I was looking at Riddle's "horcruxes" that radiated something distinctly Dark and thinking. Today, Pandora Lovegood presented me with a puzzle. She saw the horcruxes exactly as they appeared to the naked eye: as mundane objects. Her view disappointed me, but it was an occasion to study a new way of concealing magical traces.
Did they hide themselves consciously or was it their inherent quality? I found several methods of concealment from "astral sight," but this was clearly different...
I was fully prepared to conduct the identification ritual with the "horcruxes." The Lestranges have already done most of the work over the past five months, creating an incredibly complicated runic construct. The ovservers -Pandora under Imperius and a caged Dementor- were ready. Time to get to work.
The diary went into the center, I poured my blood and magic into the first runic chain... The symbols on the outer edge lit up, and the glow spread towards the horcrux in a spiral. It reflected from the diary and receded following the same path in reverse.
The results immediately seared into a nearby stack of parchment. Rows of numbers, rune combinations, odd graphs, some of them resembling trees or strange insects... I dearly wished it could simply describe the object in words. Instead, I got forty pages of raw data. And showing such sensitive information to anyone was a terrible idea. Let's see... Charge of the magical field, energy rotation and flow, divergence, fluctuations...
In a few hours, I more or less deciphered what it said. Many parameters such as durability and defensive abilities were astronomically high, just as horcruxes should have according to Secrets of the Darkest Art. Some standard functions predictably showed nonsense: it was no better than measuring microbes with a ruler.
I've been very concerned with whether or not these objects contained a soul. I didn't want to deal with a resurrected, angry Tom Riddle.
Wizards barely surpassed muggles in soul diagnostics. The Verser-Miller diagram of edibility to Dementors showed partial match. I couldn't think of any better way to test for similarity to a normal human soul. If this were to be believed, the diary contained half a soul... Riddle's soul... In its place, I would have tried to possess the nearest body, my current one. But it made no attempts. Was it lulling me into lowering my guard?
I consulted another table for sentience of the object. The results were strange: no more intelligent than a doxy. But Secrets of the Darkest Art claimed a horcrux received a copy of its creator's mind... My first thought was that the diary was trying to fool me. It readily followed orders but did not contact me or show any signs of sentience. I decided to test the rest.
The ring showed complete blanks or infinity for magical qualities, but that could be attributed to the Resurrection Stone. It had half of the diary's soul value – quarter of a full Dementor meal. The line of sentience again ran close to zero, matching the diary.
I used the ritual on the fourth horcrux, the Hufflepuff Cup. The third was Slytherin's locket, and I didn't have it... The cup's resilience matched an ordinary horcrux. It had some additional qualities from the object itself, something related to potions. One sixteenth of a human soul, the same near-zero sentience.
My mind ran wild. For Tom, horcruxes were a recipe of immortality. He saw himself a superhuman, an immortal being residing in multiple bodies simultaneously, bodies that were perfect magical treasures. He split his soul in half five times, then at the moment he came for the Potters, he had one thirty-second left... it was certainly better than zero, but not by much...
If I had any lingering doubts about creating horcruxes, they all evaporated. A piece of the soul in a vessel could be destroyed. Then where would it leave me? With a scrap? If only it was possible to cut off a bit and have the soul regenerate... But no, it meant living with that scrap for all eternity... Therefore, however loudly the ideas for horcruxes may pound on my mind -the Time-Tuner, the Mirror of Erised, Nagini, a part of a Mars rover- I would now banish these thoughts more successfully. The soul wasn't hair, it would not regrow.
Second question: why were these pieces not sentient? Did they have potential to develop it? Or were they lying to me? Rookwood would have been useful here... Maybe steal that artifact he used to identify the Obscurial? I should earnestly consider a raid on the Department of Mysteries to loot everything...
The thirty-sixth page had a graph shaped similar to a family tree. In theory, it could be used to determine the relationship between objects. For instance, untreated body parts maintained a connection to the main body and could be used to channel a curse. Each horcrux must have an incredibly strong connection to the creator. How strange that Tom never felt Regulus moving the locket... Either he had too many horcruxes or Regulus came too prepared.
