Chapter 17

MAGICAL APPLICATIONS

The Slytherin students were cunning enough to realize that the humiliation of Flint and the other brutes was most advantageous to me, and I had to deny many times my assumed involvement in the new Hogwarts legend, the Performance. Those Slytherins who had admired Flint as a tough bloke and underestimated me because of my civilized image were shocked. After the Performance, I was not just respected; I was also feared. They knew that my enemies would face the same fate as Flint and the others: they had become resigned and subdued, silently stalking the hallways, with nothing left of their earlier bravado.

However, Flint took the responsibility himself. I was not sure he convinced anyone, but since Snape had a confession, he could not continue the investigation further. Unfortunately, that did not mean the staff did not have some new interest towards me.

The next morning I received a message from Dumbledore himself, making my blood freeze in my veins as if there was a Dementor inside the piece of parchment. He asked me to visit him in his office after dinner, and the foreboding anticipation tormented me the whole day. Finally I stood in front of the heavy oaken door I had last opened the day I had framed Hagrid for opening the Chamber of Secrets. I took a deep breath before knocking.

"Enter," the hated voice summoned, and I stepped into the lion's den, looking around like someone who was there for the first time. I could not help but frown at the strange noises created by various magical contraptions. They were probably purposefully designed to unnerve visitors.

Albus Dumbledore sat on the throne that had once belonged to Armando Dippet. His eyes twinkled even more madly than I remembered, and once again I got the horrible feeling he could see right through my Occlumency barrier. There was a diabolical smirk on his face… or was it just a benevolent grandfatherly smile? It was difficult to interpret his expression objectively.

"Ah, Mr Valedro, it is good to meet you," the devil said and put down his wand he had used in creating something that looked like a Runic array. I noted in passing that he had replaced the wand he had used fifty years earlier. "Would you like to have a sherbet lemon?"

He gestured towards a bowl on his desk with yellow sweets in it.

"No thank you, sir," I said, flinching. I did not want to take the risk of being dosed with Veritaserum.

"You have only been at Hogwarts for a short time, but already you have had a remarkable influence on the school," Dumbledore announced and popped one of the lemon sweets into his mouth.

"Oh, is that so, sir? I hadn't noticed." My actor's skills seemed to deteriorate when I had no idea what was going on.

"Oh yes! There has been a significant increase in student satisfaction. It appears there was an animosity between Slytherin and the other Houses. Alas, as we know, young people rarely know how to handle such situations. Despite the best efforts of the staff, we were unable to end bullying at Hogwarts. However, knowledge has reached my ears that you have managed to teach more constructive ways of interaction to your housemates. Mr Malfoy rushing to save Mr Potter, his earlier nemesis, is a perfect example of it."

I strained my acting skills to not appear nervous. Did Dumbledore know I had taught the Slytherins to subtly manipulate the other Houses? Had he heard of my theory that Voldemort had been just his disguise? I silently cursed my decision to redirect blame from my once other self to my nemesis.

"That is something that deserves acknowledgement," Dumbledore continued as I failed to come up with anything appropriate to say. "It so happened that Professor Snape took the prefect's responsibilities away from Peregrine Derrick after the rather… eccentric performance. Thus the school is lacking a sixth-year Slytherin prefect. You have in your short Hogwarts career proven to be a hundred times more suitable for the position than Derrick ever was. Are you up to the task?"

"Of course, sir," I said, finally easing. This meeting appeared to be, after all, just normal school business.

Dumbledore waved his unfamiliar wand, and a prefect's badge appeared in my robe. Also, a pamphlet flew from one of the numerous drawers in the office straight into my hand.

"There is a list of your duties and privileges. Congratulations, Mr Valedro. I hope your favourable influence on the other students continues. Experiences in one's early years greatly affect how one ends up taking a stand towards life in general. A good-natured school environment is of much Greater Good than people usually give credit for."

Someone might have missed the hint, but I did not. I mumbled something suitable for a new prefect without processing the words consciously and fled the office and the gaze of those eerily twinkling eyes.

One thing about Dumbledore had not changed. His hints were impossibly difficult to decipher definitely. I could not even be sure he had hinted anything. Maybe he just liked to drop slogans of Dark Lords in order to see how people reacted to them.

