Chapter Three—The List
AN: This chapter is pretty much a mirror of life as there is basically no dialogue. Dialogue will return in Chapter Four as Harry interacts with the outside world again. Now, onto the story.
/\R/\E/\S/\U/\R/\R/\E/\C/\T/\I/\O/\N/\
Harry needed to accomplish a great deal in the next two months, and he had precious little time to do it. During a break from ward deconstruction, he wrote out a list of Things to Do, in order of increasing importance.
1) Her
2) Riddle
3) Wards
4) Health/eyesight
5) Empowerment
6) Spells
7) Inheritance
8) Living Arrangements
9) Allies
10) Purchases
11) Changing Electives
Harry perused the list and decided it was more or less complete. He could have provided a lot more details, but was reluctant to in the event it fell into the hands of someone else. Harry smiled in amusement at his foresight.
One thing that had extremely evident since his awakening was that he was thinking a great deal more clearly. Not in an intelligence way, although Harry suspected he'd give Riddle a run for his money now, but rather lacking in the arrogance and madness that had required him to make plans that were virtually destined for failure. Some of the things that he remembered Riddle doing now had him shaking his head in sheer disbelief. The silly bastard was nuttier than a fruitcake, while Harry was completely sane. A bit desperate, but sane.
But for now, Riddle was irrelevant and he needed to focus on his list. Propping his head up on his hands as he looked up the ceiling, Harry thoughtfully considered each of the items on his list. Or at least tried to. Number one had Harry shying away and cursing himself as he acted just like that damnable Riddle, ie mad as a hatter. Still, he was unable to face dealing with her right at this moment. She occupied enough of his thoughts already. Harry didn't need her taking up the rest of them. No, he'd skip her for now.
Number two had Harry spinning his wheels. He couldn't do anything about Riddle until he completed the rest of the list. Even then, he was limited in how much time he had to deal with Riddle's Horcruxes. Riddle himself was yet another issue. Harry would need to find him, or better yet, let Riddle find him, then he could deal with him in a more or less permanent manner. But Riddle was likely still disembodied, unless he's found one of his followers willing to allow him to possess them. From what Harry remembered of their survival instincts, it was unlikely that any off them would sacrifice themselves for their master. Of course, Riddle could be going the route of becoming a homunculus, which had both advantages and disadvantages. Harry wouldn't have gone that route, but what was left of Riddle was mad as a hatter. He might choose that route, and if Trelawney's prophecy was accurate, Pettigrew would be with him to take care of him. Ultimately, that just made things neater, since Harry was going to kill them both.
Harry also needed to thin down the ranks of Riddle's Death Eaters. That was something he was definitely was planning for later in the summer. He had the keys to the ward schemes of every one of Riddle's followers. So long as none of the idiots had gotten smart and changed them, Harry should be able to penetrate them. A humorous thought struck him. So long as he was careful, Riddle's followers should think that it was Riddle who was after them. It was poetic justice in a way. Harry smiled as he realized both he and his conscious were fine with executing murderers. He'd leave alive anyone without the Dark Mark. Fortunately, Harry knew everyone who had one as Riddle was still too busy playing apparition to mark anyone since his return.
Snape and Malfoy were two of the ones he was most looking forward to dealing with. Malfoy for the events of 2nd year where he'd almost caused the rise of Riddle as well as Harry and Ginny Weasley's deaths, and Snape for the betrayal of Harry's parents. And maybe for the way he'd behaved since Harry had arrived at Hogwarts. With a cold smirk, Harry acknowledged that he did carry a grudge. Then he dismissed the thought and got back to his list.
Item number three had Harry grinding his teeth in anger. The wards that Dumbledore had set upon the home of the Dursleys to keep him safe. To be exact, the highly illegal, vampiric blood wards that he'd put in place. Bloody hell, no wonder Harry had difficulty, on occasion, with his magic. It was a wonder that he'd ever used accidental magic at all. Between the binding that had formerly been on his magic and the vampiric blood wards that siphoned off what little magic remained, Harry had a surprising small amount of magic left for himself. If a Death Eater had broken in while Harry's magic was still bound, wand or no wand, he would have been lucky to have been able to cast a tickling hex.
