 Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?
Brandon hadn't tried either the magical or muggle ways to build the chair. So he decided to use both, and hope to be good at one of them. It was logical. He grabbed a tape measure and hammer to go along with his wand. The notebook was open again, and he quickly wrote down the instructions. But now it was time to work.
He took two poles, and laid them parallel, using the edge of the workbench to line them up. He took his pencil, and marked 8.5 inches(he measured twice). Then he positioned a little plank between them there, and hammered it in with magic. Or... tried. "Malleus. Malleus? Malleus!" He gave up. See? This is what he meant when he said a hammer was more reliable! He grabbed the hammer, and knocked the nails into the wood himself. Then he did it again with the other sides, sticking to the hammer. Now he had two pieces, which looked mostly the same. They weren't EXACTLY the same, but Brandon tried to ignore that. It bothered him.
Ha had to connect them now. He took one piece, and measured & marked 7 inches. Why was this plank lower? He guessed it was to make sure the nails didn't all hit each other, but he really didn't know. He wrote that down. Then he hammered the plank on the other side. Taking his first piece, he measured 7 inches from the bottom and marked it. He positioned it over the open side of the planks, and hammered in 4 nails to finish off his base. He stood it up.
Here there was a problem. And to Brandon, any problem was a big problem. The Big Problem was that for some reason(imperfect measuring?), the stool was noticeably wobbly. His first thought was to cry, but he had learned never to do that. His second thought was to write the problem down, which he did. And his third thought was to actually fix the problem. Healers had to problem solve a lot. He pretended the stool was a person with one leg much longer than the other. Then he thought about it.
........................................
Taking his wand, he used "diffindo" to very, very carefully slice off a little bit of the stool legs that were put in wrong. Then he sliced a little more, and just a little more, evening and adjusting different legs, until the stool was level. Now it was a slightly shorter stool. But it was stable. He considered this a win! He grabbed the large plank and positioned it over the base, measuring five times this time to make sure there was a 1/2 inch overhang exactly. Feeling confident after his problem-solving, he tried to put in the nails magically. "M... Malleus." THERE. Excited, he hammered in the remaining nails. He did it!!!
"Can we keep these?" he asked, protectively holding onto his new stool. Because Brandon had every intention of keeping his, and he would be upset if he couldn't |