August 1st, 1894 — Alchemy classroom

The Alchemy classroom and the office of the Professor of Alchemy, currently Professor Samuel Griffith, were located on the fifth floor of the castle's side wing. It was a medium-sized hexagonal room with large windows adorned with stained glass mosaics depicting stars, elements, and the order of the material plane, as envisioned by the old masters centuries ago.

Griffith was in the adjoining office. He was a tall, sophisticated, sharp sort of man. It was hard to imagine anyone ever daring to cross into the closed-off sphere that seemed to surround him and, say, put an arm around his shoulders in a friendly gesture. Unless, maybe, when he smiled.

While this room was darker and simpler, he preferred it to the classroom. It had two big windows free of any adornments, from which he had a clear view on the astronomy tower and the dark canopy of the forbidden forest.
The drawings, charcoal sketches, and framed pages from alchemical codices on the walls had little to do with the old masters. They reflected the notions, accomplishments, and opinions of Professor Griffith, who was more of a radical modernist in his subject than his classic taste in interior decor let on.
He had erected a gallery with bookcases around half the length of the room, accessible by a ladder. The rest of the space was half-finished. Stacked cases held the most valuable of his materials: ores, metals, woods, magical creature parts, bones, vials with blood, and complex silvery instruments.

Right now, Griffith stood over a large stone table in the middle of the room. He had just finished engraving a very complex transmutation circle, which was to be a permanent fixture, and he revisited every detail, comparing it to the sketch he had made on paper beforehand.

Close to him waited his favorite Homunculus to assist him. It was the only one of his creations he took with him to Hogwarts. It was a slender, humanoid creature made from smooth candlewax that resembled white marble. Half the size of a man, its facial features were not fully formed, merely suggested. Nonetheless, when Griffith looked at its countenance in the changing light of the summer day, it hinted at something like emotion. Sometimes, he almost felt paternal towards it.

The sounds of footsteps distracted Professor Griffith from his work.
He turned towards the door to see who was coming to visit him on this quiet day, when the castle grounds lay as abandoned as they only were in the height of summer.

---

There was something eerie about Hogwarts during the summer. The portraits and ghosts still roamed the halls, but the lack of students made the castle lifeless. Still, the castle intrigued Themis and gave her the idea that the castle was a metaphor for her own life. She gave it thought but let that thought disappear into the recesses of her brain. Metaphors gave meaning, but they were fanciful, unsubstantial things.

This summer, Themis walked these halls with a different sense of belonging. In the coming term, she would take up the mantle of Gryffindor Head of House, an honor she wished Uncle Horace lived to see. How the man with an antagonistic relationship with magic would feel was uncertain, but Themis trusted he would be proud of what she had built for herself.

While she often walked the castle to burn off energy during the day, Themis’ climb to the fifth floor had a different purpose today. Rumor, the lifeblood of Society and the school said that one of the new professors was moving in today. The professor, the portraits whispered, was in the Alchemy classroom with a ‘creature.’ Curiosity propelled Themis into a classroom she’d had no use for as a student. Shuffling from the attached office drew her attention, and Themis found herself observing an interesting sight and the tall gentleman with it. He had changed since they were children, but the various sketches she saw in his classroom and now strewn about the office assured her that some traits were unwavering. “I see the portraits were correct in their gossip. Welcome back to Hogwarts, Professor Griffith.”

---

The person approaching his door walked with a quick, determined cadence. For a moment, he wondered if something had happened. Then a statuesqe woman appeared in the entryway. Despite the decades since the last time he had seen her, Griffith recognized her immediately.
“Professor Lyra. What a pleasant surprise.”
No one had told him that the astronomy professor was staying in the castle over summer break.
Themis Lyra had been at Hogwarts a year above him when he was a boy. The manner in which the Gryffindor prefect had reined in the pure-blooded little princes that ruled his own house, Slytherin, had left an impression on him and he was reminded of it now, that he saw her.

“Please, come in and allow me to offer you something to drink,” he invited her. It was more than mere cordiality; there was some genuine warmth to his voice.
“It must have been at school too, that we last met.”
The last clear memory he had of Themis was at the coming out ball when he was a sixth year and she was graduating. The Slytherin boys had started whispering when she entered the ballroom and when Samuel had looked over to see what the fuss was about, his dance partner had been terribly vexed about it for the rest of the night. Those days, of course, were long gone. Life had changed and refined both of them, surely.
“Please tell me what you would like,” he said, referring to her choice of drink. “I am confident I shall be able to supply it.”

