Chapter 2 – Just Another Saturday at the Cartwrights


Son, are you sure you want to do this?

- William


Yep. Start the ball rolling as soon as you can.

- Will


William came to one conclusion: he hated paperwork. No… not paperwork, exactly, but bureaucracy. Did you know that to file for domestic status on a foreign business required 217 different sets of forms to be filed and approved with the Ministry of Magic? One or two, sure – that would be understandable, but 217 separate collections of extended documentation? Did you fill out your form acknowledging that the importing of any species of flying animal is banned by the No Air Borders Act of 1412? Did you fill out your form detailing your compliance with the international standards commission on maximum underground depth for wizard occupational safety? Dang, you caught me – my plan was to operate an illegal dragon-smuggling operation miles beneath the earth's surface.

The worst part was he wasn't even doing all this paperwork for something interesting. It's not like he was using it to funnel illegal exports, run a reverse kidnapping network, or something suitably exciting. No, he was doing it to create something almost as boring as the forms he was filling out.

Looking to take a break from the drudgery of filling out yet another acknowledgment (this one on his awareness on which deal brokerages required a Type G license from the International Confederation's Magical Species Regulatory Board) he stretched, deciding that maybe a walk would be in order.

Before he could leave the house, though, the family owl flew through the open window. "Smoke? Oh, great, what has Will done now?" he asked the owl.

"Hoot."

"Don't hoot me, Smoke. Last time you came here from Hogwarts, it was to inform me that my son was given a week of detentions for what he did during Quidditch match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff."

"Hoot."

"Time before that? Mongols invaded the portraits. Mongols!"

"Hoot."

"Mongols!"

"Hoot."

"Don't ask me how he was able to make the whole Owlery disappear. I mean, sure, you could block off the ground entrance, but it's not like the owls wouldn't continue to exist. But how on earth did he convince the owls to lay low for those few days? It's not like he had someone on the insi..."

"… Hoot?"

William blinked and faced the family owl in full. "He… you helped him pull it off?!"

"… hoot."

William rolled his eyes, finally taking the letter from the nervous owl. Smoke immediately flew to safety, but before William could start reading the letter, he heard a voice calling from the window.

"Mister Cartwright!"

William narrowly avoided groaning. Billy Bogglesdill, the annoying 9-year old brat that lived two houses down the street. Unfortunately, he couldn't just yell at the kid and make him leave, because Billy was the son of parents William happened to be… well, "conning" had a really negative connotation. Hey, the Bogglesdills inherited way too much money, and if William could act as a conduit from them to much more worthy recipients (half to himself, half to St. Mungos), then they could go on believing he was a Seer descended from the Order of Merlin.

"Mister Cartwright – what number am I thinking of?"

William carefully reached into the upper-right pocket of his robes, discretely pulling out a slip of parchment and quickly reading it.

"Four hundred and seventeen."

"What color is the headband that…"

"Purple."

"What animal smells like an…"

"You do."

"Hey!"

"Sorry, Billy, but I don't have time to tell you that the South American Malanitir smells like an orange. You should get home before you get chewed out by your parents for not doing your arithmetic homework."

"You're amazing!" Billum shrieked before running off.

Great, William thought to himself. He took a fresh slip of parchment and copied down what was written: '417, Purple, South American Malantir like an orange, arithmetic homework overdue'. Now I've got to use the time-turner because of that brat.

Before William could get his bearings, five owls flew through the window.

"Oh, what now?!"

Fortunately, it looked like it was just some… feedback on his latest book. Unfortunately, 'Looked Like' was never a safe assumption – sometimes his critics could send the nastiest of curses through Owl Post. He resignedly started going through his standard 15 incantations for each package, scanning for a wide variety of contingent magic and debilitating substances. The charms didn't pick up anything – and while the fourth package did have a perfume of some sort in it, that was only to be expected now and then.

Finally, nearly 20 minutes later, he finished the last spell and banished the five packages to the spare bedroom; while he wouldn't mind a bit of ego-inflating, he could wait until later to go through the five packages. At this rate, he'd never be able to get to…

Knock knock. "Hello? William? Are you there?"

William's head thudded against the table in frustration – quite a bit harder than he was intending. It was okay; the mound of paperwork cushioned the blow.

Knock knock knock knock. "William? It's Angela – I was wondering if you could help me out with the gnomes again?"

