Author Note

I really need a proofreader, these chapters are way too long to proofread by myself, so I'll be posting smaller chapters from now on.

Reviews

Chi Vayne

The suffering is more of a byproduct of keeping Harry alive until the right time. Dumbledore's intention aside from keeping him alive was to prevent Harry from becoming a spoiled brat who enjoyed his fame. By being raised in a muggle home that was avoided.

As for the prophecy that only has power because everyone's who's heard it believes in it. If Voldemort had ignored it then there would be no Boy-Who-Lived. Voldemort had to mark his equal.

When it comes to Dumbledore killing Harry directly, that would never happen because Dumbledore is so consumed by his guilt for killing his sister that he would rather subject people to dementors than simply let them die even if throwing them through the veil of death is the much kinder option.

Bisaster

To each to their own. I rather like her, at least when she's not trying to enforce her will upon the universe.

Alan

Yes money is useful for buying things

Gforce1000's Rule 34 Economy CYOA V 1.0

Part 9

12 Grimmauld Place. London.

As the door opened Raven and I were allowed access into the ancestral home of the Black family, which was located in the Borough of Islington, here in the city of London, in a reasonably well off Muggle neighbourhood, this seemed odd given that the Black family was mostly made up of Pureblood bigots who saw non-magical humans as little more than beasts, but wizards weren't known for making much sense.

Since the house was invisible to the neighbourhood's residents, the local Muggles must have long since accepted the mistake in numbering which landed number 13 next to number 11, or at least that was Sirus Black told us as we followed into the house. In many streets, you had odd numbers across the street from even-numbered houses, but that wasn't so here as there was a large park opposite the houses.

"Mudbloods, filth!" one of the portraits began to yell.

That would be Sirius Black's mother if my memory served. It took some effort to shut her up.

"Sorry about her," the only living member of the Black family said once things had calmed down, "My mother wasn't the kindest of people when I knew her, and she seems to have gotten worse over the years. I'd take the blasted thing down, but it's stuck to the walls".

I recalled this problem from the books.

"You could always just take down the wall" I advised, "Should be easy to repair with magic".

After talking about that for a few moments, he led us into a living area. It looked as if someone had started cleaning, only they'd not gotten very far, the house also felt empty so I guessed that Potter wasn't living here yet.

"So you mentioned in your letter that you wanted to talk to me about something," said Sirus Black.

I'd needed an excuse to come to this place, which currently wasn't so hidden away by powerful magic that I couldn't find it, so I'd written to Mr Black asking for some of his time, and I'd come up with a good reason to chat with him.

"Because I grew up in the Muggle world there's a lot about Wizarding society that I don't understand," I said to the Maurader "Including marriages".

Raven excused herself, saying she was going to seek out a bathroom, and I kept talking to Sirius Black so that he wouldn't notice that Raven might be gone for a while. She was off looking for a certain locket that should be somewhere in the house. It shouldn't take her long as Raven was experienced at dealing with magical items.

"I've made an arranged marriage with a nice young witch called Luna Lovegood" I mentioned, "But I'm not sure what to do about it. I don't have anyone to advise me about this sort of thing and Luna's father is odd".

Xenophilius Lovegood had a reputation that had spread even to this place judging by the smirk on Sirus Black's face.

"What about the professors?" I was asked, "Why didn't you talk to any of them about this?".

Even if the locket hadn't been here I still wouldn't have gone to the teachers about anything to do with Luna as they all reported to Dumbledore the less he knew about her the better off we all were. Black might also report this to the Headmaster, but he was far less likely to do so.

"I'm not close to any of my teachers and this is a personality matter" I explained "Aside from cousin, who doesn't seem to want much to do with me, you're the only wizard who I've spoken more than few words to when outside of school, and you were raised in an old pureblood family so I figured that you must know all about the important wizarding traditions".

