We arrived at Hogwarts, for two weeks all was well. Then, one morning, Lucy got a letter from her cousin Eustace, forwarded to her via Edmund. Eustace and Jill Poole, a school mate of his, had returned to Narnia. Salazar had apparently solidified his hold over Narnia and established a royal dynasty. I was shocked. He had turned Narnia into a powerhouse. Then, some upstart witch had lead a rebellion. This Lady of the Green Kirtle had raised an army of Giants, and Salazar's heir had used some sort of magic to pull them there. They had fought in the battle, and then Aslan had shown up. Something about beating school children with a bullwhip. From what I gathered from the letter, Narnia had become very human centric, and Salazar had united that world. He had apparently settled down, losing his drive to invade earth. I didn't buy it.
The three of us gathered in the Room of Requirement under cover of privacy spells.
Lucy conjured a trio of armchairs for us, and we sat in a circle.
"Edmund and Susan should be here discussing this with us." She said. I nodded my head in agreement. I hadn't gotten around to getting them a time turner yet.
"What's there to figure out?" Peter asked, I raised an eyebrow and looked at him.
"Narnia is closed to us, right?" He asked, we both nodded.
"Well, unless we find those rings you told us about Tom, we're not going back there. What kind of research did you leave behind in Narnia?"
I closed my eyes, and dove into my memories using occlumency.
"Mirror portals in Archenland. Probably magitypes in the main concourse. I got all the books out of my study. I sealed my redundant lab before we left the first time. He shouldn't be able to find it. It was under double fidelius to just find the location. There were so many defenses in that lab, including a few booby traps. He'd die if he found it. Flat out."
"What's in the lab?"
"Umm, prototypes for my muskets and flintlocks. Those self duplicating arrows that I never cracked. Nothing to bad. I kept all the dangerous shit in my main lab which I packed up and took with me."
"Did you leave any kind of bullshit?" Lucy asked.
"What?"
"Tom, we know you've always experimented with things better left alone. Was there anything like that in Narnia?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all. I always made sure to keep all that in the main lab. I didn't want Calormen to gain access to things better left alone." I said.
"That's fair." Lucy said.
"Now, is there anything you could create to stop him, if we got access to Narnia?" Lucy asked.
"There's a few things, Lu, but. I think we should leave this alone."
"What, Tom. Narnia is ours." Lucy said.
"No, Lucy. It's not." Peter said.
"It was. We ruled well and proudly. But, Narnia isn't ours anymore. To them, we're just some characters from a storybook. It's time to put that time behind us. That being said. Tom, do you have any plans if he comes to earth?"
I pursed my lips.
"Possibly. I have the inferi, and they're mostly armed with implanted submachine guns. I can try and adapt the reducto pistols to them, but the firing rate is off, and I'd need a way to power them. There's something else I could implant in them. It's from a book from my old world. It's basically liquid fiendfyre, combined with greek fire. But, I wouldn't even know where to begin with it's creation."
"How about we don't use that?" Peter asked, and I nodded.
"I agree." Lucy said. I had to agree, I was just spitballing. Wildfire was dangerous, and I wasn't sure if I could control it. I could deploy it inside some sort of tandem with a spell that starved the area around it of oxygen, but I didn't have means to test that.
"I also have my armor. If I can find a way to automate, perhaps by charming it with the piototor spell, I could in fact have an army of flying robots to defend earth. I can also dive into my more inventive repertoire." I said. I had a few ideas I'd never consider actually. Runic traps that converted air around it into nerve gas or spelled with an aerosolized flesh eating bacteria. Ideas that would unleash long term side effects after they left the area. If I could gain access to a disease center or figure out the genetic blueprint to certain diseases. Well, there's a reason why I had a few tomes sealed away and obliviated from my memory. I'd learn that sometimes that harshest option wasn't the best.
"Who invented that spell?" Lucy asked.
"Hmm?"
"It's something I learned in my arithmancy class. Sometimes the creator of a spell leaves a backdoor in it if you will. A failsafe or countercurse in case their spell or enchantment is used against them."
