The Muggle's Rebirth

"Peep-peep!" I woke up to Dorothea poking my cheek with her finger, "Peep!"

"Yes, I'm glad to see you too," I smiled and yawned. Despite sleeping much longer than usual, judging by the fact that mom was already clattering pots in the kitchen.

"Pee-pee!" She poked herself in the chest.

"I see that you've changed and I like how you look."

"Pee-pee! Peepeepeepee!" The girl started crying and began complaining to me, "Peepee-peepee!"

"It was painful and scary for me too, sorry," I hugged Dorothea, stroking her back and listening to complaints about bad me. The teacher was right after all - I had relaxed too much in these twelve years. 

And there was good reason for it — I had become stronger, no dangerous events happened to me, and twelve years had passed since I died in that previous life where I was a weak and helpless person. No one was weaving intrigues around me, no one was in a hurry to deceive me, so I relaxed in my comfort zone. 

On the other hand, well, how would I have checked the nymph? Would I have forced her to give me an unbreakable vow? Not funny. Not only do the truly powerful of this world extremely dislike obligations and vows, but essentially they offered me a free extremely powerful ritual, and here I am still being difficult. 

So the only option was to refuse and then watch Pixie die, "How are you now? Nothing hurts?"

"Peepee," she answered me, and I wiped her tears with my hands.

"Well, that's good. Let's go downstairs and eat," Going downstairs, we saw Phineas already sitting on the terrace, who to my surprise was drinking coffee. 

On the table next to him stood plates with scrambled eggs and pancakes under stasis - mom had prepared and left them for us, while she and Ludwig had to go to work at Beauxbatons.

"Teacher, didn't you sleep all night?" Coming closer, I sniffed and realized there was also an invigorating potion in the coffee.

"It's all your apples' fault. Giuliano got so excited that he wouldn't let me go until he brewed potions for you," Black grimaced, pulling out a whole battery of bottles from his bag, "He was afraid that such an important ingredient supplier might suddenly disappear or take offense."

"And how did he manage to finish in time?" I asked with interest, taking a bottle of "soul decoction" in my hand, which takes three months to brew.

"He used ready-made ones - he's accumulated huge stocks over years of practice. And for a master of his level, it's nothing to add a new ingredient, especially such a universal one as your apples. Giuliano said they're amazingly neutral and universal. 

Though their power will still be weaker than if brewed immediately with their use," Taking a sip of the night-black drink with the smell of wormwood from the potion, he grimaced and continued, "However, he promised that in the near future he'll brew what's missing or use his connections and find it among other alchemists."

"Yeah, I underestimated my invention if a whole master is running around just to not lose my ingredient."

"You apparently don't understand, student, the pricing system for potions. A potion that's five percent better, cleaner and less toxic can cost twice as much. Simply because often a seriously ill and exhausted wizard won't be able to pour down a cauldron of potion — he'll have severe intoxication and the treatment will be worse than the disease. 

Giuliano will recoup his work and costs several times over on those two kilos of apples you gave me. Well, whatever, why are you standing? Sit down and eat," We followed this wise advice, and I was glad that I had taught the fairy to eat with a knife and fork, not with her hands. Because otherwise I would have had to do it from scratch, "So your Pixie woke up?"

"Dorothea. Her name is Dorothea now — after all, she's no longer a fairy," Having satisfied my first hunger, I answered and asked the girl herself, "You don't mind, do you? If anything, we can return the old name or come up with another."

"Pee-peepee!" she exclaimed quite emotionally and worriedly, grabbing my hand.

"If you like it, you like it," I smiled, receiving the full set of feelings and thoughts transmitted by the familiar. She liked the name, but not because it was beautiful, but because I gave it to her.

"God's gift? Yes, such a name suits her. By the way, what are you going to do with her?" Black asked with interest.

"In what sense?"

"You must understand that intelligent familiars are rare among modern wizards, and intelligent and humanoid familiars can generally be counted on the fingers of one hand. So essentially, you have two choices. 

Either register her as your familiar and thereby attract considerable attention from interested parties who will dig deeper. Or register her as an independent person."

"Then the question arises, why should she always be with me? And at Beauxbatons with their separate housing, it will be even harder to explain," I thought about the issue of Dorothea's legalization.

"I don't see a problem. Announce that you're engaged to her and all questions will disappear. They'll even give you a family room."

"Is that really possible?" I was surprised.