---

Themis grinned, confirming his identification. He always was a bright one. Themis remembered him from combined classes in potions, especially. It was no surprise that alchemy had called to him. There was something so Slytherin about that.

She made a habit of coming to the castle at least once a week during the summer holiday, needing her routine to continue. That, and she wouldn't miss out on uninterrupted time in the library, still one of her favorite locations. She knew that one of her new colleagues was arriving soon, but the portraits had been especially vague about his identity. "This is a pleasure, indeed. I will do us both a kindness and not tell you exactly how many years that has been, Professor."

Themis stepped into the room. Having decided that getting a measure of this boy-turned-man was worth her time, she nodded toward the serving set she saw already placed on a table. "Tea, thank you." And, with a conspiratory grin, as if offering him a secret, she added, "Two sugars, no cream." She may have matured, but her tea tastes had not.

His confidence was reassuring. He still carried himself like some noble knight in a muggle story. She found this familiar and amusing. Why did men seem so much more apt to reach adulthood with their self-assurance intact? Perhaps she would ask one someday.

"I recognize you, but not your companion here." She added, genuinely curious about the opaque creature near him.

---

Samuel Griffith poured a cup of tea for Professor Lyra and looked at the homunculus, who silently approached them with the little box that held the sugar cubes.
“This is one of my creations - a reject.”
He set the tea with two sugars down in front of her and pulled a chair in for her to sit.
Sitting down and preparing some tea for himself now, he gestured towards the creature.
“The wizard who commissioned him disliked his look. Too modern, was what he said. Too abstract. I say ‘him’ only as a figure of speech,” he said, referring to the fact that the unclothed homunculus had no discernible gendered characteristics but looked, maybe due to the absence of such, vaguely masculine.
“It is a homunculus. An artificial but sentient life created in my laboratory.”
He paused, deciding not to go into particulars until asked.

Samuel took a sip from his teacup and took in the presence of Themis Lyra on the other side of the table. He wondered what her life had been like after Hogwarts. With so much time spent abroad, he had lost all connection to the life trajectories of his former peers and had made no particular inquiries.
“I hope you have been well,” he just said, respectfully avoiding the direct question.
“It is fascinating how out of all our peers, we are among the few who have been called back to this place.”

---

Themis offered her thanks and took the offered seat and tea. Her eyes remained fixed on the humanoid creature before her. She did not trust the unknown; this creature was unknown in too many ways. There was something deeply unsettling about the shape before her. Whatever it was that made her human, the elusive 'soul', recognized this creature as other. She disliked the feeling it created, this sensation of unease, but she followed her curiosity over her fears. "The power of life is the power of alchemy." Themis mused, the magnitude of the idea clear in her voice. "I do not know how anyone could look at this feat and call it anything but a marvel. You said it is sentient. Does it have a will, a mind?" She would not form any further opinion on the creature without knowing more. It felt rare now, novelty. She treasured the feeling of discovery that had come so often in childhood but now seemed just beyond reach. Perhaps that was a reason she loved the stars so fondly.

Taking a sip of her tea, she grinned, "Life did not proceed as I imagined, but it resulted in a satisfying career, travel abroad, a son of whom I am most proud, and the opportunity to educate the next generation. I consider myself most fortunate." It was an honest assessment. Her life wasn't without darkness or pain, but she spent as little time as possible on matters beyond her control. "And what of you, Sir? Where has Alchemy lead you?" Because he was correct. It was strange how few of their generation had returned to serve at Hogwarts. That left her wondering what it said about the two of them returning.

---

The Homunculus stood by its master's side in perfect stillness. Its waxen head was lowered slightly, in a posture that could be seen as having a faintly demure air. The sunlight coming from the windows cast shadows into the indents it had in the place where a human face would have eyes.
Samuel gave it a quizzical look and it retreated two steps backward, giving them more space.
“You ask the right questions,” he said appreciatively. Most people who came to him, when confronted with his creations, asked first what they might be able to do for them.

