Jade green eyes, partly looking like illuminated emeralds, stared into the fire in sheer disbelieve. Nicholas Flamel. The philosopher's stone. The fucking stone of eternal live and never ending monetary supply was at this castle. Was Dumbledore trying to trick his little Hero or the Dark Lord? Was he trying to trick both and force a confrontation? Testing his Hero was one thing but using his own school to lure the Dark Lord meant that he thought Voldemort to be insane, more so than he had been before his disappearance.
To risk his school and students was probably because of the wand he had seen sticking out from the older man´s pocket, if his suspicions were true than Dumbledore was the current holder of the Elder Wand. Even if Voldemort did stroll into the school he wouldn´t be subtle about it, not with the amount of insanity he probably would have after a decade as a shade, not a ghost and not a spirit. That Dumbledore was wearing the Wand meant that, even if he was very careful with its use, the Call of the artefact was already strong enough for him to dislike the thought of leaving it behind.
Excusing himself by Ron and Hermione because of a headache he went into the dorm and opened his well warded secret trunk compartment from which he removed a black leather-bound book, the third that he would soon have filled.
Not bothering to order his thoughts he began to write all his new discoveries down, if he let his mind supply him with thoughts and conclusion without him trying to order them he usually remembered things he had not paid much attention to sooner instead of forcing himself to order everything now and only realizing something vital when he read over it again in a few days. Once done there was only one question left and it was glaring back at him from the recently filled page. Would his father like the gift?
If Harry Potter were to tackle saving the stone, which would lead to its destruction or some such nonsense, he would probably do it in the last possible moment, meeting the "bad guy" along the way. There had to be protections placed around the stone, one of which would be the Mirror. While it's main purpose was to drive enemies insane the Mirror, like most of this kind of artefact, had several other little abilities, one of which was the possibility of hiding something within the surface with a specific trigger to retrieve it later.
Those triggers could be something simple like an Emotion or a wish or something as hard as a certain intention or specific phrase. Without the trigger the object would stay hidden and couldn´t be removed even if the Mirror was destroyed. The sane Voldemort would be able to get the stone, especially with his recent travels and his son who had studied artefacts during his N.E.W.T.s in Runes, Arimancy and his Masteries in Warding and Crafting.
The insane Voldemort, however wouldn´t stop to solve the puzzle that was the Mirror in which case the stone truly was lost. But the insane Dumbledore wouldn´t get it out either as there might be another line of protection about intact sanity.
This meant that he would need to retrieve the stone anyway! The trigger could be anything at least if you did not add Voldemort to the equation. His father feared death and had gone to great lengths to ensure his Immortality. While he was no longer insane he would still come to get the stone just because of that.
What if it wasn´t the need to protect something a Dark wizard could use against him and his friends but something much more easy, like the fact that one only wished to find the artefact but not to use it. His insane father would want it to use it, would demand its release for his ultimate goal.
Finding and Protecting were his best shots. If the old coot was unable to get the stone out he might have the Desire to use the stone as well, which would mean that the Wand had much more control over the old man than he had assumed. Or there simply was something like fear of death that no one ever assumed of the Order of Merlin First class recipient.
Of course, it could be as simple as Albus fearing for the Mirror if it met the insane Dark lord in which case he would need his Hero to save not only the stone but the Mirror as well, and that particular thought led to much more problems. When Dumbledore wanted to keep the Mirror and fake the destruction of the stone he would need to figure out which other highly addicting Dark artefacts the old man had lying around this school or carrying with him at all times.
He could presume that Dumbledore was aware of his addiction and the fact that neither the Mirror nor the Wand were going to give him something back, those artefacts took something from the one that "held" them. Especially if said holder was Light and lacked the Dark Affinity needed to stand a chance. Thus, his theory about Dumbledore being sane but addicted was filled with another world of problems.
What would the Leader of the Light do with Dark artefacts that acted faster and much more brutal with people that were not supposed to have them? If he had the Rosetta Stone, well that would be bad even though it was a Light artefact and could be used for his and his people's own sake instead of holding onto Dark objects that took away and gave only fake Emotion of elation, for Light people the Dark felt as wrong as he himself felt wrong staying in Gryffindor surrounded by Light people.
There were enough shades of Grey in the whole school to keep it to a simple churning of his belly and occasional shudders and the feeling of chocking but the principle remained the same.
Dumbledore had emphasized the "what you desire" part by adding the undertone and changing the wording to make it sound like "even if you don´t know it yet". That one could lose his mind by simply seeking out the mirror and staring into it was not as important a lesson as the fact that the Mirror showed ones heart´s desire. When the Mirror was Dumbledore's line of defence all teachers were aware of the artefact and the need to protect it.
Snape would have added something related to potions as having Harry save the stone excluded using Severus intense knowledge of the Dark Arts or anything related to it. It wouldn´t do to allow Harry to confront his inner demons by having to figure out something concerning the Dark Arts. Especially as he would be able to figure it out because of his inner demons which was a can of worms the Headmaster did not wish to open. Sprout would add plants, of course and while he seriously disliked dealing with them the importance of those protections wasn´t so much meant to keep a Dark Lord from reaching the stone but test a mediocre, elven year olds abilities.
Sweet Darkness and Salazar´s silver shorts, he needed to take the two thugs with him he had acquired as Harrys friends. Harry alone wouldn´t be able to get through it, he wasn´t that good at remembering anything and thus he would need his walking encyclopaedia and the other thug. At least the moment where Harry went to save the stone those children had to come with him.
