Standing on the Shoulders of Those Who Came Before
Wizards always seemed to end up here: turning their wicked experiments on human bodies upon themselves.
Will wondered why Ethan had not simply experimented on other people, but he soon found the answer in Abdullah's manuscript.
[In the initial "stitching" stage after drinking the potion, I could clearly sense the magical structure forming inside my body. But it soon vanished. I must drink large quantities of the potion, then use a spell to complete that structure.]
[Damn it. I've heard that ancient wizards had a vicious spell that let a soul possess another person. Unfortunately, Durmstrang's library has nothing of the sort.]
At first, Ethan used only his own flesh. But he could not supply enough for so many experiments. Even with a steady supply of healing potions, he could barely keep going.
He began cutting flesh from other people.
After so many flesh-stitching experiments, Ethan began developing a host of strange illnesses.
Will understood. This was when the Black Death was sweeping through Europe. Who knew how many pathogens the Muggles Ethan found carried? Even the plague known as the Black Death took several forms: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic plague, along with rarer types affecting the intestines, brain, eyes, and skin.
Nor was plague the only disease spreading during the Black Death. Other epidemics broke out alongside it. By the later stages, Ethan drew his experimental material from Muggles of every age and sex. Combining flesh from all those people in one body might cause some unknown change.
After all, flesh-stitching was no simple physical transplant. Magic was involved.
Ethan Abdullah was careful to cut away the added flesh after every dose of potion or spell he cast on himself. But after so many experiments, he had begun to lose his mind.
Still, he kept making breakthroughs. Through extensive experimentation, he successfully improved the Flesh-Stitching Curse. Perhaps it should now be called the Flesh-Consumption Charm. The original curse had to be cast on both the living subject and the flesh being stitched to them; the potion, by contrast, could only be drunk by the living subject.
Will suspected this was the main reason Ethan Abdullah had struggled for so long to reproduce the potion's structure.
[October 18, 1666]
[I did it! I did it!]
[I successfully improved the Flesh-Stitching Curse! No, it should be called the Flesh-Consumption Charm now! Its effect is identical to the Flesh-Consuming Potion!]
Will frowned. But that meant Ethan had not converted the Flesh-Stitching Curse into the Flesh-Stitching Potion. In that sense, Ethan Abdullah had still failed. No—he had proved that spells and potions could be converted into each other. He had only failed to convert that particular curse into a potion.
What did that make this? He had taken inspiration from an old curse to create a new potion, then converted the new potion into a new spell?
[You have gained a large amount of Distorted Knowledge of Charms. Your Charms experience +13]
[You have gained a large amount of Distorted Knowledge of Potions. Your Potions experience +19]
The system did not lie. Abdullah's research was sound.
[December 19, 1666]
[To prove all this, I must convert an existing potion into a spell. To avoid harming my body, I've chosen the Euphoria Draught...]
The Euphoria Draught? Will remembered that the Cheering Charm had a similar effect. Had Ethan Abdullah developed the charm from the draught?
Will turned the page, only to find he had reached the end of the book. Two pages remained. One held Ethan's notes on converting the Euphoria Draught, but they were only notes, with no result.
The other held a comment from the person who had compiled the manuscript.
[Ethan Abdullah's manuscript ends here. In 1667, members of the Wizards' Council went to arrest him and found him dead in his home. Abdullah was reportedly afflicted with many diseases. His manuscript was compiled in 1690 and later began circulating among certain groups of wizards...]
Will closed the book and stared into the fire. This knowledge had earned him a remarkable amount of experience. From what he knew of the system, understanding it more deeply would bring even greater rewards...
But mastering it would be anything but easy—
So Will decided to ask Snape and Professor Flitwick. They were masters of Potions and Charms in their own time. Why research it all himself?
Why bother?
What was wrong with standing on the shoulders of those who came before him?
Just look how long Ethan Abdullah had spent on his research.
Will had no wish to waste that kind of time. Besides, with Dumbledore around, why should he take the risk of conducting wicked experiments himself?
He would be better off learning from the professors and earning experience that way.
Will rose and stretched. The hand on the enchanted clock beside him pointed to dawn. Only then did he realize he had been up all night. He took out the Pepperup Potion he kept on him and swallowed a mouthful.
Will often read late into the night, so he was frequently short on sleep. Fortunately, Snape had already taught him to brew a high-quality Invigoration Draught. A little during class kept him going.
Sylvia kept telling him that too little sleep would stunt his growth and leave him short. Professor McGonagall had overheard her once and agreed, urging Will to get proper rest. He had tried to keep a healthier schedule lately, but the book had absorbed him tonight.
Still, he had gained over a hundred experience points today. Ordinarily, earning that much might have taken weeks of grinding.
"Was the Cheering Charm converted from a potion? Have you come across the Spell-Potion Transmutation School?"
In his sitting room, Professor Flitwick poured Will a cup of hot tea as he spoke. He was still in his pajamas.
It was Saturday, so Professor Flitwick had no classes. Snape, on the other hand, was probably in a foul mood after yesterday. Will thought it wiser to wait a couple of days before approaching him.
"The Spell-Potion Transmutation School?" Will had never heard of it. He was certain it had not appeared in the original Harry Potter books.
Professor Flitwick sat down on the sofa and explained. "It emerged in the late sixteenth century. Its central theory was that spells and potions could be converted into one another. In some respects, the theory wasn't wrong. But for a time, its practitioners conducted a great many human experiments. Those experiments were inhumane and veered toward Dark Magic, so the school faced severe suppression.
"Later, some more respectable wizards used themselves as test subjects, converting ordinary, beneficial potions into spells. Take the Euphoria Draught and the Cheering Charm, for instance. Around the end of the seventeenth century, a Potions Professor at Hogwarts successfully converted the draught into the charm. That greatly increased the school's influence and made many people less opposed to it."
[You have gained new knowledge of Charms. Your Charms experience +2]
[You have gained new knowledge of Potions. Your Potions experience +2]
The knowledge and experience he gained from hearing that history were normal. Will had learned how Potion Transfiguration developed, which could hardly count as Distorted Knowledge.
"I see." Will nodded. So it had been a former Hogwarts professor who converted the Euphoria Draught. And the school had emerged decades before Ethan Abdullah's research. From the very beginning, Ethan had been investigating something others had already studied—and even proved.
Learning from an unaffiliated wizard was riskier than he had thought.
"Then what about this book?" Will handed The Strange Nature of Potions to Professor Flitwick. "I thought he founded the school."
"You've read this?" Professor Flitwick frowned.
"I have Professor Snape's permission," Will explained.
"I believe you, Will." Professor Flitwick glanced at The Strange Nature of Potions.
"He could be considered the founder of another, much less prominent theory."
"What theory?" Will had not expected another discovery.
"Potion Improvement Theory."