Enter the Dragon (Harry Potter/Shadowrun)

[Pinklestia]

Wizards have probably used stone for construction as soon as the first Muggle used it. Magic, even without wands, makes construction easier.

 

[Gaming Geek]

It's simple.

Hogwarts is Camalot. That's why it's an Atypical Design for a castle that's canonically 1000+ years old


Wait... was that fanfic lore... Damn, can't actually remember the age of the place.

 

[Aaron Fox]

It's simple.

Hogwarts is Camalot. That's why it's an Atypical Design for a castle that's canonically 1000+ years old


Wait... was that fanfic lore... Damn, can't actually remember the age of the place.

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I do remember that canonically it is centuries old, but not how many is stated. :\

 

[Doghead13]

I do remember that canonically it is centuries old, but not how many is stated. :\

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The statement in canon is a thousand years, I forget where it's stated in the books but it's canonical info.

That puts the most likely date of construction sometime in the tenth century - giving it some flexibility in both directions call it somewhere between about 940 and 1040, though as ever that's the sort of thing to tailor to your fic and not the other way round. Very end of the Viking Age - some events in the same timeframe include Leif Eriksson's attempt to settle in North America, the extinction of lions in Europe, the first time a king attempted to Christianise Norway, the rise of the Kingdom of Alba leading to the unification of Scotland as a country over virtually that exact same span of time, the end of the Viking Age, and the first mention in the historic record of hops in relation to brewing beer; England had only just unified back in 927. Macbeth (yes, that one) made himself King of Scotland at the very end of our 940-1040 timeframe. Meanwhile the way the castle itself is described - the entire aesthetic of it, that whole pointy-towered Gothic look and not just the means of construction - matches the sort of stuff that was being built in the fifteenth century in central Europe, fully half a millennium more recently.

Including in the sort of design details that are down to nothing more nor less than fashion.

 

[Aaron Fox]

The statement in canon is a thousand years, I forget where it's stated in the books but it's canonical info.

That puts the most likely date of construction sometime in the tenth century - giving it some flexibility in both directions call it somewhere between about 940 and 1040, though as ever that's the sort of thing to tailor to your fic and not the other way round. Very end of the Viking Age - some events in the same timeframe include Leif Eriksson's attempt to settle in North America, the extinction of lions in Europe, the first time a king attempted to Christianise Norway, the rise of the Kingdom of Alba leading to the unification of Scotland as a country over virtually that exact same span of time, the end of the Viking Age, and the first mention in the historic record of hops in relation to brewing beer; England had only just unified back in 927. Macbeth (yes, that one) made himself King of Scotland at the very end of our 940-1040 timeframe. Meanwhile the way the castle itself is described - the entire aesthetic of it, that whole pointy-towered Gothic look and not just the means of construction - matches the sort of stuff that was being built in the fifteenth century in central Europe, fully half a millennium more recently.

Including in the sort of design details that are down to nothing more nor less than fashion.

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Given that magic is involved, it probably was your stereotypical 10th century castle but as time went on, the castle grew and changed as time went on. New styles were implemented, new fancy things that make things easier (like indoor plumbing!) got implemented, so on and so forth. So it might be a case of the original all but gone by the time Harry came into the picture. I wouldn't be surprised that the Great Hall was one of the few things that really hasn't changed over the centuries outside of various improvements and enchantments...

 

[inverted_helix]

Magic in canon Harry Potter has FTL*, confirmed existence of souls, magic that shows no regards to conservation of energy, conceptual magic with ongoing rewrite of perceived reality (Fidelius charm), arbitrary limitations and no indications that magic reached some fundamental limits.

Feeding dragon is not going to be a problem.

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This isn't canon Harry Potter. Here it's been repeatedly confirmed that magic works within conservation of energy. Harry has to eat so much as a result of this, and it's mentioned that the amount a wizard eats is also proportional to their magical power.

 

[Cutesquid]

This isn't canon Harry Potter. Here it's been repeatedly confirmed that magic works within conservation of energy. Harry has to eat so much as a result of this, and it's mentioned that the amount a wizard eats is also proportional to their magical power.

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Older dragons might be powered by more efficient means of converting matter into energy. We have no indication that dragon biology works that way, but no indication that it doesn't either.

 

[Doghead13]

Given that magic is involved, it probably was your stereotypical 10th century castle but as time went on, the castle grew and changed as time went on. New styles were implemented, new fancy things that make things easier (like indoor plumbing!) got implemented, so on and so forth. So it might be a case of the original all but gone by the time Harry came into the picture. I wouldn't be surprised that the Great Hall was one of the few things that really hasn't changed over the centuries outside of various improvements and enchantments...

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Except that one of the most revealing anomalies - specifically the Chamber of Secrets, and no I don't just mean its entrance - we know existed virtually unchanged from the time of the Founding. That's a fifteenth century vault.

And, um, the fabric of the Great Hall is about a century too new mostly due to not being wood with a dirt floor.

 

[EternitynChaos]

Older dragons might be powered by more efficient means of converting matter into energy. We have no indication that dragon biology works that way, but no indication that it doesn't either.

