Aeternum: Group Chat

Chapter 26: Information Dimension

Hermione had been bouncing her feet a little as she listened to Harry talk about the important information of the investigation. She already knew it, but hearing it once more wasn't bad, especially since they had already started. Harry had to ask her to sit on one of the sofas in the room of requirements. And, in front of them, there was a huge blackboard with several pieces of chalk to write with.

Harry drew an object in the center and then an arrow pointing to the right, where there was another object. This represented the transformation in a transfiguration spell. No matter what the object and its transformation were, they wanted to find out how a transformation was possible and how it returned to what it was before it. The amount of magic or difficulty of a transformation was something more secondary, and something they could focus on later, when the first mystery was solved.

"Now...", Harry inhaled a little as he finished reviewing the information, "Hermione, you said that magical particles could have 'memories'. That was a surprising idea, but you've thought beyond that."

"Because if this is possible, then there has to be a way for these memories to be stimulated or allow the transformation of something."

"Honestly Harry, I hadn't thought beyond that. At the time I was simply giving an idea," Hermione said seriously before standing up and taking a piece of chalk and drawing a wand over the first drawing of the object, "However, a few days ago, in classes on ancient runes and arithmancy, something occurred to me."

"In runes, you wouldn't always need just one rune for something. Sometimes, you would need several of them. But if you want a certain more complicated effect, you would need the correct positioning and runes to trigger the effect."

"You probably know this, but Ancient Runes is nothing more than a theoretical course. They can teach you how they work or "What do the runes mean, but not to write them somewhere and create fantastic things like explosions?"

"But... what if the magic particles responded to certain movements or words?", Hermione tapped her wand drawing twice with the chalk.

"Are you talking about the movement and incantation for a respective spell having an effect on the magic particles? Specifically in triggering these memories?", Harry asked with interest.

"Yes...", Hermione nodded. "This would also have a relation with silent magic, where it is more difficult to cast the spells. The incantation and movement of the wand would help in the connection of our body and its energy with the magic particles, even also as a small method of self-hypnosis to obtain a greater concentration. But if you don't cast magic with it, you would have to use greater will and effort to have even a little manipulation on the magic particles."

Harry nodded while having his eyes closed and his fingers on his chin, thinking for a bit.

"Are you okay with this?" Hermione asked curiously, especially seeing Harry's pensive face.

"Oh... yes, it does make sense, actually," Harry nodded with a small smile. "It's just that... 'I remember'... I don't think it's just that."

"What do you think?"

"Well...", Harry began slowly. "The word memory has a definition of: Image or set of images of past events or situations that remain in the mind. Magic particles, I don't think, have a mind."

"Also, by concentrating too much on memories, we could be staying in only a small part of the question and not being able to discover much. Because, although magic particles could allow what you say, they would have to have a capacity to 'remember' that is simply enormous, if not infinite."

Hermione looked up a little before nodding: "You're right... with so many people using magic, then it wouldn't be possible to use magic and/or spells that are old. By using the same spell so many times, the oldest ones would be lost from the 'memories', leaving only the most recent ones."

"There has to be something...", Hermione said quietly. "Something that, at the same time, allows magic in the present to remember the past from a second ago to many years ago"

Hermione took a deep breath as she understood that, she was excited, but at the same time worried, and she also saw that kind of concern in Harry's expression. She was not stupid, much less Harry. If there was something that allowed the past to be saved as if it were a hard drive, then would there be a possibility of a relationship with the future? Perhaps the possibility was small, even zero, but they could not simply let this kind of thing go by.

"If this is as we thought, then there is a possibility that there is a dimension for this. A dimension that exists alongside us and is related to magic particles"

Hermione blinked a little at Harry's words, but even if it sounded a little crazy, it was logical. Many thought of space or different worlds when talking about dimensions. But, a dimension was a size or extension of a thing, in one or several magnitudes, by which it occupies more or less space. Or put a little more differently: A magnitude that, along with others, serves to define a physical phenomenon; especially, magnitude or magnitudes that are considered in space to determine the size of things.

