Adrian had been thinking about the Bum-Bouncer’s cushioning enchantment since breakfast, which was why he nearly walked into a suit of armour on his way to the library.
He caught himself before the collision, stepped around the outstretched halberd and continued down the corridor with his notebook open against his chest.
He’d meant to spend the afternoon revising Transfiguration.
Instead, he’d filled two pages with drawings of a person being pushed sideways, each one surrounded by arrows showing where the force might go.
The drawings weren’t very good, but they were clearer than the explanation he’d written beneath them.
The original Bum-Bouncer sent someone upwards and softened the landing.
That second effect had been necessary because Fred and George regarded the distance between a chair and the ceiling as an opportunity rather than a problem.
Adrian had spent more time making the enchantment safe than making it launch anyone.
A stronger version might be useful for something other than pranks.
If someone grabbed him, rushed him or got close enough to point a wand at his face, a sudden shove could give him room to escape.
He didn’t need to send an attacker flying across a courtyard.
A few feet would be enough, provided he could control where they landed.
The problem was that the launching enchantment and the cushioning enchantment had been designed to work together.
Altering one changed the demands on the other, and Adrian wasn’t willing to find out what happened when they stopped agreeing by trying it on a person.
He closed the notebook outside the library.
There was no point pretending he was going to get any revision done while the idea kept circling through his head.
The unused classroom contained a stack of old practice mats, several battered cushions and a wooden chair with one leg shorter than the others.
Adrian had checked with Flitwick before borrowing the room for ordinary charm work, and he’d brought the equipment himself over several afternoons.
Today, a weighted canvas sack sat on the floor between two cushions.
Adrian moved the nearer cushion a little farther from the wall, checked the space beyond it and returned to the desk where he’d laid out his notes.
The prototype was a small adhesive tab, much like a commercial Bum-Bouncer, but its enchantment had been adjusted to deliver a horizontal impulse.
He’d kept the strength low for the initial tests and marked the tab with a red pencil line so it couldn’t be mistaken for one of the versions Fred and George intended to sell.
He attached it to a board behind the sack and stepped back.
With a movement of his wand, he activated the tab.
The sack lurched forward, travelled perhaps a foot and collapsed onto its side without reaching the cushion.
Adrian retrieved it, checked the stitching and recorded the distance.
The board had shifted as well, which meant some of the impulse was being wasted against the support.
He secured it more firmly before repeating the test.
This time the sack struck the cushion.
It compressed against the padding and dropped to the floor, leaving a pale dent in the fabric.
Adrian crouched beside it, feeling the cushion with one hand.
Its safety enchantment had spread the impact across the padding, much as it was supposed to, but the sack had still hit hard enough to shift the cushion several inches.
He wrote down the result and sat back on his heels.
Increasing the force would be easy; the Thunderbird magic had taught him enough about abrupt releases of energy to recognise that.
Preventing the extra force from turning an ordinary shove into a serious injury was another matter.
He looked from the sack to the cushion, then down at his own forearm.
For months he’d been trying to develop a protective Green Magic effect.
He’d imagined a barrier that kept objects from reaching him, but every attempt either failed outright or turned into an awkward imitation of the Shield Charm.
Protego already existed, and Adrian had no reason to spend years trying to reproduce it badly.
The cushion worked without stopping the sack from making contact.
Its enchantment changed the impact after the collision had begun, spreading the force through a larger area and allowing the padding to compress rather than taking the entire blow at one point.
Adrian picked up the cushion and pressed it between his hands.
The fabric gave beneath his fingers while the enchantment resisted the pressure gently, then returned to its original shape when he released it.
He placed it on the desk and took out his wand.
He wasn’t trying to put a cushion around his arm.
That would be another kind of barrier, and barriers were precisely what had been giving him trouble.
He wanted the force of a blow to spread instead of concentrating wherever it landed.
Adrian held out his left forearm and concentrated on the idea.
Green-gold light gathered near his wand tip, moved towards his wrist and faded before it reached his elbow.
He tried again with less emphasis on the shape of the effect, but the light disappeared almost as soon as he formed it.