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Err, Fairly sure Shadowrun Dragons are Thaumovores, that is they subsist on Magic itself, which is why they enter a Torpor State when the Age hits low magic levels, uncapping the leyline nexi is basically acting as nutrient boosters + super caffine for Harry in this, and what little left he needs is gathered from living in a high magic area and whatever conversion of matter => energy his body is capable of

 

[wichajster]

The Map is one.

No information transission lag/delay. It's realtime, and apperently without limit.

The Orb in Book 1, that had LITERALLY the entire Milky Way displayed inside of it. I think that was the one being referenced?

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We have no way in canon to distinguish "no apparent lag" and "no lag" for the Map. As long as they are on the Earth light speed delay is not detectable by human perception.

The Orb - if it is anything except simulation/model with good advertising it would be a candidate the most impressive and powerful artifact presented in books. But I assume that it is not different from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way#/media/File:Artist's_impression_of_the_Milky_Way_(updated_-_annotated).jpg just 3D and prettier and more expensive.

But if someone wants upper tier wizards, that is a nice justification for it.

[Citation Needed]

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Time turners!

Hermione is at point A.
Walks to a point B in half of hour hour.
Time turners one hour back into past.

Effect: Hermione traveled at speed exceeding speed of light from point A to B, so we have FTL. Though it is not going to be useful for an interstellar travel in this form.

In general in physics "FTL" and "Time travel" are breaking the same limit as far as special theory of relativity is concerned, though for obvious reasons existence of time turners demonstrates that special theory of relativity is broken or at least not complete.

More specifically, nearly any time travel method can be used to have FTL with really limited range.

This isn't canon Harry Potter. Here it's been repeatedly confirmed that magic works within conservation of energy. Harry has to eat so much as a result of this, and it's mentioned that the amount a wizard eats is also proportional to their magical power.

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I am not sure that it was actually confirmed. I would look at it again but there are many things that are running against conservation of energy. That it requires either dropping conservation of energy or provides so powerful source of energy that basically anything may be justified (technically conservation of energy works, but in practice it can no longer may be used as there is always go out of jail card "it is using magic fields as a direct source of energy").

Maybe "magic field" is patch that makes conservation of energy technically apply, but if with very low magic field all that magic works then it for most purposes it is an unlimited power source.

But wait, other dragons are sleeping? And I think it was explicitly mentioned that it was due low magic levels? And now stupid me remembers mentions of magic field.

 

[Mashadarof402]

This isn't canon Harry Potter. Here it's been repeatedly confirmed that magic works within conservation of energy. Harry has to eat so much as a result of this, and it's mentioned that the amount a wizard eats is also proportional to their magical power.

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Except if you think about it, magic regenerates, hence the cycles, which violates CoE. If it was a strict limit on thermodynamics, the end of an age of magic would have been it. There would be no need for the leyline Stonehenges to store magical buildup.

That and you can cheat a lot on nutrition when you draw a lot of energy from local magic rich areas.

And really, if you think about what wizards do with their magic, even discounting transmutation, the energy requirements should be so vast that they'd drop over dead moments into casting the spell if they were relying on merely internal fat stores.

 

[wichajster]

Except if you think about it, magic regenerates, hence the cycles, which violates CoE. If it was a strict limit on thermodynamics, the end of an age of magic would have been it. There would be no need for the leyline Stonehenges to store magical buildup.

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Technically there may be also some non-regenerating source of magic in Earth - in the same way as there is some limited but vast source of thermal energy that keeps Earth's internals heated.

But it would be so vast that it would dwarf all other energy on the Earth.

 

[The Unicorn]

The Map is one.

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No it isn't. The map receives information that propagates at a speed of 0.1C, that means that if you're in London the information in the map is about 28 miliseconds out of date.

Now see if you can prove me wrong.

The Orb in Book 1, that had LITERALLY the entire Milky Way displayed inside of it.

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Which orb? And what indication do we have that the information there was any more up to date than than in your local planetarium?

 

[inverted_helix]

Older dragons might be powered by more efficient means of converting matter into energy. We have no indication that dragon biology works that way, but no indication that it doesn't either.

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We do actually have indication that it doesn't:

Harry is growing as fast as his biology allows since he faces none of the nutritional bottlenecks dragons have faced historically --- he is growing up in an industrialized setting where he can buy his preferred foods by the trainload

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Err, Fairly sure Shadowrun Dragons are Thaumovores, that is they subsist on Magic itself, which is why they enter a Torpor State when the Age hits low magic levels, uncapping the leyline nexi is basically acting as nutrient boosters + super caffine for Harry in this, and what little left he needs is gathered from living in a high magic area and whatever conversion of matter => energy his body is capable of

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If dragons were thaumovores then there's two problems.

1. Why is Harry eating so much food?
2. That still imposes a size cap on dragons because their consumption needs would still be rising with size and magic availability is a limiting factor.

I am not sure that it was actually confirmed. I would look at it again but there are many things that are running against conservation of energy. That it requires either dropping conservation of energy or provides so powerful source of energy that basically anything may be justified (technically conservation of energy works, but in practice it can no longer may be used as there is always go out of jail card "it is using magic fields as a direct source of energy").