With some effort, I did my best to look like and a somewhat think like confused young man by using a more advanced version of Occlumency that involves suppressing only the thoughts, emotions, and memories that would contradict whatever it is an Occlumens wished a Legilimens to believe, producing a "faux personality" hence, it is not obvious that Occlumency is being used even if the person is lying. I wasn't quite at that level, but I could use it enough to effectively appear as my faux personality. This wouldn't fool the likes of Dumbledore if he was standing here unless he wanted to believe it, but Sirius Black was much more trusting and might not even be a Legilimens. I reasoned that he wasn't when he began to help me.

"Neither the Twycross family nor the Lovegoods are high up in the Pureblood hierarchy" he explained "Not that all of us care about such things, a lot of it is just words. For example, my family is the "Ancient and Noble House of Black" but in fact, this is just something members of my family started calling themselves. Despite how the purebloods act there isn't actually any nobility in the Wizarding World even if some of us are descended from nobles. The Twycross family were minor nobles before magical peoples decided to hide from the Muggles, and your family is rather well off, but since its not that old of a family when compared to some they'll consider you to be of lesser rank, more so because you're a half-blood".

I gave this some thought.

"So some purebloods see themselves as "noble" because they have a lot of ancestors who married their own cousins, but there's nothing more to it," I summarised.

Sirus asked me to follow him and we entered another room, one that had a family tree of sorts of the walls.

"I think this will show nicely the difference between tradition and law, which is important to know about in our world," he said as he pointed to a burn mark on the wall "I was disowned by my mother shortly after I went to Hogwarts. If it weren't for my Uncle Alphard, who passed away at that time I'd have never have been able to finish college. In his will, he left me a fairly decent amount of gold more than enough to see me through my schooling and the Potter family took in for the holidays".

Why he was telling me this soon became clear.

"But despite my mother disowning me my father left everything to his firstborn son in his Will so when he died, I became to the owner of this house and took control of the family vaults regardless of what my mother wanted" I was told, "Law and tradition do overlap in many places, and they influence each other, in the end, the law matters more, it will still favour you more if you have political power and wealth, but this is true everywhere".

This was all very important when it came to understanding how wizards and witches organised themselves. The Malfoy family for example was wealthy and well-connected politically even if it wasn't that old of a family. There was a social hierarchy in the wizarding world, but no lords or dukes or whatever. As for the Wizengamot, Sirus took the time to explain that was made up mostly of government officials, there were no family seats that were passed on, and the Minister of Magic was elected by the Wizengamot that Fudge mostly had filled with his own supporters. This was how he stayed in power despite so many people knowing he was a crook.

"So without access to my family wealth, I wouldn't have much of an impact on the Ministry even if I cared about politics" I mused "Good thing then that I don't care about politics".

Sirus Black gave me a look of seriousness, very much unlike him.

"I'd avoid the Ministry as much as possible if I were you," he advised, no doubt thinking of how poorly they'd treated him "Now as to your engagement I suggest you contact the Daily Prophet and have them post a small announcement, nothing fancy. If this Luna girl is up for you could host a party for your friends, but unless you want to get noticed by the Ministry and the purebloods I'd keep it a private affair".

That sounded like sage advice to me, and since Raven looked as if she'd already completed the mission, as she'd given me the signal, then it was time to go. As I gave the man my thanks he stopped us from leaving, I froze for a moment wondering if he somehow knew that we'd stolen something from his house. The locket would by now be on Raven's person.

"I have something for the two of you," he said.

We entered a library, one that didn't compare well to the library at my home, but was likely full of dark arts magic. Not hard to imagine given whose family home this was. However, the books Raven and I were given seemed to be more light side than the dark side.

"The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts" I read out loud

My thinking for a few moments was that he knew that we were both in Ravenclaw, something I felt sure I'd mentioned when I visited him last Christmas, and therefore we liked books. Raven being smarter than I figured out the real reason very quickly.

"So you'll be teaching us Defence starting September," she said.

