The Rivalry

They both winced when it shut with a squeal. They didn't see Mrs Norris popping out of the rosebushes so Potter walked out onto the grounds. Draco cursed at the first fat drop of rain. Invisibility cloaks were not warded against the elements. The blonde detested getting wet. He held in a groan. Potter stopped. "Here."

Draco looked around. It was just a hill in the middle of the grounds. He could see the path leading down to the forbidden forest and the lake. Over to the right he could make out the Quidditch Pitch. Nothing to be terribly excited about however. Before he could make an appropriately snarky comment about Potter trying to get him to catch pneumonia, the raven haired boy pulled the black rod from his pocket Draco had seen earlier. With a wink at Draco, who was highly offended by the familiarity of the gesture, he whipped the invisibility cloak off, which made them even wetter Draco reflected, and depressed a button on the side of the rod. It shot out two feet more and quite unexpectedly the end fanned out into a arched circle. Draco stared at it blankly.

"Allow me to present, door number three." Said Potter, grandly. He swung it up so the arched circle was above them. The rain stopped.

Draco blinked and looked up. Muted pitter-pats sounded on the top. He smiled in spite of himself.

"Alright," he allowed, "I suppose there is a...door number three."

A small golden blur appeared in his vision. "Take that."

He grasped the golden ball between his thumb and forefinger. "What is it?"

"It's an insta-note."

"Ah," said Draco, "i should have known."

Potter rolled his eyes. "Its for short, quick messages when using the messenger snitch isn't prudent or when we're not within throwing distance."

He squinted at it. "It doesn't look nearly that impressive."

"Watch." Potter backed up and held up a similar ball of his own, close to his mouth and murmured.

Draco's insta-note didn't move or glow but the word message appeared on it. He passed a thumb over it and blinked. There were grooves making the letters rather than an illusion.

"Why physical indention? You'll run out of run far to quickly at this rate, unless you do it very tiny and even then it seems like a waste of energy to keep making them."

"I'm changing it, not the way you think. I was thinking about how one thing can be in two places at once, existing in both places simultaneously and I then I thought that, well, magic is something that connects us all isn't it? And the interconnectedness is how we do the things we do with magic, we take all of these things around us, heat or gravity or pressure or texture or what have you and we bring something for into being using these ingredients at our disposal. That in mind I formed this insta-note using a bit of magic I had of yours left over from-"

"You have my what?"

"-our experimentation with truth serums and a bit of my magic as well to create a connection between our signatures and then using your magic and mine I made a single golden ball tuned to our combined frequency."

"A single ball. It's one insta-note in two places, your hand and mind vibrating back and forth between our signature's frequencies at high enough rate to be both in my hand and in yours simultaneously. This the indents on the ball are technically already there and not there at the same time, and when I add a new message," he lifted his own to his mouth uttered a word, "it will replace the other message without actually taking anything away eliminating the need for excess magic to power the illusion of a message." He watched the word response form on the insta-note.

"Exactly."

"Brilliant."

Potter puffed up. "Thank you."

"But there's an issue."

He deflated. "What is it?"

I'm assuming that there's a double use for the connected magical signature as a security clause? When a signature not pre-established attempts to connect, or use, the the insta-note it 'ceases' as it only exists for the two of us with our combined frequencies, correct?"

"Yes."

"This is a good idea but it has flaws. For instance, my mother and father have similar signatures to my own, this phenomenon caused by our blood connection. Blood of course being the strongest sort of collected magic we have at our disposal. Similarly, as you can I have a distant connection through my mother's black blood and your grandmother's black blood, we have signatures that have similarly qualities. As such, hypothetically, if my mother or father tried to use my side of the insta-note they probably could, because the mix with your magic would result in a frequency comparable to our originally frequency in a way that would likely be accepted by the insta-notes and allow them to activate it. The only way to avoid such a possibility would be if our frequency were entirely unique."

Potter appeared to ponder this. "I have a solution."

Draco stared. "Really? That quickly? You've just solved an incredibly complicated magical problem in about thirty seconds?"

"Observe."