Chapter 29: Recon, and The First Customer

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It took Quinn a week to complete the makeover of the office and the workshop. He had touched up everything that he could find. Waxed the floors, paint the walls, put paintings and knick-knacks in the office, some plants to make everything look presentable.

After completion of the decoration, Quinn began his first major project. Quinn was going to recreate the Marauder's map for his own purposes. The Marauder's map was a document that revealed all the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: not only did it show every classroom, hallway, and corner of the castle, but it also showed every inch of the grounds, as well as all the secret passages that were hidden within its walls.

The most noteworthy feature of the Marauder's map was its ability to track people's positions within its range. The map could also accurately identify each person and was not fooled by animagi, Polyjuice Potions, or invisibility cloaks; even the Hogwarts ghosts were not exempt.

In the workshop part of his classroom, Quinn stood in front of the center island with his hand folded. "The Marauder's map is created from the use of Homonculous charm, enabling the possessor of the map to track the movements of every person in the castle."

Quinn unfolded his hands and picked up a fountain pen, and scribbled notes on a sheet of paper. Quinn wasn't going to use the Homonculous charm to create the map; Quinn decided he would use runes and runic magic to build his version.

"Let's begin from the start," Quinn said while walking to one of the drawers in the workshop and removed a 60 cm X 40 cm (23 inches X 15 inches) piece of off-white fabric from the drawer.

"Note: Base; I am going to use cloth in place of parchment for the base of the map," Quinn said as he placed the fabric on the table and wrote the observation in his notes. "Parchment or paper would be much more fragile than cloth fabric. Parchment is more susceptible to wear and tear than cloth; therefore, it is the better choice for the base of my map."

"Next step is to prepare the fabric for runic magic. I need to create a solution to soak the cloth in it to enable the fabric to house the runes and sustain the flow of magic," Quinn noted and took out a book from his bookbag. The book that Quinn took out was a text on preparing various materials to enable runic magic. He flipped the pages to reach the chapter on cloth fabric and noted the potion/solution recipe in his project notes.

"The base recipe for the solution has been established. The subsequent step would be to research the ingredients and steps in the recipe and try to improve and optimize the recipe for my project." Runic magic required the surface on which the runes were drawn to be prepared, and this where potion brewing came into place. Quinn was also going to take this chance to improve the potion/solution recipe for future uses.

The next stage of the project was to draw a plan for designing the rune cluster and rune layers for the map's working. Unlike Marauder's map, Quinn was going to use runes, and he needed to draw schematics for the runes that would go into the map.

"I am going to use two systems of runes, Elder Futhark and Japanese system's Kanji," noted Quinn as he thought about the system of runes he was going to follow. Traditionally, using a minimum number of languages/systems while using runic magic was the best practice; too many languages caused heterogeneity in the rune cluster, which didn't sit well in runic magic.

Quinn's idea behind using Elder Futhark and Kanji was rather simple. Not all languages had the same connection with magic; different languages had different connections with magic. Some had a powerful connection with magic and channeled magic with ease. Others held the advantage of flexibility in use, and using them would provide a variety of options.

Over that, not all languages were connected with magic. For example, Tamil was the oldest language in the world, but it had no connection to magic. You couldn't use Tamil in runic magic. The same went for English; even though English had its roots in magical language, but it had no magical capabilities.

Out of all runic languages Quinn was comfortable using, Elder Futhark had the deepest connection with magic, so Quinn chose to build his map based on Elder Futhark as it would provide the map a deep connection with magic. Kanji, on the other hand, was a language with the flexibility of options. Quinn required an amount of flexibility for something like the map. The problem faced was how to integrate these two runic languages together so they could work in harmony.

"Note: Work out the arithmancy needed for Elder Futhark and Kanji to work together. By the end of the week, create a feasible model for integrating these two languages," Quinn set a realistic goal for this stage.

The next part of this project was the most important one. How would a cloth with runes know about the names and locations of the people in the castle? In the Marauder's Map, the Homonculous charm took care of this part, but Quinn wasn't going to take this approach.