Well, that would explain why he had multiple copies of the book. If it was just the one then it would make sense as a gift for me, but Sirus couldn't have known that I'd bring anyone with me. Besides this was a textbook for the Defence subject I'd seen it displayed in Flourish and Blotts.

"The school governors weren't happy," Sirus told us "But Dumbledore reminded them that I am innocent and that if they hold my time in Azkaban against me then they'd be no better than the people who'd locked me up without a trial. Besides I am more than qualified for the job"

Black then went on to explain that during the war with Voldemort, whose name he spoke without fear I noted, he was a Hit Wizard. A Hit Wizard or Hit Witch was a member of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad that was trained to deal with highly dangerous combat situations, such as arresting criminals, containing dark creatures, and preventing the trade of dark artefacts. As such, they were the Wizarding Britain's equivalent of specialist firearms officers, but they were below Auroras who were the elite dark wizard catchers.

"How did you become a Hit Wizard, Mr Black?" Raven asked.

I could tell that he was thinking back to that time.

"Just a few years before Harry was born, James, Harry's father I mean, and I were involved in a motorbike chase with two policemen. The chase started off as just a bit of fun, we never meant for anyone to get hurt, but it became much more serious when we were attacked by three men on broomsticks. We used our magic to raise the police car that had been chasing us. The Ministry had much bigger things to worry about and they were desperate enough to conscript the two of us rather than lock us up".

It wasn't unheard of for judges to draft young men into the military so as to avoid having to send them off to prison and I could see it happening back then what with Voldemort looking as if he could soon take over.

"Both James and I were good fighters" Sirus was now saying "and with the Death Eaters knocking off our superiors there was plenty of room for advancement. James proved to Lily that he could be mature and so they soon got married. Harry came along not after, and I'm sure you know the rest".

I decided that it was time to leave. On the way out I told Black that Raven and I would be doing some travelling over the summer, to explain why no would be able to contact us while we were on our Horcrux hunt, not that anyone should try as we shouldn't be gone long.

"James, would you and your lady friend wait outside for me" Sirus requested "I've been trying to think of a way to really thank you for my freedom and now I know how".

Before I could protest and say that he didn't owe me anything, as his freedom had been a byproduct of my plans rather than something I'd one as kindness and so made to look like a stroke of mere bad luck for Wormtail, not he would ever know that, he ran off. So I decided just to go along with whatever he wanted. Clearly, it meant a lot to him.

Once we were outside the garage door opened and Sirus brought out a motorbike. Which I knew to be very motorcycle that Hagrid had used to bring Harry Potter to the home of his aunt and uncle.

"This beauty started life a Triumph Bonneville T120" I was told, "By the time I was done with it I gave it an engine capacity equal to some trucks. There are charms on the fuel tank that should keep it full for many years to come since it mostly runs on magic".

Wand magic could not simply conjure stuff, at least not for long, but you could use magic to increase the volume of what you had, such as a tank of petrol, this didn't work forever because the volume you added to began to degrade after a time. As such you couldn't pull a Jesus and feed the five thousand with a few fishes and some bread, but feeding a large family on a Ministry worker's salary was possible if you knew the right charms.

The bike was much larger than the original model would have been or Hagrid would have broken just by sitting on it, but I didn't notice this until I sat on it, some sort of charm to allow it to be more easily stored in a garage I guessed. What charm made this possible I couldn't even guess as it went against I knew wand magic should be able to do, but there were always loopholes.

For example, you couldn't normally raise the dead with magic, but there was a certain stone that I might soon own which would do that. Also, the charm meant that anyone riding with me wouldn't have to use the sidecar unless they wanted to since I wasn't a half-giant. The sidecar could be deployed by simply tapping the right part of the bike. The internal space inside the bike must have been greatly expanded so as to allow that.

"I had some good times on this bike," I was informed, "but its time to grow up, at least a little, I have to be more responsible".

Not for his own sake. He was changing for his godson.