Hermione felt the 'lightbulb' go off above her head before she began to write on the board. Harry looked at her and tilted his head slightly to the side before smiling. What Hermione was writing could be parts of the dimension they were discovering: Direction, Location, Ownership, Meaning, Time, Transport, and Visualization.

"Hermione, add renewability as well. Over time, new spells and/or actions are created, so the information dimension could have renewability."

Hermione paused for a moment before nodding and writing that down.

At the moment, Harry and Hermione had nothing more than vague ideas of what these things could be, but just by thinking about it a little, they knew that this made sense. Direction didn't just have to do with where you directed a spell, but also where you were. If this were not the case, then a spell could be fired in any direction. This also had to do with location, that is, the geo-location or position from which the information is accessed. For example, a wizard is standing in one place, therefore you would access the magic particles around you to cast a spell, which would also be affected by the direction of the information dimension.

The property had to do with the magic you used: transformations would take part of the magic particles to transform something before they are expelled from the object/person when the transformation ends. It was the only thing they had at the moment, but it probably also has to do with all the magic cast.

Meaning, was what Harry and Hermione thought, had to do with how the information was found through the magic particles, and also related to the connection of the soul, spiritual energy and magic particles to think of a spell and find it, to give it meaning with an incantation and wand movement and its respective effect.

Time was mostly the ability of this dimension of information to store the past of things and magic, in the magical particles of the environment.

Renewability was the ability of this dimension to be renewable or updated with more information every second. No, perhaps less than a second.

Transport would be the possibility of magical particles transporting this information to make magic possible.

However, Hermione left the visualization blank, for the simple reason that she had no idea what it could be. She wrote it down because she thought it was necessary. If all of the above was possible, then there should be something that makes it visible, at least in part of the whole.

"Hermione... that's the lightning," Harry told her.

"Huh?... The lightning?" She tilted her head in bewilderment.

Harry just nodded before answering, "Magical particles are in the environment, Hermione. But at the same time, they are almost invisible. The only form of visibility you could have are two things and a third that is just theory in my head."

"The second is a method of perception when you reach a suitable level of sensitivity to energy and environment. Only then would you be able to see magical particles. The third and my theory, which occurred to me only a few minutes ago, is to combine this previous sensitivity and somehow connect it to this thing we call the information dimension, that way you could see the information of this dimension."

Hermione blinked again, but nodded anyway, understanding the basics of Harry's theory.

"But... What is the first form of visibility?... You skipped it."

"Photons," Harry replied.

"Uh...", Hermione muttered a little bewildered.

"Just think about it for a moment. The magical particles that are in the environment should also interact with the other things that are there. By using our spiritual energy and the magical particles, they should leave something that throws these lights from our wands. And the only possible thing would be photons."

Harry sighed a little, because if he hadn't read some muggle science during the Christmas holidays, he wouldn't be able to come to this kind of conclusion.

"But we can't tell that to others... the magical world isn't aware of these things," Hermione, surprisingly, groaned a little.

"You're right... but we both know that we can't publish everything. We'll have to do it with what's important for people to understand. We don't want to give too dangerous ideas to others."

Hermione nodded strongly.

. . .

Harry smiled as he looked at the board almost filled with information and theories that they had been throwing around and discarding after thinking about each one. However, they had gotten very close to what they thought was actually the dimension of information. The first thing they thought of, was actually the most logical of all the ideas.

Harry sighed and looked to his side, seeing Hermione asleep on the couch. Hours had passed and she felt tired, so he let her sleep. But now it was getting late, and even if it was a weekend, the curfew still existed. So, he woke her up after he took a picture of the board with his phone and they left the room of requirements to go to the common room.

