"The first thing to do when carving a Magic Array is to take a deep breath..." Lyla muttered. She inhaled deeply, then slowly picked up her quill.
The tip of the quill gently touched the crimson paint. It was a potent magical material required for drawing arrays, made of Veela blood.
"Is this blood?" Luna asked curiously. "Can I taste it?"
"This is Veela blood... Wait!" Lyla quickly grabbed Luna's outstretched hand. "This... this can't be eaten."
"Why?" Luna asked, tilting her head. "I really want to taste Lyla."
'Don't suddenly say such strange things! And I didn't say this was my blood!'
Lyla's face flushed brightly. She quickly snatched the ink bottle, pulling it protectively against her chest. "Anyway... it... just can't be eaten..."
"Alright then." Luna shook her head vaguely. For some bizarre reason, she lightly smacked her lips... as if she had already tasted it.
'Whew...' After taking a few deep breaths to steady her violently racing heart, Lyla slowly raised her quill again.
Drawing the Magic Array was the first step. It was just like sketching a painting, meticulously marking the positions for the physical engraving.
Lyla gently held the quill, its slightly reddish tip deftly outlining a perfect arc on the book's black cover.
Just as Lyla remembered, the array consisted of a core made of Ancient Runes and auxiliary support made of layered spells. She first drew the core runes of an Energy Storage Array in the center of the cover.
This would act as the source of magic to keep the subsequent arrays self-sustaining.
Lyla repeatedly dipped her quill into the Veela blood ink, beginning to write the auxiliary support around the core. She wrote the original Latin incantations of various spells, arranging them around the ancient runes until they seamlessly connected end-to-end to form a perfect circle.
The mental review over the past few days had not been in vain. Despite having been in a magical coma for fifty years, Lyla felt no unfamiliarity in her fluid movements. It felt just like it did in the 1940s.
The Energy Storage Array was the simplest foundation to draft.
Lyla pursed her lips and slowly uncorked another bottle of ink. This was a thick, lusterless black pigment.
"This is..." Luna murmured curiously.
"This... this can't be eaten either..." Lyla blurted out subconsciously.
"I didn't say I was going to eat it." Luna's lips curled into a slight smile. "I just recognized what it was. This is ash wood sap, isn't it?"
"Ye... Yes." Lyla looked at Luna with mild surprise.
'I didn't expect Miss Lovegood to recognize ash wood sap... Could it be because she has actually drunk it before?'
It was said that wizards who were chosen by ash wood wands were not easily swayed from their beliefs. Lyla simply regarded this as a wandlore rumor, but ash wood sap could indeed isolate different arrays and prevent them from violently interfering with each other.
She meticulously outlined the edges of the Energy Storage Array with the black pigment. This process was much faster than drafting the core runes, completed in mere minutes.
Comparing it with the Spatial Teleportation Array diagram she had copied from Newt's suitcase, Lyla nodded slightly. There was no problem.
With the Energy Storage Array acting as the battery, the combined arrays now had a self-sustaining support point.
Next was the physical engraving. Lyla raised her heavily polished, elegant ebony wand and gave it a gentle flick.
The book in front of her levitated into the air, followed closely by an exquisite small carving knife.
Under her precise, non-verbal control, the small knife drifted toward the book's cover. With a minute twitch of her wand tip, the blade began to carve perfectly along the drawn array lines.
Lyla was not only highly advanced in her study of spells, but she was also exceptionally adept at micro-controlling her magic. During her student days at Durmstrang, she had once earned a professor's appreciation for her ability to carve complex carrot flowers using only her wand.
This precise skill allowed her to have a small pastime when she was stuck in detention, rather than just sitting motionless in a dark cell.
"..."
Luna's large, unblinking eyes stared intently at the small knife. It floated gracefully in the air, elegantly shaving off tiny flakes of black leather from the cover.
With one final, decisive stroke, the engraving of the Energy Storage Array was completely finished. Lyla let out a soft breath of relief, reaching out to stroke the grooved cover.
"Lyla is amazing..." Luna's dreamy voice drifted right by her ear.
At some point, the eleven-year-old had leaned completely into Lyla's personal space, one hand gently pinching a lock of her silver Veela hair.
"Ah!" Lyla shrieked in absolute terror.
Easily terrified, she instinctively jerked backward, nearly crashing to the ground along with her chair. Fortunately, Luna had quick reflexes and grabbed the armrest to steady her.
"So... Sorry!" Lyla quickly whispered, instantly apologizing for her own jumpiness. "I was just... a little too immersed in academic research..."
"I should be the one to apologize." Luna righted the chair. "But Lyla's serious expression just now was really rare."
"It made me feel that you are especially... interesting."
'Interesting... huh...'
'That description doesn't sound like it's meant for a person... it sounds more like she's describing an animal...'
'Speaking of which, Luna wouldn't really think of me as a magical creature, would she? Thinking carefully, the way she was just twirling my silver hair seemed no different from petting an animal's fur...'
'No... I have to prove my humanity...'
Lyla pursed her lips and timidly opened her mouth. "N-Nova... come here..."
"Hoot?" At her command, the tiny gray postal owl perched on the ceiling chandelier tilted its head. Nova flapped his wings and slowly descended.
"Mmm." Lyla tremblingly caught the tiny owl with her hand, looking up with a slight hint of pride.
'Did you see that? I tamed an owl. No magical creature besides a wizard can do that, right?'
But meeting Luna's serene, smiling eyes, Lyla's severe social anxiety flared up again.
'Showing off a tiny postal owl to an eleven-year-old girl who is fifty-seven years younger than my chronological age... is really pathetic, isn't it?'
"Ah... Miss Lovegood, this is my owl..." Lyla mumbled, pursing her lips. "I wanted to introduce him to you..."
"In case I were to write you a letter or something..." Her voice trailed off completely.
'Who am I kidding? I don't have the courage to write letters to strangers.'
As a catastrophic overthinker, just worrying about whether the letter had been safely delivered was enough to induce stuttering panic and keep her awake all night.
"I understand, Lyla." Luna nodded sagely. "I won't eat him."
"Nor will I pluck his feathers to make a quill."
"You..." Lyla's mouth twitched slightly. She subconsciously hid the hand holding the tiny owl defensively behind her back.
"Let's just... just... continue drawing the array first..." she stammered. Lyla sat down stiffly and quickly picked up her quill again.
'Miss Lovegood must have been joking just now, right?'
'After all, if she ate an owl, she wouldn't receive an acceptance letter from Hogwarts, right?'
After silently reassuring herself, Lyla focused fully on the engraving. The creation of self-sustaining magic objects was an incredibly lengthy process.
This was especially true since Lyla was attempting to combine multiple arrays this time—something she had rarely attempted even before her coma.
Therefore, it took a significant amount of time. She hadn't even finished the core runes by late night on the first day. It was only when Xenophilius Lovegood arrived to pick up his daughter that the two ended their work.
Watching her new eleven-year-old penpal leave, Lyla was terrified that the girl wouldn't come back the next day because she found the complex array math boring.
But to Lyla's profound relief, Luna knocked on the door just minutes after she woke up the following morning.
Thus, after about three or four days of intense work, Lyla's creation of the Spatial Storage Book finally came to an end.