Prologue- The throne room

It was no secret that the throne room in the Underworld was designed to look exactly like the one in Olympus. Many assumed themselves to be correct in thinking that it was because The King of the dead was angry and sad at the fact that he wasn't allowed in Olympus and had created his own throne room to counter the one above. Many believed Hades to be a jealous Olympian, and the fact that the God in question did not counter those believes did not help this matter in any way. Hades himself was rather happy at that. Best everyone assumes that and leave the matter as it is. He did not need anyone snooping around his realm and finding things that would prove detrimental to him. He needed the secrecy, he needed any and all matters discussed in this room to not get out and looking at the occupants in the room, he was confident that it wouldn't.

Many Olympians did not bother with Hades much. They let him be his brooding self in his big and nasty dungeon and Hades couldn't be happier about it. There were many moments in which he was glad that he was ignored and this was one of it. This meeting, these people sitting in this room indicated his failure as the God of the dead to some extent. He never did and never will take the blame of humans and their actions upon himself but to let things escalate to this level was in a small part his fault. He should've nipped things at its bud but there was no point in crying over spilled blood. He would have to fix it or get someone to fix it.

Humans, much to Hades' ire were fixated with escaping death. The uncertainty and fear to what would come next, the apprehension about not having done much good in their lifetime to ensure a happy afterlife were more pronounced in some individual than the other. To some these thoughts were so prominent that they took active measures to stop death from claiming their soul. While most of these methods did not work, ensuring an even harsher punishment for the individual in question, there were some rare humans who actually succeeded in what they wanted to do. Those people were almost immediately noticed and taken care of. The new technique was also studied and the committee made to deal with them immediately learned from their failures.

The first mistake Hades did was not to acknowledge Thomas Riddle as a threat. The man had been insulting to The Ruler of the Underworld. He had the audacity to indicate that he was 'fleeing from death' and the mockery he had made of Hades by naming his minions 'Death Eaters' was something he'd pay for once he arrived at Hades' domain. For that reason alone, Hades had watched amusedly as the events unfolded. The prophecy was a brilliant twist to the story, as he'd simply assumed that the imbecile Riddle would be killed by the same man who'd brought an end to the last person attempting immortality but the thought of the pathetic human being killed by a mere infant was just too amusing. The Lord of the Dead sat in his throne and looked on as his favorite drama was about to end. He watched as two souls got sucked into his realm, the latter one invoking the strongest protection upon her son as she too fell.

Hades watched as the sickly green spell bounced harmlessly off the small infant and hit the towering figure squarely. It was at that moment that he saw felt that something was wrong. The aftermath of the spell was not in accordance to the usual effect of it. Instead of just striking the man and him falling over dead, it exploded upon contact with the evil wizard's body. Hades thought, everything forgotten in this moment as everything that could've made this possible went through his head. Resolving to ask Hecate about it, he focused back into the screen, just in time to see a wraith rise up from the fallen wizard and float away. As Hades looked at the room bathed in sickly green glow, originating from the crying baby's forehead, as he looked at the marking, the meaning it held for the soulless body, he understood what had happened. He looked at the fading light from the sowilo rune carved into an innocent boy, the rune for power, the mark of Thomas Riddle's victory over him, and he cursed.

Within one hour of his revelation, he had assembled the team and informed them about what had happened. He had chosen carefully, of course, picking the people required for this specific task as well as those who'd had experience regarding situations like this. His eyes rested on one specific person, the one most beneficial to him over the course of this entire debacle. The young man in question looked no out of place in this room than he did but Hades could see that despite it all, he was nervous. He slowly met Hades' eye.

"My Lord." He addressed Hades. Everyone turned to look at him. "I may have an idea as to what might've happened."

"Speak." Hades commanded.

"I believe he might've created Horcruxes." The entire room fell silent at that revelation. To the more experienced members, the inventions of Herpo the Foul were a constant source of stress and trouble and the new ones had heard of the Horcruxes to warrant such a reaction.