Harry had needed to break the wards himself to get them down. An event that was being made surprising simple because the old bastard had keyed them off of him. He'd likely done it so that in the unlikely event that they were discovered, he could feign ignorance of them. Plus the old Harry wouldn't have figured it in a million years. He was a bit thick that way. Harry reminded himself not to underestimate Dumbledore. He was a right crafty old bastard and had his fingers in a myriad of pies. And he was careful, too.
But it wouldn't matter as far as the wards were concerned. Because he was the ward's master. Harry could gut them, disguising them from Dumbledore's instruments, while at the same time, tying all of the tracking charms to his cousin Dudley. They would work for as long as Harry needed, showing him in good health for rest of the summer, then breaking down once school started. Harry trusted his own magical skills to be able to prevent being retagged. As far as the old bastard taking him to task, he'd pretty much ignore him until he could figure out a way to get emancipated and to secure his heritage.
Item number four was a bugger. How they had let him come to school looking like he was a death camp survivor was beyond Harry. Dumbledore was clearly trying to keep him weak for reasons of his own, but Harry suspected it had something to do with the piece of Riddle's soul that had formerly occupied his scar. But regardless, he was left to deal with the fall out of a failing body.
Okay, to be fair, it wasn't failing, but it was pathetically weak. Luckily, Harry was young enough that growth and nutritional potions should repair the damage. He'd get several inches back, up to whatever his potential growth to this point was. And since his father topped six feet and his mother was 5'8", Harry had a good chance to come out on the high side of five feet now and ultimately top six once he was fully grown.
The only drawback was that it was going to hurt like hell. Bones, tendons, ligaments, and muscles would be lengthening, and not always at an even pace. Harry would also be more than a bit clumsy for a few weeks, while enjoying bouts of intense pain off and on. Eventually everything would even out and he'd be fine. Until then, Harry would hurt. A lot. His healer should be able to provide him with more details.
Of course, Harry needed to find a private healer in Diagon Alley, wanting to stay away from St Mungo's, since someone there would almost certainly leak the news that the Boy-Who-Lived was seeking treatment. It was just a step from there to the old bastard finding out. Luckily, he had Dobby to help with that. He was currently scouting out healers and would make an appointment for Harry for tomorrow with the best one.
Afterwards, Harry would need to start a regimen of physical fitness. Because of the disparity in magical power between he and Riddle, he needed to conserve every last bit of magical power he possessed to be used only when absolutely necessary. To do so meant being able to dodge every spell sent his way he possibly could, a daunting task requiring lightning fast reflexes and incredible conditioning. Oddly, Harry had the reflexes, being as fast as Riddle or even a bit faster, even after all of the enhancement rituals the crazy bugger had been involved in. He'd been immensely pleased with the speed with which his wand had flown from his holster into his hand over and over again. However, Harry had been less than pleased with how quickly he'd become winded when pushing himself hard. He could work long hours doing his chores, but he couldn't move with speed or intensity for any great length of tiime. Sadly, nor could he see his targets that well once he had his wand out.
Which brought Harry to his eyesight. With even the Muggles having access to repairing weak vision, there was no excuse for Dumbledore not having Harry's eyesight fixed. So what if it was expensive? Harry could certainly afford it, remembering the sheer amount of gold in just his trust vault. Worse, why the school mediwitch, Madame Pomfrey, hadn't dealt with Harry's eyes or his poor health was simply inconceivable. Had Dumbledore hexed her? Or was she that venial? Remembering the warm smiles and simple competency that she'd displayed during his first and second years, when he'd been in and out of the hospital wing often, Harry suspected the former. He knew a few spells that could work that way, although they were very dark, nearly as bad as the Imperius Curse. If Harry was lucky, the same healer that Dobby located to take care of his health could also take care of his eyes. If not, doubtless they could recommend someone reliable.