"In the magical world, where children are often betrothed almost from infancy and bound by rituals — quite so. By the time of the actual wedding, the stage of adjustment and adaptation to each other is already over. And if not, the engagement can be broken," the teacher explained, leaning back in his chair.

"Hmm, and Dorothea's appearance itself can be explained the same way as to my mother - a refugee from England. They register them there, but don't really count them. The devil himself would break his leg in their bureaucracy. Or we could say she's from an independent, 'wild' coven, which there are plenty of around the world, right?"

"There, you understand it yourself, and I'll help with legalization by adopting her retroactively. They consider me a Muggle-lover and eccentric anyway, so they won't pay attention to this," Generally, wizards have only one identifying tool — their magic wand. 

However, one shouldn't think that bureaucracy hasn't reached them either, since no one will give you access to the family vault without confirming identity by blood, aura, or other means. It's just that all this usually happens unnoticed by the wizard himself, so Muggle-born think there's no accounting in the magical world, it's chaos and general disorder. 

But that's not so, especially regarding magical creatures whose abilities or features can easily violate the Statute of Secrecy.

I thought both options had their significant pros and cons. On one hand, registering Dorothea as a familiar was the most obvious and simple option — no fuss with legend and legalization. Moreover, there would be no problem finding a partner, since familiars aren't considered one at all. 

However, other problems arise - attracting attention, as Black said, and the problem with owning a magic wand, since familiars don't have the right to possess one.

On the other hand, the more complex option with legalization, which if exposed in the future, could bring many problems. And it will bring them now because an engaged guy loses 90 percent of interest from the female gender. 

No, it's even easier to start an affair for some reason, taken guys attract girls more in this regard, but you shouldn't count on anything serious. And I would still like to start a family in the future.

"Dorothea," I decided to ask the main interested party, who was swinging her legs under the table and eating a cookie with a satisfied face, "What do you want to be — my familiar or my bride?"

"Pee-pee!" She perked up.

"Are you sure?"

"Pee!" She rushed to hug me.

"Well, what did you decide?" Black asked us.

"We'll do as Dorothea decided," I waved my hand, "Register her as my bride. I already went the 'easy' path once, I don't want to anymore. Besides, an engagement can be broken at any moment."

"We'll also need to ask your mother's permission, but since we've decided on this, then the next problem. You can't practice magic now, you're not in that condition, and you won't get far on theory alone. 

So I suggest you work on your masterpiece. You'll also learn to work with rituals powered by accumulators or background. Especially since it's somehow too elevated in your coven thanks to your apple trees."

"I don't mind — sitting and doing nothing isn't for me," I shrugged, resigned to Dorothea's hugs. She was used to hugging me in fairy form and didn't get rid of this habit after her metamorphosis, "By the way, what do you think about my rings with interchangeable stones — should we produce them ourselves or sell patents?"

"Hmm," now it was Black's turn to think for a long time, "If you embed ordinary spells, then it's easier to sell patents. But if Sumerian ones, then they should remain your family secret, since none of the currently known living can work directly with aura to embed spells. Especially keep the death shroud secret."

"I know that myself, teacher," Death shroud — an attempt by ancient wizards to create protection against the black death spell - irresistible charms that knock the soul out of the body and prevent subsequent resurrection of the victim. An unsuccessful attempt, let's say. 

Just as Avada is not quite a successful attempt to reproduce one of the strongest spells of death magic with a magic wand. So, the death shroud doesn't protect against black death, but reflects Avada. For a moment, the most forbidden and unforgivable modern spell of death magic, for one use of which they put you in prison. 

If the masses learn about this, they'll either torture me to find out the secret of these spells, or the dark wizards themselves will finish me off so that no one learns about it.

"Here's the list and regimen for taking magical potions," with a wave of his hand, a sheet of parchment appeared on the table, "I also wrote what you can do and eat, and what you can't."

"Thank you, teacher, I'll never forget your kindness," I bowed to Phineas.

"Don't forget, the smarter and stronger you are, the greater my pride and glory. Besides, you promised to fulfill my difficult request, though you weren't obligated to. This is the least I can do for my student," And most interestingly, he didn't take any oaths from me. 

Generally, not only gods and spirits don't like them — in wizard society, magical oaths are only taken from enemies or those who aren't trusted at all. Demanding an oath is for many akin to the strongest insult, for which you can be challenged to a duel, "Okay, I'll go take care of your familiar. Though considering your connection, it's still a question who's whose familiar."