Slowly he began to list all teachers and his suspicions before he went about various plans. The Gryffindor he was acting as would charge in when he believed the stone to be in grave danger, so there would be a huge clue, like Dumbledore leaving and the teachers unwilling to listen to a warning. It wouldn´t be hard to hide the knowledge of the traps and allow the mudblood and blood traitor to do most of the work, allowing them to handle most of the traps would even strengthen this "friendship" of theirs and make the impression of Harry "needing" them for every and all of his adventures.
If Dumbledore leaving was the huge clue for Harry to act it would be stupid to wait for Dumbledore to leave until he made his move, and while he could use Dark Magic and be done in less than 20 minutes, regardless of what awaited him, he had enough other abilities that wouldn´t trigger hidden wards that were there to aid Harry should the insane thief start getting irritated.
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Sitting at the Gryffindor table he smirked, hoping that it looked happy or relieved instead of triumphant, he felt another wave of elation wash over and through him. He was too euphoric to bother milling over the unfairness of awarding "last minute points" after a whole House had been celebrating for several days because they believed to have won the House cup.
Redecorating the Hall an hour before all students left for summer break was taking House degrading too far, after all but he had stolen the stone and then allowed his attachments to rule the show, switched out the potions from the one that would allow safe passage to one that led to poisoning while still allowing him to pass meant that he arrived in the Chamber, intending to save the stone only to pass out from poisoning.
The mudblood know-it-all had gotten a well-deserved blow to her inflated ego, the stone was still "stuck" in the Mirror and all was well. His elation of getting the stone was shared with the elation of missing the end of year exams, he had really been cautious about them as they were self-updating and he doubted his ability to play dumb while still dancing mentally on Dumbledore's grave while throwing around the gold made with the stone.
Passing the self-updating test up to N.E.W.T level in most subjects would have ruined all of the hard work and acting of a whole year of school. Getting the Headmaster to throw a semi-public temper tantrum wasn´t worth the issue of ruining every chance of continuing with his main objective, which was spying.
Instead he had missed the test, stolen the Philosopher´s stone, dealt the unnerving girl with bushy hair a huge blow to her ego, found several interesting titbits information and would soon return to his home and bed while in the possession of The Cloak of Invisibility on top of it all. Yes, the effort had been well worth it!
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Lord Voldemort sat behind his mahogany desk in his study, watching his son with slight apprehension and amusement. Daemon had returned home calm and collected, released some of the tension of the past year in the following two weeks after donning his glamour's and had then begun to spoon feed him all the information he had collected.
That changed when his Angel told him about the true origin of the Deathly Hallows. As he had not bothered to pester his son about his school subjects during their six years in America and had been too immersed in his own studies the fascinating if useless tale would have only angered him at that time. Getting handed the Cloak of invisibility after the nearly gleeful backstory did change his stance on that particular topic and he secretly wondered about all the other fascinating and probably useful things his son had learned.
Where it would have angered and bored him then it now was a very useful piece of information, especially when one took Albus possession of the Elder Wand in consideration. He did not doubt his son´s word, trusting him and knowing that everything his son "thought to be highly likely" was usually very true.
After a rundown of several other highly interesting facts concerning Slytherin house and it´s Head his little angel had gone silent for another week, which allowed him to attend several meetings to bring some stones into motion and file on the glamour´s he and his son needed, especially the one he would need to look like "Snakey" again.
Now, however, his son had entered his study with a sly smile on his face, without waiting for permission to enter, which was as out of character as he had ever seen his son. Instead of punishing him, which he really ought to do, he waited for the next world changing information. "It is very late, I am aware, but I still wish to give you a very late Birthday present, father!"
The sly smile morphing into one of cheek caused him to pause once again and watch as his Angel produced a beautifully crafted black box from inside his right pocket. It was homemade, which meant that his son had spent several hours in his workroom to get all the protections, runes and carvings he wanted. Opening the lid with the care Daemons presents deserved he felt the wards of the box wash over him, took one look inside and felt himself stiffen in surprise, unable to stop staring.
The box was laid out with obsidian black silk and in the middle lay a vial filled with a ruby red potion next to a beautiful equally ruby red stone. Both things shimmered with the magic within them. "My angel..", he stopped unable to find suitable words or to look away from his present. "My very late birthday present are the..", he had to pause again. "Elixir of live and Philosopher´s stone?", his son prompted gently a serene smile on his face, the smile only he got to see. "How?" "That is a story for another day, father!", with that his son kissed his right cheek and turned.
"Forgive me for disturbing you!", and with that he left leaving him to figure out what exactly he was currently feeling and thinking while he stared at the box and what was in it. Once he had figured out that he genially cared for his son and felt happy about this huge sign of trust he tried to gently close the box, but stopped when he noticed the clasp underneath the visible part. Opening the secret compartment, he felt his mouth form a huge smile as he found his Angels neat calligraphy atop a leather bound jade green book.
It were his sons notations, taken during his experiments with the stone to figure out how to produce gold and the elixir. He definitely needed a new Birthday present for his son; the one he had already acquired was no longer fitting. It was their deep connection that allowed him to know just what present would fit the occasion.
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His Angel was in his work room, or crafting room where he kept all his fabrics, stones, woods and metals as well as all the tools he needed for his beloved crafting and warding. Jade green eyes sprinkled with obsidian black were focused on the delicate white gold chain lying innocently on the table. His son was currently inscribing rune after rune, his ever present notebook (there were many of them in his rooms) mere inches to his left. It was his habit to write down his ideas, mill over possible materials and approaches before he began to search for fitting runes and possible results before he began to experiment in earnest.
Everything from failure to success was then written down as well, which led to a beautifully written general Theory book that held certain sets of runes, materials and other such things that worked well together in various tested combinations. Rune sets that did not fit and were explosive could be found in there as well, they´d had their share of explosions, after all.