Maybe "magic field" is patch that makes conservation of energy technically apply, but if with very low magic field all that magic works then it for most purposes it is an unlimited power source.

But wait, other dragons are sleeping? And I think it was explicitly mentioned that it was due low magic levels? And now stupid me remembers mentions of magic field.

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With low magic field all magic doesn't work. It's been repeatedly stated that things run out of magic all the time. It was a problem with the flying car. It's a problem with casting spells in the magical dead zone. It's a problem with wizards exhausting their internal magic supplies with sustained casting of even simple spells.

Keep in mind in this story an industrial mixing machine was better than a wizard at mixing Harry's food when he was in a coma because Snape and Poppy between them couldn't sustain the magical cost of mixing as much as he needed.

Also the dragons are sleeping because of low magic levels.

Except if you think about it, magic regenerates, hence the cycles, which violates CoE. If it was a strict limit on thermodynamics, the end of an age of magic would have been it.

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This is like saying that Earth being as warm as it is now violates Conservation of Energy because it had an Ice Age and shouldn't ever have warmed up again. It's utterly ridiculous. The current state of the surface of a planet is not a closed system.

Magic could be produced from sunlight or nuclear activity in the core the same as every other energy on earth that appears regenerating. Neither wind nor solar power violate Conservation of Energy. Magic levels through the ages could be dictated by the cycle of the sun, or presence or absence of some analogue to green house gases, or a million other possible explanations (including artificial efforts).

There would be no need for the leyline Stonehenges to store magical buildup.

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I've actually been thinking that the leyline devices are causing the low magic environment. They're soaking up massive amounts of energy that would otherwise be in the environment.

And really, if you think about what wizards do with their magic, even discounting transmutation, the energy requirements should be so vast that they'd drop over dead moments into casting the spell if they were relying on merely internal fat stores.

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Such as? Keep in mind that this story has nerfed the ever living fuck out of HP wizards. Most of their canon bullshit straight up isn't possible here. Transfiguration is just a really really good illusion rather than actually changing things. I suppose you could try to speculate on time turners, but as traveling into the past isn't really possible under our world's physics at all you can't really estimate energy cost there.

Keep in mind this is an HP setting nerfed so much that a train is the most efficient way to transport goods for wizards.

 

[ScarletFlames]

Transfiguration is actually a bit more complex than "just a really good illusion", as it's been explained it's more precise to call it a CONCEPTUAL illusion. A block of iron transfigured into a perfectly normal rat (if the transfiguration was perfect in all aspects) would be just that, a block of iron that is for all intents and purposes, a rat. It will move like a rat, squeek like a rat, get squished like a rat. But when it stops being a "rat" and instead becomes "dead rat" the transfiguration will break if it hasn't taken that possible change into the spell itself.

At least that's what I understood from the explanations given here previously, I am open to being corrected if I mixed lore from other fics.

 

[EternitynChaos]

If dragons were thaumovores then there's two problems.

1. Why is Harry eating so much food?
2. That still imposes a size cap on dragons because their consumption needs would still be rising with size and magic availability is a limiting factor.

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1) Because magic is a super low eb and while he's getting shots of Magic juice every time he uncaps a Leyline it's still not quite enough

2) that implies that magic has some sort of limit, and can be used up, rather then being like the ocean and having tides *not exactly the same, but even with massive dragon Empires the Magic levels were not shot any quicker, they went down when it started to hit low tide they go back up when it's high tide, there's no regeneration of magic, magic just is, it's got no cares about silly things like science or logic when you get right down to it

and even if that was the case, it's less a cap and more an explanation for the super old dragons sleeping 99.999% of the time because they literally can't wake up unless magic is at its highest

Not to mention at least some of it will likely have to do with the fact that he's basically a hatchling still

 

[Mashadarof402]

This is like saying that Earth being as warm as it is now violates Conservation of Energy because it had an Ice Age and shouldn't ever have warmed up again. It's utterly ridiculous. The current state of the surface of a planet is not a closed system.

Magic could be produced from sunlight or nuclear activity in the core the same as every other energy on earth that appears regenerating. Neither wind nor solar power violate Conservation of Energy. Magic levels through the ages could be dictated by the cycle of the sun, or presence or absence of some analogue to green house gases, or a million other possible explanations (including artificial efforts).

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*shrug*

If magic is generated by as natural and common a phenomena as solar cycles, or planetary core activity, there shouldn't be drought periods of that magnitude, anymore than California should never get rain for the next 500 years.

Which brings us to the next issue.

I've actually been thinking that the leyline devices are causing the low magic environment. They're soaking up massive amounts of energy that would otherwise be in the environment.

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The leyline devices, by WoG, are used as capacitors to cast grand magic.

Such as? Keep in mind that this story has nerfed the ever living fuck out of HP wizards. Most of their canon bullshit straight up isn't possible here. Transfiguration is just a really really good illusion rather than actually changing things. I suppose you could try to speculate on time turners, but as traveling into the past isn't really possible under our world's physics at all you can't really estimate energy cost there.

Keep in mind this is an HP setting nerfed so much that a train is the most efficient way to transport goods for wizards.

