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Inventing a new spell; a most tricky and daunting proposition. Beyond most wizards. Lupin flattered himself by thinking he had a chance, but if pressed, well, he had helped with the Marauder's Map, had he not? He knew a thing or two about Defense Against the Dark Arts, and this was not dissimilar.

Besides, what did it hurt to try? (Besides the very real chance of an injurious backfire.)

Lupin came to the City, seeking out a place by the river where he (probably wrongly) thought no one would venture close enough to be harmed by his experimentation. Once there, he sat down on the grass without much regards for his dignity, and began writing on the book he had liberated for such a purpose.

"Protego Minutiae," he began, writing the words down as he spoke them.

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"Magic is a tricky business. Wizards, on my world, require five years of basic schooling, and two more of much more advanced practice before they can considered to be fully capable in their chosen field. Using magic improperly can result in any number of disasters, large or small, and when creating a new spell it is very unlikely that you are using magic 'properly' at all."

But he smiled again. "Of course, none of those things are likely to happen, possible, but not likely."

Einhart nodded. "I see. That makes sense." Well, it made a little bit of sense, though Einhart was still a bit confused on how something meant for protection could cause an explosion, especially if the person doing it knew what they were doing.

She wasn't going to ask that though, there wasn't really that much point. Remus said that it wasn't probably to happen after all.

"I can't blame you for having a different expectation," Lupin continued, as he scratched out a few words with the quill. "Aside from the other wizards from England, I haven't met anyone on this ship who uses magic at all like we do. For raw strength as well as ease of use, I think we rank at the bottom of the scale."

Einhart blinked, a bit surprised that anyone would actually admit that. "I... I see. But it's still easy enough for you to use, isn't it?"

She wasn't going to mention how the raw strength part went, since she didn't know how powerful he really was. Though considering that both Nanoha and Fate were on the ship, she could easily see how 'at the bottom' was an impression that he could get.

Lupin was used to being outshone. One couldn't remain friends with Sirius and James without either rising to their heights (or sinking to their depths), or accepting a role in the background.

Or betraying them all to Voldemort, but the less said about Peter the better.

"Easy enough for the most part, but I have a full education and many years of adult life behind me, and some aspects of magic are still out of my reach. The finer points of Potions, for example, have always eluded me. If they hadn't I might not need this spell to begin with."

Einhart blinked, looking over at him. "Potions?"

Even with those memories from her ancestors time, she had never heard of anyone using potions with magic.

"Potions is one of the first classes we take and one of the basic arts of magic. But I always favored the more active and less subtle arts, so once I attained my O.W.L. I didn't continue my studies." He smiled then, a little self-deprecating. "Which these days I regret wholeheartedly."

Einhart nodded. "I see. In my world, potions wasn't part of any magical training that I'm aware of. What exactly can be done with them?"

"Many useful things. Antidotes, temporary aging, changing ones' appearance, replenishing lost blood, swaying emotions, sleeping, the treatment of colds, truth potions... there is quite an extensive list. Of course they have limits, being generally concerned with the person drinking them, but for range of effects the field surpasses Charms and Transfiguration by far."

Curious, he noted privately, that having been a teacher for only a year, he nevertheless seemed to fall back into the role quite readily.

Einhart blinked, before smiling a bit. "I see. That's pretty interesting. Most of that I don't know if most of the magic I know can replicate it. Other than the aging and appearance changes."

"I will say that in favor of the wizarding magic I know: it is versatile. Not at all useful in these circumstances, of course, very few of the Ohm will be stopped by a Cheering Charm, though I suppose if we ever encounter one that rides a broomstick a Hurling Hex might see to it," he said cheerfully.

Einhart nodded at that. "That's good, at least. It seems a bit more versatile than what I know. Though you don't have anything that's meant for combat against powerful creatures or opponents?"

"The greatest enemy of the wizarding world were always Dark wizards," he said, looking down at his wand. "Dragons, giants, even goblins who have given us so much trouble over the years, none of them can compare to a Dark wizard. Most spells of defense or protection, Defense Against the Dark Arts as we would call them, are meant to deal with a Dark wizard or a creature. The Ohm are clearly the latter, but not like anything ever seen before."