"Pee?" Dorothea tilted her head and looked at me questioningly.

"The teacher was joking, don't pay attention," And I thought hard, taking the parchment with potion instructions in my hand, but couldn't read a single letter because of extra thoughts, "He was joking, right?"

***

What are spirits of mind and what do you eat them with? These are spirits that live on one of the other planes. Just as there are spirits of flame, water, air, lightning, and hell knows what else, there are also spirits that live in the plane of mind. 

They're distinguished by enhanced mental and intellectual abilities and are divided into three conditional castes. Lower spirits are weak and primitive - they arise and die by the billions from fluctuations of mental energy. Some of them develop to almost human level and become middle-level spirits, but most perish and new ones arise from their remains.

Middle spirits already develop to human level, though this isn't quite accurate, since in calculation speed they still surpass humans, as they don't need a physical carrier for the thought process. Higher-rank spirits are monsters that equal or surpass an archmage of mind magic. 

Maybe there are also gods of mind or more correctly Chthonics, but nothing was written about them. Generally, Sumerians didn't often use mind spirits, since they're not helpers in battle, don't produce mana - in most cases, the same Loa coped no worse, or even better.

However, in my case, they're just ideal - undemanding, develop quickly, and seem created just for calculations. The main problem was calculating connection chains, power supply, accumulators, general architecture, and form factor. 

I started with the general scheme, choosing a hierarchical connection model. That is, a person connects not to all spirits at once using a mental artifact, but to one main one, which already distributes received tasks — one cluster breaks down the task to others, several others execute it, another outputs the ready result in illusory form or on paper, and so on.

Each cluster will also have its own leaders — the main thing is not to overdo it and not make it so that there are more command spirits than executing ones, but also not allow overloading the command ones, maintain balance. 

Books on programming, microprocessor design, and computer architecture in general that I ordered in advance helped me with this, as well as wizard folios on creating house and record keepers from Lerach's records on this topic, including Kozebu's flying houses. 

True, everywhere they used either one strong spirit that was fed magical energy or sacrifices, or an enemy's soul imprisoned in obsidian, but I gleaned some points for myself.

With ordinary people's books, I had to try harder, and turning on mind acceleration, I began absorbing the granite of science, surrounding myself with reference books, since there were too many specific terms and new words.

"Son, I'm home?" came from below.

"Peepee-pee?" Dorothea asked me. After taking potions, I could at least mentally start communicating with her. By the way, interestingly, the potions were tasty, and this is another sign of a real master, since changing taste without losing effect is quite difficult. 

Why is this needed at all? Well, if a person needs to drink a potion once, there's no need to overpay for taste. But if you need to go through a course, then the trial by taste of vomit and worn fungal socks can disgust anyone.

"That's mom coming home, ma-ma."

"Ma...pee!" my familiar expressed herself.

"Oh, my little sorrow, let's go downstairs and greet her," I said, putting a bookmark in the book and going downstairs, "Yes mom, I'm home! And I have news for you!"

"So Mr. Black sort of adopts Dorothea, and you get engaged to her? And you need my permission?" Enlarging shopping bags, Ariel asked me when I told her what Phineas and I had preliminarily decided, "Is this really necessary?"

"Well, how do you imagine registering her as a familiar? She looks like a veela and is also determined by spells. As if I took an ordinary girl into slavery!"

"Pee?"

"I know you're not an ordinary girl, I just said it in passing. And learn to speak already," I said tiredly. I'm not even talking about the fact that humanoid familiars are only found among old and powerful wizards, which will attract excessive attention to my person.

"What about your connection?" mom asked, putting groceries in the stasis chamber, "What about our connection? My teacher himself admitted it's more like a marriage one."

"Hmm, well then I don't mind. Welcome to the family, little one," she began squeezing Dorothea.

"Peepee-pee," she protested.

"When you say it normally, then they'll let you go," I decided to give her motivation.

"Pee-pee, let go!" Ariel caught a fit of tenderness and my familiar had a hard time. I had to call fire on myself, and since I can't apparate, I had to experience in full all the unspent maternal love.

So the remaining week passed in taking potions, working out the scheme of my masterpiece, teaching Dorothea to speak, and preparing for the future wedding, which they decided to combine with the official engagement of Arthur Marlow and Dorothea Black.

***

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Thank you for the help with the power stones!!!