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Apparation AKA teleportation, flight, retaining data integrity and active function without corporeal form (Voldermort and other ghosts, one who at least demonstrates telekinesis to move things as an otherwise intangible entity), sapience in objects with no actual thinking organs (Sorting Hat) nor energy intake.

All of those have pretty high energy requirements to do and in some cases, are impossible to perform as you say because they have no means of biological energy intake. The only way they can even begin to function is if they're taking magic from the environment rather than from internal chemical energy stores.

 

[inverted_helix]

Transfiguration is actually a bit more complex than "just a really good illusion", as it's been explained it's more precise to call it a CONCEPTUAL illusion. A block of iron transfigured into a perfectly normal rat (if the transfiguration was perfect in all aspects) would be just that, a block of iron that is for all intents and purposes, a rat. It will move like a rat, squeek like a rat, get squished like a rat. But when it stops being a "rat" and instead becomes "dead rat" the transfiguration will break if it hasn't taken that possible change into the spell itself.

At least that's what I understood from the explanations given here previously, I am open to being corrected if I mixed lore from other fics.

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This isn't accurate to what we've seen. When talking about transfiguration only the aspects that the caster specified were altered. This is why Harry retains his strength in human form.

One thing to remember about transfiguration in this setting, which I've said before, but I'm not sure if it was on this thread, is that when a transfiguration is performed, it's essentially telling the world to treat the target like whatever you are transfiguring it into.

A consequence of that is that the change is only as convincing as you have the skill and inclination to make it, so when you perform a transfiguration, it will take whatever characteristics you're concentrating on, if your attention slips or you don't care about a particular bit, it stays the same. When you transfigure a mouse into a snuffbox, if you forget to concentrate on the surface finish, you will end up with a furry snuffbox.

When Harry transfigures himself, he concentrates on being human-sized, looking human-like, and having skin sufficiently sensitive to enjoy hugs. He doesn't really care about anything else, certainly not his strength, or his weight... or, for that matter, those handy reactionless drive organs he has mounted along his spine. The ones that he had to learn specifically how to use independently, since he sort of instinctively filled in with them before (much like he's doing now).

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It only moves like a rat if you specified that, it only squeaks like a rat if you specified that. You can't just go "concept of a rat" and be done.

1) Because magic is a super low eb and while he's getting shots of Magic juice every time he uncaps a Leyline it's still not quite enough

2) that implies that magic has some sort of limit, and can be used up, rather then being like the ocean and having tides *not exactly the same, but even with massive dragon Empires the Magic levels were not shot any quicker, they went down when it started to hit low tide they go back up when it's high tide, there's no regeneration of magic, magic just is, it's got no cares about silly things like science or logic when you get right down to it

and even if that was the case, it's less a cap and more an explanation for the super old dragons sleeping 99.999% of the time because they literally can't wake up unless magic is at its highest

Not to mention at least some of it will likely have to do with the fact that he's basically a hatchling still

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1. Does not follow at all. If this was the case then we'd see a pattern of him not eating when he got a shot of leyline as he'd have enormous energy to feed on instead, but that's not happening.

2. Magic having some sort of limit is not implied at all. It's explicit. If magic was infinite then there'd be no such thing as low magic. 1% of infinity is still infinity.

*shrug*

If magic is generated by as natural and common a phenomena as solar cycles, or planetary core activity, there shouldn't be drought periods of that magnitude, anymore than California should never get rain for the next 500 years.

Which brings us to the next issue.

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Solar cycles can happen on grand geologic time scales, we don't have direct observation to confirm this simply because we haven't been around long enough to see it. However there's significant evidence to the long term change in solar output.

However it is more likely to be something more along the lines of variance in greenhouse gas that we see from development of species that effectively sequester massive amounts of CO2 when decomposers haven't caught up in the biological arms race. We've seen cases in geologic history where the earth has become a snowball, and others where it was completely covered by forest.

The leyline devices, by WoG, are used as capacitors to cast grand magic.

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That was supposedly their design goal, however it doesn't change what they've actually done. There's absurd amounts of magic tied up in them that would otherwise be in the environment. We know from the incident of Krakatoa that a 10% increase in magic followed which didn't dissipate in over a century. If this was some capacitor release there should have been a decline towards normal which hasn't been observed even with 0.01% resolution in their sensors. The more significant issue though is the later ones at Avebury and Stonehenge. The Krakatoa one you can claim the magic release just isn't being sunk into anything else and hanging around.

However at Avebury and Stonehenge Harry absorbed the released magic, yet global magic level increased anyway. This shows that it isn't from the magic released directly. It therefore must be because of the shut off of the leyline tap no longer sequestering magic.

Apparation AKA teleportation, flight, retaining data integrity and active function without corporeal form (Voldermort and other ghosts, one who at least demonstrates telekinesis to move things as an otherwise intangible entity), sapience in objects with no actual thinking organs (Sorting Hat) nor energy intake.

All of those have pretty high energy requirements to do and in some cases, are impossible to perform as you say because they have no means of biological energy intake. The only way they can even begin to function is if they're taking magic from the environment rather than from internal chemical energy stores.

