The start of everything.
Chapter: 7
Richard was proud at the progress he made in this last one and a half year and could only look forward to the next few years while his magic would grow and become stronger and stronger.
He found out that, the more his body was growing, his core was growing alongside it.
The body and magical core should be therefore linked together in some way. It should be able to be compared with a bottle.
If the bottle is bigger, there would be more space in it to fill it, but if it is smaller there is not that much space in said bottle. The same comparison could be made with the body and the magical core.
Therefore, the more his body grew up, the more magic would Richard be able to store inside himself and also able to use it.
Sniffy also got some presents this year. Richard ordered her new cooking books from all over the country. She could now cook dishes from all over the world after she adapted to the new recipes.
She loved to try out new things, that they could eat. She has also found a hobby in the art of tailoring. In her free time, she would make clothes for herself and for Richard too.
Richard was really glad about that as he could wear clothes he knew from his last life and he was a growing boy which means that he needed new clothes from time to time.
Their house was also changed completely. The abandoned look was completely gone and the house was now repaired. The electricity and water was running again, which helped a lot with there being the freezer and the fridge for impromptu meals.
From the outside, it looked like a new family had moved inside a year ago.
It was a small family because only a mother and her son moved in. Sniffy was using a little piece of magic to look like an adult woman when she walked outside the house to meet and greet the new neighbors.
There was also a little child seen often by running around the garden behind the house.
Richard really liked to be outside since he hadn´t had that freedom in his last life.
He was growing up inside a city with almost no nature around and he loved to train his magic outside in his new garden or the woods that were a bit behind the house.
After a bit of thinking and communicating with the goblins, they got some wards set up that let everything look normal.
That means when Richard used some magic, it did not look like that from an outside view and Sniffy did not look like a house-elf inside the wards anymore or at least to everyone else other than to Richard.
The illusion let her look like a mother in her 20s.
That made a lot of things much easier when they had muggle workers over that fixed the whole house.
They tried to fix the house with the house-elf look alike spell of reparo but it seems that it did not work on things that the caster did not understand.
Sniffy could fix chairs and walls and the like but she could do nothing about broken things like the fridge or the water heater.
Then there was also a need to be disguised alongside the muggles. Henceforth they asked the goblins if they could set up an illusion ward and also an anti-apparation ward. A defense and attack ward, a temperature controlling ward, an air swapping ward and some minor extension wards for the basement.
Giving them enough money and the wards were set up in record time. It just took them one day to complete their work.
In the basement, they used the extension runes to built 3 more rooms, 1 training room for future physical activities, a potion room, and one room for whatsoever.
The anti-apparation ward included everything even house-elfs and phoenixes. This particular ward cost them deeply but it also for the sake of safety, therefore worth it.
Sniffy and Richard could apparate without troubles as they were keyed into the wards. Right now, it was more like Sniffy taking Richard along when he needed to apparate somewhere.
If there was someone dumb enough to try and force his way inside the house through apparation, then they would be blocked and attacked by the attack ward. They would not even know what hit them and they would be dead in a jiff.
The other wards were really convenient. The air swapping ward made the air fresh inside and it smelled like you are out in the woods, a smell that was soothing to the soul and the temperature control ward made it easy to just set the temperature at the exact degree.
In the moment when Richard received a list with all the wards the goblins could set up, he scoffed at the dumbness of wizards and there "not existing" common sense.
There were so many nice and easy to use wards, like the temperature controlling one. Who would want to be in a freezing castle all winter and the only warmth people get is from the fire of fireplaces.
Yes, it cost a bit to set it up, but who cares? It was convenient and at the end of the day it was comfortable.
Richard then thought if the wards at hogwarts were damaged or being tampered with. He could not think that a school, that existed for centuries, could not have a few of such wards inside it.
Like for example the anti-raping one. There were teenage wizards there who were able to cast a confundus charm or brew love potions or worse, use leglimency after the act. Nobody would ever be the wiser and Richard could not think that nobody thought of that aspect yet.
But that are ideas to be reviewed at a later date when he was attending there. Right now, it was more important what will be happening today.
Richard and Sniffy had taken a few steps of preparations for this day.
It was the day of Voldemorts fall or better the day of the deaths of Lily and James Potter. The 31st of October. Halloween.
Richard wanted to be able to see the downfall of one of the greatest dark wizards and even at the extent of all the pleading of Sniffy. He was set on the idea of being there in person. He knew that it could really be dangerous, but since he knew that there should only be Voldeschnorts in person and none of his death eaters. There was not too much of a safety hazard to be found in his opinion. And after his "death" there would be Sirius and Hagrid coming by. Richard deemed the task not dangerous enough, to not be there and made some special arrangements.
First of the things on the list was some defense gear. He got himself some amulets with a defense charm on it that would activate if it sensed some attack spell coming.