Because of that the wards around every work room, ritual room and potions lab were custom-made by his Angel. The last time his beloved son had experimented with some new stone or other material that turned out to be highly explosive had led to half of their manor collapsing, after all. Using force to get the material and runes to do something specific had, in retrospect, been one of his sons less than stellar moments as both the rune combination and the material had then done the exact opposite of what his son wished to achieve.
That this specific experiment was part of what was now their warding scheme made the dangers of this particular venture very clear, especially if one was a gifted young Dark Magician with the creativity to go with it. Granted, the last time his experiments exploded had been over four years ago but his son, like him, was a cautious bastard and fashioned the ward schemes the moment he could move again.
Those specific wards were running on the power of the ley lines beneath their castle and would activate in their default protection setting the moment either of them entered them, in his case the ritual room and potions lab while his son had his own potions lab and the work room. They each had several sets of experiment rooms and wards especially as those rooms had different sizes. Once the owner had entered and closed the door nothing happening inside could affect the rest of the building.
The big work room of his son was located in the castles wing that belonged to his son and took up half of the first dungeon, the other half was a potions lab with two huge storage rooms. Finding the most dangerous combinations no one suspected to be dangerous the first time his Angel hid himself away to experiment had been the reason for this detailed note taking.
Daemon had found that several potions, those he had told Severus to make and use in the last war, could be infused into certain stones which would then double or triple the potions potency, it worked for some less lethal potions as well, which was why his son had given in to getting his own potions lab. He was aware, of course, that potions wasn´t a subject his son liked or loved or had any passion for- but he still was an excellent brewer and had, at his calm suggestion begun and finished a Mastery in the subject.
The default setting of the wards had two sequences- the first was of course the protection of everything around the room, the second prevented anyone not keyed into the wards and aware of the changing password to be sent back upstairs with no memory of ever having found a dungeon with closed doors. It was one of the tamest wards his son had ever come up with as it moderated the intruder's memory according to offense (if they found the room, tried the knob and shrugged or if they tried to enter by force) and the most powerful as well.
According to his son, which he did not doubt one second, the moderation of wards to respond in kind and fine tune it depending of the subjects set of mind and Affinity was a very complicated, deliberate and time consuming thing- which basically translated to: "I am one of six people in the whole world that can do this at all, father. If you keep insisting on questioning me on my progress I will gladly ask one of the other five to do it and allow them to bore you at all times with what exactly they are doing at any given time!?"
Which amounted to the most cheek and disrespect his son would ever use towards him and it was highly likely that his son only used it to keep him away from deadly mishaps by accidentally stepping onto something or touching something he rather shouldn´t, especially if he was not the one working on the wards but just standing around and watching the process. Knowing just what his son was capable of, the deep trust he felt for the young man and the simple truth that his son could deal with most self-inducted danger were reason enough for him to stay clear of his son´s two rooms.
Daemon would use proper respect concerning any room he was currently in, aware of the fact that he would gain permission to enter once the danger was over or the important part was done and patiently wait for it, he had learned to do the same concerning his son´s dungeon rooms. Sending down house-elves had cost him two of those ugly but useful creatures and he had liked those two as they had been the most submissive and snivelling towards him, which was why he never tried to get his son to eat once he was down there.
Usually his son would leave the rooms after maximum three days looking exhausted, slightly hurt and three out of ten times as if he had not managed to achieve his goal. It was now the middle of the fifth week of holidays and his Angel had not left his work room for the past four days, which was slightly worrying in his mind. Thus he had calmly walked down, hissing out the passwords required to get him to where he wanted to be before he knocked. Should Angel not answer after three knocks something had gone dangerously wrong.
When he was forced to knock a second time he felt his heart skip a beat and his chest to constrict painfully. Should his son be hurt he would lock him up for at least one week and "fuss" over him, if he was still alive, that is. At times like these he couldn´t help the small wish that his son was just an average kid with little to no imagination and passionate about History of magic or cauldron thickness. Or that he had shut down his son´s experiments before they even began, to have discouraged it more instead of allowing it and getting only irritated if things like collapsing homes happened.
These were, of course, the instincts of a father speaking as he moved to knock a third time, feeling something akin to fear rise in his chest. Images of his son deadly injured or death were not something he liked to deal with in the best of his moods, pictures that became clearer as he noted the absence of a response which led to his third knock.
He had never cared for anyone. Their similarities and the fact that they had needed each other to move forward, while staying sane for more than eight years had only deepened this feeling for both of them. He feared what would happen if he lost the only person he honestly and deeply cared about because he had been on a meeting. He had not been there, because this one day might have made all the difference and because he had allowed those experiments to further their cause.
His angel wouldn´t ignore his knocking, not twice, not when they had established this system after he had left his son to experiment without supervision. That said experiment had gone smoothly was, in his mind, still beside the point. That he had been furious and had punished his son for this went without saying, but it was the fact that his child had accepted the punishment without so much than a whispered "But" or any kind of impertinence concerning the fact that nothing had gone wrong was why he loved the boy.
"Dad.." it was soft and nearly inaudible. His son calling him dad was much rarer than one of his serene smiles, his voice that weak was by far the rarest of it all. Fear gripping his heart, chest and gut he hissed the passwords that would allow him to enter and walked into the room, faster than was usual for him. The desk and several shelves were destroyed, or nearly pulverised, the pieces embedded into the wall or floor. A golden plate of seven inches radius lay where the workbench should have been, glowing a dangerous pink and moving downwards as if it was trying to destroy the floor and castles foundation.
The walls were torched and everything was ripped to pieces, nothing had survived the apparent bombing. If Daemon was able to move he would have repaired it all, as long as his son could move this room would not be allowed to remain in this state for long. He finally found him leaning at the far wall of the room behind what used to be his storage cupboard, various materials lying about and none of them still intact.