So, there was a connection between me and the horcruxes. It very much resembled the connection I had with Nagini. A partial familiar, partial horcruxes... The connection existed, but it was rendered useless. These objects would not save me from death... How strange... Horcruxes that were not truly horcruxes, a familiar that wasn't a familiar, a student who wasn't a student..
I made Nagini an ordinary familiar by giving her a new body, and she was none the wiser. As a side effect, I found it slightly easier to apparate, use fire-based magic and, for some reason, work with poisons. I could also summon her at any moment and perceive the world through her senses.
Would the same work on the horcruxes? And how dangerous would it be? I didn't want to return pieces of Riddle to life! Though in theory, I could negotiate with his horcruxes... Especially if I had part of his soul in me. I did not feel it, but that was not indicative of anything.
Clearly, the horcruxes still contained parts of his soul. Then what happened to the part that resided in the body? Horcruxes acted as immortality anchors, they must hold the soul from moving on.
Tom Riddle's soul, where did it go? My further actions hinged on the answer. If I had a soul parasite, it should be destroyed or caged. If an undead nearly-ghost Tom Riddle was still roaming somewhere, he must be found and banished, or imprisoned in a spirit cage if he truly was immortal. If the horcruxes failed due to some unforeseen event -Jupiter reflected in Callisto or whatnot- and he was fully gone, then everything was fine. If his soul got absorbed into mine and served me along with his magic, I had no reason to worry, only keep my temper in check. The funniest option would be if we swapped places, and he was stuck in a muggle world with no magic...
Guessing could go on indefinitely, feelings could lie. I better check something... Adding another rune-covered rug gave me a slightly different ritual to test myself. New ritual, new cut. The runes lit up, the rug glowed especially brightly and turned into dust. No matter, the ritual finished properly. It was similar to how I scanned Harry, Neville and Lily, only this focused on the soul rather than magic.
More graphs. Human intelligence, a familiar bond. Now this was curious: a faint connection to the "horcruxes." How to interpret it... It felt like a city after a blitz: the railways remained but no longer had train stations... Or phone lines existing without receivers or operators...
And the most interesting part: edibility to Dementors... An exact match to the reference book value for a human! I had a perfectly ordinary soul. On one hand, it was great news: no problems with a tenant. On the other, having more than one soul could open up so many possibilities! For example, Avada Kedavra and other "soul-wrenching" spells may not have affected me properly!
Finally, the most crucial question: how much could I trust everything I just measured? How trustworthy was Secrets of the Darkest Art?
Only a small part of The Darkest Art had any combat applications. It was a book about modifying the nature of living beings, homunculi, possession, manipulating life energies... It could be renamed to Essence Alterations or 101 Ways not to Die from Old Age without changing a single letter of its contents. How to improve or mutilate yourself to live forever... Secrets of the Darkest Art listed many options.
There was parasitic immortality: beings capable of renewing their bodies at the cost of constant "fuel" in the form others' lives. They were not fully immortal but "lived forever" as long as they had the correct material on hand. Vampires did it successfully... Though they too occasionally got killed... And had limited magic...
One could become undead or a non-living being, for example by possessing a stone golem. Their nature made them impervious to anything that caused biological death. No thanks, I wouldn't take it for free.
It was possible to make oneself impervious to the flow of time, staying in the same immutable body. However, this type of immortality offered no protection from unnatural death. As I understood, the Philosopher's Stone and its counterparts fell into this category. Too bad there were no recipes. I had questions for Flamel. Was his stone one of the concentrated sacrificial energy artifacts the book described? Or his own original creation? Or was he the luckiest man in the world who found a strange meteorite?
There was a slew of options for strengthening the body... Immortality without regeneration: not dying until the body is completely destroyed. A Philosopher's Stone integrated into the body? None of that suited me: it wouldn't save me from Fiendfyre, killing curses or a high dose of Dark Magic. And I was already highly unlikely to die from a Reducto or charmed steel.