He lowered his arm and returned to the cushion.
The enchantment didn’t know where the sack was going to hit.
It responded when pressure reached it, changing the way that pressure passed through the material.
Adrian pressed two fingers into the padding at different points, watching the cloth yield around them.
He raised his wand again, imagining the same response within his own magical field rather than in a piece of furniture.
This time the green-gold light settled close against his skin.
It extended from his wrist to the middle of his forearm before fading, leaving a brief warmth behind.
Adrian stared at the place where it had been.
He repeated the attempt and managed to hold the effect for a little longer, though it vanished the moment he tried to move his arm.
He could have continued trying to strengthen it, but he remembered the discussion in Dumbledore’s office.
His professors had been clear about bringing new experiments to them rather than testing unfamiliar effects alone, and Cedric had already made his opinion of surprise demonstrations painfully obvious.
Adrian put his wand down beside the notebook.
He’d made enough progress to explain what he was trying to do, and he didn’t need to prove it by dropping something heavy on himself.
Flitwick stood in the doorway with a folder tucked beneath one arm.
His gaze moved from the mats to the weighted sack, then to the marked tab still attached to the board.
“Mr.
Clarke.
I was told you’d been using this room, though I hadn’t realised you were conducting another experiment.”
Adrian set the sack beside the desk.
“I was testing a stronger version of the Bum-Bouncer.
Not on anyone,” he added, seeing where Flitwick was looking.
“Just the sack.”
Flitwick entered and examined the space between the board and the cushions.
He tested the board’s supports with his wand before looking at Adrian’s notes.
“Stronger in what fashion?”
“Sideways instead of up.
I thought it might work if I needed to get away from somebody, but I’m having trouble keeping the landing safe.”
Flitwick looked at the red-marked tab.
“And does either of your business partners know you’ve been making these?”
“No.
I’m not selling them.”
“I see.” He turned back to Adrian.
“You’ve also been experimenting with the cushioning enchantment, I take it?”
“That’s what I wanted to show you.” Adrian hesitated, then held out his arm.
“I think I figured out something with Green Magic.
I haven’t tested it against anything yet.”
Flitwick’s attention sharpened.
Adrian raised his wand and concentrated, allowing the faint green-gold sheen to settle over his forearm.
It lasted only a moment before disappearing.
“Again, if you please,” Flitwick said, moving closer.
Adrian repeated the effect while the professor watched.
Flitwick kept his own wand lowered and asked Adrian to describe what he was attempting rather than interrupting the magic with a diagnostic spell.
“I want it to spread the force when something hits me,” Adrian explained.
“Not stop the thing from hitting me.
More like what the cushion does.”
Flitwick considered that, then retrieved a padded practice weight from the cupboard beside the door.
He set it on the desk and examined Adrian’s forearm.
“We’ll begin with the smallest impact I can manage.
If the effect fails, you tell me at once, and there’ll be no attempt to compensate by holding it through the pain.”
“Okay.”
Adrian formed the green sheen again.
Flitwick lowered the weight gently against his forearm, increasing the pressure only enough for Adrian to feel it.
The magic held for a moment, then dissolved.
Adrian flexed his fingers.
“I felt that.
It wasn’t painful, though.”
“Quite.
Try once more, and don’t attempt to make the effect stronger.
I want to know how it responds to the pressure.”
They repeated the test with a slightly firmer contact.
Adrian felt the weight touch his arm, but the pressure spread beyond the small area where it rested.
The sensation was strange, as though someone had pressed a broad, soft hand against his forearm instead of a narrow padded weight.
Flitwick lifted it away before the magic failed.
Adrian looked down at his arm, then up at the professor.
“That worked.”
“It appears to have reduced the pressure at the point of contact.
Whether it would protect you against a sudden impact remains to be established.” Flitwick placed the weight on the desk and checked Adrian’s wrist.
“Any discomfort?”
“Not yet.
It feels warm.”
“Then we shall leave the stronger tests for another occasion.”
Adrian glanced towards the cushion, considering how much force it had absorbed from the sack.