Whatever had happened had caused a chain reaction leading to several smaller explosions. The fact that the cupboard was still recognisable meant that his angel had shielded himself. The calm but pale face of his angel told him that his son had done everything he could to heal himself before magical exhaustion took over. His beautiful jade-obsidian eyes were staring at him, unseeing, which meant that his son was either temporarily blinded or permanent blind. It did explain why his son hadn´t already gone to retrieve the potions required to heal him, the room was a warzone, the thing that caused it still active and he couldn´t see- all factors that kept him sitting on the floor while leaning on the wall.
"My Angel!" while he still felt the fear curse through his body only the worry he felt could be heard in his voice. His son smiled wryly, his wonderful hair tousled and torched in such a way it resembled the Potter mop of hair nearly perfectly. That he was shivering meant that he had lost too much blood and that the magical exhaustion had come from healing all those major wounds.
Without the shield he had used he would have found his body instead of a son he might be able to save. Casting every diagnostic he knew his fear tried to turn into panic. Magical exhaustion, three broken ribs, one that had been shattered but repaired, three burst blood vessels that had been taken care of as well as three major wounds in his son´s gut, on his back and on his left foot that were all healed. To the list came the blindness, the fever and all the other healed wounds, the fact that his broken right arm had healed badly at all two places where it was broken and internal damage his son hadn´t noticed or no longer been able to heal. Picking Angel up with great care he ignored the bag clutched in his son´s hand and carried him upstairs into their private infirmary.
Angel snuggled against his chest but was unresponsive otherwise; he had fallen asleep in his arms. His nearly nineteen year old son had known of his body´s situation and forced himself to stay awake trusting that he would be found by his father. Gently placing his son on the second bed he repeated his scans and began to call all required potions and slaves to him. Nearly everything in their shared stock was brewed by his son; while he did love potions brewing he lacked the time to do it himself most of the time.
They had needed a stock; however and thus his son had filled the infirmary with one. His Angel lying still in the bed looked very small for the 6'5'' he was at and his age. Daemons eyes were still closed but he did swallow the potions. Undressing his son with one elegant flick of his wand he began to apply the slaves onto the various wounds and scars before he followed it up with another bunch of potions and sat down beside the bed calling the book he had wanted to read to him, settling down for a long time of waiting.
Angel stirred after two days in a healing sleep. He had hardly left his son´s side and was still unsure if he should start with the lecture or the punishment first. A small part of him, however, was amused as those two days had given him ample opportunity to notice that most of their jewellery, furniture, potions and many other things were either made by one of them or altered by them in some kind.
"Father!" Angel´s raspy voice ended his musings and he automatically supplied the young man with a glass of water. Between the both of them visits to the infirmary had been frequent, which was why he had seen the need to have one in the first place. Once his son had emptied the glass he began to slowly sit up, grabbed the bag he had clutched previously and gently placed it in front of his father.
Had he not returned one day sooner, if the negations had lasted as long as he had anticipated, his son would be dead or so close to it that his using potions wouldn´t make a difference. But instead of pointing that out he took the bag and opened it. Fighting the urge to destroy the bag and its contest out of principle, he began to remove what was in it, with the great care his son´s little toys usually deserved.
First came the all too familiar leather bound book but this one was obsidian black and inscribed with runes, blood runes- his sons blood. Opening it with the highest amount of care he found one half filled with endless parchment while the other half held a mirror. It was a communication journal tied to each of them with wards to deceive Dark Magic Wards and detectors. The engraved wards, if he had memorised his sons explanations of specific ward sets right, would ensure a false negative each time the journal was tested telling the person testing the journal that it was nothing but a harmless book or one of those journals the office supply sold.
His copy was black, that of his son a pale white with the same bloodred blood runes. Death and Conquest. Smirking briefly he put the journals to the side and removed the next item only for his eyes to widen slightly. His son had discovered the best guarded secret of the whole world. In his hand he held another philosophers stone. Angel had not only figured out how to make the elixir, he had figured out how to make an unlimited supply of the stone itself. Up until a few weeks ago there only had been one such stone, now there were two and Daemon could make more if he desired to.
Looking up he noted that said son had drifted off to sleep again which allowed him to smile broadly for several moments before he put the stone away and removed the next item. It was a beautiful white gold necklace infused with pieces of his son´s birthday present, the resurrection stone that had held the largest piece of his soul besides Salazar´s amulet. The necklace was inscribed with powerful runes and he had to drag out his limited knowledge of his son´s work to finally figure out that this necklace would solve his glamour problem.
He still hadn´t found a way to alter the ritual for his Snake glamour like he had wished to do. The ring had been woven into the white gold inlaid with titanium, pieces of it, all around the necklace. It was another of those things that should have been impossible as the soul piece was still intact even though his son had split up its container- that all of the pieces were infused in the same necklace should not matter for the piece of his soul.
With the addition of the power of the stone and the memory he had given his soul the glamour was much more powerful than the one he had used. "A sacrifice every 20 years should suffice!" Looking up he met his son´s thankfully clear eyes and nodded, unable to form words. A human sacrifice every 20 years would keep the necklace going for another 20 years without any drain on his magic or his magical reserves. Daemon gently touching his arm caused him to looks up.
"A human is not meant to hold all of the Hallows at once. There was a reason why each was made by another Necromancer. They never shared them with each other. The ring accepted you by allowing your soul to be placed inside it, if it hadn´t the stone would have destroyed you and your soul completely and probably would have ceased to exist as well. Because I am yours by blood, magic and soul the stone allowed me to split it up and the soul decided to stay. You will have to wear the necklace, but I made it invisible and removed it´s weight once it touches skin..", his son trailed of and he moved upwards to kiss his Angel´s forehead, knowing that he was still too weak to talk.
