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Sirius Black SI--Ch 13 I Passed!! Part 1
🕑 Added 2023-01-29 13:07:29 +0000 UTCStanding in the middle of the clearing, Sirius had both of his hands raised with his wand hand moving in circles and curves, and his mouth was constantly chanting in an unfamiliar tongue while constant pulses of magic went out of his wand toward a thin semicircular ward around him.
His forehead was wet with sweat and his eyes were bulging from concentration as he completely focused on finishing the ward this time, but just when he was feeling hopeful about his situation, his attentiveness slipped for just a moment, but that was enough and the magic thoroughly unraveled in front of him.
"Ah... Not again...Ugh!"
Sirius fell on his back with an exhausted sigh, he had failed to recreate the ward for the 5th time. And it seemed that no matter how hard he tried it was almost impossible for him to complete this ward in just a couple of tries.
It took Sirius about 6 hours of half-grim form enhanced occlumency to read and comprehend all the stuff inside the books Beth gave. Of course, he took breaks in between every hour but still the second he recovered he went right back to reading, and after all that he had been very happy about being able to completely understand the content inside.
So he happily utilized the knowledge gained to try all the spells mentioned in the books, from how to detect a ward to how to create your first basic ward to how to combine them, he tried every single spell, and while it took quite a few tries for him to successfully execute them he was able to do it.
Then he tried the spell that would actually be helping him achieve his objective given by Beth. It was a duplication spell that helped a wizard copy a preexisting ward and create a similar one in a matter of hours depending on his proficiency.
He thought that it would be very easy for him to do it as he had been very successful so far with the use of his enhanced occlumency but his complacency was shattered after the very first try.
The first component of the magic was a detection spell that created an imaginary structure of the original ward inside the user's head. After that step is completed the user needed to actually create the ward while constantly checking with the original design inside his mind.
While he was able to do the first step easily when it came to the second one a big flaw of his enhanced occlumency presented itself. A normal expert would have to spend at least about 5 hours to copy the ward around Sirius. And even if he used his enhanced state Sirius estimated that he would still have to spend about 1 hour 30 minutes of his full concentration for him to complete it.
But the thing is Sirius could only maintain that state for about an hour before he completely exhausted his mental strength and had to take a break to recover it. No matter what Sirius tried he wasn't able to complete recreating the ward in under an hour and the moment he came out of his EO (Enhanced Occlumency) state, his work unraveled in front of him.
And while with each try his proficiency increased and he was able to do just a bit more under the hour, but it was too slow as even after 5 tries worth about 6 hours he was only able to improve from 70% completion to 75%, which meant he would have to spend about 24 more hours if he went at this rate, which was too much as the ward around him had already shrunk by quite a bit and he didn't think it would last till then.
The thing is, the book actually mentioned that you are supposed to use a ward stone while using the copy spell, which would make the process a lot easier as you could etch the ward in parts while taking ample breaks in between. But sadly he didn't have any ward stone conveniently lying around so he had to use the method that required him to complete it all at once without a single leeway for mistakes, making it many times harder.
And he didn't think he wanted to be here 24 hours later, as more than 12 hours had already passed since he opened his eyes in this clearing, and he was already hungry enough that his concentration had already started to decline, he didn't want to find out how it would feel if he stayed for that long without eating.
Of course, he could call Kreacher and have him deliver some food or escape using his animagus form but that would feel too much like he had admitted defeat and was giving up so he kept those as the very last resort. Besides he had a nagging suspicion that Beth had taken his ability, to call a house-elf, into account while creating the ward so it may not even work in the end.
"WHoo..." Bored out of his mind while waiting for his mental strength to recover, Sirius started whistling music from his previous life to pass time.
It was while he was doing that, that he accidentally touched a bump in his pocket which was the mirror he always kept with himself. Trying to find something to take his mind off, he took it out of his pocket.