Conversely, immortality through regeneration: rapidly healing injuries until a certain limit is reached. The problem got solved with a single Avada... And I really did not want to turn into a semblance of a giant octopus. The fans of this method probably begot the first trolls...
And here was the most promising one, immortality through a connection: a wizard cannot be truly killed until the anchor object is destroyed. It could be an artifact, an animal, another human... One type was a phylactery that housed the entire soul, where the creator dies with its destruction but the soul remains unharmed. The alternative was a horcrux, whose destruction also destroys the part of the soul within. Tom chose horcruxes because it was possible to make more than one. As for the risks... Just hide them better! Great job, now Slytherin's locket was who knows where if it survived at all.
Foolish wizards, why call a spade a spade? They should learn the art of sanctimony from muggles. Replace murder with the final solution, war with peace enforcement, sex with love, Secrets of the Darkest Art with Recipes of Longevity.
On one hand, Secrets of the Darkest Art was trustworthy. The book predated the Ministry propaganda, and everything I tested from it worked. But people had a tendency to make mistakes, peddle their delusions, exaggerate and lie. I didn't discount the possibility that someone could write a book, forgetting or even purposefully distorting some key features and safety measures, for instance necroenergy. And gloat, watching idiots lose their minds. Writing a book would ensure they have company sitting between life and death with a mutilated soul for eternity... And if one of their fans was stupid enough to divide his soul into more than two pieces, they would get great moral satisfaction from seeing someone even worse off and bullying him... For the rest of eternity.
I was thinking. The Mirror of Erised showed me my past life for a reason. Here, I lived in constant fear. Not the fear of death Tom had. Fear that the powers I used out of greed would crush me like an insect and march on with no one in control. Fear of suffering a fate worse than the Dementor's kiss. I successfully banished it from my mind but still continued to get intrusive thoughts: maybe I should stop?
But I've already gone too far. I set an insane rhythm, and the moment I slow down, I would be swept away by an avalanche. Whatever form it may take -Albus Dumbledore, Aurors, dissatisfied Death Eaters- would make no difference to my dead body.
So, time to quit philosophizing and get back to work.
I wanted to experimentally determine the nature of a horcrux: create an ordinary one, scan it, compare it to rest and to the data I remembered. Of course, I was not going to create my own. I needed a volunteer.
Thoughts first went towards the Death Eaters. Sadly, no. Bellatrix and the Lestranges were a plain pity – stupid to waste my most faithful on risky experiments. Rosier or someone dissatisfied with the latest shifts of political course? Immortal opposition, just what I needed! And frankly, none of them were idiots, even if some, like Goyle, expertly pretended. They could gleam something from the ritual. And if not, dig deeper...
Lily? A bad idea all around. I didn't know how a horcrux would interact with her vow. If she died, would it reset or carry over to the new body? Or would breaking the vow leave her forever writhing, unable to die? And if everything were to go smoothly, I couldn't bear the thought of dealing with more than one Lily! Quickly destroy the horcrux and the base after the experiment? Snape needed her, I needed Snape while Albus still lived... And afterwards, a potions master would be useful. And Lily herself made a good cover.
I foresaw many issues but was as always forced to experiment on prisoners. Off to the cells with "broken in" material for a surface scan, then.
The future creator of a horcrux turned out to be a plain-featured forty-something witch. She was the most powerful of the batch, has never heard of occlumency and readily submitted to the Imperius. A chat with Bellatrix put her in the proper mood. For her victim I chose a muggle male somewhat resembling Fletcher. The vessel would be the most nondescript and, as I verified with a house elf, absolutely mundane teacup from the Lestranges' house.
The problems started as soon as I ordered her to draw the runes. She knew no runes, especially not these... I drew her a glowing example in the air. She copied them painfully slowly and so crookedly that they were unlikely to work... The Imperius could force a human to do positively anything, but ordering someone to do a split without an adequate ability would only lead to torn ligaments. In my case, I received a pattern of splotches. Good thing this ritual didn't call for blood runes.