Smiling at the young man he put the necklace where it belonged, unsurprised that he felt the control snap to him and that he failed to feel it´s weigh. Trailing over it with his finger, it was as if there was no necklace. Feeling for the necklace, he began to test out its ability changing into his snake-glamour and back again. It was a smooth, instant change. There was nothing besides the gently breeze of power that indicated that anything was happening his own magic was untouched. Unsurprised that there was yet another object in the bag he removed it. The box, of which he hoped to be the last item in this damn bag, held two bracelets made of titanium inlaid with leather to cushion the metal, both materials filled with runes while strategically placed gems were embedded within the titanium.
There was acromulata silk woven into the leather that turned out to be a pocket for a wand. Those bracelets were much more powerful than those they were currently using and would turn invisible the moment he placed one of them on his upper arm. It also showed just how artful his son fashioned all of his crafting's. If his son decided to run away he could easily earn his living through fashioning this kind of jewellery and make a fortune out of it. This was why he loved crafting, why he had bowed to the Mastery in Potions as long as he could get the one in Crafting.
His son would never run away, of course, or defy him, and he would never start selling protective gear to everyone and their kneazle but selling jewellery without any magical properties in this quality would suffice to earn him a Castle in two years after starting up his business. Everyone would seek him out once he had had two or three costumers. For a brief moment he thought about Daemons career options should their plan and duty of world domination fail.
Because his Angel could make such a Career in three different areas, Potions, even though he was dispassionate, Warding and Crafting. "You are aware of the fact that you still will not see the inside of your workroom or the door leading to it for the next two weeks?" His son smiled at him briefly before he drifted back off to sleep. While he was impressed, overwhelmed and filled with pride he wouldn´t allow his son entry in his dungeon. And this was only one part of the punishment that was meant to ensure that his son would heal properly before damaging himself again so soon after nearly dying.
Daemon had, after all, only awoken after two days out of sheer stubbornness and not because he was anywhere near a healed state. Even the blindness could return, this little stunt might ensure that some of the healing stopped or did not move fast enough. But he would punish his son and there would be a lecture, once he was sure that Daemon was strong enough to move through the castle again and that there was no damage left.
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"My angel?" the young man looked up from the Dark Arts paper he had promised his former teacher to write and publish. He had done so for all of his Mastery subjects and some others at his teachers' insistence and earned several galleons for his publicized papers. His current paper was somewhat theoretical and would be published in several international papers as it dealt with the Branch of Voodoo and how it had its own Light and Dark sides and that both were in some kind bound to the concept of Karma.
"Yes, father?" "Retrieve the diadem, during next year!" "Of course, father!", his son answered calmly, his paper discarded and quill carefully placed upon his inkwell, jade-obsidian eyes fixated on him. If only his Minions were only half as intelligent and attentiative, they would have won despite his insanity!
"I am aware of the fact that you planned to do Harry Potters shopping and other matters tomorrow, but you will have to postpone it!" "Will I be able to finish in time or shall I take one of our last time-turners?" "You should be able to finish in time, but using a ritual can´t hurt, either!" His son nodded, both aware of the emphasis of the word "you" and why it was there he simply bowed his head briefly before asking: "Romania?"
"Bulgaria and you will be careful!" Another bow of his son´s head, then their eyes met once more. "Is there anything else, father?" His lips twitched briefly and he decided on the whole truth as he titled his head and milled over his answer. "Several things, none of which I will say aloud and those that remain are too childish to be even worth the consideration!"
Daemon reacted by smiling his angelic smile at him. "I do not tend to forget your lectures and usually do not repeat mistakes such as exhausting myself, father. Attending Hogwarts is necessary, you know that better than I do. And I too love you!", with that the smile got broader and vanished as his son watched him leave growling slightly as his lips twitched.
The growling was mostly show, after all, but his son would never dare to laugh, knowing that it would anger him. Only once the door closed behind him did he allow himself to relax and smile as he heard his Angel´s soft chuckle and the scratching of a quill.
Entering his own study, he sat down, looking at the picture of his son that was glamoured to look like a calendar. He had raised his son the way he would have raise any child, hard, painful at times with iron control and clear rules and limitations. There had been no tears, protests or rebellions, for rebellions there was the official few years, after all.
Being each other's confidants and friends as well as motivation had caused this father and son relationship to include the occasional banter, apparent reading of mind, moments of unashamed brutal honesty and some pretended things like growling or pouting that were part of their relationship and the balance they had found therein.
None of this would change. Even though they were not some plebeian father with his plebeian son but The Dark Lord and his Heir. There were duties and expectations as well as a certain etiquette interwoven with their lives and how they acted and reacted.
Being aware of one another's buttons and the knowledge that his son would never cross the rules or push his buttons while he would respect deals they had made over the past years had gone a long way to deepen the trust and respect that was important for their relationship not only as Dark Magicians, a father and his son but a Dark Lord and his Heir. All those little shows of affection, the little jokes and pretended feelings would never happen outside of their private rooms.
No one would see this side of their relationship. Daemon was the perfect Pureblood heir, attentiative, intelligent, aware of the rules and his own limitations, aware that his father´s word was law and not once showing signs of cracking under the pressure. He doubted that anyone could beat him when it came to showing off kids- his son was the Heir he should be.
The years in America and the official "test" or rather "rebellion" of his son had helped both of them concerning physical and mental health and to find their personal limitations. It were those six years, that strengthened their bond and balance. Removing his eyes from the picture he faced the huge amount of paperwork to his left and sighed before he began to work through all of his correspondence, reports and whatever else was in the damn tower of parchment.