When I returned to the Slytherin common room, many of my housemates noticed that I had become a prefect; it seemed many had even expected it to happen. Ethan Jugson nodded in approval, whereas Peregrine Derrick who was leaving for his detention glared at me sourly.

I entered my dormitory, and the moment I closed the door behind me there was a deafening bang of displaced air.

Crack.

"Master Tom, sir. Dobby thinks he has found –"

"Take me to it," I said immediately, adrenaline shifting me to my action mode, and I grabbed the elf's arm. Dobby nodded, and a brief moment of Apparition later we were standing in the Room of Requirement, amidst the unorganized piles of hidden things.

An old, dusty diadem was the topmost item of one of the smaller piles. It looked remarkably modest, very unlike the relics associated with the Founders of Hogwarts. I looked at it closely and almost touched it with my hand. Then I felt it, the slight but unmistakable feeling of resonance.

Instead of touching it, I began to cast various diagnostic spells on and around it. It was an item of tremendous Dark magic, and it contained a magical imprint almost identical to my own. However, the seeming lack of protections worried me. I could only detect the basic Anti-Summoning Charm. Had Voldemort left it without any other charms? Or had they worn off for some reason? Or were they so subtle and insidious that no diagnostic charm could detect them?

"Accio broom," I summoned. A moment later an old broomstick appeared next to me. I mounted it, rose above the piles of things and flew some distance towards the entrance until I could only barely see Dobby. Then I cast a series of Shield Charms between the two of us.

"Pick it up," I called him, ready to fly further away.

Dobby did so, and nothing happened. Carefully, I descended from the air and landed next to him.

"Accio cloth." An old, moth-eaten school robe flew to me. Dobby wrapped it around the Diadem many times. I would consider the Horcrux safe only after I had used many advanced curse-breaking techniques on it and made some disposable wizard touch and wear it for a test. Just the job for Flint, I mused.

"Excellent work, Dobby," I said.

"Master Tom… thanks Dobby?" the elf stuttered, eyes filling with tears.

"Take me back to my dormitory and then return to Diagon Alley. Tomorrow, you will buy a strongbox, place the Diadem, still inside the cloth, in it, and deposit it in my Gringotts vault."

"Yes, Master Tom, sir!"

Crack. Crack.

One found, four still to go.

According to legend, the Diadem of Ravenclaw enhanced the wisdom of whoever wore it. Either Voldemort had found it to be false, because he had not used it himself, or then he had decided he did not need more wisdom. (Perhaps wearing the Diadem had made him realize what kind of idiot he was, and he had angrily stopped using it.) Anyway, the lack of protective charms and curses that activated by touch along with the hiding place made me suspect the Diadem was a Horcrux Voldemort had meant to be found. Of course, one could never be sure of a madman's thought patterns.

I visited the library again, even though I knew that not even the Darkest book in the Restricted Section held the information I wanted. Voldemort was the only known wizard in history to create more than one Horcrux, and so there was literally zero research about what I planned to do. It was entirely possible there was no way at all to make Voldemort's Horcrux mine. It was equally possible it could be done just by reaching into the soul fragment trapped within, making it connect with my kindred soul. But there was a third possibility too, and it was the one that worried me.

Perhaps I would need to fight the other soul fragment, to force it to submission. But would I be capable of such a thing? Voldemort had made the Diadem his Horcrux later than the diary, perhaps even decades later. That meant the Diadem's soul fragment was much more powerful, more skilled, and more experienced than I was. If I fought it, I might end up being the one forced to submission. It might take over my body and imprison me in the Diadem instead. Who knew?

I considered many ideas for tactics. I could immerse the Diadem in alcohol and hope the soul fragment would become drunk, although drunkenness was probably just a physical state, not spiritual in any way. I could threaten the soul fragment with Basilisk venom if it did not submit, but was I seriously willing to carry out the threat? If I could get my hands on Felix Felicis, I might succeed with luck. (Even though I had tried to brew it since June, all my attempts had failed. I was beginning to suspect there was some trick in brewing the potion that was never written down. Why would any Potions Master give the public an easy access to extremely good luck?)

Perhaps it would be best to just wait. Even without a Horcrux I was unlikely to die accidentally, my numerous secondary safety precautions made sure of it. At least my odds of dying were significantly lower than the odds of being forced to submission by the soul fragment in the Diadem. If Voldemort had made his second Horcrux just a few months after the first one, I was already superior in my power and skills compared to it. I needed to find all of them, determine which one was the second in order, and try with it.