"Hermione... go by yourself, I have something to do that I just remembered"

"Well... but be careful with the curfew. You don't want the teachers to find you," Hermione just nodded as she rubbed her eyes, still sleepy. Harry just nodded before walking to the headmaster's office, where he told the gargoyle the password.

When he entered he was greeted by the headmaster with a small smile and, surprisingly, Severus Snape. Harry remembered that the man hadn't bothered him lately. In fact, their current relationship could simply be considered neutral.

"Do you need anything, Harry?"

"Well... actually yes," Harry nodded. "I wanted to know if it was possible to take my OWLs within this year or in the holidays."

Dumbledore blinked and Snape frowned. They were both a bit surprised and showed it in different ways. However, even if one of them found him a bit early, it wasn't an absurd thing. With Harry's current knowledge and performance, it was possible for him to take his OWLs early, especially since said tests would only be at the beginning of next year, for fifth year students. If Harry took them, he would only be months ahead of others, perhaps a year.

"May I know the reason for your decision?" Dumbledore asked seriously.

Harry nodded, "I don't feel comfortable being so far ahead in my studies. During classes, I feel listless because I already know what the professor is teaching. I don't have healthy competition with other students and I don't feel like I'm making any progress in classes."

"In short, I feel stuck," Harry finished with a small, annoyed sigh.

Dumbledore nodded and thought for a moment before looking at Snape.

"Could you leave us alone for a few minutes, Severus?"

Snape looked at the headmaster and then at Harry for a few moments, finally just nodding and silently leaving. When the door closed, Dumbledore let out a slightly tired sigh.

"Harry... were you by any chance able to create that thing we talked about on the roof just now?"

Harry knew what he was referring to, so he decided to get straight to the point.

"Just now, you were referring to objects with a soul inside, right? Objects that anchor a person's soul to this plane. And yes, I've already gotten rid of two of them, three if we count Riddle's diary."

Dumbledore opened his eyes in a bit of surprise and fear.

"How... do you know about these objects?" he asked cautiously.

"I found one here at Hogwarts. I think it was Ravenclaw's diadem. At that point I went down to the Chamber of Secrets and destroyed it with a dead basilisk's fang, the same way I destroyed the diary."

"The other one I destroyed with the magic I created, and it was on my scar."

Dumbledore closed his eyes tightly before speaking, "I'm sorry for keeping you in the dark about this, Harry. But I really didn't want to raise empty hopes about the thing in your scar."

"And it seems I'm already old... I can't believe I let the basilisk's fangs into the Chamber of Secrets."

Harry frowned a little, but he wasn't angry. In fact, he understood Albus Dumbledore a little. Before the chat group thing happened, he was more naive and in fact, he barely had the power to defend himself. What would a child like that do if he was told that he had a part of Voldemort inside him? Harry wouldn't know what would have happened at that moment. Even having read the books that contained his life and a possible future, things could have been different if Dumbledore had told him much earlier about the Horcrux in his scar. And, while he could have prepared himself, there was also the possibility that he would fall into despair and simply do things without taking into account the consequences.

"Do you know of another object that has part of Riddle's soul in it?" Harry asked curiously.

Dumbledore slowly shook his head: "While I might know of one, I think Tom might have created others."

Harry knew how many there were and what they were, but he didn't say anything; he had destroyed Ravenclaw's diadem, the diary and also the one in his scar. Those would add up to a total of three, so there were four left: Salazar Slytherin's locket, Nagini, Helga Hufflepuff's cup and the Gaunt ring, where the resurrection stone was also.

Dumbledore sighed and looked at Harry.

"I will make preparations for your test, you will take them a week before the final test of the tournament. Is that okay with you, Harry?"

"Yes...", Harry nodded. "But I would like to talk about something else."

"What would that be?", Dumbledore asked a little tiredly.

"Of course, about preparations that need to be made before the final of the tournament," Harry smiled showing his teeth while his eyes sparkled with amusement and a little cruelty.

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