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I'm curious how you're calculating energy use on these. Maintaining data integrity for instance has no inherent energy cost. Teleportation in the strictest energy calculations for CoE purposes need only pay the difference in positional potential energy between the two locations, everything else is just down to methods and inefficiencies.

Sapience doesn't have some sort of strict minimum energy requirement, and even if it did it would by necessity be pretty low considering how even a small human dedicates only a portion of their calorie intake to their brain. Hardly the sort of thing that requires violations of CoE to maintain.

In terms of ghosts we already know that many of these things are drawing on the magical background field to power themselves. This is no different than a plant powering itself off of solar radiation. The plant isn't in violation of CoE either. Ghosts are pretty low energy in their activities in general. Particularly as we haven't even seen Peeves in this story, much less him doing anything significant.

 

[Dunkelzahn]

On the topic of draconic metabolisms, they all use alchemical transmutation to one degree or another in digesting their food. So yes, they're nuclear-powered kaiju.

After eating the philosopher's stone, Harry is a bit better at it than normal.

"He's transmuting them," Nicholas broke in. "His physiology has learned to imitate the stone, and it is transmuting new materials to make up for nutritional deficiencies. It also explains the energy defect; he must be transmuting some lighter elements along the way towards iron to power the whole process. A little excess in that sort of thing goes a long way."

"Are you certain?" Snape asked. "It does explain our observations, but the risks…"

"Yes, I am certain," the alchemist said. "Look here at the residue on the feeding tube." He poked at a porous brown bit of metal. "This is a bismuth-bronze alloy — see how the flat of my knife slides over the surface? Given the location, this deposit could only have come from the nutrient slurry, and we included copper but no bismuth. I'd be willing to bet the pores in the material are where antimony formed and vaporized out before it could mix, it's a standard alchemical reaction path if you don't work to limit it. This entire thing looks like some of my failed attempts at recreating orichalcum using the traditional suspension of molten bronze, specifically the ones I carried out at too high a temperature."

Nicholas shook his head in awe, "Our young friend is a living alchemical reactor."

"But the energy output…" Snape said with a worried frown. "How has Mr. Potter not exploded yet?"

"You said the defect existed prior to his ingestion of the stone, correct?" Nicholas confirmed. At Poppy's nod, he continued, "The boy must have already been doing it, and the stone just helped him improve. If he hasn't exploded already, he's not likely to do so now."

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Emphasis added.

As with many of their biological processes, that alchemical digestion process requires a certain amount of magic to go forward (not really a catalyst, since it is consumed, but it produces much more energy than what is consumed). Dragons naturally produce some magic, but not enough to stay active, so they need environmental magic to remain awake.

Also note that Harry's current dietary needs are unusual due to his youth and rapid growth.

As for magic, the function of the stone circles, the magic cycle, and the production of magic has been explained in a couple of my previous posts (in the spoilered bits).

So, what they know in-story is that these devices were left around sucking up and storing tremendous amounts of magic which can be released. They then learned about a previous release which was recorded by history as the eruption of Krakatoa. Thus, they believe that all these devices are essentially ticking time-bombs big enough to wipe out civilization, and no one knows how long the fuses are. So the current actions they're taking are those of a bomb squad, defusing these things.

No one in the wizarding world knows about the coming sixth age as that was lost to history --- specifically, the last written records of the end of the fourth age were lost when the Library of Alexandria was... misplaced during the Empire's conquest of magical Egypt; secrecy spells are a hell of a drug.

As for what is actually happening, well I should probably spoiler-tag that.

Spoiler: Net effect of the nexuses

The nexuses would have effectively delayed the start of the sixth age by absorbing environmental magic and artificially suppressing magic levels. Their release means that the background levels will rapidly return to where they would have been. The Awakening will be on time, but the magic levels will continue rising much more abruptly than they normally do at the start of an age.

Spoiler: Backstory of how the nexuses fit into the overall world, includes a lot of history not known in-story

So the nexuses have been around for a very long time, or at least the technology has been, the current crop are not the first iteration. They've been used as tools for storing energy for use in large-scale magic since well before the beginning of the first age, so they were well known for most of history, up to the end of the fourth age.

After the Scourge of the fourth age, the Theran Empire (Atlantis) decided they wanted to keep the Scourge from happening again. Since the Scourge relied on environmental magic levels being high enough to support the existence of Horrors, the Theran mages reasoned that if they could remove enough magic from the environment, the maximum level reached during the next age might be low enough to avoid the worst of the Horrors. Thus, during the tail end of the fourth age, they traveled around the world and effectively jammed the safeties on all the nexuses open so they would not automatically stop gathering power after they reached their designed maximum capacity. A number of the Great Dragons and Immortal Elves knew about this plan, either having been told or having discovered it through their intelligence efforts.

This seemed a reasonable choice at the time because the capacity of those rings is utterly enormous, but it had unanticipated effects. One of the chief issues was that it led to the rings being rendered effectively unusable --- the magic quickly became too intense for humans to use safely. This led, through a series of unfortunate events, to the collapse of the Theran Empire (and the sinking of Atlantis). In tangentially related news, the Theran refugees conquered another empire which is still a major player in the modern wizarding world.