After that was an invisibility cloak with runes on it, to not only make himself invisible, but also mask his smell, heat, sound and even mask his aura.
Every being has an aura on itself and the aura of magical beings was much more apparent. If Richard concentrated hard enough, he could feel the wards inside his house and Sniffy inside her room doing whatever. Because of that he was sure that powerful wizards also knew how to do something akin to that.
These things cost a lot of money but Sniffy went on a little tour around the world to search for new dishes after they had settled into their comfortable house for about a few months.
There she also easily looted a few banks. This time she not only took banknotes but also jewelry and all kinds of precious stones and metals.
The stolen goods were all sold, without any troubles, to the goblins and the fortune of Richard was now so big that he would have no need to concern himself with money for a long time to come. Or at least that was what he thought.
But after he saw the bill of the invisibility cloak and the wards, he set up in his house he thought otherwise.
Before Sniffy went on her journey around the world, Richard gave her a present.
It was a pouch with a few expansion runes on it and it had much more space than Richards first pouch, which he obviously also upgraded to this version with about 100 square meters of space.
Sniffy was stumped for words and hugged little Richard with so much force that both of them toppled onto the floor.
Their relationship has grown much over the years that Richard now saw her more as a bigger sister than a maid and Sniffy grew accustomed to Richards treating her like this and changed accordingly.
She now wore not much maid outfits anymore and loved to wear colorful summer dresses all year round. Richards colorful style was adapted by her and she liked it very much.
She really looked kind of cute in this way. Soon she also let her subservient nature subside more and more and being in the presence of Richard she also changed in some unknown way that no one of the two noticed.
Her whole being changed, since house-elfs were only living to serve some other being, but that trait was slowly vanishing over time while Sniffy stayed near Richard.
No one of the two was aware of the changes because Richard did not know any other house-elfs and only read of them in his last life. He did not find it strange, because Sniffy wore different clothes or was now much more impulsive and did do things she would never have even considered doing at the beginning.
Her bedroom was one of the many things that began to change completely, she had now a king-size princess bed inside it alongside colorful bed sheets and everything. It did not look like a servant quarter anymore. Now it looked more like a bedroom of a 10-year-old girl.
She of course did do her job like usual like cleaning, doing the laundry and cooking but she also had a hobby now and Richard helped her occasionally out by cleaning the house. They had a fight over it but Richard could convince her when he said that it was refreshing to do some chores sometimes.
At the beginning Sniffy wanted to do everything alone but that gradually was lost while she grew accustomed to Richard's antics. She was verry happy when they both did some chores together. They even had one day in the week were they both cooked a meal together.
In his last life Richard was living alone and really liked Sniffys company and treated her like a sister. He saw a few changes in Sniffy, but since they were only good ones, he was happy for her.
He became aware of the feeling of loneliness when Sniffy went on her little tour around the world.
It was just one week, but to him it felt like ages. Being alone in such a big house was not easily endured.
Richard got done his routine and for the first few days all was good and ok but after that, he began to miss the little sunshine that Sniffy was.
Therefore, the day Sniffy came back he was more than happy to see her again and she had obviously also missed him dearly.
On this day they had a little party in their home and got to sleep late at night.
But now back to the present day and the preparations made for it.
Now that the amulets and the cloak and everything was ready, there was only one thing that was left and that Sniffy was currently getting said item.
Richard was walking up and down in the living room and seemed anxious about something.
'I hope there will be no problems with that thing, if there were than that would mean that I could only go down one road and I would hate to do that.
That is obviously only my last resort. Hopefully Sniffy can get it.' Were the thoughts of Richard as he was pacing all over the living room.
After a few minutes, he heard the familiar sound of Sniffy appearing.
Turning his head that was now good 20 cm higher than it was a year and something ago and he looked with big expectations at Sniffy shining face which told him already what he needed to know. But he needed to be sure and asked her in a concerned tone.
"Have you gotten it or were there any complications?" was all Richard could say with a quiver in his voice.
Sniffy wearing a new maid outfit that consisted of a white skirt with a few ornamented flowers, in every imaginable color that changed them every now and then, on it and a black blouse.
That was her latest creation and she loved to wear this outside for going and doing her job.
That one time she was seen in diagon alley with a summer dress on was a really bad day for her. She came back with tears flowing out of her eyes when she retold that she was accused of stealing these clothes and then she was cursed in every bad word she knows and a few she never even heard of.
After this day, she wore only her maid outfit for outside jobs and only wore her nicer and more casual clothes at home.
She said while shaking her head:" There was no trouble at all, misses Johnson finished the potion without any mistakes and handed it directly to me. She really looked exhausted after that."
After that she handed the potion to Richard whom took it carefully and stored it inside his pouch.