"Wouldn't you rather give this to Harry, Mr Black?" Raven asked.

Sirus gestured over to the garage where some quidditch equipment was being stored.

"Harry's more of a broom flyer and I'll track down his Dad's old bike sooner or later," he said.

He didn't in the books, but he wasn't an escaped convict in this timeline so he'd be able to move about freely. That would make him more useful when Voldemort returned and that had been one of my motivations when exposing Wormtail.

"I don't actually know how to drive one of these" I admitted, "I guess I could take a class".

This turned out not to be a concern.

"The bike does all the work for you," said Sirus "You just need to focus on where you want to go and the bike does the rest. It gets more tricky you don't have a destination in mind so don't go for a joyride until you get more used to it. Oh, and keep it on the road during the day".

Some helmets were found for us and soon I realised that there was someone I should see about this bike just make sure it was legal. I didn't want it getting confiscated.

(Line Break)

Ottery St Catchpole. England.

"The bike has a powerful Notice-Me-Not Charm on it" I was told by Raven as the bike came to a stop just outside of the Burrow in the fields just outside the Weasly "Otherwise we'd have broken the Statute of Secrecy so badly that the entire Ministry would be coming after us".

A Notice-Me-not charm keeps people who aren't looking for you from noticing you. For example, if you are trying to sneak past someone who guards a bank or is a bouncer at a nightclub you would be better off using a Disillusionment/Invisibility cloak because they are looking for intruders. It also won't work if someone is looking for you personally. This spell along with others worked to prevent the Muggles from seeing the bike much like with the Knight Bus. It doesn't work if you flip off the police and then let them chase you, but I wasn't going to do anything like that as Sirus Black had warned us that this didn't end well.

Also, like the Knight Bus, the bike took far less time to reach somewhere than should be possible even at really high speeds. I'd not flown the bike as it was day time and because I greatly disliked heights, so I'd been on the roads. It should have taken us a few hours to get here depending on traffic, but we'd gotten here in slightly less than half an hour according to my watch even if it didn't feel like so long. That simply wasn't possible and yet I didn't think the bike had been teleporting around. Something that I mentioned to Raven.

"I think it works as some theoretical FTL drives I've read about are supposed to work," I said, "There's an idea called Space Folding which is this fictional method of instant space travel whereby an FTL engine causes space to fold so that the start and endpoints of the trip are suddenly right next to each other".

Raven gave it some thought before speaking.

"I was holding on to you for most of the trip so I didn't see much, but we did travel down some roads even if they seemed wrong," she told me "But it might work that way somewhat, by folding and twisting space, or bending it in someway. A lot like the Knight Bus".

If so then wizards had beaten the muggles when it came to FTL travel even if they'd never ventured into space. If they could make a motorcycle bend space and maybe time like this then what could wand magic do to a space shuttle? Something I also ran by Raven.

"The books do say that Muggle technology and magic don't mix, but the Knight Bus, the Hogwarts Express and that bike suggest otherwise," she said to me as we headed closer towards the Burrow "Something to look into if I ever find the time".

Since I was much newer to magic than her I was focused on simpler uses for it.

"Roth. Twycross what are you doing here?" Ron Weasley demanded to know.

He sounded as if he very much didn't approve of our presences here. Not this surprised me as the redhead treated anyone who wasn't in his schoolhouse as some sort of lesser human. If you were in Ravenclaw you were basically a useless bookworm, if you were in Hufflepuff you were just useless and if you were in the snake house you were automatically a Death Eater. He was pretty much a poorer version of Draco Malfoy only with red hair. If you were in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw the House system didn't matter much, but not everyone felt that way.

"I have some business with your father," I said.

Of course, he demanded to know what kind of business. As if I needed his approval before speaking to one of his parents.

"It's to do with your father's work," I told him.

Thankfully a more friendly member of the household appeared and soon Arthur Weasly was looking over the bike

"Why didn't you bring this into the Ministry?" he asked.

