Chapter 127: Pathway Repair, Loan Repaid
Moonlight bathed the Forbidden Forest.
Aurelius drifted down on a pale yellow bank of cloud. The jade bowl resting on it settled gently on Leonardo's workbench.
"Master, will this do?"
At his words, Leonardo glanced at the dowl. On the surface of the silver‑white blood, blue round specks had risen, all uncannily uniform in size, swaying slowly in the liquid.
"Yes. Good."
A tap of the wand measured exactly five hundred milliliters of blood, no more and no less, and sent it floating into the cauldron.
By the recipe, Leonardo dropped in each prepared ingredient with precision.
He took the Philosopher's Stone in hand and drew a steadying breath.
He had practiced brewing with the Stone under Dumbledore's eye, but never to the finish.
He looked toward the unicorn foal. In the Peeking Fiend's Eye, its magical pathways had dimmed again.
The normal process would not be fast enough. He had to use the Stone.
At times, he let the Stone hover above the cauldron to turn falling moonlight to a soft red glow and pour it into the brew.
At times, he plunged the Stone into the cauldron, let it churn for a set count, then drew it out on the beat.
At times, he set the Stone amid the flames to change their nature and their color.
Leonardo worked through the Moon‑Soul Water in order, tight but unflinching.
The Stone was saving him time, but there was no rushing the steps. A single error could dull the brew at best and ruin it or twist it to poison at worst.
Time ebbed.
[ Ding, Qilin (annual) repaid ]
The chime let him loose a long breath.
The Qilin (annual) loan's task had been to brew a potion with the Philosopher's Stone. It had not specified which potion, only that it must be brewed fully and successfully.
"It is done."
He looked into the cauldron at the clear liquid, blue‑white and bright, and tested it once more against the description. It matched to the last word.
He bottled the Moon‑Soul Water and strode to Newt.
Newt worked to keep Seleneia and her foal alive. The mare, full‑grown and powerful, had steadied with help from every side. Only the last of the composite poison remained to clear.
Dumbledore's chain of antidotes, varied and delicate, was nearing its end.
The foal's condition worsened. Its thin cry, weak to begin with, was breaking to pieces.
"Mr Scamander. Let me."
Leonardo took the foal from Newt with care.
Feeling the child's low body heat, he did not hesitate and tipped the Moon‑Soul Water into its mouth.
"It is all right. It is all right."
He patted the trembling body and tried to soothe fear and pain.
The brew was taking hold. The tremors eased. The breathing, which had been racing and dragging by turns, grew even.
It worked. Calm for the body and rest for the soul.
The vortices in Leonardo's eyes spun faster. He traced the unicorn's pathways with care.
Yes. The pathways had been fixed in place.
Time for the next step.
He raised his wand and leveled the tip at the foal's back, near the flank. That was where the sever was worst.
A strained sound, thin with pain, reached him. He turned to Seleneia.
She strained to lift her neck and stand. The motion split many of her wounds again, and silver‑white blood beaded and fell.
Newt tried to soothe her still, but it did no good.
At last, she forced herself to her feet and fixed her eyes on Leonardo, on her child.
In that gaze, he saw a human clarity of fear and pleading. He spoke softly. "It will be all right. The child will be all right."
He did not need Aurelius to carry the words. Seleneia seemed to understand. Her legs shook, but she stood quietly.
As Leonardo set his will to the next step of Magical Pathway Weavecraft, Dumbledore finished the last of the needed draughts, came to Seleneia's side, and took a long look at Leonardo.
He split the potions and passed a share to Newt and set out the method.
With Dumbledore and Newt working together to cleanse Seleneia, Leonardo could let that go.
He lifted the silver‑black wand. Hairs‑fine threads of magic drew from the tip.
The second step of Weavecraft was to break the creature's original pathways. Leonardo did not need that. He was here to repair.
Next, his magic would disguise itself as a part of the pathway.
Perhaps this would be the key to trying magical‑creature transfiguration. If he could mimic and disguise, perhaps he could also—
Create.
He tuned the magic again. The hair‑fine threads split once more at their tips, finer and finer.
Dumbledore's beard stirred. He was startled by Leonardo's leap, and yet somehow it felt right. Nothing this boy achieved could surprise him anymore.
Leonardo sent the threads beneath the foal's skin, between lattices of muscle, to the place where the pathways had been fixed.
Transfigure.
A healthy unicorn's pathways made a closed circle, magic coursing without end.
This foal's circle, in places, was snapped and dark, like strings torn from a harp.
The current could not all make the turn. Most of it bled away into the body's quiet.
Leonardo held his breath and fixed every sense upon the threads.
"Simulate. Disguise."
For most witches and wizards, it would have been a tale from a madman.
Leonardo's gift for Transfiguration, however, showed itself whole.
By Weavecraft's map, he drove a single thread to the edge of the break and began the most minute work of reshaping.
His magic at the tip twisted and rebuilt itself in delicate steps.
Bit by bit, it simulated the unicorn's mark upon magic, pure and stainless.
It was brutally hard, like threading a needle in a gale. Precision and control beyond reason were required.
Sweat stood on his brow. His arm trembled with focus.
The reshaped thread, a makeshift chain, settled with care across the two ends of the broken circle.
A trickle of unicorn magic tested the chain and crept along it like a rill.
The instant the current passed the gap and flowed into the far side of the circle, joy lit Leonardo's eyes.
It could be done.
He began to reshape more threads.
More chains spanned the break, laying out a narrow riverbed.
The foal's scattered magic flowed slowly through this unfamiliar channel.
Under Leonardo's steady guiding and shaping, the current strengthened.
More wondrous still, the foal's life seemed to quicken to the flow and, along the reopened course, nourish and shore it.
"Aurelius. One more drop."
At his master's call, Aurelius did not hesitate. The wound at his flank had closed long ago. He bit the tip of his tongue and let a single gold‑red bead rise on a tuft of cloud to Leonardo's hand.
Leonardo drew a single filament from the Qilin's blood. The gold‑red thread slipped down the cut along the foal's back.
At once, he "saw" a newborn vine of a pathway take shape in the gap, slender and firm, shining with a clean light.
He withdrew his threads, a measure at a time. The tender span held. Leonardo let out a breath.
Continue.
He shifted his angle and set to the lesser injuries along the circle.
These went faster. They were lighter than the first gap, and he was growing sure in the method.
Moonlight slid on. Leonardo's magic ran down and down. When it was nearly gone—
[ Ding, Pathway Expansion Stele (monthly) repaid ]
[ Congratulations to the Host for witnessing the memorable birth of life ]