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The Chamber of secrets was as dirty as one could expect after having been neglected for over 50 years. Someone had set Loki, the basilisk, loose. Said someone was using his father´s diary. He loved his father, cared for him and above all respected the man but he had been unstable from his fifteenth birthday onwards and it had only gotten worse with this ridiculous amount of soul splitting, it was his opinion of course, and his father would never hear anything regarding this maniac desire to stay alive.
A Horucx wasn´t bad, he even saw the logic in making three or four, but designing a diary in such a way that it could be used to open the Chamber was too dependent on unpredictable factors. Loki could not smell the difference between Muggle or Wizard, because there was no such difference in smell and blood, at least until you did not draw some of it and looked through a microscope. It was the smell of feelings like disdain, not belonging that led the King of Serpents to its victims with a wonderful cruel enchantment, but if the "victim" under the diary's possession was too weak. Basically, all of those things would not factor into the beast's hunger and decisions.
Continuing his silent journey, collecting the shed skins and anything else of remote interest he looked very carefully at the enchantments and runes all around the Chamber. Because of the deep slumber Loki fell into, if no one of Slytherin blood was near, the snake had to make up for all those years with no biological change. It meant that the creature had had to regrow a new set of fangs, had to shed several skins and was very hungry.
Due to this regeneration period his father had managed to acquire a huge fortune by just selling those parts after waking Loki after thousand years. While he had no issues with the current situation he had to find the person currently possessed and his father´s diary- it wouldn´t do to destroy it as Harry Potter without having the knowledge of how it came back to the school. Finally done with his collecting and taking notes of some of the runes and other formulae he called the king of serpents to ask the questions he needed an answer to.
A girl with a soft voice, red hair and she smelled like the victims Loki usually choose. Ginevra Weasley. The young piece of soul belonging to his father possessed a blood traitor girl that was obsessed with Harry Potter. Tapping into the brilliance that were his ancestors wards he sent the basilisk back to sleep. The little insecure girl would not be able to control the beast and the young Tom riddle wouldn´t know enough of the last decades to be sure about the ancestry of his victims.
He doubted that his father´s soul piece bothered all too much with absolute control over the girl concerning victims as long as he could drain her live energy as fast as possible. He might be able to redirect the creature towards the Mudbloods, but it was additional work he simply did not have the time for. Allowing his father´s 17 year old self to throw a temper tantrum and focus on gaining the live energy was the easiest and less time consuming option, after all.
The damn shade didn´t even manage to kill those kids, all around the castle every muggelborns was petrified and nothing else. Not even the damn cat was dead, what use would it have to let the scheme continue anyway. Sighing he ensured that nothing would wake Loki before he took several more notes and left the Chamber. His father´s brilliance not accounted for he let loose a little curse. With his policy of not trusting anyone this disaster had been unavoidable.
If the diary managed to gain a body magic would prevent the paradox by removing one of the other. One soul could only exist once in a time period. It could be split and put into inanimate objects but it could not occupy two animate objects without one of them dying long before their time. He wasn´t about to let Luck throw the dice and find to have to deal with a younger boy, which happened to be his father and had gone down the spiral staircase towards insanity. He was to egoistical and used to his current live to allow a 17 year old brat to ruin his current situation.
Regardless of the fact that said brat was a piece of his father´s soul; he was not going to allow it.
+Have you succeeded, Daemon?+ *Yes, father I am in the possession of your diadem and diary since yesterday!* There was a long pause after he answered his father through the journal. He could nearly picture it, the bloodred eyes reading over his answer, repeating it before they widened only to then narrow and fill with murderous intent. *Killing Lucius would require a modification of our plans, my beloved father!* Waiting for the response he leaned back against the bedframe.
Killing Lucius would not only need adjustments but also cause some problems they could just as easily forego by keeping the blond alive. +Is it whole?+ *with the exception of the sanity of the soul piece, it is. I will bring it home, father!* closing the journal after that, aware that there would not be any further comment he put it back into his secure trunk compartment and looked at the diary in front of him.
+Hello, Tom! I am Alexis!+ There was a pause as the ink seemed to be sucked up by the book, then *You know my name?* raising one eyebrow at that he closed the book, looked at the spine and opened it once more several questions popping into his head.
+You are aware of the fact that it is titled: Diary of Tom Marvolo Riddle?+ *Ginerva never mentioned anyone named Alexis!* +This was the worst attempt at changing the subject I have ever had the misfortune of partaking in. Besides, little GinGin wouldn´t think of mentioning a young man she does not know of, now would she?+
*How did you manage to get a hold of the diary, Slytherin student?* +I took it, of course. Little GinGin won´t miss it, she kind of forgot it even existed!+
*Moron, why would you do something like that?* +Because, Tommy, there can only exists one soul inhibiting a body at any given time. The same soul inhibiting two body's would cause a paradox. It´s hardly my fault that you had not ensured that none of your Horucxes could activate, while your main soul still inhibited it´s body. *What?!*
Smirking briefly he found he rather liked messing with the seventeen year old boy giving him information he could not possible have had researched. +There are, at any given time for a certain period of time, millions of souls roaming the earth not all of them inhibiting a corporal body. A Human being may split his or her soul and if such a human happens to be Magical he or she can then place this piece into non-sentient, non-organic objects. We can split our soul six times, which makes seven pieces of soul, and only one of them in corporal form. Such a split, where the other pieces are secured away in objects, breaks the limitation of the soul´s time on earth. All pieces can remain in the same time period and longer at any given time. Should two pieces of the same soul inhibit a sentient, organic, animate object, a Human in this case, their presence at the same time, would mean that they negate each other out. You would basically leave all other containers useless and destroy either the one recently in a body or the main piece. Or both.