“Yes, it does have a mind, although different from ours, and even possesses limited magical abilities. As to having a will, that is more complicated as it is not a natural being, meant for a free life. It has a purpose that I have written into the substructure of its body and into what we might call the soul. Its will is centered around the fulfillment of that destiny.”

He paused and considered how much more to say. Themis, he could feel, was genuinely interested. That was welcome to him, and rare.
“This one was meant to be sold and I admit that it would have been proper to destroy it when the deal fell through. It was meant for a relationship with a master that is not also the creator, which is a different equation entirely. At last, I did not want to dissolve what I had just created so painstakingly,” he said carefully.

It was now very attuned to Samuel, too much so, perhaps. In a servant meant for himself, he would have anchored different precautionary clauses to prevent any attachment. When feelings wove their way into deep and opaque magic like this, things were bound to get complicated. But still, he did not want to get rid of it.
“I am fond of it, which is unwise. It is a fairly harmless being though, so I am taking the liberty to disregard my own rules of never keeping around a creation that I cannot guard my heart against entirely.”

When she answered the indirect inquiry about her life, he took note of a few things that seemed to him to be hidden in the subtext.
“Life never does turn out as anticipated, does it? I would be glad to hear more about it. Of your travels perhaps, and of your son,” he said, lightly.
“And if it is agreeable to you, you can call me Samuel.”

He took another look at the engraving on the table and found it to be satisfactory.
“If you do not mind it, I will continue my work alongside our conversation. After a decade of working in solitude, it would be a very welcome change of routine for me,” he said. It was true, the last time he had worked with someone around to talk to had been in Prague.

“Alchemy has led me many places, physically and figuratively. It led me to Paris and Prague to be an apprentice and then a master. It led me astray, too, many times. It is an opaque art with seemingly endless depths. But I suppose the same thing can be said about astronomy, can it not? Where did that pursuit lead you? ”

---

Themis watched the interplay between master and servant, creator and creation, with intensity. Whatever the creature was, it could read and interpret nonverbal communication, a skill Themis found lacking in most people. Still, the way the light hit the waxen figure where eyes would sit unnerved her. “I presume its destiny is to serve. Does its equation allow it to differentiate between you and others? Would it know to prioritize your direction over another, for example?” She could imagine a world of horrible implications if a creature with rudimentary magic was taught to follow any order without some sort of failsafe. The idea was terrifying. Still, she felt a stirring of emotion for the creature at the idea that it could be discarded through no fault of its own. Perhaps the orphan in her would always feel compassion for lost and broken beings. She offered a knowing smile at his assessment of his creature. “That sounds something like parenthood. Your offspring may do the opposite of what you require and make a mess of your emotions; still, you cannot help but love them. I think that equation must be written into us somehow.” The mysteries of the human being would always fascinate her. She was sure there were answers to everything if you knew how to ask the right questions. So far, humanity hasn’t asked the right questions.

She appreciated his tact and that he read the clues she offered him. Her husband had died over twenty years ago, and it still seemed to be the first thing anyone took an interest in. She had dedicated her life to pursuing knowledge and achievement, except for her son; her husband had no part in her accomplishments. It was an insult to pretend otherwise. "And I would be glad to share, Samuel. I must then insist that you call me Themis." Unless the company included people who needed reminding of her authority, she preferred her given name. It was hers, after all. "By all means, please continue your work. I admit a fascination with your discipline. As a student, I regret being too shortsighted to understand all it could offer." She was genuine in her praise. Alchemy required the synthesis of ideas in a way that few disciplines did. There was transfiguration, but it was too theoretical to have use to her as an astronomer.

She chuckled, his description of his own art very familiar to her. "I do not think I could be happy with a discipline that was easily solved. I adore a challenge and being reminded how much more there is to know. If I stop learning, I think it would be a death, of sorts." She observed truthfully. "And I fancy order and numbers. There is a formula for all things; I just don't know the variables yet." She kept her distance, not wishing to hover, but highly curious about the equations around his table. She recognized several of the symbols, the language of ancient runes and astronomy giving her context. She considered his wording, the idea of 'astray' ringing bells both familiar and curious. "Astray, more than once or twice." The first years after Uncle Horace's death had been excruciating, but it also brought with it freedom she had never experienced. "Astronomy has taken me to America and the Continent for research. I find it fascinating that muggle developments are keeping pace with the magical. It has also brought me to discoveries that may be best undiscovered." Themis' research into the stars had acquainted her with a multitude of magic, a strong portion of it dark. "Perhaps it is the duty of those of us who know both light and darkness to lead the way."