Quinn looked at the ceiling and walls, and he was looking at the answer. The answer was Hogwarts itself. He was going to use the castle to obtain the names of the people present on the premises. Hogwarts was a magical building that held some sort of sentience and would provide Quinn with all the information he needed. Quinn was sure of this method because Hogwarts was connected to powerful artifacts like Quill of Acceptance and Book of Admittance. All Quinn needed was to connect his version of the map to Hogwarts, and the map would have the names and locations of all the people present in Hogwarts. Information straight from a source that couldn't be fooled and was the most trustworthy of them all.

Quinn had thought for hard and long how to establish this connection and finally had figured out a method to accomplish it. He was going to use the wards around Hogwarts. The very wards that were connected to Hogwarts and protected the people inside it, and if Quinn's map formed a connection to these wards, that would give him indirect access to Hogwarts' information.

After finishing planning for every stage of the project, he drafted a project document and schedule and finally stored everything in the manila folder.

And on the cover of the manila folder, Quinn wrote the project name.

「Project Watch」

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Four weeks after Quinn drafted the plan for 「Project Watch」, he stood in his workshop in front of the center island. On the center island were the various equipment and materials needed to assemble the map.

Quinn put on his protective gloves and safety goggles, "Let's start."

He moved to the empty side of the island table. Quinn reached for a sheet tray and placed it in front of him. Next, he picked a transparent glass container with a transparent liquid in it. The liquid was a potion/solution that would enable the cloth fabric for runic magic.

Quinn had worked on the base recipe for this enabling potion and improved the formula by employing his potion brewing knowledge. The resultant potion was much more potent and could sustain a substantial amount of the magic.

Quinn uncorked the container and carefully poured the liquid into the sheet tray. Then he carefully picked the off-white fabric and laid it in the sheet tray to soak in the solution.

Quinn removed his gloves and picked up his pocket watch to keep track of time. Just before the soak time hit nine-minute, Quinn once again wore his gloves, and the second the time reached nine minutes, he removed the base of the map from the liquid and placed it on another large thick sheet of cloth to absorb the rest of the liquid.

It took just above one minute before the map's cloth absorbed all the liquid and returned to a dry state. Quinn cleared the table and cleaned the table's surface, then placed a smooth wooden writing board on the table, and then laid the map's cloth base on it.

He walked to the project's manila folder, opened it, and took out multiple sheets with rune schematics drawn on them. These were all the runes that he had to draw on the map's cloth base. He had researched and experimented with Elder Futhark and Kanji to create a working rune model for the map.

He walked back to the wooden writing board and laid the schematic papers around the board for an unobstructed view. Then Quinn picked up his roll-up brush bag that held all his calligraphy brushes and rolled it open. He also screwed upon multiple small bottles of runic inks for writing runes on the cloth base.

Quinn wore his artist's glove and began the long process of drawing runes on the cloth with brushes. Each rune was carefully drawn, just as Quinn had practiced drawing in calligraphy. From time to time, he would change brushes and inks. Rune by rune, he built up the rune cluster for the map.

With each layer of runes, Quinn would wait for the ink to dry and then activate them by running his magic through them, and then they would glow before disappearing into the fabric. Halfway through painting runes, Quinn retrieved the Hogwarts floor plans he had drawn from exploring the castle and its grounds for a whole school year. Quinn wasn't able to find the floor plans from the library or the Room of Requirements, so he had produced his own set.

It was time to lay the Hogwarts floor plan into the place created by the runes to record the structure of Hogwarts.

When Quinn finished drawing the runes and recording floor plans into the map, it was time to connect the map to Hogwarts.

Quinn cleaned the table and the surroundings once again so that only the map was on the table. He took a deep breath and placed his whole hand on the map. Quinn pushed his magic into the cloth base, and both his magic and the cloth thrummed. Runes started to flicker on the cloth base, Quinn's magic activating every single rune in the layers upon layers of clusters drawn into the cloth, and suddenly Quinn felt a foreign wave of magic wash over him.