Living a very long time is the idea behind it, that one would not die, but the principle of the matter is that one would need to ensure the survival of the body as well if one wished to stay coperal, that is and that if there is a piece already in possession of a body the activation of one or several more would negate each end every remaining piece. This are the rules, rules that apply even with Dark Lords. The rules have, after all, not been made by Humans but Lady Magic herself.+
*Liar! The research I did and my sources would have mentioned it, would have warned me!*
+Sweet Darkness, child, reading a lot of books that have not even half of the required information is not something you should call research! Experimenting with the Dark to see our limitations is one thing but presuming that there are no limitations is simply stupid!+ There was a long pause from the diary until:*Stupid child?*
+Selective hearing, huh?+ *What?* +the misfortune of hearing what one wants to hear, or the ability to ignore the uncomfortable truth and focus on the information with the least bit of usefulness to prevent oneself from progress and learning!+ *I resent that!* +because it is the truth, or because you only heard the last few words?+
Another long silence, which made some of the differences between his teenage father and the man he was now nearly painfully clear. *Why can´t I feel your live force?* Well, it was selective hearing at its best but he doubted that the teenager would be able to manipulate people who were darn good at manipulating themselves. While at Hogwarts Tom had not played with Albus, after all, avoiding him had been more than enough at that time and later he had moved away and roamed the world which decreased the danger Dumbledore presented. +In order to allow you to feel my life force I would have to be willing to allow you to feel it. And as I have no intention of allowing you to gain a body I will not even bother to pour out my heart. It all solves my little time problem nicely!+
Watching as the diary slammed shut he smiled fondly; at least the attitude was recognisable. Putting it in his secure compartment he got up and moved around before he would go to sleep, it wouldn´t do to allow Harry Potter to look rested.
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Angry blood red letters were glaring back at him from the wall near the bathroom. Titling his head in slight irritation he noted the wording and frowned. "This isn´t possible!" Saying so he turned around irritated and annoyed, not noticing the black clad man hiding several feet away in a niche. "Harry! Harry!" Looking at the unusually pale boy running towards him with the usual disarray called school uniform and the usual stains of food on it all he briefly wondered how Blood traitors couldn´t at least ensure that their offspring's tried to look proper or at the very least clean to maybe be taken seriously every once in a while.
"Yes, Ron?" "It is Ginny! She´s missing! We have to do something!" Feeling his blood lust rise he calmly met the dirty blue eyes that matched the dirty clothes, uncared for red hair and freckled face, of Ronald Bilius Weasley. "Like you did when you noticed that she was becoming frequently ill, unhealthy pale and anti-social?" "Huh?" Focusing on his sarcasm as outlet instead of killing the stupid git right then and there he smirked at him, knowing that Ron would interpret it as he wished anyway.
"Ginny? Yes, we should do something! How about telling the teachers?" "Seriously? Oi, why don´t you do something?" "Why would I do anything about the little chit?" "Huh?" Growling he drew his wand and erased the redhead's memory of the encounter. Turning he removed the memory from everything around him, portraits and house elves and everything else that was enchanted to have a memory. Once done he looked at Ron noting that the boy´s eyes returned to normal.
Noting the blonde teen glancing around the corner, he refocused his attention to Ron, too preoccupied with the fact that he was slipping up after less than two years. "Ginny? Damn. Come, it´s a good thing we know where she is!" It wasn´t that dramatic to slip up while near the stupid git that couldn´t focus on anything that wasn´t chess or food for longer than two minutes, but that he was slipping up at all what bothered him. Harry Potter wasn´t sarcastic, ever, period.
Fighting the urge to kill someone very slowly and without magic he led the way, noting their audience and deciding that he had much more important issues to solve than Malfoy and Snape playing spy.
Schooling his face into a blank mask that would be interpreted as angsty by everyone that wasn´t intelligent and Slytherin he sped up his steps while grabbing hold of Ron's arm, who was babbling all the time. How they ended up in Lockhart's office, however, was anyone's guess. He should seriously stop thinking in Harry Potter situations.
"Why are you packing?" Ron´s voice caused him to snort as the answer ran through his mind #Because he is a fraud and shitting himself, you genius# Finding both Ron and Lockhart staring at him dumbfounded he growled again erasing their mind and freezing them and the time. Slowly he began to pace. It wouldn´t do to act with his recent slip ups and no outlet as well as the huge puzzle concerning Ginny´s body lying somewhere. This wasn´t adding up.
The basilisk slept, the diary was safely secured in his trunk and the connection to Ginny had been broken. He had ensured it and that the girl wouldn´t remember anything. How could she end up in a chamber only those of Slytherin blood, and who they happened to possess, could enter? "Unless she isn´t in the chamber at all. He can´t enter as it´s protected by parseltounge which is hereditary, unless he managed to kill a speaker and has undergone several Rituals that might have caused impotence.. or colour-blindness…", frowning he acknowledged that this was a possibility he couldn´t discard. But there were several other ways to look at that.
"If a no longer possessed girl vanished to get the hero to save said girl in order to protect his "one true home", where would you put said damsel in distress if you couldn´t physically access the one place the Hero would run to first. Putting her in danger would require access to some other monster, which begs the question of how this would play out and what would have happen after he saved his fangirl. A love match in the future?
Glaring hatefully at Ron, Lockhart and the room at large he resumed his pacing again dragging up all of his vast knowledge about Light magic and scurrile Rituals. The pacing felt appropriate and he finally understood why his father seemed to do it twice a day. He felt caged, he was slipping up and he was worried about his ability to stay at this school- there was too much negative energy and he needed an outlet that, for the time being at least, did not involve murder or manipulation.