---

Samuel stood up and carefully set aside their teacups to the far corner of the table, so they were no longer placed on the engraved circle.
Regarding the Homunculus, he answered: “It is customary to bind them to a place or a person or a limited task. This one is only bound to a person; it is bound to me. But if you ask it for something, it would do its best to assist you because it can sense my approval. Try it, if you want.”
Likening the relationship to parenthood gave Samuel pause. He took some time to think about it, then said: “You are quite right. There are parallels in more than one way. The binding, for example, is achieved with the use of blood.”
The waxen servant started moving and walked over to a shelf in a quiet, dignified manner. It returned with a small red gem similar to a ruby. Samuel took it to demonstrate what he meant.
“If you were to look inside its skull, you would find one of these.”

He opened his left hand and placed the gemstone in its palm — the transmutation circle scarred into this palm differed significantly from the right side. While one was clean, symmetrical, and faint, with a bright appearance to the scar lines, the left one was uneven and appeared messy. The scars were slightly raised and darker. For those able to read the runes, it would be apparent that the right was intended for elemental transmutation, while the left dealt with the difficult and less palatable art of organic transmutations.
When the Alchemist activated the circle on his left hand, the crystal rose from the palm into the air, liquefied, and formed a sphere consisting of exactly three milliliters of blood. Samuel observed it for a few seconds and then returned it to its crystallized state and gave it back to the servant.

“That is mine. As long as it holds one of these inside, it can find me anywhere, sense my thoughts, and interpret my feelings. You know if that is what it is like to have a child, I do not. Maybe you then understand better than anyone else why it is very dangerous for me to love my creations. Love is a mutative force; it changes us, does it not? It might change this one too,” he nodded towards the Homunculus.
“Might make it more human than I intended,” he sighed. One day, he would have to find a solution for this one.

He smiled when she offered him to call her by her given name too and moved back towards the table. Listening to her talk, his hands took to their work in a quick and fastidious manner; placing a bar of silver and a few strands of unicorn hair in a stone bowl engraved with circles and symbols meant to combine the transmutation of organic and elemental matter.

“The teaching of Alchemy in Hogwarts and the understanding of it in Britain falls regrettably short. It is no wonder it did not catch your attention. But it is never too late to learn. Your study of Astronomy might put you further ahead in understanding the core concepts than you think,” he said, thinking that Themis would be a far superior student to the ones he would soon teach in the classroom.

His hands placed themselves on the bowl and the channels that facilitated the flow of magic within his body opened. The symbols on the bowl lit up in a bright glow and the hair and the metal changed their state from solid to liquid and combined.

“You have already explored the frontier that lies beyond Alchemy. My master in Prague was convinced you needed to look towards what is in front of you to understand the universe and look to the stars to understand what governs our life on earth. As above, so below. As below, so above.”

He poured the silvery liquid into the engraved lines in the table, where it spread out evenly. That was the conductor, done. Now he only needed to seal it and then it would be fit for use.

“Do you agree with him?” he asked.
“I have to admit that I avoided studying the stars, perhaps because I could have no impact on them. As a young man, that unnerved me.”

---

“Fascinating.” She murmured, approaching the Homunculus with care. She still wasn’t certain she wanted to touch it, but she did approach. She did not remember Samuel Griffith as a particularly mischievous boy, so she was relatively certain that the man wouldn’t be ordering his creature to pounce, but she always approached the unknown with a practiced caution. If seemed a sane choice when playing with magic that made up the fabric of the universe.

She listened, mind swirling with the possible implications and possible uses of blood magic. Her heart did miss its rhythm as she got a proper look at Samuel’s palms. His right hand reminded her of magical tattoos she had seen in drawings, but the left was a mess of magic gone to war with skin. She had a world of questions but the patience and grace to refrain. It was not her place to ask, not yet. It wouldn’t do, to start assuming she had a right to the story of his life and scars. She had enough of her own that she kept carefully hidden; she would do him the same courtesy. What she could see of the runes, she could read, but the order was new to her. She was relatively certain she could make out specific words, but the flow of the spell was unfamiliar to her.

