 Lovely™ | Captain Hurted | Ariana's Bane | Resident Antagonist | Unparalleled Delight
Inside the darkroom, Nem took a moment to let their eyes adjust to the dim red glow, and gave the place a cursory look. For the record, they could still hear the music, but it was a little more muffled in here behind the curtains, not that it made it any more palatable.
After setting the cauldron down, Nem turned their attention back to the camera, turning it over in their hands until they again found the way to get to the film inside. They took the negative, and headed for what could only be the enlarging machine, going by process of elimination. Negative in... and... they looked around for-... yes, photo paper. Nem grabbed a sheet, put that in beneath the negative, found the button on the side, and clicked it.
All they knew about this process was what Varma had explained - plus a little educated guessing and logic - so all that was really to be done was to follow the instructions. Very different to the actual potion brewing, where they had more scope for experimenting based on what they knew and had discovered worked better for them. After the light had gone out again, Nem took both the negative and the photo paper, balancing it by its very edges between their spread out fingers, returned to the cauldron, and submerged the paper in the potion.
This gave them a couple of minutes of nothing, which Nem used to mess with the camera further, this time opening up every movable piece and squinting inside of it, playing with every dial and button once again, but not finding real answers. Not expecting to either. They spent the rest of the time looking around the entirety of the makeshift darkroom, briefly re-explored the enlarging machine, and then returned to the cauldron to retrieve their picture. Nem pulled it out with a pair of print tongs they'd discovered set to one side, rinsed the potion off in a tray of water, and hung it up to dry. Here they paused, just long enough to note that their little matchstick Whomping Willow had been reproduced in photo form, failing matchstick branches and slamming into the desk-ground around it, and otherwise swaying in a non-existent breeze.
That was the thing. The matchsticks had no personality to capture, they were just enchanted, but human behaviour was captured just as well as enchanted-object behaviour. Unless there was just enough of a person in their magic to capture it during the photography process. That still didn't explain where the magic came in to detect it, and parallel future events and attitudes, or how much was unreadable, if it was just surface level, or how deep it could go.
Nem didn't know the answer, and they didn't like not knowing. They did like difficult problems, and finding things out, but this was one they wanted answers for sooner rather than later. Maybe they ought to speak to some of the portraits.
Whatever. They'd get there. For now, Nem picked up their cauldron again, and went to go clean up their workstation, ready for the end of the lesson.
__________________ Days of Potter 2023:___________________________ Which Bertie Botts Flavour Are You?
You are Chocolate! |