Einhart nodded, looking over at the river for the moment. "I see. I guess that makes sense. Most of the danger that I've heard of in my world was similar, though powerful weapons were always a big threat too.

How strong are these Dark Wizards usually?"

Lupin began to answer, but stopped before he spoke, a thoughtful frown crossing his face. "Most Dark wizards are very skilled magically, and cunning. Of course, they freely use Dark magic, and the Unforgivable Curses in particular, so that gives them a great advantage over most wizards. And the most terrible Dark wizard of all time," he continued, looking at Einhart steadily, "was one of the strongest of all time. Only one man could match him in power.

"And yet I believe any of the powerful wizards on this ship could have dealt with him easily."

The thought greatly alarmed him in many respects. On another world, Voldemort would not have had such an invincible air. To the wizards on this ship, magically he would have been no more a gnat to them than Lupin himself. The most evil wizard of all time... meaningless.

"But," he said, "the true strength of that wizard was not his magical power, but his ability to inspire fear and terror in his opponents."

Einhart nodded as she listened to Lupin's explanation. That all made a lot of sense. Usually, if people were afraid of something, it was that much harder to fight against it.

Though it definitely must've hurt for Lupin to admit that the biggest threat his world had ever faced was completely meaningless compared to some of the other on the ship. "But wasn't that fear able to be done because of his power?"

"Power is not something to be feared," Lupin said in a patient, professorial tone. "What causes fear is how that power is used. It is not what he could do that made him such a terrible foe, but what he did do, what he was willing to do. Kill the innocent, control the minds of others, torture for any reason or none at all. Perhaps even more than that, he gave every witch or wizard who also felt that such things were acceptable a place to belong where they too could do such things. At the same time, he made good men and women afraid to stand against him, because they knew that it might not only bring pain to themselves, but to those they loved."

He turned the wand he held in his hands, then displayed it on his open palm. "For example, if you wanted, right now you could take my wand away and I wouldn't be able to perform magic." He could perform some magic wandlessly, but to advertise that seemed like bragging. "That wouldn't take any magical power on your part at all. All anyone who wanted to take my wand would have to do is wrestle it from me, and let's be honest, I'm not the most fit of wizards to oppose that. Anyone on this ship could likely do it. But I don't fear they will, because though they could, they wouldn't. Kindness, propriety, or respect forbids it, do you see?"

Einhart nodded at his explanation. It made a lot of sense, though it was stuff she mostly already knew, even if she didn't experience it personally herself (though she did have the memories of similar incidents from her ancestors). "Yes, I understand that. That's usually always the case. Most people don't fear people just because of the power they have until they're given a reason to do fear them."

"If we didn't allow other people power over us, we wouldn't have a society." Not that society was always entirely good; witness the prejudice against his own kind, justified though it was.

Einhart blinked. "That's... a little different." It was one thing to elect someone to government, it was another for someone who had the power to level a city to start using it to terrorize people.

"It's all the more reason why those who abuse power are so feared, something that came to mind thinking of why we here on this ship have so much difficulty getting organized. We all have, as near as I've seen, a history of dealing with those who abuse their power. That makes it much harder to accept giving any away."

Einhart nodded at that. She didn't have any direct experience with that herself, but her ancestor did, and she knew that Vivio's parents definitely had experience with things like that. "It does make things difficult, doesn't it? We did manage to elect the council though, and elect the captain without too much problems though."

"Maybe it's just what I hear, but people seem to spend more time complaining about either than being grateful they exist." Lupin shrugged. He gave the politics of the ship little notice, being content to maintain in his private way and cause no trouble.

Einhart blinked, before moving to think a bit. That was true, a lot of people did complain. "I guess... but that happens with everywhere, doesn't it? There are some people here who are happy with what's getting done."

Some people definitely complained during the rule of Ancient Belka, that was sure, even while others praised the leaders.

"From what I've seen, there's much more anger here than, say, back in England. Everyone grumbled about the Ministry of Magic, but that was really only for the sake of form. Outside of the Quibbler's devoted readership I don't think anyone truly believed it to be evil or malicious." And the Quibbler's theories betrayed a naive notion of the true nature of evil, at that.