She watched with a skeptic academic’s eye as ruby became blood and then gem again. She didn’t think transmutation was impossible; it was improbable and dangerous. It reminded her of many a dark spell she had found in books: it always seemed a bit far-fetched until she saw it for herself. Then, Themis had learned, there were a great many beautiful, terrible magics in the world. She considered his words carefully, his explanation of love, and his attachment to his creation. It was becoming less and less of an object and more of a being in her eyes. A being that existed and served through the power of the magic in its creator’s blood.

“I am uncertain if your creation or a child is more dangerous. Both are predicated on the most dangerous of human emotions. Love is mutative, unpredictable, and powerful.” She met his eyes for a moment, searching for something, but she was not entirely sure what it was she was looking for. Perhaps gauging his understanding of just how powerful his creation, and he were. “Yes, I understand. The more human and dynamic your bond, the greater the threat of your creation. Love and attachment make us vulnerable in ways perhaps unanticipated.”

These practiced movements pulled her back from the dark exploration her mind was setting off on. She grinned, amused that some things about her hadn’t changed a bit. “I always have enjoyed being a few steps ahead.” She lost the taste for anyone else telling her what or when she could learn, but she was still a student at heart.

The hairs on her neck prickled as he began his magic, something in the nature of the spells seemed like a siren song. The magic in his hands, the purity of silver and unicorn hair meeting the engravings on the table, felt like a calling. Pulled from examining the table, she first offered a simple hum of agreement that she was still listening. “I see your master enjoyed the Hermetics. I do not fault him, but I find the texts applicable to my discipline difficult to test in practice. And from what you have shown me so far, there are many frontiers with which I am unfamiliar.” She considered her own relationship to fate and the cosmos. “I neither agree nor disagree. I believe the early scholars could only conceive of a world like their own for that reason. Humans are fascinated but terrified by fate. And as wizards and witches, we have an additional sense of control over the natural world. I think it might be harder for us to accept than it is for muggles.”

“I’ve loved the stars as long as I can remember. I cannot imagine myself without them, but perhaps that is because I have a different opinion on their power. I do not think we impact them, but we are capable of reacting to them. I believe there is order in the universe, some structure beyond our current understanding, but I do not think us powerless or lacking agency.” She offered him an understanding smile at his admission. She appreciated the candor, the willingness to admit a discomfort. “I am sorry I did not know when we were younger. I believe many students have the same hesitation without the ability to articulate the unease.”

---

A handful of scholars had come to him to talk about the creation of Homunculi, but certainly never in the context of love. When their eyes met, he wondered for a moment about the peculiar inability of humans to see themselves as clearly as they saw the other. He felt her searching gaze acutely, as if it pierced right through the invisible sphere around him that seemed to ordinarily ward off anyone who tried to know him more than he wished to be known. It felt oddly frightening.
“I am not certain, either,” he replied.
Unless he at some point would have a child of his own, he might never be able to make a judgment.

Samuel, nonetheless, knew about the dangerous and preposterous nature of what he was doing; about the unpredictability that came with the territory when the magic of blood intertwined with the force that seemed to be the undercurrent of what made one human.
Never hold on to a creation that you cannot guard your heart against, lest you won't be able to undo what you set out to create, he repeated his rule back to himself inside his head.
Standing there and being forced to see himself reflected in the eyes of Themis, the unwelcome thought occurred to him that since leaving Prague, he had perhaps taken this credo beyond the laboratory and applied it diligently to his life, wherever he went.

The moment, thankfully, passed and he was freed from dwelling on this any longer.
His work on the table seemed to pull him back into his center and he shook off whatever had just transpired and focused on what took form beneath his hands.
Samuel dipped his fingers in what was left of the silver liquid he had created.
Quickly, he set out to paint another circle with it, surrounding the engraving on the table with another layer of runes and lines. It might appear more sophisticated to use a brush for this, but he preferred the degree of feeling and control that the direct contact afforded.
He went to clean his hands after he finished and was called back to their conversation when Themis astutely identified the system of thought his former master had held on to so tightly.