Now onto item number five. After he dealt with his health, Harry needed to figure some method of increasing his magical strength, which meant an empowerment ritual of one kind or another. When he had contrasted the amount of magical strength available to him compared to his memories of Riddle, he'd felt horrified. If Harry faced a reborn Riddle anytime soon, he would die, swatted aside like a bug. Surprisingly, by his own estimate, he was strong for his age, although he couldn't be absolutely sure until he got the vampiric wards off of him. Then Harry could get a true gauge of his strength. In the meantime, he needed to figure out a spell or ritual that he could do once he was healthy and knew his base magical strength.
Unfortunately, almost all of the rituals that Harry remembered required things that he didn't think he was okay with. The best required sacrificing thirteen virgin witches each full moon for a year, deflowering them first, then devouring each completely before the next sacrifice. If followed correctly, the ritual could quadruple the power of the wizard doing it. However, he definitely was not okay with that ritual. As his gorge rose, Harry acknowledged that even Riddle hadn't wanted to execute that one, although only because of the time required. He hadn't cared about the lives of the victims involved.
A myriad of similar rituals sped though Harry's mind: power stealing, life stealing, blood stealing. Babies sacrificed on the dark of the moon to hideous things that couldn't stand any form of light. Each and every one was dark and horrific and each and every one was something that Harry wouldn't do. But he needed to do something. If he was to keep himself and her alive, he couldn't shy away from any path that increased his chances to do so. However, it was thoughts about her that brought a far different ritual to the forefront of Harry's mind. Harry tapped his chin as he considered it.
The ritual he was thinking of wasn't actually an empowerment ritual. Rather it was a form of sex magic, a ritual to demonstrate "True Love." The ritual entwined two souls and the resulting feedback in their magic could as much as triple the magical cores of both parties involved. Of course, if you made the slightest mistake in the ritual, that same feedback could completely destroy you as well. And to say the requirements were stringent was the same as saying the Atlantic Ocean was wet. And you needed a partner, in his case a female.
Harry smiled thinly thinking about Sacrificio Rite Amoris. He also thought about her. It would certainly kill two birds with one stone. And if it didn't work, he would be too busy being blown all over half of Britain to worry about the results of the spell. If he played it right, she wouldn't be at any risk, so long as he maintained the role of the petitioner and the lover. They didn't need to be the same person and usually weren't, so as to reduce the risk to just one party from the ritual.
Harry laughed darkly. Yeah, like the ritual he was so casually contemplating was something used every day. It hadn't been attempted in nearly three hundred years. Since the last four couples who tried it had died violently while invoking it, it had fallen in disfavor to say the least. Of course, one reason it had such a failure rate lay in the ages of the petitioners.
The combined ages of the petitioners could not be more than thirty, while the youngest partner had to have not yet reached their fourteenth birthday. You combine that with the dietary restrictions leading up to it, the rune work, and the intensity of the emotions needed, and you had a difficult and dangerous ritual, almost guaranteed to fail. Worse, just as Harry was intending, both parties were usually in the same age range, making it even less likely to be successfully invoked. Still, Harry could see a path to success. And it was the best choice since it was the only choice.
Now it was time for item number six. Harry wasn't sure if it even needed to be on the list. However, in some ways, his increased knowledge worried him immensely. Harry needed to be incredibly careful not to allow Dumbledore to know what had occurred with his scar. One easy way to give himself away was to show too much advanced knowledge too soon. Harry planned to mitigate this somewhat by having his nose in a book every second he wasn't in class or playing Quidditch. He'd get his friends to help him with that as well. It would serve double duty by also getting Harry used to a lower level of spells that Riddle hadn't used in more than four decades. It wasn't as if he was going to need to cast a Wave of Darkness at Hogwarts, but a shielding spell better than the basic one taught there would probably come in handy. And be far more age appropriate, even if it made Harry seem somewhat precocious. It appeared to be the best solution to the potential problem.
