stone?" she asked. "Did you find the Philosopher's Stone?" It had been her understanding that there had only been one, and that it had been destroyed, but all things considered, hearing of a surviving Philosopher's Stone wouldn't be the strangest thing to have ever happened to her.

"The Philosopher's--" It caught her by surprise, both how Hermoine said and how she said it. Convicted, as if she already knew the answer. "...He didn't say anything about it turning lead to gold."

But her heart thudded, a now familiar rush of adrenaline running through her as questions began to form in her mind. She gestured to the table and chairs.

"May I?"

This might take some time.

Hermione blinked, tilting her head a bit curiously. Nodding towards the table and chairs, she asked, "So you knew about its other properties?"

That wasn't the important question, though. The important question was the one she asked next. "What happened to it?"

"The Philosopher's Stone is a well known legend, like the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant," Lara replied as she pulled out a chair and sank into it, her free hand gesturing as she spoke. "I've heard of it, and I know it was supposed to be able to grant immortality... but what I found, was the Divine Source."

A lesser shared story, to be certain.

"Said to hold a piece of God's soul, and able to grant immortality and a whole host of supernatural powers." Her mouth twisted, a humorless and small smile. "It turned out it wasn't divine in any way, but it was powerful. More powerful than anything I've ever seen. More dangerous."

Edited 2016-03-28 12:17 (UTC)

Hermione didn't know quite how to respond to the idea of a magical artifact having any divine roots, but she managed not to look as though she was outright scoffing. People had very different ideas and opinions about religion, and she couldn't simply assume that they were all as easy-going about it as some people could be.

"Nicolas Flamel created the stone, in the mid-fourteenth century," she explained. "He used it to keep himself and his wife alive for centuries. He agreed to destroy it about six years ago, when it was almost used to bring a very powerful, very evil man back to full power. Not that Voldemort was a man anymore, of course, not by that point."

She paused for a moment before murmuring, "I didn't know there were two of them. Unless, of course, you come from an alternate universe or dimension or what not. I think I'd almost prefer that to there being another Philosopher's Stone in the world."

Lara considered for a moment, recalling the Divine Source, glowing in Ana's grasp, seeming to come to life under her touch. How it had felt, unexpectedly heavy and oddly warm in her own hands as she'd hefted it above her head...

"I'm not entirely convinced we're thinking of the same artifact. Not that it isn't possible...." A part of her liked the idea too, if only to be able to say, yes, their worlds were one and same, as different as their experiences were. "I don't recall any stories of the Philosopher's Stone granting power. Jacob-- the Deathless Prophet as the stories called him, was able to perform miracles. I saw him do it, as crazy as it sounds. Neither am I aware of the stone behaving differently depending on its - seeker, if you will. Jacob was granted all its wonder, but the others who used it throughout the centuries...."

She trailed off, something fast and dark flashing through her eyes. Fear and disgust.

"Humans aren't meant to be immortal. It isn't natural, and I've come to think that it was part of the price of the Divine Source. In order to use it, you had to become inhuman."

Accept for Jacob.

The things she would liked to ask him, if only there had been more time....

Edited 2016-03-28 17:21 (UTC)

"Voldemort wouldn't have used the stone to gain power," Hermione replied. "He'd been... it's... complicated." But then, Lara had trusted her with the idea of a Deathless Prophet who could perform miracles, so Hermione should probably give her the benefit of the doubt, Muggle or no.

Taking a deep breath, she explained, "Voldemort had found a way to gain a sort of immortality by creating what's known as a Horcrux. Traditionally, a Horcrux is made when a person has committed murder, thus splitting his soul in two; half of that soul lives on in his body, but the other half can be hidden inside an inanimate object, to be kept safely away until it can acquire a body of its own once the primary soul dies. Voldemort... made seven Horcruxes."

That bit of background information had been the hard part, and Hermione quickly waves through the rest, considering that, like Lara, she'd never exactly been overly thrilled with the concept of immortality in human beings. "His primary body had been killed, but Voldemort lived on, his soul split so many times that he wasn't even recognizable as human. If he'd drunk the Elixir from the Philosopher's Stone, he not only would have acquired a proper body of his own, but he could have returned to full power, and even with a mangled soul he would have been impossible to kill."

That was why Flamel had agreed to destroy it, though it cost him and his wife their immortality. Even after all these years, Hermione couldn't help feeling a little sad about that.