After thinking a bit, I transfigured her a couple hundred stencils and started to hand them to her one by one. She drew... What can I say... I should probably apologize to Lily. She may be a dimwit, but compared to this woman she was a regular Morgana! How, just how was it even possible to muck up drawing runes by hand with a stencil on a perfectly smooth surface?! In quiet, peaceful conditions? Erase and start over...
Once I fed her potions for alertness, acceleration, attention and improved reaction, things have picked up. She filled in several square meters in half an hour, even with my interruptions to repair the stencils and erase botched runes. After twelve attempts and six hours, she finally produced satisfying results. I gave her a blood replenisher and had her coat the cup with her blood.
She stood in one circle, the cup went into the second and the muggle into the third. At my signal, she killed the muggle with a cutting charm, severing his head on the second try... And nothing happened! Neither I nor Pandora saw anything. My scanning charms showed nothing. I levitated the cup to study it like I did my "horcruxes." It was just a cup, the ritual didn't work!
Possible explanations? The woman was not 'depraved' enough, had too little necroenergy? Must be aware of her actions? Being under direct control did not count? We'll fix it!
I brought in another muggle, removed the Imperius and explained to the woman what was required of her. She refused. I called in a Dementor and threatened her with the kiss: "either part of your soul remains with you or you lose it all." She conceded.
I ordered her to torture the man with the Cruciatus. She protested again. I put her through a couple of my own torture spells, training her by the associative method and deflecting clumsy attempts at attacking me. Half an hour later she still hasn't learned the Cruciatus, so I had her repeatedly cast the Imperius on the muggle. She needed to accumulate necroenergy one way or another.
In a little while, I took away her wand and ordered to repeat the ritual. She botched it again...
Steadying myself with a deep breath, I recalled Riddle's modified ritual that he used to tear his soul for the third time. The soul was a durable thing, so he had added some elements to increase the runic area and strength of the impact. I curbed another attempt to attack me and smudge the runes, then two suicide attempts. It was simple: the target could only cast verbally, and I was reading her mind.
After some more curses and a twenty minute session with the Dementor, she agreed to try again. Tom's memories did not exaggerate after all: torture broke anyone, at some point people were willing to become killers themselves.
She stood in a circle, finished chanting the spell, and began throwing Diffindos at the tied muggle. When he died, something happened... The woman fell, started squirming and trying to claw out her own eyes, which I stopped. Strange, this did not happen to Tom until his third horcrux...
I watched her through my own eyes, Pandora's sight and the senses of the Dementor restrained in an ashen-gray cage. Normal vision showed a woman writhing on the floor. Magical sight – an unclassifiable churn of energy. The Dementor reported one extra food source, but it immediately disappeared. In Pandora's sight, the woman appeared on the brink of death until something separated from her and got sucked into the cup. The cup radiated something odd for a moment, then expertly masked itself.
Watching the horcrux creation process from different angles was an excellent idea. I felt like a drafter's apprentice. One angle said the object was a circle, the other said it was a rectangle. What was it? A cylinder: circle at the top, rectangle from the side...
I locked the stunned and transfigured test subject in an isolating container and carefully studied her horcrux. It was hiding, pretending to be an ordinary cup. Time to play sapper... This was far better than practicing on Riddle's horcrux. This woman was no match for me in Mind or Dark Magic, and power without skill always lost to skill and power...
An hour and a half later, when I finally wiggled under the horcrux's defenses and saw it without concealment, I felt a mental attack. A strong one, but I blocked it. How strange... In life, the woman knew nothing, but her horcrux attacked respectably well. Did horcruxes have inherent skills?
The cup's side shifted to form a three-dimensional face. It looked as if someone covered their face with a thin, tight cloth.
"Let's make a deal?" it spoke in a colder, higher tone of the woman's voice.
"Certainly. Be useful, don't cause any trouble, and you will continue existing," I answered. No, I would definitely never make a deal with a horcrux.
