This Is Probably Bad for the Economy (open)

Clara Goldstein was passionate about several things when it came to fields of study, but her sudden obsession with Ancient Runes had come as surprise. Up until this point in her Hogwarts career, she'd taken for granted that potions would be her chosen major if she continued on to university (which she planned to do), as she had invested quite a bit of time into studying it already. However, while she still quite enjoyed potions and she doubted that would change, Ancient Runes had opened an unexpected new realm of possibility--and she found potions taking the backseat as she felt compelled to follow this avenue to completion.

Runestones in particular had brought up several questions, which she now sought to answer. First off, Professor Kessler had said that gold was the strongest medium, but he hadn't specified exactly how strong it was. Secondly, it seemed strange to Clara that they were using Nordic runes to spell out English words, and she wondered if it would make any difference to use Ancient Norse instead.

She decided to conduct two experiments at once, after mentally verifying that neither would interfere with the other in any significant way. She would make two runestones, both in gold, one in English and one in Norse. She'd picked up a Norse to English dictionary in the library, and had decided on the word "invisible"--the stone would conceal whomever happened to be touching it. The English word would say "invisible," translated phonetically, while the Nordic one would say "leynask," meaning "to conceal oneself."

At first, she wondered where she would acquire gold, but then she realized she already had some. Wizarding currency, unlike most muggle currency, was purely whatever metal it advertised itself as, which meant all she really needed was a couple galleons. It was possibly...well, wrong in some way, to melt down money, but she figured it was worth it, for science.

So here she was in the alchemy classroom, setting up a Bunsen burner. The melting point of gold was 1064°C, and the hottest point of a Bunsen burner could reach 1500°C, so it shouldn't take too long. She had two galleons (she'd weighed them to make sure they were the exact same mass), two small clay dishes, a ring stand, and some tongs. For the next part, the carving, she had a small steel rod, a little longer than a toothpick. She'd melt the galleons one at a time, and wait for them to cool most of the way before carving the runes into them.

Making sure the area was clear, and that she was wearing all the necessary protective equipment, she turned on the gas, struck a spark, and adjusted the flame until it was a pale blue with a turquoise center.

Music was something that helped Gaspard to think. Or at least he believed it did. Mostly when he would play his violin at home he would allow his mind to wander as his fingers and arms would go through the muscle memory of first warming up doing his scales, then actually practice pieces before he would choose a piece at random to play. Today, he had come up to the fourth floor with that intention, to see if there was any decent instruments or if he'd have to write home for his beloved stringed possession.

That train of thought however left him once he passed by the Alchemy classroom and found it occupied. Not just anyone was occupying it either. The boy's eyes shuttered as he observed the girl in the class. He'd had a class with her already and he knew that she was very much like him and that was why he couldn't let it stand. There was the curiosity as well. If he had an Achilles heel, he knew it was that.

Leaning against the door jamb he crossed his ankles, one hand gripping the strap of his shoulder bag. "What experiment are you doing?" he queried aloud. He had, naturally waited until she wasn't in danger of blowing herself up or blinding either one of them. He believed that was a much more direct and better question than a random question such as just questioning her actions of 'what are you doing?'

Clara set the first galleon in a crucible and balanced it carefully atop the metal ring on the ring stand, watching the turquoise flame lick the bottom of the clay dish. Already, the coin seemed to be going soft around the edges--it shouldn't take long. She sat back to wait.

She'd been so focused on her work, she hadn't noticed the boy in the doorway until she heard his voice. She jumped slightly, glad she wasn't handling melted gold or an open flame at the moment. She glanced up.

She recognized him--he was from her house. They'd had a class or two together. He was a first year, if she remembered correctly, though she hardly trusted her memory when it came to people. He looked like a first year, anyway.

He'd asked a question. As she answered, she turned her gaze back to her melting gold--it was never good to be distracted during an experiment.

"I'm testing the properties of gold as a medium for runestones, compared to the wooden ones we did in class, and determining whether or not language makes a difference when translating intention into elder futhark."

The barest hint of an amused smile tilted at the corner's of the boy's mouth before it vanished. To say that he was intrigued was an understatement. Tilting his head to the side as he gazed at the experiment, he facial expression showed his curiosity and interest. Pushing away from the door, he uncrossed his ankles as he stepped more into the room and approached the table.

It was a fascinating concept. One which Gaspard was wanting to know the answer to now. As he usually was when facing upperclassmen, he was a bit nervous but hid it since he knew they were like sharks that could smell chummed waters when it came to insecurity. It slightly helped that he was quite into what the girl was doing that he allowed it to takeover his nerves as he couldn't help but query, "Why gold? Is it because its considered a 'pure' metal? Or because of its conductivity?"