"That's a good question. I believe that the spell was invented during the crusades, but since Salazar has been around for centuries. It could be him. Could have been one of the Founders. It was first used in Hogwarts. I know that much. I could change the spell." I said.
"Any ideas Peter?" Lucy asked.
"Don't look at me. You two and Edmund are the planners. Give me a thousand men, and I can lead them. I don't play around with things that could melt my face. I know how to stick them with the pointy end." Peter said. I rolled my eyes.
Lucy checked the time with a spell.
"I've got to get to class soon, and I'm reaching the upper end of a single time turn." She said. We both nodded. NEWT Year was ninety percent self study, and aside from a few set classes that were reviews and practice tests, Peter and I didn't have a set schedule. We left the Room of Requirement.
Aside from that incident, our final year at Hogwarts passed without incident. Lucy was an amazing seeker. She had years of experience riding brooms due to Narnia. We sat our NEWTs, and graduated Hogwarts with little fanfare. At the end of the year, Lucy successfully tested into her fifth year. The War ended, and Albus came home. A new wand in his hand, a look of loss in his eyes that I'd seen reflected in mine and Peter's after years of combat. He tutored us in the basics of wandless magic.
Summer came. Peter and I had identical NEWT scores, and with a series a perfect Outstandings, offers flooded in from all over the world. Castelobruxo. Brakebills. Uagadou. The British Ministry. All of them wanted us for our NEWT scores. Offering secondary education and possibly teaching positions. I declined them all, but Peter accepted Brakebills. Their library was famous for the astounding range of knowledge it contained. Peter wanted our son back, and I had to agree, but I was done with school. I threw myself into our businesses, both muggle and magical. I had long since learned to diversify, and I poured money into stocks and businesses I knew would become successful.
Upon my Seventeenth birthday, I claimed the House of Slytherin. In the magical world, I was Thomas Slytherin. The name, coupled with the galleons I threw around, and my natural charisma and compulsion abilities soon saw me rise in magical society. In the muggle, I was Thomas Riddle, the long lost son of the Hangleton Riddles.
Tom was my birth name, to be sure, but Thomas had more of a regal feel to it, and I had long since changed it.
1945 passed, and blurred into 1946. Peter and I bought a house in the Hamptons. We communicated with mirrors and portals when he was at Brakebills and rarely separated when he was on weird breaks Brakebills called vacations.. Susan received an acceptance letter to the University, and she joined Peter in researching and copying their library.
All was well until 1947. In May, a little town in New Mexico made headlines. I was in New York City at the time, overseeing expansion of my father's businesses. I read the newspaper, and decided to investigate by myself.
I spun back time, and staked the site out. I was alone, and was wearing a special suit I had created under my clothes. It was made of spider silk, spun from compelled spiders who had also engraved the magical formulae and runes for spells designed for stealth. The ship crashed, and I entered it's LZ. I threw up a series of privacy spells, knowing I wouldn't have long until the army arrived. I found a hatch, and it opened. I threw up a bubblehead charm and entered the shuttle. It was small, and shaped like a saucer. I wondered what had happened. I wandered into the cockpit. Holographic displays showed warning messages in a language that looked similar to runes, but also extremely different. The two pilots were dead in their seats. Both of them were in some sort of suit that appeared to be an environmental hardsuit. A third was sitting in a chair. Some sort of weird helmet covered them. I took an empty trunk and levitated the body into it. An odd looking pistol was on the ground. I knew I didn't have time, to look over everything in the ship. So I grabbed the pistol, and the body and then went to look for any sort of storage locker. I found the crew quarters and put everything that wasn't nailed down into my trunk, broke my spells and apparated away to my house. I went into a warded sub basement and laid the body down on a metal table I usually used for experimenting on Inferi. I put on a pair of rubber gloves, conjured a bubblehead charm, and began searching for a latch on the helmet. After some experimentation. I found it. The helmet folded into the suit. Staring up at me were the dead eyes of a Salarian.
I paused, and frowned.
"Well, this certainly changes things, doesn't it?" I said aloud, and pursed my lips. Things just got a whole lot more complicated.