So, where, apart from Hogwarts, would I have hidden a Horcrux? That knowledge was probably contained in the Diadem, but it did not make me curious enough to take the risk of losing. Not yet.

A plan of fighting my fellow soul fragment formed in my mind over the next few days. It was the constant casting of new automatically activating Shield Charms on my bullet-proof vest that had given me an idea. I could defeat even a much more powerful opponent if I prepared an incredible amount of magical power to throw at them. Potions were the basic way of storing magical power for later use, but certain spells, like the automatically activating Shield Charm, were cast in advance and triggered when needed. I could create a volley of curses that struck the Diadem if the soul fragment decided to fight me.

I looked up the fundamental instructions to the Muggle Repelling Charm. It was a frighteningly complex mess of Runes and Arithmantic equations, but I was determined to master it and craft a new spell using similar principles. But how, exactly, did one fight a soul fragment inside a Horcrux without destroying it? A magical equivalent to a machine gun that cast Stunning Charms in quick succession might be totally useless against something so immaterial.

The Muggle Repelling Charm was actually a Confundus Charm that triggered when a Muggle entered the triggering zone. The Confundus Charm was known to have an effect on some magical items. That might be a good weapon against a Horcrux as well.

I began to copy the instruction, but unfortunately Harry and Ron had decided to spend the afternoon in the library in my company, and Ron's constant complaining disturbed me greatly.

"All right, what's your problem?" I snapped.

"It's Scabbers!" Ron said so loudly that the entire library resounded. "Hermione's cat has been hunting him for months now! The bloody cat is mental! He almost scalped me in the Magical Menagerie!"

"Why don't you hex him until he is conditioned to leave the rat in peace?"

"Then Hermione would scalp me!"

"That's a dead end. The situation will be solved when either the rat or the cat is removed from Gryffindor Tower. Since cats are higher on the food chain, I don't see much hope for your rat."

I resumed studying the Arithmantic equation about a Muggle triggering the Confundus Charm…

"Actually," I said, "I just realized how this problem can be overcome. It's really simple to change these parts of the Muggle Repelling Charm so that it triggers when a cat enters the triggering zone. I can craft a Cat Repelling Charm and cast it around your rat. Every time a cat comes too near, a Confundus Charm makes it ignore the rat."

"Amazing, Tom!" Ron shouted, making me wince. "You're the best!"

"Just don't interrupt my studies again," I grumbled and began the Spell-Crafting.

I finished crafting my first notable creation, the Triggered Firing Charm, just before the Christmas holiday, and I tested it in the Room of Requirement. First I had to cast the spell of my own design and then continue to cast whatever spell I wanted to fire. The latter spell did not go off at once, but waited for my signal.

I flicked my wand, and the Room filled with light and sound. The Stunning Charm, the Impediment Jinx, the Full Body-Bind Curse, the Cutting Charm, the Reductor Curse, and the Blasting Curse struck their respective target dummies at the same time. I grinned as I imagined Voldemort's expression if I used this method of launching a thousand curses at him simultaneously. The brute force would pierce any protection he might have and scatter his remains to the orbit.

Deciding that the project was a success, I left the Room and planned to reward myself with a merry Christmas. The Triggered Firing Charm was not perfect, obviously. I had not even tried to fire Unforgivable Curses with it, because they could not be contained.

I looked out of a window to the grounds. It was snowing, the white veil of winter replacing the darkness of late autumn. I felt my spirits soar. London was a horrible place in winter, and my first Christmas holiday at Hogwarts had been magical in more than just the literal way. I loved snow.

There were students trudging through the snow to the gates, and I realized it was the time for another Hogsmeade visit. Harry was probably angry that he could not visit the village during Christmas season. I decided to give him an early present and show him the secret passage to Honeydukes.

I headed towards Gryffindor Tower, but when I was just about to Confund Sir Cadogan to open the portrait door I heard Harry calling me from behind.

"Tom! There you are! I've got something interesting to show you!"

I turned around. He looked excited and waved an old parchment in his hand.

"What is it?"

