Chapter 165: Blood

Chapter 165: Blood

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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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21st November 1995, Hogwarts Earth 2

(Daphne Greengrass POV)

Daphne Greengrass was inwardly excited for today's Defense lesson which was quickly proving to be her favorite class this year. It was all due to Jasmine Sayre, who was by far, one of the most knowledgeable professors to have ever taken the post.

For some reason, having someone of her expertise teaching them, allowed every student to gain a solid grounding on their magical education and gain a better understanding of their gift. And to someone like Daphne, Professor Sayre was more than just a teacher. She was a role model. The epitome of what a woman can achieve. Updated from novelbIn.(c)om

Daphne had started the year expecting to spend it in self study, with an incompetent professor sprouting Ministry propaganda during class. The required book didn't help matters. Calling it a waster of paper would be an understatement to how horrible a read that book was. Daphne didn't even get past the first chapter before falling asleep.

And then, Sayre appeared. She was a relatively unknown witch with a very distinct family name that traced its lineage back to Salazar Slytherin himself. And from the first lesson, it appeared that the woman knew what she was talking about. Although, she tended to go into tangents every lesson, but they were still interesting enough that no one ever complained about them.

Funny thing about Sayre was the fact that she never gave or took out house points. When someone had the guts to ask her, she just chuckled, 'In the grand scheme of things, the house cup is absolutely useless. You gain nothing when you're awarded points and lose nothing when points are taken away. There's nothing to be gained in winning the house cup, so why should it matter?'

The young Slytherin had somewhat dismissed her political power at the start of the year. She had expected that someone with the surname Sayre would be acting in a much more dignified way than the defense teacher was.

That was until Umbridge decided to remove her from her post as the Defense Professor. Everyone had seen it coming; Fudge had blacklisted any candidate from the post, hoping to extend his influence inside the castle using Umbridge.

But, somehow, Sayre ended up keeping her job, and Umbridge had lost hers. The woman entered a meeting where the toad woman had everyone in her pocket, and somehow, in some way, Sayre still won. And the cascading event that it caused, the destabilization of Fudge's administration, the various allegations being thrown around about corruption and embezzlement, the man was barely hanging on to his post.

Still, one woman, in a single meeting, a school meeting no less, destabilized the political landscape of the entire country. If that wasn't a testament to her cunning, nothing would be. Daphne didn't know how many letters were sent concerning Sayre, but every single Slytherin student had ended up getting one from their parents asking for more information on the mysterious Sayre.

The professor was starting to lose her cool, and gave Granger the stink eye, "Ms. Granger, this is the last question I will answer you during this lesson. If you have questions about high level magical theory, you can ask me after class, and not waste everyone's time on things that wouldn't benefit anyone that weren't planning on being researchers or Unspeakables."

The bushy haired Gryffindor looked abashed at the criticism and Daphne reveled at her humiliation. Alright, she knew that it was not a nice feeling but the girl was that annoying, spitting over anything that's not in her precious books. No wonder no one liked her. How in Merlin's name did Potter deal with her and Weasley at the same time.

The professor nodded and continued, "the answer to Ms. Granger's question is quite complicated but I will do my best to simplify it. One of the main things that were discovered early on by ancient wizards, was that Magic remembers. Every spell, every act of magic, warps magic in a way. It's not much usually, but a very large scale ritual could end up affecting magic in a very profound way. It's how runes were created to channel magic. Through thousands of sacrifices, ancient wizards and witches were able to power rituals to give meanings to symbols, and cast magic. Now if magic was neutral, without any nuances, would it choose that certain metals are harder to create over others? The answer is no, it wouldn't, and yet it does.

"In terms of precious metals and jewels, it was actually the goblins who created these rules. They sacrificed thousands of their kinds, millennia ago, to make sure that the magical price for conjuring, transfiguring, or transmutating any element that they consider precious, as to avoid scams and their loss of value due to oversaturation. It's still possible to conjure gold, but it requires so much magic that you'd need a lifetime continuing to store your magic just to transfigure a single ingot of gold. Even then, the transfiguration would still be temporary."

This time it was Potter who asked the question, "What about Nicholas Flamel, couldn't he turn lead to gold?"

The woman snorted, "What do you think the Philosopher's Stone is? It's just a battery, filled with energy that allows him to compensate for the amount of magical energy that the gold needs. And you might be wondering how he had access to so much power, and the answer is the same, sacrifices. It probably wasn't as sinister as it sounds, but I theorize that they were able to collect the life force of every early death that happened during a time period and stored it inside the stone. Considering how many people died from plagues back then, it wouldn't have taken too much time for them to store enough to live for thousands of years. The so called elixir of life, is barely more than liquid life force that replenishes the Flamel's own which allowed their longevity."

Daphne was shocked at what was just said. This gave everyone a hard look to what the Flamels used to secure their immortality. Even though, from the rumors, they had died and destroyed the stone a few years prior, they were still a pillar of support to the wizarding community worldwide.

Looking around, pretty much every single student was gaping at the Professor who had resumed her lesson on battle transfiguration. However, this wasn't the time to ponder on the repercussions of Sayre's reveal. She had another more important goal in mind.

After the lesson had ended, she gestured to Tracy Davis, her best friend, to leave without her. The girl immediately understood what she would be trying to accomplish, and nodded while giving her a reassuring smile.

The Greengrass Heiress steeled herself and walked to the Professor's desk.

Sayre looked up, with her eyebrows raised, "Is there anything you need, Ms. Greengrass?"

Damn, she was intimidating up close. Remember Daphne, you're doing it for Astoria. The girl nodded, "Yes. Professor Sayre, I need your help."

Again, the professor's face was expressionless, "With what, Ms. Greengrass?"

"I need your help in saving my sister's life."

There, she said it. Hopefully, this wouldn't be a worthless venture.