Misses Johnson was a potion mistress from Algeria that Sniffy met during her travels and helped her out once. Since she could create potions, Richard had asked her for a memory potion but that one was a really complicated one and it took her half a year to brew it. Another thing what took a really big load of money.
Richard said: "Nice right on time, I hope that potion will work in the intended way. We also should be on our way. I don't know how much time we have left until that event happens."
Then Richard walked towards Sniffy and they both vanished in thin air.
It was about 5 o clock on the evening and the sun was mostly gone for the day and it will be gone in a few minutes.
The days were getting shorter and fall was taking over summer since a month ago. It was getting colder and the leaves on the trees changed color.
In the middle of a little town, stood houses on each side of the street. The day was coming to an end therefor were not many people around and children were seen on their way home to get dinner.
Suddenly two figures appeared out of thin air on the side of the street. Who would it be other than Sniffy and Richard?
They looked around and got to see the houses and the look of the little boy landed on the sign on wish he could read. Gordric´s Hollow.
Knowing where to go, since they were here for more than one occasion and having scouted the place out, they walked towards the house of the Potters.
Richard and Sniffy were here many times before in the past year to check out everything.
At first, what surprised Richard was that he and Sniffy could find the Potters without any trouble. He thought that they were not under the Fidelius charm yet but over time he began to realize that this charm did not affect him or Sniffy in any way.
Every time he looked at the house of the Potters, he felt that something tried to mess with his mind but could do nothing about it and after that the feeling vanished and only got back when he thought about the location of the potters.
He had no clue why such a phenomenon happened and he was not forgetting everything he remembered, but he could not figure it out what reason there could be.
The Potters live here since about 5 years ago and had a baby boy last year.
Which one would it be other than Harry Potter?
Every time he witnessed the Potters playing around with little Harry, he felt something break in himself because he could do nothing about it to help them live through this particular day.
Yes, he could have warned them ahead of time, but they would have just shrugged it off. They would never suspect innocent Peter. Even if they trusted an unknown person that was not even willing to step up in person, because Richard was just a toddler.
What should Richard do about the dark lord, if he does not vanish today then nothing would-be set-in stone anymore.
Maybe even the wizarding world would be gone in a few years or the wizards would declare war on the muggle world. Both were not good endings no.
Hence, Richard decided that he could do nothing to help them right now, other than to help Harry for them.
He also planned to help Sirius avoid Azkaban and tweak a little thing here and there.
On the same day, that he made the decision that he could not help the potters, he vowed himself one thing.
That one day he would become powerful enough to not feel that helpless ever again.
After that he intensified his training and was only sleeping about 6 hours every day. He tried sleep a little less but after a week his body gave up and he was then in bed for about 2 days to recuperate. Not even potions could help him in any way, which was weird but nothing could be done about it. Therefore, he got back to 6 hours of sleep.
Sitting on a tree, a house away from the Potters, but with a good look into their bedrooms and living room through the windows, which had no curtains because they were not needed, were sitting Richard and Sniffy on a thick tree branch.
No one even noticed this house so why hide behind curtains. Lucky for our two-little observers.
They were both completely hidden under the invisibility cloak and waited for the deed to happen. The sun was now slowly setting down and darkness was falling all over the place.
Richard had nothing better and tried to sort out his thought and meditate a little since Sniffy would alert him if anything happened.
This got on for about 6 hours and it was now 11 o clock, almost midnight. Fog began to set in the surroundings and the clouds were now hiding the stars. A really good night for a crime.
Sniffy was nudging Richard when a man suddenly appeared right in the middle of the street in front of the house of the Potters.
He was clad in black robes, a hood hung over his head and nothing other than a stick in his hand could be seen.
'That must be Voldischnorts, I hope the Potters give him a great fight.' Thought Richard while he looked at the figure that was approaching the house.
"It took me such a long time to track you lot down, you should feel honored to die today at my hands." Was the dark lord loudly saying while he readied his wand and cast a spell at the door.
"Boooooommmmmmmm…..."
There was a loud explosion and the door was sent flying in pieces.
'What an overconfident arrogant fellow, loudly announcing his presence. Why did the potters not react in time and run away with baby Harry?
They would just need to stand up and grab harry and apparate away. I don´t believe that Voldischnorts took some kind of precaution against apparating.
Or why don´t they have some wards set in place, a few trap and attack wards and he would be a goner, or at least to slow him down. How does nobody in the neighborhood notice anything? That explosion now was really loud with splinters flying everywhere and all.'
Thought Richard as he lamented about the commonsense of wizards and then he looked at the bedroom of the house where the Potters were frantically trying to run out with Harry in their arms.
Voldemort was now inside the house and was destroying things left and right. He did not find anyone on the ground floor and began to walk upstairs. Almost everything was destroyed downstairs and nothing other than the stairs were undamaged.
Knowing who must be in their house James, stood in the hallway upstairs and was preparing himself for whom he was about to face.