Quinn knew the source of this magic; it was Hogwarts. It was scanning him, deciding if Quinn and his map should be allowed to be connected to the wards. He had expected this but experiencing it was another thing. Quinn felt nervous and just silently waited, hoping that it would give him access. After a few seconds, the wave of foreign magic disappeared, and Quinn looked down to see the cloth base glowing.

Quinn removed his hand, and when the glow subsided, the map came to life. Quinn smiled as he saw the words appear on the cloth.

「Welcome To Recon」

Quinn's smile reached his ears and his eyes wide in glee as the words disappeared and the map showed him in the center, with the fifth-floor schematics surrounding him. A Blue dot showed his position on the map.

Quinn had constructed his map, Recon, to be much better than Marauder's map. He had color-coded the map for different people; Blue for students, deep-violet for teachers, yellow for ghosts, green for elves, orange for portraits, and red for outsiders.

Quinn stared at himself on the map; the map would always start on his position when activated.

Quinn stared at the map and tested the next feature. He opened his mouth and said a name, "Eddie Carmichael." The map immediately changed and shifted to Eddie's position on the map; he was also on the fifth floor but on the other side in the Ravenclaw common room. The map now showed the structure of the common room around Eddie and the people around him. With Recon, Quinn could immediately find a person just by saying their name. It was quite a handy feature that Quinn wanted in his map. So, he decided to enchant it into the map.

'I mean, it would be a pain to find the person you are looking for throughout the castle. Imagine the time it would take to find someone on the map.'

Quinn could also zoom in and out of the map. And he could manually switch to any floor or person in Hogwarts, including ghosts, portraits, and elves. Another handy feature of the map was it showed passwords to every door and pathway in the school. Recon showed him common room passwords, staff's offices and residence passwords, Headmaster's office's password, or any locked room or pathway. With Recon in his hands, there was no place in Hogwarts that was out of Quinn's reach.

With a wave of his hand, the cloth stiffened. Quinn had used his magic to stabilize the cloth so that it wouldn't crumble as a normal cloth does. Another wave and the cloth levitated in front of him.

"Harry Potter," Quinn ordered, and the map immediately changed to Harry Potter's location. The Boy-Who-Lived was currently in the Viaduct Courtyard, and beside him were Ron Weasley and some other Gryffindor.

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'Maybe playing Gobstones with them,' thought Quinn.

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"Albus Dumbledore," Quinn spoke another name, and the map complied and showed Albus Dumbledore's spot in deep-violet. He was in his Headmaster's tower, in the Headmaster's office. Quinn could see the password to Dumbledore's office.

Quinn smiled and ordered, "Nights out." The map turned off and crumbled down to the table. Quinn used his magic, and the cloth folded itself and shrunk down to the size of a standard handkerchief. He picked it up and pocketed it.

The map's security was such that it would only work for Quinn. Recon, unlike the Marauder's Map, couldn't be used by anyone but him. Recon needed a code word in his voice, his touch, and Quinn's own magic molded in a specific manner to activate. If even one of them was missing, Recon wouldn't work and would essentially be a piece of cloth.

Quinn walked to one of the wall-side tables and pulled out some sheets of paper from the ream of papers, and wrote down all the things that happened today during the construction of Recon. He made detailed notes, and at the end, made his remark.

[

Project Watch was a success. The creation of the tracking map, Recon, happened without a hitch. Hogwarts provided me access to view the wards. But as expected, I didn't gain access to change them. I believe Hogwarts gave me access because I am a student and no reason else.

Tests of the map also went well, and all the features of the map are functional. I am proud to note that Recon has surpassed Marauder's Map in functionality.

Signing off,

Quinn West.

]

Quinn picked up the papers and walked to the manila folder assigned to the project, and charmed every page in the folder to be unreadable. No one except Quinn could read the contents of the pages. After charming the pages, Quinn packed the pages in the manila folder and sealed the folder so that only he could open it.

Quinn picked up the folder and opened an empty drawer in a filing cabinet, and placed the manila folder of Project Watch in it.