Because the rings were no longer usable, and there were no free sites to build new ones, the technology was relegated to the history books and fell out of common knowledge several thousand years before present time.

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So, for a more complete explanation of how I've pictured the rings working in this version:

Spoiler: Stone ring mechanics

• They were originally designed as storage devices for building up energy in order to perform large-scale magic
• As such, they have certain functions built into them to assist with that purpose
  • They can automatically gather and store magic from the environment
    • They do so by effectively turning the bedrock beneath them (all the way down to where it starts to heat up enough to begin to melt) into a giant magical battery
    • Because of this, their storage capacities are stupidly high
    • Their placement on ley-line nexuses is intended to allow them to fill faster
  • They can discharge that stored magic in various ways
    • Most are related to the primary use of the stones, performing useful magic
    • The story-relevant one is a safety-release/regulator which would normally be used to drain excess magic from the stones before carrying out something relatively delicate. Throttling magic is hard, so the original designers just made sure there was only enough in the stones to do the job required, releasing the excess to the environment
  • They can be turned off
    • There is an automatic safety to turn the energy collection feature off at a set magical charge, normally quite low. The stupidly high capacities of the rings are an unintended consequence of the design; human mages (who designed the things) can't use energy that intense.
      • As part of an attempt to control the overall magical cycle, a group of mages jammed all these safeties open at the end of the fourth age, resulting in the current situation.
    • When the drain is triggered (what Harry is doing), the collection effect must be manually restarted. This is a design feature, since the drain is intended, when done properly, to ensure that there is a specific amount of magic available for use. Immediately collecting more would be counterproductive. Harry is not giving the stone the proper parameters to tell it when to stop (he doesn't know how), so he's getting the full blast.
• So when Harry is dealing with the things, he's draining the stored energy into himself (with some amount of spillage) and turning off the absorption effect, effectively rendering the circle inert until someone more knowledgeable turns it back on

Now, as to how the magic cycle works and what is going on on a planetary scale:

Spoiler: Magic cycle mechanics

Note: none of this is known by anyone in-universe, not the Great Dragons, not the Immortal Elves, nobody.

• Magic is produced by all life to one extent or another. Non-magical life produces magic in tremendous excess of what it uses, while magical life can vary between net producers and net consumers. Even non-magical life is enhanced by magic; therefore, the more magic there is in the environment, the faster it will be produced (until other factors limit the growth of the life producing it)
• The excess magic produced sticks around in the environment until something uses it --- the magical field is non-radiative, so it doesn't dissipate off into space on its own.
• There exist many forms of life which consume magic. Among these are a group of strains of partially-astral bacteria which live in the solid rock of the earth's crust and feed on environmental magic.
• These bacteria have no natural predators, given their environment, thus they grow unchecked until their food runs out.
• This results in an oscillating growth cycle
  • The bacterial population starts out at a minimum; magic is thus produced faster than it is consumed. (Beginning of high magic age)
  • With magic available, the bacterial population increases rapidly.
  • Eventually, the bacterial population is high enough that it consumes magic faster than it can be produced, causing magic levels to fall. (Middle of high-magic age)
  • Bacterial populations reach a maximum (End of high-magic age)
  • Without the magic to support it, the bacterial population starts to die off.
  • Eventually, the population falls to the point that it is again consuming less magic than is being produced. (Middle of low-magic age)
  • Magic levels begin to recover as bacterial populations start to stabilize.
  • And we are back to the beginning of the cycle.

This process has some interesting side-effects.

• The "Living Earth" effect which prevents Horrors and other similar critters from passing through bedrock is due to these bacteria providing a solid astral barrier
• The presence of these critters and the biofilms they form when in sufficient numbers will severely limit petroleum and natural gas production as the cycle progresses. (In a related note, the die-offs mean that the world's oil reserves will completely replace themselves after the sixth age, so it's a mixed blessing.)

So, in short, the interplay between those two situations means that successfully draining the nodes will precipitously increase the world's effective rate of production of magic with each node dealt with --- he's removing a drain without changing the production rate. This change is immediately reflected in atmospheric sensors (like the ones Flamel uses) because the air saturates very quickly, but there is a lot of magic-absorbent material in the world which needs to follow suit before the steady rise can continue towards the Awakening.

The end result is the Awakening will be on time (a convenient coincidence chosen mainly because I didn't want to have to rework all the geopolitics to account for a change in timeline), but magic levels will be increasing much faster than they normally do at that point in the cycle, which will have its own consequences.

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[Mashadarof402]

I'm curious how you're calculating energy use on these. Maintaining data integrity for instance has no inherent energy cost. Teleportation in the strictest energy calculations for CoE purposes need only pay the difference in positional potential energy between the two locations, everything else is just down to methods and inefficiencies.

Click to shrink...

Maintaining data integrity by itself, sure. But doing so while being active is a different story altogether. Voldermort and the Hogwarts ghosts are all evidence of non-corporeal entities who not only exist, but are active, possess the ability to generate their own energy in the form of light and sound ex nihilo (which is impressive when you have no vocal cords, being a ghost) and even telekinesis like the ghost who water bombed Harry. You say they take ambient magical energy, but that in itself automatically invalidates the claim that HP magic is powered by fat stores. Same with the Sorting Hat.

