don't spell the coffee

[witchings]

With Mary MacDonald (bookishwitch)
Follows on from here.Lily had arrived early at the coffee shop near Mary's flat. She had left early that morning with the intention of wasting a few hours trying to locate the little coffee shop. Instead, it had taken her twenty minutes. Now, she sat waiting at a table. Patience had never been a trait Lily handled well

Comments

[bookishwitch]

Mary shrugs on her jacket and swings her bag crammed full of books onto her shoulder. She didn't think it would be a good idea to bring the really dangerous-in-the-wrong-hands stuff out of her flat, but a few basic books on latin and the obscure history of spellcrafting wouldn't be too bad to cart around. They didn't even have to use them, but Mary felt better carrying around a book or two. It was like putting on clothes--it was just something she did. Not doing it would have felt weird and uncomfortable to her.

The coffee shop is only a few blocks away and she walks, her mind already on the work. Mary was glad Lily had agreed to help her. She wasn't kidding when she said Lily was one of the best witches in their year and Mary needed all the help she could get if the Order wanted the new spells as fast as possible.

She arrives at the coffee shop and looks around, spotting Lily at a table off to the side. Mary smiles and walks over. "Lily!"

[witchings]

Lily jumps when she hears her name being called. It takes her a split second to see Mary with a bag heavily crammed with books. She wonders if she should've brought a few of the books she's accumulated since graduation. Though, she doubts they'd be any good - the only useful books for Mary's project were her old textbooks ... and James had taken it upon himself when they had moved in together to hide all of them from her.

Lily smiles and stands up, pushing her chair back slightly as she watches Mary walk over. "Mary!" With a glance to her bag, she sees how crammed it is. It reminds her of school and the few incidences where she was personally hit with that bag - incidental and intentional. She's glad to see that some things never change. "Is your flat in there?"

[bookishwitch]

Mary grins. "A good bit of it. I like to be prepared." She pulls out the chair opposite Lily and sits down, settling the bag carefully by her feet. It wouldn't do to damage the books.

"Have you been here long? I didn't mean to make you wait. Have you ordered anything?" Mary asks.

[witchings]

Lily laughs, mirroring Mary and reclaiming her seat. "I haven't been here for long. And it's no problem waiting. I was just scouring the streets near your place. It's quite lovely," she smiles. "I thought I'd wait for you." She says with a laugh, "You'd probably have a better grasp on the good dishes here than me."

She looks down at her pen and pad of paper. "I ... brought a pad and pen. I didn't really know what to bring," she says with a bit of a laugh. "I hope it's enough?"

[bookishwitch]

"It's perfect! Did you know, with all of these books, I completely forgot about anything to write with?" Mary smiles sheepishly, remembering all the times she's had to beg a quill or a spare bit of parchment off of her classmates when she's been too preoccupied with her books to remember anything else. It's the reason she developed a good memory, she thinks.

"I don't order food here very often, just drinks." Mary says and grabs a menu, scanning the different food choices. "Did you see any interesting people while you were waiting?"

[witchings]

Lily grins. "Plenty." She picks up her own menu and scans it. "It's very different from being in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade. What I used to consider normal is now a bit ... abnormal."

"I'll probably just grab one of the sandwiches and a glass of lemonade," she puts the menu back down and rips off a few pages from her writing pad. She places them near Mary. "For you. I'll have to start charging you again for using my stationary," she smiles affectionately. It became a habit that she pack for two in the classes she shared with Mary. It was never a nuisance. It felt nice to be needed in a way that wasn't specific to being Prefect or Head Girl.

[bookishwitch]

"I lost so much money paying for supplies in school." Mary grins. "I'm always forgetting things, thank you. And hmm.. I think I'll just get a sandwich too."

Food decided, Mary pulls open her bag and drags out a single book. "The protection charm I'm working on? It's based off one in here." She sets the book on the table between them and taps the cover. It's a rare addition of the history of some complex protection charms that haven't been used in a while now. "I thought it would be a good idea to try modifying something that had already been used, instead of trying to make something up from scratch, but it's proving to be a bit difficult."

[witchings]

Lily leans forward, her arms crossed loosely on the table as she looks over the book upside down. She smiles as she listens to Mary; always the one to use common sense. If it were her, she'd try to create a new spell - something impressive enough to be remembered in Magic history. "It's easier to modify than create." Though, James will fervently disagree. He and his mates had managed to create the Marauder's Map - though not entirely from scratch, she presumes, but it contains enough originality to be considered something rather spectacular.