A few minutes ago, they were awoken by the sound of an explosion and Lily and James did their best to shake of the sleepy feeling, because they just woke up and to regain some bearing while they knew exactly who must have found them.
Lily grabbed Harry who was screaming and hit him with a silencing charm as for to not compromise their position to the dark lord.
They knew that day would come even if they tried everything they could imagine to prevent it, but Dumbledore was adamant that the prophecy was coming true no matter what. Therefor they had a few contingencies in order.
In the time James got ready and cast transfiguration spells all over the hallway to help him fend of his enemy. Meanwhile Lily got a spell ready that she found not long ago in some ancient ruins and hurried out of the bedroom through the door and sped towards the closet with harry in her arms.
There on the floor was some kind of rune circle painted in animal blood. She laid baby Harry in the middle of the circle and began to chant after she said with tears streaming down her face:" Nobody can even dream of hurting you Harry, I will do everything to prevent anything bad from happening to you.
James, I need at least 5 minutes, just hold him down for the time being." Shouted Lily outside and then began to chant a spell in a long-lost language.
James heard everything Lily said and steeled himself for what was about to happen. He knew they both had not much of a chance to come out alive from this, but since they had found this ancient spell, they knew that they at least could save their beloved child.
Hearing the dark lord coming upstairs he transformed the stairs into a slope and James would have smiled at the sound of a "thuddd" and hearing a crash of a person falling down, would the situation be not that grave.
Falling of the stairs because they just turned into a slide and not in any kind anticipating that, Voldemort fell down hard and crashed into the wardrobe that stood downstairs.
"Arrrgggg….Nobody hurts the dark lord, now I have enough of playing around." Said he and began to stand up and started to float upstairs.
James hit him with everything he could think of, there were bone shattering, cutting, explosion curses flying around but everything he smashed at the floating dark lord got deflected by his shield or the anti-curse of his spells.
Seeing that he could not do much with his spells he then proceeded to take out 2 weird balls from his pants and banished them towards the feet of the dark lord who was just floating around contently inside his shield and ignored the 2 balls.
The balls hit the shield and exploded on impact, the smell of things nobody want to smell assaulted Lord Voldemort and he could only curse himself for being such a fool.
But who battles with such means, not ever having had to deal with the marauders at school, he knew nothing about the battles of pranksters.
James knew that he would not live through this night and he just needed to buy some time therefore he took every chance he got and did everything he could think of.
Lord Voldemort was now completely enraged and pointed his wand towards the ceiling and sent a strong explosion curse towards it. The complete roof was destroyed and rained down onto the neighborhood.
Richard was sweating a little on the tree not far away since he wanted to be a bit closer at first but Sniffy got him to change his decision.
He looked at the tree in front of him which was completely destroyed by the flying roof and he could just thank Sniffy for her protectiveness. Had it not been for her he would have been in deep trouble now.
Done with playing games, the dark lord used a charm to get the disgusting smell out of the house and bombarded James with everything he had.
James could defend himself really good, what he could not deflect he avoided or used a protego spell for it.
This battle lasted for about 2 minutes then came the time where James could not hold on anymore.
Sweating all over his body he sidestepped a spell but tripped on some pieces on the floor and fell into a bone crushing curse that crushed his whole left arm and threw him at the adjacent wall.
Trying to stand up and muster all the strength he could, he heard some footsteps near him.
"This shall be the end of this farce." Said the voice of the dark lord and James looked up to only to see a red spell flying towards him.
Lord Voldemort looked at the destroyed remains of James as his last spell was a mixture of the explosion and the cutting curse.
Satisfied at this he began to search around for the 2 remaining people that he had to get rid of.
Inside the closet, Lily could hear the fighting going on and even when the ceiling was completely destroyed, she was chanting the spell they prepared to safe their baby.
Tears were running down her face since she could hear the fight raging on and then heard it all coming to an end. The silence was unbearable to her. She knew what that meant.
She was now speaking the last sentence and all her magic flowed into the circle and then into Harry.
Lily was now completely powerless and hugged baby Harry and tried to sooth him.
"Shhhh all will be ok. All will be fine."
She heard the door opening and footsteps approaching them.
"Your Husband did not make things easy for me but now nobody can stop me anymore." Said Voldemort at the view of a woman kneeling on the floor with a baby in her hands.
"Nobody and nothing can hurt my baby. You will never be able to do anything to him." Was all Lily could say before a louder voice was heard shouting.
"Avada Kedavra." And Lily slumped to the floor, forever motionless.
Voldemort looked at the little baby and muttered." You have given me so much trouble and now I will end all of this and become the strongest being on this planet."
Then there was another green lightning bolt and it hit the baby on his forehead, but bounced right back to its caster and destroyed the dark lord himself.
The only thing which was now alive there, was baby Harry that was screaming and lying on the floor.