Flitwick followed his gaze and drew the cushion nearer, but instead of striking Adrian’s arm, he pressed the practice weight into the padding while Adrian watched the fabric compress.
“Your enchantment may resemble this in principle,” he said, “but you aren’t made of upholstery, Mr.
Clarke.
The fact that a cushion can tolerate repeated impacts tells us nothing about what your arm can endure.” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Adrian nodded, looking at the broad depression left in the cloth.
The cushioning enchantment could be replaced when it wore out.
He couldn’t replace his forearm with another one from the cupboard.
Flitwick asked him to reproduce the green effect twice more without any impact.
On the second attempt, the sheen barely reached his wrist, and Adrian felt a dull ache spreading towards his elbow.
The professor lowered his wand.
“Enough for today.”
Adrian let the light fade and rested his arm on the desk.
The warmth lingered beneath his skin, but his fingers moved normally, and the ache began easing once he stopped using the magic.
Flitwick gathered the test equipment while Adrian wrote down what had happened.
The effect lasted only seconds, became harder to produce with repeated use and appeared to distribute pressure rather than prevent contact.
They hadn’t tested it against spells, sharp objects or anything heavy enough to cause injury.
Adrian added a question mark beside magical attacks and left the line beneath it blank.
“What are you calling it?” Flitwick asked as he returned the weight to the cupboard.
“Protect.”
“An appropriate name, provided you remember that it offers no guarantee of protection.” Flitwick closed the cupboard and glanced towards the marked tab.
“You’ll also bring me the details of that device before increasing its strength.
A controlled test with a canvas sack is one thing; discovering its effect on a person is quite another.”
“I wasn’t planning to try it on anyone.”
“I’m pleased to hear it.
We’ll examine the design together before you go any further.”
Adrian collected the private notebook and slid it into his bag.
He’d hoped to keep the defensive version separate from the prank business, but showing Flitwick the design was better than guessing at its limits and finding out he’d been wrong when somebody got hurt.
Cedric was working on his History of Magic notes when Adrian returned to the common room.
The twins were at another table, arguing over the dimensions of a compartment for the makeup pad, and Cedric had claimed the seat nearest the fire before either of them could spread their materials across it.
He looked up as Adrian set down his bag.
“You’ve been with Flitwick?”
“Yeah.
I showed him something I’ve been working on.”
Cedric put his quill aside.
“Anything I ought to know about?”
Adrian sat beside him and retrieved the private notebook.
He showed Cedric the drawings of the stronger Bum-Bouncer, then explained how the cushioning enchantment had led him towards a different kind of protective magic.
Cedric studied the page for a while before turning it back towards Adrian.
“You were testing the stronger one on your own?”
“On a sack.
Flitwick’s going to check the design before I increase the force.”
“And the new spell?”
“He tested that with me.
It works a little, but I can’t hold it for long.”
Cedric looked at Adrian’s left arm.
“Does it hurt?”
“It’s sore now.
I stopped when it started getting uncomfortable.”
Cedric studied Adrian’s notes for a moment, then pulled the notebook closer and added a line beneath the latest test results.
Adrian leaned over to read it.
Tell Cedric before testing anything stronger.
“You’re writing instructions in my notebook now?” Adrian asked, laughing.
“Somebody has to.
You’d already started experimenting by the time Flitwick turned up.” Cedric handed the notebook back and reached for his History of Magic notes.
“I’d have helped you set everything up if you’d asked.”
“I know.
I just wanted to see whether the tab worked before I brought anyone else into it.”
Cedric glanced at the drawing of the weighted sack.
“Well, next time, give me a shout.
I’d rather help carry the equipment than find out afterwards you’ve sent it through a window.”
Adrian picked up his pencil and added Check the tab’s attachment before testing beneath Cedric’s note.
“Okay, but if we’re doing this together, you’re helping me figure out how to make the cushioning stronger.”
“I thought that was what Flitwick was helping you with.”
“He is.
Doesn’t mean we can’t come up with a few ideas first.”
Cedric considered that while Adrian turned to a clean page and began sketching a different arrangement for the cushions.
After a moment, he moved his History of Magic notes aside and reached for the pencil.