He took a deep breath, thinking for a handful of seconds. Okay… I already have to use the time-turner anyway, so I might as well do this with some style. It's… 1:53 now, so I'll go back, use some illusion at 1:52 to make the gnomes think I'm some sort of… hmmm… I'll claim I'm the second coming of Herox, Destroyer of Gnomes, and that Angela's yard is the new Altar of Fiery Gnome Sacrifice. When I'm done, I'll sneak back here, sleight-of-hand this parchment into my pocket. Wait... no, I have to have the parchment in my pocket before I deal with the gnomes, because Billy showed up before Angela. So I need to go back and slip the answers to Billy's questions into my pocket – so the parchment is in my pocket when he shows up, and then do the Avatar of Gnomish Death at 1:52. Sounds do-able.

Time Turners enabled a lot of creative illusions. They just took some careful fore-thought.

William finally got up and answered the door. Angela was dressed in a semi-low-cut robe and had a wide-eyed puppy-dog look on her face – which William mentally thought of as her 'I need a favor' costume. She was apparently oblivious to what was happening across the street, though, as a crimson-robed figure was brandishing a giant fireball and scaring the heck out of a bunch of garden pests. "William," she asked in a simper, "can you help me out de-gnoming my garden? I don't know how you do it so well."

As she was finishing her sentence, William caught sight of the red-clothed mage disappearing in a cloud of black smoke. After giving his future self a few extra seconds to make a clean getaway (and the smoke a chance to clear,) William asked, "Err... what gnomes? Your yard doesn't look like it has any."

Angela looked around and let out a faint 'Eep.' "Oh my," she said with a giggle. "Looks like they left after they saw I was coming over here to ask your help."

"Indeed."

After politely saying goodbye, William sat down at the table – finally able to read his son's letter.

I've been thinking about safe ways to prod your enemy into action and how we might get you back to your old self. You remember the Living Legends, and think about what Nick would do.

- Will

William groaned. "You're still on about this, aren't you?"

It was the continuing disagreement between them, in which William thought his son was being a bit naïve. Will's hope was that if Voldemort returned (in a limited capacity) and Harry defeated him in some heroic fashion... the world would feel grateful to Potter – and maybe this translated to Harry having a better life. Or something – William had the suspicion that his son's motives were a bit convoluted and quite a bit half-formed... but he figured it was better to work together and make sure nothing went wrong as opposed to his son trying to do it all alone at Hogwarts. He supposed it did help that they weren't shooting to bring Voldemort back to power – just to a spot where Harry's efforts were appreciable.

As for this letter? It wasn't terribly difficult to figure out. William's 'enemy' was Dumbledore, back to his old self was 'Voldemort', 'Living Legends' was capitalized because referred to the book Legends Currently Living that they'd both practically memorized. But… who was Nick? There wasn't a "Nick" in the book that he could recall.

Frowning, William abandoned the idea of a relaxing walk and pulled out Legends Currently Living, flipping through the table of contents. "Albus Dumbledore… Gilderoy Lockhart… really, Potter's in here? … Nicol… oho! Nicolas Flamel. Now that is a thought." William pondered it, absently saying, "Excellent idea, son."

The Philosopher's Stone, created by Nicolas Flamel. His son's suggestion certainly had merit. Voldemort, if he were hovering on the gates of death, might try to revive himself by such an artifact. And better yet, stealing it had the great benefit of being obvious. If "Voldemort" stole five random potions ingredients, it was possible nobody would figure out the connection – Dumbledore was good, but he wasn't that good. Stealing the stone would be blatantly clear – after all, it only did two things. Being obvious might not seem like a positive trait (wouldn't Voldemort try to resurrect himself without anyone knowing?) – but the key wasn't that they were actually trying to resurrect Voldemort; they were trying to make sure Dumbledore knew what was going on.

Of course, it wasn't as simple as mailing the headmaster a note that said, 'Hey, Albus, I'm not dead yet, and I've got my sights set on immortality. – Love, Voldemort. PS: Could you tell me where Flamel is?'

No, the only thing that made sense was to steal the stone. Sure, that was supposedly impossible – but that wasn't an obstacle. Dumbledore would see the stone go missing, and…

… okay, there was a flaw in the plan. Dumbledore would probably assume that someone stole it for infinite wealth, or maybe some fool trying to live forever. Speaking of which… why wasn't William trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone? William Cartwright, Millionaire Master of Time did have a nice ring to it. Something to think about later.

Anyway, somehow he would have to steal the stone, yet leave enough clues behind to tie the whole thing to Voldemort's hand.

Fortunately, that had to be the easiest part of the plan. After he got done with the wasted Time-Turner hour, he could head to every wizarding library in the area and find all the books that involve Nicolas Flamel, Alchemy, or Artifacts… and check them out under the name of Tom Riddle. The name would mean nothing to pretty much anyone else besides Dumbledore – and when the old man investigated things after the stone was stolen, he'd come to the only logical conclusion.

You know… this is fun. Still not worth doing ministry forms for, though…


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