First, I subjected the cup to the full identification ritual. Resilient, emitting Dark Magic, half a soul, human level of intelligence – everything a horcrux should be, unlike Tom's legacy...
The new horcrux went into an isolating container, and I focused on the woman. She now became decent at Dark spells. The Cruciatus she tried to hit me with came out flawlessly. Ten more hours of testing determined her "necroenergy" clearance speed dropped to zero... Must be the incomplete soul.
I took more pepperup (I've been at this for two straight days) and continued.
Testing the owner-horcrux system showed they didn't share a constant mental link but could call upon each other and establish contact, almost like a telephone. In two more hours, I drew a quality spirit trap to test what would happen to her after losing the body. Instincts demanded to Avada her. It was relatively safe: if the killing curse separated the whole soul, it would certainly manage a half. But the accursed necroenergy... Break her neck? I settled on transfiguring a wolf from dust to rip out the throat.
When she died, her body let out opaque gray smoke that gathered into a ghostly figure. It was unable to leave the trap or use magic beyond weak telekinesis. All wrong for a ghost... It could possess animals and people but was easy to force out with a single banishment spell. It refused to die from blood banishment or Fiendfyre, but both clearly hurt it. I managed to measure only a few parameters by scanning the possessed human and the disembodied spirit itself... If only I had my own Department of Mysteries...
Well, the experiment was over, time to wash out the test tubes.
I securely locked the horcrux in place, surrounded myself with additional shields and transfigured walls, and watched Imperio'd prisoners try to defeat the horcrux through Nagini's eyes. All of the prisoners died...
First, they tried standard spells. Every one hit the mark but had no effect on the horcrux. The cup showed no signs of pain and put up a decent fight. One of its opponents fell with a cut throat, another got hit with a penetrator and a burst of acid, the third got his brains fried.
The Impreio'd tried Unforgiveables. The Cruciatus caused the cup pain, but it looked tolerable. The Imperius had no effect. The killing curse ricocheted- it was, after all, attuned to living beings. The fourth prisoner died. I patted myself on the back for having the foresight to act through others from behind a solid wall. Nagini too caught an Avada and got reborn. It brought the total to four times since her creation...
The fifth Imperio'd dropped dead from boiling blood. Strange, the woman didn't know this curse in life, and I never told her... The horcrux vs. Imperio'd humans match ended 5-0 in favor of the horcrux. Yes, this toy was very dangerous.
I started to work on it personally. Not long ago, I measured the temperature of Fiendfyre. And heating the horcrux to a much higher temperature than Fiendfyre did not destroy it! I again got lost on thought... Several thousand degrees of Fiendfyre destroyed a horcrux but a much higher temperature of mundane fire didn't? How? A nuclear reaction, for instance inside the Sun, burned millions of degrees hotter. Would it destroy a horcrux? My muggle side believed it must. Of course, I never actually tried it...
Secrets of the Darkest Art demanded a very specific type of impact: Dark Magic or a Dark creature. Have they simply not heard of nuclear reactions back when it was written? I conjured a lick of Fiendfyre, condensed it into a ball the size of a mosquito and sent it at the cup's handle. The horcrux howled in pain as the flame cut the handle in half. The porcelain burned and bled with human blood.
I thought back on my first talk with Edward about the harm of Dark Magic. Was it truly this simple? Most magic affected the physical object. It did nothing to a horcrux because a horcrux was much more than a collection of atoms, it was a manifestation of the soul... Dark Magic, however, harmed objects on the level of energy. It made no difference to an ordinary human, and I could die like one of them despite my magic. Whereas a horcrux's vulnerability was limited to extremely powerful Dark Magic... Or a weapon somehow imbued with basilisk venom... And I knew of only one matching weapon: Gryffindor's sword.
I created more Fiendfyre to engulf the cup. It tried to resist, to put up a barrier, grow legs or roll away, but still burned up with a shrill scream. The moment the horcrux was gone, the woman's gray ghost also disappeared.
So, my further plans. Work with Tom's legacy "horcruxes" the same way I did with the familiar, only much more carefully. Perhaps it would open up some new possibilities.