"Immortality always comes with a price, no matter how you go about achieving it."

Lara was quiet for a moment, sympathy softening her expression. Understanding. Even if the specifics were - impossible, the circumstances were certainly familiar to her.

"Trinity, a powerful, secret organization, was hunting the Prophet - had been for thousands of years - seeking the Divine Source. They would have used it to make their soldiers unstoppable. To allow them to bring judgment to the world. I destroyed it, to keep it from them."

And Jacob had died, falling to dust before her own eyes.

"The good it might have able to do, the things we might have been able to learn -- it wasn't worth it."

From the sounds of it, it had to have been an alternate universe, or else there was more to the Flamel story than Hermione had realized. The Philosopher's Stone as she'd known it had only been in existence for a few hundred years, not thousands. And she still wasn't sure what was meant by a "Divine Source." As for this whole Trinity business....

"What sort of people were involved in this Trinity organization? And are they known by any other names?" She hesitated for a moment before positing, "Death Eaters, perhaps?"

It was unlikely, but where one common thread existed, perhaps there would be others.

Lara frowned, brown furrowing as she thought.

"I don't, honestly, know a great deal about them. Other than that they've been a force for generations and are seeking artifacts of power, and will do anything to get them."

Including trying to kill her, and... murdering her father. If Ana's last words were true...

"I do have, however--" She started to reach for a piece of blank paper and Hermoine's quill, "May I?"

After checking that it was alright, she began to sketch a tri-pointed symbol, feathering the highest points in abstract wings.

"The use this to identify themselves."

Edited 2016-03-30 12:03 (UTC)

Not Death Eaters, then. Hermione didn't know whether to be relieved or concerned about that fact. There were far too many evil organizations hunting for power throughout the universe, it seemed.

She offered Lara whatever she needed, peering curiously at the drawing she made. "I'm not familiar with that symbol," she replied once she was done. Then, in a lower murmur: "Amazing, though, that so many dangerous symbols are triangular in nature."

Sitting up straight and regarding Lara once again, she asked, "They operated in the shadows, then? Did you come to hear about them through your father, or did they approach you first?"

"Do your Death Eaters use one?" she asked, looking across at her Hermoine, quill held above the parchment.

Then at the next question, she set it down to fold her hands over her arms, fingers curling around her elbows.

"...I was following my father's research to a temple, in search of the Prophet tomb, Trinty followed me. They tried to kill me. Both at the temple and then after. I started seeing them in the texts, sometimes under different names, hidden, but once I saw the pieces--" Two of her fingers moved, waving gently in a straight-line gesture. "...I believed my father killed himself, crushed by the weight of his own research. The failure and the ridicule, but now, I think they murdered him."

When Lara set the quill down, Hermione took it, scribbling as she listened. She wasn't the best artist, but she did the best she could with it, focusing on the more complicated sketch before moving to the simpler one.

"I'm... sorry," she murmured, looking up at Lara as she told her about her father. "I can't imagine what that must be like for you." She could't offer to help her, since there was really nothing she could do for her at the moment, but the least she could do was offer genuine sympathy.

Taking a breath, she let a moment pass for turning her paper over towards Lara, pointing at one crude sketch of a skull with a snake coming out of its mouth and explaining, "This is known as the Dark Mark. Most Death Eaters have one tattooed onto their left forearm, and they used to use it as a way of claiming responsibility for an act or proclaiming victory." Tapping at a much simpler drawing in the lower corner of the paper, she added, "This is the mark of the Deathly Hollows. It isn't expressly evil by itself, but it represents a very dangerous legend, one whose power Voldemort had designs on claiming for himself."

Lara turned the parchment with light fingers, angling the sketches so she could study them properly. Konstanin's hands had been marked, but that had been the text-book stigmata, nothing like either of those.

Plus, Konstanin had apparently been the exception, not the rule.

"I don't recognize these," she murmured, shaking her head gently. "This one is slightly familiar..." She tapped the triangle. "But, as you said, so many symbols are triangular, it barely means anything."

She eased the parchment back and looked across the table at Hermione with a soft exhale.

"Unless you, and those like you, are even more secretive and illusive than Trinity, it seems you and I aren't from the same London. Which is fascinating--" And it was, already questions were forming,... but there was also a weight in her eyes.

