Jancactus: Thanks. Much appreciated.
It is in times like these that I regret how poorly understood and used is the scrying arts of the past and the present rather than the focus that exists of the future.
Then again, my reading of Black Sky fanfic may have lead me to unusual uses of those 'fiddly' magical arts.
However, it is very likely that they don't exist within this 'verse, so I doubt Harry will be able to extract his pound of flesh from the Malfoys.
My bet is that he will instead back up a hunt of all the beneficiaries of magical slave labor, laws, and 'dignity' be damned. A true and first Shadowrun!
I will point out that scrying is well understood and used here, but you need something to scry against (eg. something to compare the information scrying is bringing in against to see if it's what you're looking for). Thus you need to have something sufficiently distinct
already in your possession before you can fill in the gaps with scrying.
There's a reason that all their leads ended up in
firebombed crime scenes; Narcissa's cleaner knew his business well. It's also the reason that Lockhart felt the need to burn all his stuff rather than leaving it behind where it might have been discovered by law enforcement.
not sure about that
Dumbledore is a truly great wizard and understands Harry's biology as much as anyone does while Voldemort had no clue what he was dealing with.
On the subject of Dumbledore v. Harry (not that that is ever likely to happen in this story):
Harry is undeniably stronger than Dumbledore both magically and (obviously) physically. That said, he is young and clumsy, and he really doesn't know how to fight properly.
Dumbledore, while not able to overcome Harry's near-immunity to magic through strength, is quite experienced and creative: case in point how he brought a mountainside down with masterful use of basic transfiguration and a fifth-year charm. He is also an alchemist. Killing Harry with secondary effects/situations brought about through magic is entirely possible.
I'd say, if for some reason it came up right now in-story, Dumbledore would have perhaps a 20-30% chance of killing Harry in a straight fight if he were fully committed to it. If he were reluctant to take lethal options, that chance would very rapidly approach nil. Killing an unsuspecting Harry from ambush would probably have more like a 60-70% success rate given what he knows of Harry's biology.
The way it was formed Silica Fume is much more likely than Fumed Silica, but given Harry did not start with anything close to pure materials (even assuming the rock was silica based) neither is at all likely. Pretty much any nano particle dust would behave similarly, the problem with the material is that given the random particle size that dust would be a severe health hazard.
The way I'm playing it (as in what the Gringotts survey team is going to find) is that the first dune or two is fumed silica because it was so hot that nothing but silica could condense there and it had a relatively long dwell time at temperature in order to form the larger agglomerate particles. The rest is a mix of fumed silica, silica fume, and a significant amount of contamination from K and Al silicates as well as other trace minerals farther out.
I love this story.
I have to say, i am not too pleased to see how timid hermoine is in this. I know she is a young child going through a traumatic experience but the hermoine is a fire brand and a great wizard in the making. I was expecting more indignation at the corruption of the system of government by wizards.
Also i live how hard dumbles has tried to fix the shot hole that is the wizard society. I truly respect him for sticking with his principles despite making it much harder for him to fix issues thats how you build institutional traditions and respect for laws. Look at the effect it has had on the arurors.
Two questions @Dunklezahn
I am writting a fanfic of a planes walker visiting different future versions of fanfics that that have their main story finished. So i wanted to request permission to use your version of shadow run.
Also releatad to that question, have you given any thoughts to the kind of future this setting will have ny the time 2070s come around. Like i would appreciate some advice what this setting would look like by then.
I imagine most the major players will be the same due to not being changed, buw what will the new players change. Will harry have his own megacorp focused on transportation and logistics due to his extensive contacts with harry porter wizards, along with rare earth minerals selling due to alchemy skills he will presumably teach.
Will wizard mind magic make involuntary extraction much more common. Will there be more organised metahumanity culture because goblins probably have the financial resources and such to help set it up along with ancient orzet culture.
Would appreciate any insight into the broad plans for the future of the setting.