Which made him move onto item number seven. Harry needed some way to take control of his inheritance. He needed to be emancipated as an true adult if at all possible, so that he could take over control of the House of Potter. Not only would it mean control over large amounts of money, but he would also control his House's two seats in the Wizengamot, a political advantage. Unfortunately, this was one area where Harry had no real idea how to begin. Riddle hadn't shown a great deal of interest in all of the machinations of politics, preferring to use Malfoy to accomplish his ends. And even if he had, there was zero chance he would have cared about this type of power transfer. Still, Harry used what little knowledge he had to work out a solution.
If he were even two years older, Harry could take control in a month as current laws allowed a heir with no older male relatives to assume their Head of House at age sixteen, instead of the accepted age of adulthood, seventeen. Otherwise, there didn't seem to be a path, as even a regular emancipation did not allow one to become Head of House. It was also likely that the old bastard would fight him tooth and nail if he tried to become emancipated. In olden times, doing epic feats such as killing a dragon that was terrorizing a village or winning a magical contest like the Tri-Wizard Tournament would give one their lordship as you would automatically be considered an adult by accomplishing the act. But with all dragons on reserves and the tournament being discontinued more than two hundred years ago, in 1792, Harry was out of luck.
Harry guessed he could always go find a Nundu to kill, but since even Riddle at the height of his power wasn't crazy enouh to commit suicide that way, he didn't think he would do so either. Too bad the basilisk couldn't count, but Dumbledore, foxy as ever, had sworn all involved to an oath of silence for seven years. Harry wasn't sure that he'd still be alive in seven years, so that put paid to that. He'd also already be an adult by that time. Possibly an adult corpse, he thought bitterly.
However, thinking about the basilisk made Harry wonder why he'd never thought to sell the remains. Even after lying down there and decaying for more than a year, what was left should be worth half a million galleons or more. So long as he didn't tell where the remains came from, he wouldn't be in abrogation of his oath. Smiling now, Harry felt at that at least he would have money to spare in case the old bastard tried to cut off access to his trust vault. He'd need to contact the Goblins about buying the basilisk's corpse, as he could be fairly certain they wouldn't ask questions.
Which brought him to number seven, a place to live. It should be easy. Harry figured that he could persuade the Goblins to allow him keys to any one of a number of his family's properties, likely locked down and requiring one of Potter blood to open. From the property, Harry should be able to contact the Potter elves. If so, he would be able to use them in a myriad of ways, one of the first of which would be to find out how the rest of the Potter properties were doing. If for some reason Harry couldn't contact them, he still had Dobby to help him. Dobby could potentially be a busy little elf, Harry thought fondly. Then he frowned.
There was that thing again. That sense of egalitarianism. It was driving him to the edge. For the life of him, Harry could not figure how someone with either of his upbringings could be a kind and forgiving person. While he considered Riddle a coward and a whiner, he didn't think that much better of the old Harry, who was a weakling at best. Of course if that were true, what did that make him, Harry thought with acid amusement. For his own sake, he could only hope he was greater than the sum of his parts. If not, he would fail and die, leaving those who depended upon him in the lurch.
Harry sighed. That last thought was exactly the problem he was talking about. Damn sense of nobility and responsibility. Well, either he'd get over it or he wouldn't. Compared to actually surviving, it was a fading concern, although he still wasted far too much thought on the subject. He didn't need to psychoanalyze himself. He existed. And he would continue to do so no matter what. He'd bring fire and death down upon anyone who threatened him. He would survive. Harry ignored a tiny voice inside of him that said 'what a lonely existence.' Clamping down on his own treacherous thoughts, Harry focused once again on his list.