Samuel turned to look at her and said:
“My former master Oldřich did more than enjoy them, he was fanatic about adhering to the hermetic principles. He felt that this ancient wisdom safeguarded his work, and to an extent, his soul.”
He smiled weakly, there was no joy in it.
“We had disagreements about it often. Especially towards the end of my apprenticeship there. Just like you, in my own work I happened upon circumstances where the principles seemed not to apply or could not be proven. He would not hear of it. Just like you say, he was holding on to the system to regain a sense of control over his fate that was, in my opinion, illusory.”
And it made him feel righteous in putting the blame for the accident squarely on my shoulders, for disregarding these very principles., he added silently.

“We fought about it, the very night I left Prague,” Samuel recalled and observed that moment surface languidly in his mind from deep dark waters.
“If you listened to me instead of thinking me an old fool, this would not have happened. How often have I told you, what you set in motion swings back with corresponding force. You cannot reach for the power over death without paying the corresponding price! It is known by the ancients, yet you let your hubris prevail!”, Rosenberg had laid into him. When his apprentice rebutted him, Rosenberg had for the first and last time tried to strike him. But it was unwise to attack what had at this time been reduced to a cornered, wounded animal. When Samuel had sent the old man flying into his table of instruments and seen them shatter, he knew that their bond was irrevocably broken.

Returning to the present, he set his hands on the newly painted transmutation circle. Again he called forth his power from its source within his body, the runes and lines lit up and the engraving sealed itself, the liquid hardening and settling into every little pore and crevice of the stone, so no minuscule gap should remain. The resulting surface of the lines was smooth like a mirror.

Samuel wiped off what he had painted around it and thought that hearing her voice her considerations on the hermetics had meant more to him than he should reasonably articulate to her and that there was solace to be found in her interpretation of the cold arbiters of fate in the skies above.
Suddenly, he felt sure that he wanted to offer Themis something that he would never, under any circumstances, offer someone else in her position.
“It is done,” he said, meaning the work he had done on the table.
“Do you want to try your hand at it?” he asked.

Starting out with a complex transmutation was unheard of for a reason, but Samuel felt inexplicably certain of two things:
That she had the abilities to succeed,
and that starting small would be wasting her time.
Besides, he would take his time to demonstrate how exactly it worked and would see to the safety of the matter.

---

She had made him uncomfortable; she felt the change in the room. Themis had the social awareness to avert her eyes and give the man a minute to collect himself. Instead, she turned her attention to his hands and the masterful way he worked. She held true magical artists in great esteem, still skeptical of those who used magic as nothing more than a shortcut to hard work. Samuel Griffith was an artist, that much she already saw.

His description of his former mentor felt familiar to her own. Thankfully, Uncle Horace loved her as a daughter and put her growth first. His fanaticism for her work was always tempered by what was best for her. She was aware that her fate was unique, the plight of orphans often ending tragically. Her mentor had also been her only family, her professional and personal success seeming one and the same. What had it been for Samuel, to travel the world and be faced with a master unwilling to adapt? "I am sorry he attempted to stimy your growth. That is most unfortunate."

It took her a moment to consider his offer, the sentence sounding too silly. Her skepticism won for a moment, and the idea that he would allow her near such magic without testing her seemed both foolhardy and highly flattering. And so, she did a strange thing - she trusted him.

Grateful she hadn't chosen robes in the summer heat, Themis unbuttoned the small row of buttons at each wrist, rolling her sleeves up to her elbow. "Show me." She approached the table and met his eyes, curious and eager to try.

---

In watching Themis approach, taking up his unconventional offer, Samuel shook off the tendrils of the past that sometimes clung to him in moments when they were unwelcome.

"Now, first I will explain and demonstrate the concept. Then I will go into the instructions regarding how exactly to achieve a transmutation. And then, provided with the knowledge necessary, I wish for you to deliberate if you want to go through with an attempt," he laid out the process that was forming in his mind.

He traced the shape of the freshly sealed circle on the table with his hands, checking for any irregularities and was pleased to find none.

"What you see here is a transmutation circle. You see the runes dotted along and the lines, which should never have a gap, not even a tiny one. It is a closed system; consisting of a shape that defines the paradigm and a material that conducts the magic involved."
Samuel gestured towards the remains of the silver liquid.

"In this case our conductor is silver mixed with unicorn hair, much like used in wands, which are also instruments for conducting and giving shape to magic, just like a transmutation circle."