"And, we are done. I always loved a good session of documentation and paperwork," Quinn exhaled a sigh of content.

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Just a few days after Quinn created Recon, he got his first customer. As usual, Quinn was working in his workshop when he heard a bell. It was one of those bells above the door that would jingle when the door was opened.

Quinn's eyes shined as he conjured a mirror in mid-air and fixed his appearance. He took in a deep breath and said to his reflection, "Let's do this! It is your first customer, be sure to create a great first impression. It might be the make it or break it moment for me."

When he entered the office, he found a Hufflepuff girl standing near the door, looking nervous. Quinn had memorized the names and faces of every student in Hogwarts. So, he knew she was a first-year student.

Quinn put on a comforting smile and said, "Welcome to A.I.D. how may I help you?" He gestured to the girl to sit down as he sat down behind his office desk.

The girl, still nervous, took a seat in the chair in front of the table.

"Before we start, may I ask where did you get my card?" asked Quinn.

The girl looked up towards Quinn and answered, "Umm, I found it in the holders under one of the desks in the Transfiguration classroom."

"Ah, thank you for answering," smiled Quinn. He had left many of his cards in classrooms to increase his customer base, and now looking at this girl, Quinn knew it was the right move.

"What is your name?" asked Quinn as gently as he could.

"Megan Jones," said the girl, and Quinn nodded. Of course, he already knew that.

"I see, now, Ms. Jones, what help do you need from me?"

Megan took out a glass globe on a stand from her book bag and set it on the table. Inside the globe were figures of a man and a woman, and they looked like they were dancing, but the figures were not moving.

"I was wondering if you could fix this for me. The figures in the globe dance, but they haven't been dancing since yesterday," said Megan as she pushed the globe towards Quinn.

Quinn nodded and took the globe in his hands. 'Well, either a part is broken causing the figures to stop dancing, or maybe the animation spell on it has worn down.'

He looked at Megan and asked, "May I use some magic on the globe?" When Megan nodded, Quinn took out his fake wand and casted a Repairing charm (Reparo). The globe glowed, and the figures started dancing realistically.

'It turned out it was the first one,' thought Quinn as he smiled and pushed the now working globe back to Megan, who was smiling in joy and relief.

"Thank you, thank you. My mother gave it to me on my eleventh birthday. I was worried that I had broken it so quickly," Megan said as she hugged the globe, but then she once again became nervous.

"Umm, umm... How much does the repair cost?"

Quinn smiled and answered, "You don't need to pay me, Ms. Jones. Instead, you can owe me a favor in return. Rest assured, it will not be something difficult."

Megan seemed confused but then nodded, "Alright, if it is alright for you. I will take my leave." Quinn nodded but called for her, "Ms. Jones?"

"Yes?" she asked as she got up.

"Do you have my card with you?"

She nodded and took out the A.I.D card from her pocket, "This one, right?"

Quinn nodded and handed her another identical card, "If you see someone in need of help, please give them this card, and send them here."

"Alright, I will. Thank you, again," said Megan before leaving the room.

Quinn closed his eyes and dived into his mindscape. He found himself in a room where he kept records of all Hogwarts students. Quinn recorded everything he knew about the students here. He recorded people's likes, dislikes, friends, enemies, preferences, grades, their thoughts he chanced upon when using legilimency, and anything Quinn knew about a student, it would be here.

Quinn walked to the book he had allotted to Megan Jones, and with a wave of his hand, he had the memory book of his current interaction with her. He pulled out Megan's record memory book from the shelf, and with books in both hands, he bought them close, and the moment they touched, the books combined to become one.

This was one of the techniques Quinn had learned to sort his memories. He could merge memory books for better access. Finally, Quinn immersed himself in Megan's newly updated book to increase his immersion and retention of his memory of her.

When Quinn came out of his mindscape, he smiled and spoke to himself, "One little step closer."

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Quinn West - MC - Has the latest technology in the field of stalking.

Megan Jones - Hufflepuff - First Years - Now owes the devil a favor.

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