"A way to Hogsmeade without going past the Dementors. Fred and George gave this to me. It's called the Marauder's Map, and it shows the whole castle and the grounds, including several passageways to Hogsmeade. Also, it shows people as small dots where they are. Look, we're standing here… but that's strange…"

I looked, amazed by the simple ingenuity of the item.

"This shows you as Tom Riddle, not Valedro."

I flinched. Although I had modified his memories so that he remembered me with my assumed name from the very beginning, there were still numerous ways he could learn my true name.

"Confundo." Harry's eyes became bleary and unfocused. "There's nothing strange with the Map showing me as Tom Riddle," I whispered.

I would have to find a solution to this name problem and quickly.

"You were saying?" I asked.

Harry woke up from his trance.

"Uh… sorry, I was… just distracted for some reason," he said. "Anyway, this passageway goes to Honeydukes, and there are no Dementors along the way."

The Weasley twins had thought about the same thing as I had. But why would they part with such a useful magic item?

"This Map is one magnificent piece of magic," I said, feeling all the more impressed. I looked at the named dots on the map and read many names, some very familiar, some only vaguely. Albus Dumbledore was pacing his study, Mrs Norris was prowling the second floor, Peeves was bouncing around the trophy room, Colin Creevey was entering the library, Poppy Pomfrey was in the hospital wing, Peter Pettigrew was in Gryffindor Tower, Marcus Belby was hurrying towards Hogsmeade behind the main student group, Rubeus Hagrid was outside his hut meeting with Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, and, surprisingly, Cornelius Fudge…

"Let's go, I can't wait to see the village!" Harry said.

And so, after Harry fetched his cloak, we went to find the secret passage I was already familiar with, and when once again crouching while walking for miles I regretted not focusing to my Animagus project so that I could have comfortably slithered through the tunnel as a snake.

"Fred and George told me that the Map was made by a group of pranksters – Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs – who wanted the next generation to use it," Harry babbled enthusiastically.

I had trouble believing that. The Map was simply too advanced magic. No Hogwarts student could be skilled enough to create anything like it. Even I did not have the slightest idea of how such an item could be created, and I was the most talented student since Dumbledore. But why would some old and powerful wizards bother to create anything like it? What was Hogwarts to them?

No, whatever magic the Map used to function, it could not be any well known application. If it was, every member of staff would have such a map of their own. There would never be missing students, and pranksters like the Weasley twins would always be caught.

The Map needed to have an extremely wide-ranging ward that produced a continuous flow of information. To create such a ward would need a tremendous amount of magical power, but just for a map for pranking? No way!

Unless… of course! It was so simple!

The Map did not have its own ward. It was somehow connected to the Hogwarts wards that had been created by the Founders. The Map's creators had, like Muggles would phrase it, hacked the ancient wards and made them project their information onto the parchment. It truly was ingenious! Not an artefact with unique magic, but a user interface of an existing security magic. So simple that few people were clever enough to even consider such a solution. Great wizards were notoriously eager to craft everything from scratch. Hacking was beneath their dignity, and that limited their potential.

"Harry," I said, "I'd like to borrow that Map after we've returned to school. I may have an idea of how it was created. If I'm right, I may be able to duplicate it."

Perhaps the creators had found a physical anchor of the wards and hacked them at the location. Finding such an anchor would be very difficult; they were hidden for a very good reason. But I was almost certain that one such anchor was located in the Chamber of Secrets. There was no way Salazar would not have placed one in his own hidden base.

"Duplicate it?" Harry said, sounding as if he was bursting with excitement. "We'd all have one? It would help greatly if we ever have to do some sneaking at night!"

First I would have to find a solution to the name problem. I did not want any items on the loose that identified me as Tom Riddle. How did one change his name? Hogwarts' wards certainly had a clause for changing a name, because people got married and adopted new names. If I was going to hack into the wards anyway, I would have an opportunity to make them accept Valedro as my surname.

Eventually we arrived at Honeydukes and met Ron and Hermione there. Together we visited many places in the wintry village, including the unfamiliar Shrieking Shack. Harry was enjoying himself thoroughly, but I ended up just following the three younger ones, not really taking part in their conversation. I wanted to get back to Hogwarts, visit the Chamber of Secrets again, and start to investigate the wards.

Could it, by any chance, be possible to hack the wards to acknowledge me as the Headmaster? The thought made me smirk. That would be a fitting Christmas present for Dumbledore!

Published on the 12th of December, 2019.