A part of her had hoped.

"We may still be," Hermione said quickly, though given her willingness to explain herself, she didn't exactly think so anymore. It just... would be nice. Even if Lara didn't know the Weasleys or wouldn't know anything about Quidditch, having someone around who at least knew some basics about her world was something she wanted more than she'd realized.

"The magical community usually keeps itself hidden from Muggles - that is, non-magical people. It makes things easier, especially when one considers how terrible things are for mages here in Thedas. We live out our own lives in our own separate communities and only interact with Muggles when necessary... or if we happen to live among them or make friends with them. Or are related to them; both of my parents are Muggles, so I didn't even know magic existed until I discovered I'd been accepted into a magical school. It was all a bit surprising, since I'd always thought it was nothing but silly fairy tales."

Lara looked skeptical - for something that large, in the modern world, to go unknown... She'd watched the drones weave into the valley herself. Had heard Jacob's people lament on how more numerous they grew every year.

Hermoine's entirely hidden world seemed to good to be true, and she'd long learned her lesson when it came to such things.

Still....

"Even if we aren't, we clearly share some basis in common. That's closer than anything else I've found so far."

Lara's skepticism was painfully obvious, and Hermione supposed there were just enough similarities between their worlds that it was likely they weren't from the same place. If they'd both known of the Philosopher's Stone, they would have both been able to recount it the same way if they'd been from the same world. Their similarities were just too different to be a mark of anything more connected than an alternate universe or timeline or some such thing.

"Does your version of England still have children spending too much time on the telly and a Queen with too many corgis?" she asked, managing a small, weak smile.

Lara offered her a small, but gentle smile.

"Less corgis, at least one has died," she recalled at least one big to-do in the paper about it. "But more time on the telly, Prince William is married now, and has two children. All three events turned England into a right circus."

The fact that Lara was referencing people with whom Hermione was actually familiar meant more the her than she would have realized, and she let out a laugh, before pausing slightly to be properly astounded by it all.

"Prince William? Married with two children? Already?" And then she does the math, murmuring, "Well, I suppose he's not a teenager anymore, so that's not so strange... aside from the fact that I'm three years older than him." Did she have children in Lara's time? Was it possible that some Muggle version of her existed in this alternate England and she was married with children and a proper job? It was mind-boggling to think about.

She'd never been one for this sort of tea-time gossip, but somehow, just then, it was comforting. It was the first time she could reference something, and have someone understand.

Her smile actually widened.

"They married in 2011, so he was--" she did some quick math herself, "29? 30? He married a commoner, Kate Bishop. You can imagine the stir it caused, a fairy tale come to life. Then when they were expecting their first child, the Queen announced that regardless of gender, he or she would be the heir to monarchy. We got Prince George, and then Princess Charlotte.

"We have a little prince and a princess?" Hermione asked, unable to help grinning at that. It was still odd, thinking of England's teen heartthrob as a married father of two, but at the same time, it felt so blessedly... normal. She wouldn't even be able to talk about this at Hogwarts, since few people knew anything about the royal family aside from the fact that the two boys were "dreamy".

"That's nice, that he met a regular girl and fell in love with her. Is she as pretty as his mum?"

Lara's eyes narrowed in thought, laying the photos she'd seen of the new Duchess beside those of Princess Diana. Slowly, she nodded.

"I think so. Personally, I quite like her." As much as anyone could like a figure they only knew from a distance. "She seems to be taking it all rather well, even when the whole 'forever in the fishbowl' bit really reared up."

"That's good," Hermione replied fondly, nodding in affirmation. "I hope she's still around even in my version of things, then."

Because it had become increasingly clear that the pair of them were more likely than not from different versions of the same place, rather than simply being from different time periods. Maybe they'll come across evidence to the contrary sometime, but she wouldn't be holding her breath until then.

"With any luck, you'll get a chance to find out."

If the rifts could bring them all here, from not just different worlds, but alternate versions of the same world, surely there was a way to get back.

There had to be.

"... perhaps. People have gone back."

Or they've gone missing or have been killed without their bodies being recovered, and people would just rather be optimistic. But she preferred not to think about that if she could help it.

"In the mean time, I suppose we'll just have to acquaint ourselves with the local gossip and try to find it at least as entertaining." Though somehow, she doubted that would be entirely possible.

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