He'd always believed that even though gold was a great conductor, it was rather soft and a bit useless really. Great for making things look pretty he supposed, but that was bout it. But to be used for runes? As for the language barrier, he paused as he actually thought about that. While language was very important so was intent.

Glancing at the girl he wondered if he could broach something he'd been rather keen about trying to figure out. Perhaps with this little experiment of hers he could segue into it? That was if she didn't mind him being impertinent (adults frequently used that word to describe him) and sticking around.

The gold in the crucible was forming a small puddle now as the edges melted. Clara picked up the tongs on the table before her, and used them to turn the crucible on its stand, making sure the coin was heating evenly.

She glanced up again at the boy's next questions. It was rare to hear scientific terms from a wizard. If she were being quite honest, it was a little refreshing--he wasn't asking stupid questions, he was bringing up legitimate points.

On the next table over, away from the fire for safety reasons, lay her Ancient Runes textbook. To answer his question, she rose slightly, and flipped it open to the page on media. It had a chart ranking different materials from best to worst.

"I'm using gold because Professor Kessler said it was the strongest. After I find out exactly how strong it is, I'll look into why. I suspect it has something to do with malleability or ductility--when you apply force, it doesn't break, it just bends. That's the only thing I can think of that would make gold stand out significantly from other metals. Wood is the weakest medium, which makes sense with the ductility theory because it isn't ductile at all, it just splinters."

She pushed the book towards her fellow Ravenclaw so he could see, then returned to watching the gold pooling in the bottom of the crucible. Almost there.

Seeing that she wasn't glaring or tossing him out on his ear, Gaspar breathed a bit easier and followed her over to where her book was. Rather than looking at it over her shoulder, he waited until she pushed the book towards him and he nodded as what she was telling him. He supposed gold would be strongest with the conductivity. Magic was an energy source after all. As for the wood, he'd never really thought about that. He knew that it was likely that the students were given something easy to carve into to learn how to make the runes. And you needed to know how to make them in any kind of service if you were placing runes and not just the rune stones about the property or what have you.

Watching the gold being smelted, he watched it curiously. Most people didn't just have gold lying around. Not unless you were rich or knew a lake or cave that hadn't been mined. A suspicion rose in him and he couldn't help but voice it. "Are you using galleons?"

This should prove very interesting if she was. And would answer some of Gaspard's question about the gold. He'd always wondered if the goblins cast magic on the money since they were the ones minting it. After all, he was sure that someone had to have had the idea he'd had before. Still, the boy was tempted to try it out so he'd have some other forms of currency other than coin. It would be so easy to sell the galleons in the non magical world since gold bullion was valued for more than just seven dollars a gold coin. Why a child that grew up in the non magical world didn't realize that and make a killing he never understood. Unless the currency had some kind of spells or something that would detect usage other than what it was meant for?

It might have sounded niave or if he was trying to be smarter than he was, but he was actually genuinely curious. "Did you check to see if the Goblins cast any spells on them?"

The gold in the crucible had melted completely, and Clara let out a small breath of relief as nothing happened. Well, nothing perceptable anyway. She had taken a small risk with the galleons--she had done a bit of research first (she always did a bit of research first) and had found something about goblins protecting their coins from improper trade, but nothing on melting the galleons down for gold. Since she couldn't find any information on it, she'd decided to just test it and see if it worked, hoping nothing terrible would happen. She didn't notice anything, but she supposed it was still possible that something had happened that she just couldn't see--like if the galleon had magically transmutated in the melting process so it was no longer real gold. That would certainly mess with her experiments, but she had no other options at the moment.

She looked up at the boy's question, after using the tongs to carefully remove the crucible from the flame and set it on the table to cool.

"Yes," she said simply, before returning to her work. She placed her second galleon on another crucible and set it on the ring stand. As she waited for one to melt and the other to cool, she was able to give the boy more of her attention. He asked another question, one which fell right within her own line of thinking, and she nodded before he even finished asking.

"Of course," she said. "Well, I tried to anyway. There were several passages on protective spells that prevent people from things like illegal smuggling and selling them to muggles and whatnot, but the results were inconclusive when it came to melting them. I suspect the goblins have ways of tracking all of their coins, but since I couldn't find anything saying I couldn't melt them, I decided to just give it go. Thankfully, it doesn't look like anything terrible has happened."

She kept her thoughts on the possibilities to herself. It was only a theory, and not an obviously correct one, so there was no point in mentioning it before it was relevant.