Harry Potter and the Bucket List

Year 5 - 14

"Ideally capture its soul to extract memories into a pensieve," he said after a minute of thought. "Assimilation and cooperation with that piece is impossible. I'd rather not destroy it before extracting as much information as I can. While it is undoubtedly deranged and dangerous, it still has decades worth of knowledge that would be a waste to simply purge."

I nodded, accepting that answer. Considering how much of a wealth of knowledge Tom was, I could only imagine the kind of things Voldemort knew how to do but couldn't due to his unstable soul and mindset. It'd be like burning a library down. A Dark library, but still a library.

Stewing it over Tom's words, I went back to working out my first crafted ritual. I reviewed my math, double-checking the results before I began to draw the translated runes into a rough draft of a ritual circle.

Time slipped by. I hadn't realized it had gotten so late until I felt Tom gently touch my shoulder. It was completely dark outside, and the candles had burned low. He had gotten up from his spot in the living room to peer over my shoulder. I was seated at the dining room table, all of my work spread out across the table. I leaned back, tilting my head up at Tom. His dark eyes assessed my work with plain interest. He asked, "Which ritual is this for?"

"The one to make magic," I said brightly.

His dark eyes narrowed. "You really think your theory is correct? You don't know it."

"Exactly."

"Pardon?"

"It's because it's undefined that I can use it," I said cheerfully. "Because that's its definition."

He stared at me.

"Magic is what cannot be known and cannot be defined," I explained. "It's the unknown variable and so that's the variable to use!"

He continued to stare at me.

"Well—okay you think the witch or wizard who invented Lumos knew anything about radiation?" I asked, to which Tom shook his head. "Of course not. But they were still able to invent Lumos because magic doesn't need to be defined—that is what makes it magic. It is undefinable."

"So your entire ritual," he said slowly, "is based on what cannot be defined and yet you expect it to produce a tangible and predictable result?"

"Yes."

"I cannot, in good conscience, let you do this," he said with a shake of his head. "It won't work."

"It will," I insisted. "Look I'll scale it back a bit—"

"It has to fit a foot by foot," he said sternly. "If it's that small then I should be able to reverse the worst of the damage."

"Okay," I agreed. My brow furrowed as I looked back down at the equations and translated runes. "Oof. This is going to be tricky to scale down."

"You shouldn't be trying it in the first place," he said reproachfully. "Especially for your first ritual. I thought you'd want your first ritual to be for your werewolf army."

"I'm working on that too," I said with a smile, brightening up. "But this just really caught my attention, you know? I wanna follow it through for tonight."

At my excited tone and bright eyes, Tom softened. "I understand. Promise you won't try this without me."

"I promise," I said, setting my quill down and holding up a pinky. "Pinky promise."

Bemused, Tom hooked his own pinky through mine. "Very well."

"Thanks for being such an enabler."