It was a very stable material, well suited to what they would do. He looked at Themis and, before continuing his explanation, asked: "Do you have experience with any kind of wandless magic?"

---

Themis approached and listened carefully, her mind shifting into ‘student’ mode with little prompting. It was very rare that her colleagues offered such demonstrations of their mastery. This didn’t shock her, they were all professionals in their field with no need to prove themselves among each other. There was also little room for academic demonstrations once the term started. This was a rare thing, and she would savor it.

She considered her relationship to her wand and her magic. Uncle Horace had expected great things out of her but considered magic a crutch. Themis had learned control of her magic early, had always known how to manage it. Then she was matched with her wand. Chestnut and unicorn hair was said to favor those with a concern for justice, not great duelists or illusionists; her wand was about balance. Her own interests lead her to favor magic that she expressed with the quill over a wand. Drawn to achievement, she had tried wandless magic. ‘Experience’ she had, but nothing near her strength with her wand.

“I have some skill with wandless magic but would not consider myself proficient. I can give you power or precision, but I doubt both on my first attempt.” Themis gave the best description of her skill as she could with as little bias as she could managed. She needed to temper both of their expectations before trying this. Considering his description, she added, “The circle, aided by the conductor become my wand for this experiment?”

---

Samuel started searching for something among his materials and glanced back to her over his shoulder.
"For now, all that matters is your ability to call on the magic within you without your wand. Many of us become so attached to it that we can hardly conceptualize our power as something inherent to our body, not to the instrument we bought at eleven years old. Consequently, many find out they have a mental blockade when asked to do something without it. A matter of confidence, or the lack thereof."
He returned with a small box and set it down on the table. Samuel smiled at Themis and said: "Even if you did not venture deep into wandless magic, I would be surprised if it troubled you to accept that magic by other means is possible and within reach of your abilities."

He opened the box, which contained an iridescent powder, and spread it over the lines of the transmutation circle.
"This is only for demonstration purposes. It will make visible to our eyes what they cannot perceive without help."
Samuel assumed his position at the table, opposite Themis. He carefully placed his hands at marked points on the right and left border of the circle. He felt the familiar sensation of the pathways in his body opening and saw the lines and runes of the circle light up; It felt searing and like ice was spreading trough his veins, at the same time.

The powder rose from the table, attaching itself to the three-dimensional structure of magic that had taken form before them and making it visible, at least vaguely. From the lines, shimmering walls extended upwards, closed at the top by a mirror image of the circle that was at its foundation. It flickered in and out of the visible spectrum with the powder settling and diffusing.
"What you can see now is that you have to think of the circle as the architectural plan of a hermetically sealed structure of magic; a cage, if you will. Its dimensions, borders, and properties are defined by the equation you write into the circle. Within its bounds, the laws of your design take precedence over the laws of nature, at least to an extent. Processes become possible, that otherwise would not be. Whatever you place within it, you can alter irrevocably."

He took a step back and the energetic structure disappeared. The shimmering powder dispersed as if a gust of wind had taken it and settled over the Astronomer and the Alchemist.
Samuel smiled apologetically and brushed it off his hands and sleeves.
“We are almost at the point where I will let you try”, he said, giving her a chance to pose her own questions and thoughts, while he set out the materials they would need for her first transmutation.

There was still a topic left to discuss: the risks. He would get to those next.

---

“If that is the case, consider my confidence restored.” She offered him, still bearing the confidence of her house into adulthood. Of course her wand gave her a sense of control over her magic, but she'd been aware of the gentle hum in her blood well before she was matched with her wand. Yes, she could accept magic by other means, and her interest in this demonstration continued to grow.

Her attention was split between her instructor and his work, and her mind cataloged as many nuances as possible for whatever task he would assign her. She felt her body responding to the amount of raw magic in the room; she could describe it in no other way. As adults, magic was conservative and targeted. Day-to-day magic took little effort or skill at their level, but what she could feel between him and the space between them was invigorating; this she did not do every day.

Chuckling as she shook the powder from her hair, Themis politely asked him, "What should I watch for, to know if something goes wrong?" There was a reason students weren't allowed into the class without six years of education and prior approval.
“I dislike being the cause of destruction.” She added with her Sphinx-smile before turning back to the table. “Anything I should be wary of or avoid?”

---