I pulled out the counterfeit diary I was crafting for Albus. I've spent a lot of time trying to make indistinguishable from a horcrux, applying innumerate defensive charms and not sparing sacrifices. This artifact fully deserved the Dementor's kiss. It was safe to assume Albus would buy it, especially in battle conditions. But there were two "buts."
First, this diary remained vulnerable to ordinary spells, for example a long series of penetrators followed by a regular blasting curse. Or a week-long soak in concentrated, charmed acid. Or being repeatedly heated to several thousand degrees and cooled close to absolute zero. None of that should harm a horcrux, making the fraud very transparent.
Second, I could not create a soul. The diary only imitated sentient behavior. I had a very thorough talk with the creator of The Invisible Book of Invisibility, but even if I supplemented his methods with human sacrifice, the result would not be quite what I needed. I knew of no other way to place a human conscience into an object... Except a phylactery, but Albus would not mistake it for a horcrux.
Sure, when Albus is defending from curses and explosions bombarding him from every direction, he'd have no time for a scan. But what if he figured it out? I didn't know how the old man saw the world, what charms he used. I could not even deceive Lupin without tipping him off! It'd be foolish to hope to trick Albus multiple times with such simple methods. What if he survived the first trap and took the object with him for testing? It would render all the other traps useless and give Albus some very inconvenient ideas. For example, that Voldemort never made any horcruxes: 'Alastor, get him with an Avada, I'll hold him for you.'
But now I had a better plan. Voldemort would set up additional defenses where Tom hid his horcruxes. Voldemort would hide the same objects Tom used. And they would be horcruxes. But not his. And if they scream "I'm not Voldemort's horcrux!" no one would believe them... By the way, what would happen if a Dementor kissed a horcrux? Or its creator? What if it become less intelligent and more obedient? I'd check it later.
So, I'd need to guide at least five prisoners through the horcrux ritual. The objects would be resilient on their own, but I'd add wards and ask "friends" to help... Maybe one of the traps would kill the old man... But not today. I first had to prepare obstacle courses in the inferi cave and the Gaunts' house. Sadly, Gringotts would never let me curse the vault... But I could put anything I wanted there, right? For example, cursed items. And a snake golem I'd make with Rosier's help... I may be far from Albus with his transfiguration tricks, but I won't spare materials and people to animate it. And it would take up nearly all of the space. Was it legal to store a cursed battle golem in a vault? Most likely yes, especially if I made it from precious metals. Some treasure...
How would Albus fight it? Fiendfyre? He'd be inside the vault himself! Phoenixes couldn't apparate inside the bank, and the goblins would not miss a "boom" of this magnitude... If the old man survived, he'd have to fight through them next.
The other horcruxes can be stored in the Malfoys' and the Lestranges' manors. Tweak their source-powered wards, hire squads of mercenaries to "protect family manor from attacks." No one would openly accuse the Malfoys or the Lestranges. Without evidence, the court would drag for years. The Lord would quickly find out about any official investigation and move the horcruxes... But while the horcruxes existed, the Lord remained immortal. Albus would be forced to storm the manors of law-abiding citizens and use extrajudicial force... Even if he survives, two thirds of the country would come to believe in the Order of Death... Who could have guessed: Albus Dumbledore breaks into pureblood homes to steal their heirlooms! Lawful searches? Go right ahead and try... Nearly a third of Wizengamot was mine, they would notify me. And even if they didn't, Albus knew full well he'd have to show a list of confiscated items. "Voldemort's horcrux," what's that? A thing that lets you live forever?! I want one too!
That took care of five horcruxes out of seven. The last two backups would have to be considered very carefully... As soon as I finish the traps and begin leaking information to Albus...
How to ensure my safety working with other people's horcruxes? Their creators must be kept prisoner. Under extremely high security. Tied up, chained, unconscious. In vegetative state. Crippled with Dark Magic and infected with multiple illnesses until they can't use magic, move or think. And just in case, order a Dementor to kiss them. And physically injure their brains with Dark Magic. After multiple Obliviates. I could kill them, of course, but spirits were much harder to contain. And what if Abus had a way to determine whether the creator had a body? The horcruxes themselves won't escape their hiding spots.