Lily pulls back and rests her back against her chair. She grabs her pen and flicks it back and forth as she tries to think. "What are you finding difficult? What are you trying to modernise with this spell?"

[bookishwitch]

"Well, I'm trying to create something diffrent enough that it would be difficult and time consuming for the Death Eaters to break it. And some sort of warning system to let the caster know someone is trying to get past the charm. But that's not what you asked, is it?" Mary pauses, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear as she thinks. "I was using this one." She flips a few pages and points to a specific paragraph. "It's supposed to be a charm to keep small things out, like bugs and leaves. I've been trying to find a way to modify it so it keeps out spells. Any thoughts?"

[witchings]

Lily thinks Mary is a genius. She wishes she had been spending her time looking for new ways to modify spells for the Order's use.

"Have you tried to amplify it? Spells are much more powerful and, in this case, bigger than bugs and leaves. Perhaps elargening the charm will help it keep out bigger objects." That'd be the first step, anyway. Keeping out a boulder isn't the same as protecting one's self from a powerful spell.

[bookishwitch]

Mary sighs. "I've tried to amplify the spell, but it doesn't seem to be enough. Maybe there's another way to make it stronger? Or larger?"

[witchings]

Lily is quite impressed. She's always loved Mary's brain and, in particular, her studiousness. Always made her feel good and normal for taking her studies seriously.

Lily hums, gripping her pen as she thinks. "There should be. It may be something we didn't learn in Charms, but I'll see if I have any books containing a spell that'll make this one larger." She jots down what Mary's looking for on her pad of paper.

"It reminds me of the Patronus Charm. You get this tiny little whisp of smoke when it's rather weak but when it's strong, it's one of the most mesmerising Charms out there," she grins at this. She particularly likes this charm the most - not because James teases the pants off of it with how their Patronuses are 'matches' - but because of how complex it is. "There's got to be something out there similar to that. I don't think this spell needs you to think of a happy memory or anything to amplify it - or make it stronger." There's got to be a loophole. There always seems to be when it comes to magic.

[bookishwitch]

"Oh, thank you!" Mary smiles. "Anything you can find would be really helpful." She's happy Lily wants to help her. Lily was always good at this kind of thing as school, ferreting out the answers to problems.

"Something like a Patronus Charm? It makes sense, yes. I wonder if we could find some way to combine some elements of the two spells." Mary purses her lips and taps her the tip of her pen on the table a few times, trying to think of a way they could get it to mesh.

[witchings]

"I can only think of the Patronus and Engorgio spells to enlarge something, but the latter tends to make objects larger, whereas the Patronus relies on a happy memory. Perhaps we can try and find how that happy memory makes the Patronus form into, well, a Patronus instead of a white smokey whisp. And then we can somehow create that - or something similar - to be the trigger for a larger protection charm." Lily quickly jots down everything they've said so far. Even if it doesn't work out in the end, at least they have a reference as to what they had originally thought up - so as not to repeat themselves later. That, and she can work off of that when they depart. She knows the brainstorming will only go so far, though not far enough to reach a conclusion today. Hopefully their two minds can mesh well together and formulate a cloud of possibilities that they can later explore. And she may ask the boys if they have any thoughts. It would be stupid to neglect those who created the Marauder's Map

[bookishwitch]

"That's a great idea!" Mary says. It was also a good idea to have brought Lily onto this project, she has so many good ideas and she brings a fresh perspective to the task. "How do you think the Patronus does that? The happy memory triggers it, of course, but what is it about the memory makes it really work? We'll have to find a trigger for this protective spell. And some way to mesh it with an engorio-like charm."

Mary chews on her lip and tries to think of something.

[witchings]

"Perhaps it's a feeling? You choose a strong, happy memory. It's probably tied to a very strong, positive emotion." Lily's happy memory fills her with so much joy. Everything around her just brightens when she thinks of it. But she's unsure if this is the case with all Patronus Charms. Was it triggered by emotion? By how the memory made you feel? It's one of the things she'd always been interested about learning in school, but had been too busy with her studies to delve any deeper.

She feels a bit silly for asking this, but she'd rather ask Mary than James. "Have you ever cast a Patronus? More recently, I mean. I know we did so at Hogwarts, but I can hardly remember the feeling, let alone my schedule from a year ago. Did you ... Does your happy memory make you feel something?"