"How did you reach this conclusion?" Hades asked thoughtfully. Those things were not that hard to destroy, but finding them was a totally different matter altogether.

"Among the early memories of Riddle, there is one of him asking the Potions Professor about Horcruxes. I merely wrote it off as a curious mind foraging into the dark arts and did not make the connections until now." The person explained, a bit nervous about not bringing this to Hades' attention sooner.

The God nodded and looked at the rest of the people present in there. They all had varying degrees of nervous apprehension displayed in their faces. He looked back at the young man dressed in black wizarding robes, his spy for Hecate's world. "Research more into this theory of yours Obsidian. I assume you want your usual group to assist you." The newly dubbed Obsidian nodded in answer.

He then addressed the rest of the group. "The rest of you who are not working with Obsidian look into any other method of faux immortality Riddle might have used or created. Hecate, stay back. The rest of you are dismissed." The God of Magic and Mist followed his request and moved closer to him.

"This child." He started. "We need to protect him, after all he is destined to kill Riddle. But first things first, do you have any idea how he might've survived? His mother seems to have invoked some powerful protections upon him."

Hecate looked thoughtful. "I am not entirely too sure about that, but I do have a couple of theories. I would require a full investigation before I can confirm or deny anything. I was able to talk to Obsidian before this meeting. The believed theory among few prominent wizards seems to be that Lily Potter upon sacrificing herself, placed powerful Blood protections upon him."

"And where is the boy now? Any blood relatives we know?"

Hecate smiled. "I have reasons to believe so. I did a background check on everyone the prophecy could refer to. Lily Potter nee Evans has a sister by the name of Petunia Evans. I recognized the name straightway."

Hades frowned. "I believe I am not familiar with this Petunia Evans."

"She is a child of Athena. She was a great help in locating my staff many years prior."

His frown did not cease. "I thought that was a simple matter resolved by Obsidian and his ragtag group. Was there anything not made available to the public eye?"

"In a few words, yes. And as it is the very detail involving Petunia Evans, I am barred from telling you anything more regarding the matter. I will have to visit her sometime soon."

"It will be good to have him raised by a demigod. He will have to be trained to fulfill his destiny. Now that that matter is finished, we need to discuss something else." Seeing Hecate's head perked up, he continued. "It's concerning Obsidian, he cannot stay in the shadows any longer. He has to get integrated into the wizarding world as soon as possible, as normally as possible. I have spoken to him about it and he agrees with me. However, to do so we might need your help."

"I believe that he is capable of a small matter like this. I will only help if absolutely necessary." Hecate replied, a bit coldly.

"While I do not deny his abilities and proficiency with them, it will be far stronger if you helped with the illusion. We have ignored this or half-heartedly done things for too long now, we need to take this seriously or it will blow back into our faces. Remember Hecate, I am not the only one who would lose face if word ever got out to our brethren." He looked at the lady in question with a steely gaze."

Hecate held her own stare against the pools of blackness of Hades' eyes. "You don't need to remind me of that." She almost hissed. "I will consult with Obsidian and get the illusion ready." With that she took her leave.

Hades remained in his throne room for a long time after that, reviewing the day's events over and over again. As he looked at the small boy with the lightning bolt scar, he smiled bitterly.

This is a rewrite of my old story Hecate's Champion. Although I say rewrite, this story is going to be much much different. I believe that the quality of my writing and the plot itself in the old version was not that good and I hope that I have improved myself a bit since that story has been updated and I wanted to write it again, changing a few things here and there.

To the new readers, welcome. There is no need to read the old (and bad) version of this story as things will not be the same. If you wish to read that draft, I have not deleted it from my profile, hence the reason for starting a new story. To the old readers, I hope you like this one as much as you did the last one. If you want something to be changed or something to stay the same, please do let me know.

As usual, please let me know of my shortcomings and any areas I need to improve on by a review or a private message. Thank you for reading.