Which would be what I was supposed to be doing according to the law, but since I lacked any political clout it had seemed wise to bring to someone unlikely to be corrupt.

"I heard that it's your department that handles this sort of thing," I said, "And I didn't think that I'd be able to get the bike into visitors entrance so I decided to bring it directly to you".

Mr Weasly began to look the bike over as he did I noticed that the only girl child of the Weasley Clan was watching Harry Potter flying around on a broom with some of her older siblings. She must have a big crush on him in this timeline as well. As for Potter, I wasn't shocked to see him here since his godfather's place wasn't really suited for human habitation and wasn't hidden away by some powerful charm work.

"Something this big wouldn't even fit in my office," said the Ministry worker.

He knew what was he was doing because he worked at The Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. His entire job was about regulating the use of magic on Muggle objects and trying to keep items that had been bewitched away from Muggles. To this end, members of his Office along with people from other departments were known to participate in raids and to do other things to keep magic items out of the hands of people who might misuse them. Mostly this involved containing and destroying bewitched items meant to harm or even kills Muggles.

There was a law prohibiting the enchantment of a Muggle item with the intent to use it for purposes other than for what it was designed for so you can buy a muggle teapot and bewitch it to keep the tea warm for you, but it's illegal to make it so it keeps cold drinks at a low temperature, you'd have to buy an icebox or buy the wizarding version, or use the cooling charm when you wanted a drink.

Arthur Weasley was able to bewitch a Ford Anglia to fly legally because he did not intend to fly the car, as such having a flying bewitchment on the bike wasn't illegal as long as I didn't fly on it. A bit of a loophole even if it was sort of illegal. Mr Weasly had done his best to explain this.

"So I can ride it, just not fly it," I said.

Not that I wanted to fly it.

"Unless your life is at risk" the Ministry employee explained, "But that's an absolute last resort as you'd have to explain your reasoning at a Ministry Hearing if anyone was to see you".

And given the corruption within the Wizarding Government, they might not accept my reasoning.

"Leave it with me for a week for a proper inspection and I'll grant you a wavier as long as the charms check out," Mr Weasely said "All magical forms of transport needed to be approved by Department of Magical Transportation so I'll talk to Madam Edgecombe before I write up a wavier for you".

The Department of Magical Transportation normally only handled the Floo Network, portkeys and Apparition, but I could see how the bike would need their approval. Since I didn't want legal trouble I decided to come back in a week. I figured that the redheaded man would be checking the charms against own bewitched car, but since this was his field of expertise I trusted him not to do anything that would harm my new toy.

(Line Break)

Little Hangleton. England.

The Gaunt Shack was the ancestral home of the Gaunt family, as the name would suggest, and after some looking around Raven and I discovered that was located in the woods just outside the village of Little Hangleton. I knew that this shabby little shack had once housed Marvolo Gaunt, his wife, their son Morfin, and daughter Merope.

Soon after Morfin Gaunt, Voldemort's Uncle and last living relative died in Azkaban after being framed for murder by the young Voldemort, the shack would have become Tom Riddle's property since he was the last of that bloodline. Even it hadn't become legally his the residence was later used as a hiding place for one of Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes, the ring that he stole from Marvolo

When I got a look at it I could see that the shack was small, dilapidated, and everything was covered with a thick layer of filth. Once upon a time, Voldemort's mother a woman called Merope Gaunt might have kept it in reasonable shape, but the decades following her departure had not done the old place any favours. While I could see the physical my chief consort seemed to be able to sense more. She was talking to herself and waving her wand around. I knew that she was undoing the defences as best she could.

As she did this I looked around some more while not venturing into the shack. The sorry excuse house was surrounded by trees that partly hide it from public view. The thickset of woods surrounding the shack blocked nearly all the sunlight, making it rather suitable for dark wizards in my opinion. I didn't think the shacks mere physical location or state was the only reason why I felt colder when I got nearer to the shack. Perhaps I was becoming sensitive enough to magic to feel the corruption in this place.