So much to do... For example, coax a horcrux creator into experiencing remorse and watch the soul mend back together...
The main problem with Dark Magic was the material not wanting to die and resisting. Killing sparingly would limit the results. Killing liberally would breed many enemies. But what about killing sparingly and using their deaths more efficiently? Not only their bodies but souls as well? As far as I knew, a soul could not be sacrificed. What about a piece of it? Maybe people's horcruxes would prove useful elsewhere?
With these thoughts, I continued cleaning the traces of my work. The Dementor burned in Fiendfyre. I had plenty of Dementors, and they spawned given the right conditions. Not much of a loss. Pandora... You've seen too much. Killing you would be a waste, at least until I finish studying your sight. But even then, you'd make a useful consultant to help me understand what I see. We'll be together forever.
I stunned, transfigured and put her into an isolating container. I really did not appreciate Bellatrix's thoughts at my mention of Pandora. Bellatrix, you are better, how silly of you to be jealous of a pocket scanner! What do I have to do to stop the questions, marry her? One jab of my wand- and she'd be a happy pureblood widow. Or even simpler, set up Rodolphus to break his vow... But it was too obvious, and I almost worked out a way for everyone to stay alive and have the Lestranges even thank me for it.
Again and again I wiped the magic traces in the room. However hard I tried, the hint of something very Dark refused to vanish. Tell the Lestranges to help? No, they were not as skilled as me but still clever enough to understand too much. Edward was a master of blood and runes, Rodolphus had an analytical mindset, Bellatrix grew up a Black, and Rabastan was dying from studying, well on his way to becoming either a hopeless bookworm or a multidisciplinary genius...
I gave up and moved on to measuring necroenergy in myself. This much I had before the experiments, this much after. Subtract the values of all the spells I used... It left zero. Apparently, destroying a horcrux didn't count as murder. Too bad: seven destroyed horcruxes would have caused enough to accuse Albus of Dark Magic use.
There was a knock on the door. The ritual hall looked pristine to the naked eye, empty save for the identification runes. In magical sight, it looked as though it got bombed, then hosted our concentration camp, then used to perform Diana Crouch's healing ritual, then Dumbledore and Grindelwald came here and had their duel. And then there was a witches' Sabbath...
Having added some more concealment charms that did very little to improve the situation, I opened the door. It was Bellatrix. I reflexively put up privacy charms.
"My Lord..." she began, but froze once she saw the inside of the room. "Am I allowed to interrupt?"
"I am already finished. I was performing very powerful Dark Magic that could not be fully concealed. I would like for the Lestranges to cover this room with additional wards. Don't go inside and don't let anyone else in, it may be dangerous. I will be working here again later."
"Yes, my Lord... Master, Sirius Black's and Alecto Carrow's wedding is scheduled to begin in two hours. You said wished to attend."
Hopefully everything will go perfectly smoothly. We kept Black under a killer dose of potions and rituals. Carrow should be in awe... He even had implanted artifacts. If I analyzed his blood, it would be more accurate to speak of concentration of blood in the potions rather than the other way around... We were certain none of it would harm the future child but stored some biomaterial under stasis charms just to be safe. When I said I brewed "Lust's Folly" for Black, Rabastan began steering clear of him...
Bellatrix was going to be the bridesmaid, and I'd fill the role of his best man. I could have changed here but needed to go home to pick up their wedding presents. After all, Sirius was my most faithful servant, a spy who compromised himself to bring me the Potters' heads... He should set a worthy example for their son, once Alecto shares her memories of the Lord himself bestowing Sirius Black with gifts...
"Thank you for reminding me. I will be there soon, don't begin without me," I said and headed for the apparition platform.
I'm sorry for the update confusion! I accidentally deleted a chapter and FFN treats it as an update. Everything is back to normal now. Thank you so much for all your reviews, follows and favorites!