Hermione in this situation is not only dealing with the terrible situation she narrowly avoided, but also with the knowledge that she, personally, killed a man. That's tough for her, and she really doesn't want to think about it too deeply, so she's subconsciously setting herself up to ignore it and by association, any topic that might bring it to mind. Harry isn't experienced enough to realize she really needs to be made to deal with it in order to set herself in order, and Suze can barely comprehend the idea that someone might be bothered by killing some bastard that was attacking her family. All that is going to have consequences down the line.
As for the information about the 2070s time frame, that is asking for some
ludicrously massive spoilers. I mean, Harry's not exactly a small fish in even
that sea; he'll have some very large effects, and relating those effects now will reveal a great deal about the future of the plot. That's without even pointing out that I still haven't revealed the third component of the fusion setting. Still, I suppose I'll see what I can do without revealing too much detail of the plot...
...and after about an hour of thinking, typing, editing, thinking some more, and re-typing, I realize that there is no way I am going to be able to pull that off. A brief synopsis is not going to work, and going into detail for some of the major changes in order to convey them properly is not only utterly spoilerific, but also more work that I'm up to for a simple forum post. If you want to include my setting in your work, feel free, but I'm just going to have to let you speculate from what is already available on this thread. I'd be interested to see what you come up with.
Though one thing I can tell you, if you're set in the 2070s, you should only write in past tense about
. It didn't survive the 2040s. That and Horrors should feature fairly prominently, having returned in force in the mid-late 2050s, although there is a reason (heavily tied into the plot) that they haven't yet overrun everything. That might give you an idea of some of the sweeping changes I've got in the works.
Dunkelzahn so i don't know if this has been asked before but how long do the various levels of Wizard live in your setting right now and when the Magic is getting stronger.
More magic you have, the longer you can live, and females tend to live longer than males of similar magical strength, particularly if they have given birth to children. Though the longer you last, the more abrupt the fall at the end.
For reference, Madam Marchbanks is a strong witch with many children, and she is 268 in story. She is unlikely to hit 300. A weak witch with a few children would be looking at 200, while the same witch with no children would be looking at 160 or so.
A wizard peer of Marchbanks might hit 200. By contrast, a weak wizard might be lucky to hit 150, and a freak of nature like Albus Dumbledore will likely still be going strong as Headmaster at 350, unless he decides to pursue other things, but he will likely not last past 400.
Additional magic in the environment will lead to slight increases in longevity, 30-50 years probably, barring extraordinary efforts to harness it for that purpose. Too much environmental magic, though, will lead to thaumotoxic shock and a thoroughly unpleasant death.
And if they decide to use the government to interfere, the other side is breaking laws, unless they can prove that Harry is after them and they haven't anything to do with it…
Lets see, prove it through veritaserum. First Question: did you support Voldemort by your own free will?, Second Question: Did you ever partake in the slave trade (after it became illegal) either as a trader or a customer?
I am certain someone can find a few more clear actions that are illegal, that Harry can claim are against him, that they need to disprove…
Veritaserum is one thing that I am changing, specifically the requirements for it to be reliable enough to be legally valid.
In this setting, veritaserum can be overcome by sufficient magical strength in combination with mental discipline. For this reason, veritaserum testimony is not permitted as evidence unless it is administered in such a way as to make such resistance impossible.
Since there is no way to ensure that someone does not have sufficient discipline, and the minimum threshold for magical strength is itself dependent on that mental discipline, the only way to ensure that veritaserum will function reliably as designed is to reduce the one providing testimony to a state of complete magical exhaustion, as measured by their unassisted healing rate. The only way of reliably doing that is decidedly unpleasant, involving as it does upwards of two weeks of enforced starvation, sleep deprivation, and daily deliberate and often severe injury, with the ultimate required time dependent on the initial strength of the witness.
There is a very good reason that veritaserum testimony cannot be legally compelled in this iteration of the wizarding world.
As for Harry's plans going forward, I am reluctant to give too much information, lest I interrupt the lively discussion of late, but I feel I ought to give a hint at this point: think less rampaging murder-beast and more "What can I do for you today, Mr. Johnson?"