It was item number nine, allies. Harry needed allies. Allies within Gryffindor, allies within Hogwarts, and allies within the political houses were all a necessity. Fortunately, he had some ideas along those lines. Neville Longbottom, heir to House Longbottom, would fulfill all three requirements. Contrasting the chubby boy, who had unsuccessfully tried to stop Harry and his friends from going after the Sorcerer's Stone 1st year with his parents, who had fought Riddle to a standstill three times, Harry knew that there was a mystery to be solved. Neville should be a formidable ally. Perhaps he just needed to be taken under Harry's wing. And a new wand, he thought, remembering the wand Neville had used since first year. The wood was maple, but he didn't know the core. From its battered appearance, it was probably one of his parents' wands, likely his father, knowing Augusta Longbottom. She'd likely filled Neville's head with all sorts of rubbish, but Harry would sort him out.
Other resources within his house were his fellow Quidditch team members, as well as any members of the Harry Potter Fan Club that existed. Harry wasn't above using whatever method he could to get someone on his side. The other houses were more problematical, but rich in resources. And full of female members of the club, Harry thought with amusement. He would likely need all the allies he could get, as he considered the other houses. Hufflepuff with the Abbotts, the Bones, the Diggorys, the Macmillans, and more. Susan Bones could give him access to her aunt, the head of the DMLE. Ravenclaw with the Turpins, the Changs, the Davies, and the Edgecombes. Marietta Edgecombe gave him access to her mother, a well-connected member of the Ministry. Harry considered his potential allies carefully. Many of the girls could be brought over through sheer charm and charisma, remembering another boy who had done so. Alliances with their houses could be arranged, although he refused to dangle a marriage alliance in front of any of them. Harry already had someone in mind for that position. The men just needed a bit of research into what they wanted, then the best approach could be made. A wish granted here, a favor there, it was a path he could walk blindfolded with the houses of the brave, loyal, and intelligent.
Which left Slytherin House. Within Slytherin, favors were traded for status and control to an extent that was foreign to the other houses. Who you were was more important than what you accomplished, although doing either without subtlety or ambition was frowned upon, a major source of friction with Gryffindor. Ordinarily, no Gryffindor could expect to gain allies and influence with the House of the Snakes. But Harry was no ordinary Gryffindor. Besides, he was going to cheat. Harry was going to use a key in his possession to the lock of Slytherin House. They would never even see him coming, he thought with a dangerous smirk.
It was time for the last two items on his list, ten and eleven. He wasn't enamored at the idea of shopping, but was necessary. Harry needed to purchase a number of items, as well as remove a couple of items from the Potter vault. Books, clothes, a new trunk, were all on his list. From the Potter vault, he needed a few items of jewelry and any family portraits he could find. It was all part of his long term plans which he refused to think about just now.
Lastly, Harry needed to write to Professor McGonagall to change his electives for the coming year. He would no longer waste time in Divination or Care of Magical Creatures. Instead, he would move to Runes and Arithmancy, two classes that Riddle had excelled at and for which Harry was more than prepared. Likely he would have to take a test to get in, but he was counting on both his fame and Professor McGonagall's disdain for Divination to pave the way. After all, it was hard to say no when the Boy-Who-Lived asked for a reasonable favor that fell in line with your own prejudices.
With that, Harry laid his head back on his lumpy pillow and concentrated once again on tracing the lines for each of the attachments that the Warding had upon his person. It would take all of today to finish tying them off to basically nothing, while their magical charge bled away into the aether. Once done, Harry had tonight to finish removing all of the tracking charms both from his person and from the wards. He'd reattach where necessary to his cousin, Dudley, otherwise, he'd merely adjust the charm to send a false positive. Harry so looked forward to the old bastard's reaction when he realized what had happened. It was a prank worthy of the Marauders. It was also the beginning of the end of Dumbledore's influence on him. Soon he would be free. Free to take control of his life. Free to execute his plans.
Harry focused his mind, using an Occulmancy exercise to rid himself of stray thoughts. After all, he needed to finish this today. Tomorrow was his visit to the Diagon Alley healer that Dobby had found for him, as well as his visit with the Goblins of Gringotts. Harry would need his wits about him for both visits. Oh yes, he would need his wits if he were to triumph.
/\R/\E/\S/\U/\R/\R/\E/\C/\T/\I/\O/\N/\