Granted, you said wizards, so maybe you're discounting any other magical race. Ok, fine, but that still leaves us with things like teleportation, levitation, telekinesis and similar feats. For teleportation, the potential energy between two locations doesn't really work very well because if you take a Harry shaped bag of air and swap it with Harry, that still leaves a huge energy deficit to make up for because Harry is much denser than air. Levitation is also similarly very taxing as the caster does not have the advantage of using his existing body structure to support the weight of the object being lifted. And in some cases, those objects outmass them by a fair margin if we take the canon incident with the troll and Ron's levitation of its tree trunk sized club. Even if he survived the energy costs, Ron should have come out of that looking like a famine victim.

There's also the Patronus which is creating mass ex nihilo. Granted, it might not show up in the story here (no reason to yet), but if so, then again the energy cost of doing so should vastly exceed what's available in a human's fat stores. Fortunately, we also have an in story example when Malfoy did something similar when he conjured 3 snakes during the duel with Harry. Even if it was only a temporary form, it is again creating mass out of nothing and sustained by the caster. If it was an illusion, it would have been a lot cheaper energy wise, but conjurations aren't.

And lastly, there's the blasting hex Malfoy used against Hermione. It's described as creating a fist sized hole in enchanted stone. Assuming the stone is of similar toughness to granite, a similar feat without explosives or power tools would, I suspect, be rather exhausting. Yet Malfoy didn't seem to show any signs of strain or hunger before getting his nut cracked.

Frankly, if wizards were limited solely to fat stores for their magic, the goblins wouldn't have needed guns to fend them off. Just run a food blockade for a day or three and they'd be no more threatening than a muggle. Less even because at least a muggle knows how to live without magic.

 

[Emizaquel]

The defendant would then produce a legitimate paper trail of all the contracts Betty had been compelled to signed along the way, giving explicit permission for everything done to her. They would then provide a written testimony, signed by Betty under orders, that she had entered those contracts of her own free will, and, if pressed, they would then bring Betty in person with explicit orders to testify in support of their version of events. She They would then force her to refuse to submit to any medical exam sufficiently detailed to put the lie to their claims, and there would not be enough evidence to issue a warrant to force the issue.

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So, I was just thinking, why couldn't there be a sort of coven status to this? Essentially, have everyone in a set group (minimum I'd say is five) and jointly sign a contract stating that for any future contract to be legally binding, at least some of the others (minimum of two maybe?) from this group have to countersign. It's a little more complex than the head of house system, but it still falls under the same principle of giving other people the legal authority to deny the contracts that the people have been mind controlled into signing.

 

[ConsiderableHat]

So, I was just thinking, why couldn't there be a sort of coven status to this?

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As plans go, it's not a bad one, but the history of the law of corporations suggests it's not an intuitively obvious one in a world that hasn't yet invented the corporation (and its successors, joint-stock and limited companies). It's also a development that generated a lot of resistance in its early days - some of that arising from the scandals attendant on the joint-stock bubbles (of which the South Sea Bubble was merely the most famous) - but also from a general resistance to extending the concept of legal personality.

People were OK for centuries with the idea of a corporation sole - that the bishop was a separate legal entity from that of the man wearing the mitre, and that said legal entity existed separate from from the flesh-and-blood person. It made sense as it permitted things like churches and cathedrals to be outside the normal run of inheritance and alienation of property.

Extending that to anyone being able to start up a corporation was regarded for centuries as sharp practise at least and usually as outright shady. The corruption that went into getting a Private Act of Parliament - your only option for incorporation that wasn't a Royal Charter from the King in Privy Council* - didn't help the optics any.

The point, here, is that while it is a useful solution, it's not one that is going to get by the kind of legislators that permit the in-universe malarkey to continue, unless it's got by them through massive subterfuge.

*The corruption involved in getting one of those was breathtaking to behold.

 

[Edmond G. Bertrand]

I went back and re-read the entire story so far. My problem, having read the comments about "shadowrun" dragons being several millennia old, is that you're going
to fuck with all of the entire relationship parts of the story. Everyone Harry loves, just as with the stupid effing vamps in Twilight, are going to be left behind
by Harry. He will outlive everyone and everything. It's a curse, not a blessing. Hermione, realizing this, will run away from him just as quickly as she can,
just so that she doesn't end up with a broken heart down the road.

 

[EternitynChaos]

I went back and re-read the entire story so far. My problem, having read the comments about "shadowrun" dragons being several millennia old, is that you're going
to fuck with all of the entire relationship parts of the story. Everyone Harry loves, just as with the stupid effing vamps in Twilight, are going to be left behind
by Harry. He will outlive everyone and everything. It's a curse, not a blessing. Hermione, realizing this, will run away from him just as quickly as she can,
just so that she doesn't end up with a broken heart down the road.

Click to shrink...