"The Ritual of Hampshire.." stopping his pacing he glared at all the damn portraits as all the information flooded through him. The Ritual meant that the old coot did not need the ability to physically enter the chamber as the Ritual would just send a still object, regardless if it was made up of flesh, wood or metal, to a location the Master of the ritual had nothing but suspicions and indicators for.
Should someone then manage to get the school´s protection bird and keeper of the Wards, the damn phoenix, feel like the school was in grave danger the enchantments placed by Salazar would break- Loki was the second part of the last line of defence after all. The bird was probably distressed enough after watching Albus endanger its school with intend those past two years and while Salazar was brilliant, there was no doubting that he had lived nearly thousand years ago and couldn´t have known a way to specify wards to distinguish between emotions and their cause or their intensity.
"Assuming this was the case… the last line of defence would begin to take force and Salazar himself couldn´t stop his pet. That´s just insane, can´t you do sane things once in a while? Irritating, old, power hungry Lord of the Light!" Stopping his pacing he closed his eyes trying to evaluate every other possibility while adding in what he knew. #Lady, I know you usually wait and see how it plays out, but you are risking a whole generation!# He did not need to wait for an answer or any kind of reaction, she had waited much longer the last time her Champions were at large and out of control or any kind of sanity.
She wouldn´t stop one of her Champions, the Lord of Light, just because he was about to ruin a whole generation when the last time she acted actively was with her horsemen and only after they nearly succeeded in killing every living being. Not even the fact that her Light Champion was hording and using decidedly Dark artefacts would persuade her sooner, even though his very nature would not allow him to comprehend the artefacts and what they did to their full extend, not even after years spent studying them.
"One would think that the light side had the sane ones, those who are concerned about the lives and well-being of the people, but you would be wrong!" This little power play with GinGin gone was rather annoying. Fact was that his father was the chosen second Champion- The Lord of the Dark, and he was his Heir. He was his father´s proxy and the one that had the sacred duty to act in Voldemort´s stead. He couldn´t leave this situation unsolved, his "alter ego" was beside the point.
It became a moot point the moment the old coot used this particular ritual. This was about the Headmaster having too much influence and power and proving to be unpredictable.
It was his job to prevent mass destruction of a generation by Dumbledore because it was their job to reinstate balance. To receive the plus points because he did it while still under glamour and technically the Lights Saviour would only further his goals. His Lady would not interfere because the son of her Champion was already present and stuck in the middle of the whole disaster anyway with the knowledge of a 19 year old with five Masteries. If he succeeded he might earn himself a power surge, if he failed.. well his Lady wasn´t about fairness but balance.
If he failed everyone currently in this castle was dead, end of discussion. The only positive aspect besides the "alter ego" earns trust thing was that his failure would be added to Dumbledore's "bad behaviour" chart and not accredited to his father. #I don´t care about them, some of them might have their uses but a whole bunch of them are nothing but useless body´s that can´t even comprehend our cause. What would happen if the generation died, concerning the balance anyway?# That was just his frustration and bloodlust speaking, he was aware of that but most of them should die, he wanted some of them to die. But Loki wouldn´t kill them in the manner he wished them to die.
"You do realize that I will cause someone a world of pain for this, that I will make at least one person pay for this?" gentle warm wind began to blow around and through him as the sound of silver bells filled the room. "Very glad to be the source of your amusement, my lady!" He hadn´t expected an answer to his question, even though laughter did feel wonderful and was hardly surprising. Feeling pure Darkness entering his body and his magic latch onto it, feeding from it he fought the weakness in his knees, refusing to collapse when he was gaining power and not losing it, but he did close his eyes and bowed his head.
Slowly the power surge died down and he needed to breathe slowly in and out, adjusting his posture as he was going to act as soon as possible. His eyes were no longer glamoured and obsidian black, his face showing his pleasure as his mouth twitched into a cruel smirk at the unclaimed, wild Dark magic that was now part of him. "Please let me know how I managed this, my lady, I do wish to repeat this experience as often as possible!" The bells sounded again, this time lower as if the amusement had another source before it all was gone. Only his obsidian black eyes, the elation he felt and the power cursing through his body a remembrance of what had happened.
Stretching out his hand he conjured the flame like he had done many years ago, changing its colour and shape to get a feeling for his new power. Unsurprised he noted that his iron control of his magic wasn´t as iron anymore, an attest to the additional amount he had been gifted with. Drawing his Harry Potter wand he cast several spells and curses to gauge the amount of care he would need to prevent overpowering for the next several months. Taming them and leashing the amount of magic each time he cast them did the trick.
Feeling confident that he wouldn´t rip someone apart by casting a simple Alohomora he flicked his wrist to return the wand to its holster and felt a thrill of anticipation when he thought of the summer break and his real wand. Drawing the second wand he ensured that all of his glamour´s were working again, reactivating the runes that had stopped working through the power surge. Once he had done all of that and checked by conjuring a mirror that he had achieved his goal he thought over his situation particularly the best approach for it, before he removed the time-freeze spell.
Telling the two idiots to follow him he ensured that every trace of what had transpired in the office was gone from the room and his wands as they moved to rescue GinGin. Slipping up was no option, not now. It was good that he took the second idiot with him as well and he calmly ensured that his Slytherin attachments were on his side of the cave in as he drew his wand, pretending to care about Ron´s well-being along the way, allowing the reluctant wand to dance in elegant, beautiful motions as he sealed all possible entrances to keep the basilisk where it was, should it have been set loose.
"While I would love to play with you and your mind..", he said facing the two shell shocked snakes, both of them flinching away from him which only broadened his cruel smirk he calmly continued twirling his wand. "I find myself under pressure from time, do enjoy your day and the fact that I won´t allow you to become a security risk!" With that he stopped his little game and erased their memory, sending them back to their respective rooms and the time before they had begun following him.