Not so long ago Raven had destroyed the locket by again transfiguring me into a snake so that I could order it to open and then nothing had happened. Since no one had worn the locket it was dormant, like how Riddle's diary had remained inert until Ginny Weasely started writing in it. Either that or the bit of Riddle's soul in the locket hadn't detected a threat. Not that it really mattered as the locket had died, bleeding as the fang ended the dark magic artefact.

Destroying a Horcrux required that the object containing the soul fragment be damaged to a point beyond any and all physical or magical repair. When a Horcrux was damaged to that point, it may appear to "bleed" (ink in the case of Tom Riddle's diary) and a scream may be heard as the soul fragment perished or was banished to Limbo. Because of this safety measures were added to protect one's immortality and precious soul fragment, the creator would usually place powerful enchantments onto the artefact to prevent damage making them very hard to destroy.

It was unknown if the creator of the Horcrux would be able to somehow sense that their soul fragment was destroyed, although in the books Dumbledore stated that in the particular case of Voldemort, he would not feel their loss because his soul had been split too many times and had been in that state for too long. However, in the movies, it seemed as if he could. Perhaps it had something to do with proximity.

"James, I'm done," Raven said, "It's your turn".

I didn't sense that anything was different but I was assured that the wards were down. As for any other defences, they should be down too as Raven was more than powerful enough to defeat any defence laid down by Voldemort. Yet I moved slowly as Voldemort might have set a trap that even my consort could not disarm.

The ring itself was another matter when it came to danger. Marvolo Gaunt's Ring was an heirloom of the House of Gaunt, who were descendants of Salazar Slytherin and Cadmus Peverell. It is a gold ring inset with a black stone (actually the Resurrection Stone, but neither Marvolo Gaunt nor Lord Voldemort were aware of its true) engraved with what Marvolo Gaunt called the Peverell coat of arms (having come into the Gaunt line from an heiress of the Peverells, not the Slytherin family), which is actually the symbol of the Deathly Hallows. The signet ring passed through the male Gaunts, generation to generation until it was stolen from Morfin Gaunt by Tom Riddle back when the young Voldemort framed his Uncle Morfin for the murders of the Riddle family.

While at Hogwarts, Tom openly wore the ring despite more than a few people looking for the Hallows. He later made the ring into his second Horcrux. The young Voldemort did not enchant the ring right away, as he was seen wearing it while asking Horace Slughorn about Horcruxes, as seen through Slughorn's memories in a Pensieve during the Half-Blood Prince book/movie.

The ring was left under the floorboards in the ruins of the house in a golden box with a very nasty curse placed upon it. The ring would tempt you to wear it for whatever reason you felt was valid, and then the curse on the ring would sooner or later kill you, normally sooner. My defence was that I had no desire to wear the ring. I had no right to wear it since I wasn't a Gaunt, I already had plenty of wealth and since I knew it was cursed that would reduce any desire to wear it long enough for me to destroy it.

Also, no one I really cared about was dead so the stone meant little to me as anything other than a hallow, and I didn't need the ring part to get the stone. Raven was different she missed her mother and that might overwhelm her self control causing her to try to use the stone despite the danger. I had no intention of using the stone, to me, it was just part of a set that I might never collect.

Because of this, I was able to destroy the metal part of the ring, which did knock me on my ass, and then place the stone in a small box prepared in advance by Raven all without touching anything cursed. Not that this stopped a security measure left by Voldemort as snakes made of the wood of the shack began to appear from within the walls. I made a run for it while blasting the shack with some spells. When I got outside Raven began to burn down the whole shack which dealt with the matter of the wood snakes rather nicely.

"Two down," she said, "One more to go before we worry about Gringotts".

I was content to leave the bank alone for now, but Raven wanted to at least come up with some plans before we went on our vacation.