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Ok seriously just cut that shit out, Long Life is no more a Curse then your current lifespan, particularly in a universe with 'magic live as long as you want stones'

anyone who says otherwise is just looking for an excuse to angst and cut themselves

 

[Doghead13]

I went back and re-read the entire story so far. My problem, having read the comments about "shadowrun" dragons being several millennia old, is that you're going
to fuck with all of the entire relationship parts of the story. Everyone Harry loves, just as with the stupid effing vamps in Twilight, are going to be left behind
by Harry. He will outlive everyone and everything. It's a curse, not a blessing. Hermione, realizing this, will run away from him just as quickly as she can,
just so that she doesn't end up with a broken heart down the road.

Click to shrink...

Are you seriously promoting the derpiest possible form of authorial masturbation?

 

[anechoic]

I went back and re-read the entire story so far. My problem, having read the comments about "shadowrun" dragons being several millennia old, is that you're going
to fuck with all of the entire relationship parts of the story. Everyone Harry loves, just as with the stupid effing vamps in Twilight, are going to be left behind
by Harry. He will outlive everyone and everything. It's a curse, not a blessing. Hermione, realizing this, will run away from him just as quickly as she can,
just so that she doesn't end up with a broken heart down the road.

Click to shrink...

If a richer-than-sin Great Dragon with access to wizardry and magic from whatever the currently-unrevealed-crossover is on top of the normal Shadowrun magic/tech can't figure out how to extend their companions' lives with decades to work on the problem they deserve the grief.

 

[Emizaquel]

As plans go, it's not a bad one, but the history of the law of corporations suggests it's not an intuitively obvious one in a world that hasn't yet invented the corporation (and its successors, joint-stock and limited companies). It's also a development that generated a lot of resistance in its early days - some of that arising from the scandals attendant on the joint-stock bubbles (of which the South Sea Bubble was merely the most famous) - but also from a general resistance to extending the concept of legal personality.

People were OK for centuries with the idea of a corporation sole - that the bishop was a separate legal entity from that of the man wearing the mitre, and that said legal entity existed separate from from the flesh-and-blood person. It made sense as it permitted things like churches and cathedrals to be outside the normal run of inheritance and alienation of property.

Extending that to anyone being able to start up a corporation was regarded for centuries as sharp practise at least and usually as outright shady. The corruption that went into getting a Private Act of Parliament - your only option for incorporation that wasn't a Royal Charter from the King in Privy Council* - didn't help the optics any.

The point, here, is that while it is a useful solution, it's not one that is going to get by the kind of legislators that permit the in-universe malarkey to continue, unless it's got by them through massive subterfuge.

*The corruption involved in getting one of those was breathtaking to behold.

Click to shrink...

They do have companies though.

Harry had to buy out Hog's Haulage from it's shareholders, so there's definitely some understanding of corporations and the split in legal identity there.

Plus, it doesn't have to be something in place. I was suggesting it as something that maybe Hermione would come up with when she finds out about Betty, as a way of preventing this from happening again.

 

[The Unicorn]

Harry had to buy out Hog's Haulage from it's shareholders, so there's definitely some understanding of corporations and the split in legal identity there.

Click to shrink...

Does not follow. "Company" and "Corporation" are two very different concepts, and having one doesn't mean they'll have the other. For that matter even if the have corporations doesn't mean they go for the schizophrenic "corporation as a legal identity", but only when it's convinient we have today.

 

[MutantRancor]

Hermione, realizing this, will run away from him just as quickly as she can,
just so that she doesn't end up with a broken heart down the road.

Click to shrink...

This part doesn't follow. Harry is essentially guaranteed to outlive his damsels, how does that equal heartbreak for Hermione? As far as she's concerned, Harry will always be there.

 

[ConsiderableHat]

They do have companies though.

Harry had to buy out Hog's Haulage from it's shareholders, so there's definitely some understanding of corporations and the split in legal identity there.

Plus, it doesn't have to be something in place. I was suggesting it as something that maybe Hermione would come up with when she finds out about Betty, as a way of preventing this from happening again.

Click to shrink...

We see from an earlier passage that Hog's Haulage is known to the muggle world, as the trainspotting community takes umbrage with their choice of livery for their engines. Hog's Haulage starts out as a plc and gets dissolved and reincorporated as Hog's Haulage Ltd. Which tells us that Hog's Haulage is incorporated on the muggle side of things, under the Companies Acts 1985 and 1989 - in which the ltd/plc distinction is meaningful and important. Wizarding Britain just isn't big enough to support the kind of history of company promotion and publicly-traded equity that would make that distinction necessary.

The kind of corporation being suggested as a solution to the not-a-member-of-a-House problem is on the other side of the conflict-of-laws divide, where we thus far have no evidence, in canon or in this story, for any developed law of corporations. And a formal split that predates all but the most primitive joint-stock corporations, and those formed by private act of Parliament rather than by a general procedure under an over-arching Companies Act (which is a 19th Century development.)

The point I'm driving at is that to establish a corporate identity which would override company members capacity to enter in to contracts - which would go beyond the scope of a Companies Act limited company, come right to it - would have to be a legislative act on the wizarding side of things, and you'd have to get it past a legislature that is currently stacked with the kind of people who'd lose out by its creation.