A/N : YAY!!! It didn't take me another month to get this chapter up! CELEBRATE!!! Hopefully I'll be able to keep up this "once every two weeks" posting. Though I know you all got used to the once a week thing, I think that was wearing down on me some too, along with everything else. Hope you enjoy this chapter…
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Chapter #15 – Auror
Two more years passed. It was spring again. It had nearly been fourteen years now since he had graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It had been a little over twenty years since he had taken his first steps down the part of the Dark Arts. He had come to realize just how much he had learned since he had first found out he was a wizard, and he was impressed with himself. He knew he was accomplishing what he had set out to do.
Voldemort had only recently decided that the next place he would venture after he left China would be India. Though he had had the chance to go to Russia (or the Soviet Union, as the Muggles there were now calling it), Australia, Japan, or nearly half a dozen other countries, he chose India because they had been the third "cradle" of magical development. All of the major magical systems had originated in three different regions of the Old World – the Mediterranean, China, and India. He had learned the magic of the first two (though had also learned that magic was magic, no matter what system you were learning) and he wanted to see what new things he could learn in India. He had heard many interesting things and wanted to see for himself what it was like.
There were three teachers (or gurus, as they were actually called) that were quite interested in having Tom as a student. He was currently thinking over which of these masters would be the better teacher for him when he finally arrived in India. He had not set an exact date for when he was planning on leaving China, but when he finally did, he wanted everything to be perfect for his transition from one nation and system to the next.
His experiments on finding immortality were going along very well. Five more times he had attempted the incantations or potions that he did not know the results of with Lena standing close by in case anything too adverse happened (though the worse that did happen was his passing into unconsciousness for several hours with one of the potions). He wondered, though, if he would ever feel any different after an experiment so he would know that it had worked or whether he would always be left wondering until some event that should have taken his life did not. It annoyed him somewhat. He would just have to keep trying and trying until he could no longer do so – though that would indeed be quite a long time from then, he assured himself with a smirk.
Overall, Tom was rather pleased with himself. He was growing stronger in the Dark Arts. He was an accomplished legilimens and occlumens. He was searching for immortality. His dueling skills were some of the best within the Gaoji now. Subjugation was literally second nature to him now as much as he had used it. He was learning how superior groups of Dark wizards were set up and organized and what they did. And he felt he only needed a little more time before he would be ready to return to England and start carrying out his plans to purify the Wizarding race, plans that he had been steadily formatting and changing ever since he had left Hogwarts. But then he thought about it and wondered if a thirty-two-year-old wizard had a chance of doing what he wanted to do. Did he have enough experience and knowledge yet? Would people take him seriously? He doubted it. He simply needed to continue studying to become even more powerful than he was at that moment. People would acknowledge power, so if he found it and used it, then he would be able to do all the things he so desired to do.
But one of the things that made him most pleased was not concerned with his studies. It was that his periodic thoughts of Lena's being a spy had finally been abated. She often slipped off with his diary to write in it and he came to learn that she spoke to "Tom" because he, Voldemort, was often too busy with his studies to listen to her trifle little concerns and thoughts and she knew she could convey them to the diary, and that was nearly the same as talking to him in reality. Voldemort had really not known what to expect from Lena's constant borrowing of the diary in the beginning but now he thought it was good that he had let her for he learned more about her little thoughts, which he found rather interesting. She seemed happier, too, now that she had let out some of her worries and hopes, telling the diary that she hated keeping them suppressed. And she even got one of her wishes granted soon after she had written it down - getting a bit more attention from her master in the bedroom…something that had begun to be very rare indeed.
Everything lately had been so wonderful. He had not felt so wonderful since Lilith had killed that Mudblood at the school years before. Everything was looking hopeful for him. He was learning so many new things and meeting or corresponding with many of the greatest Dark witches and wizards in Asia and Australia. Nothing would be able to ruin his joy of falling deeper into the Arts he thought, but he had never counted on something coming up and spoiling all his fun. But one never really does.
It had been a rather long day. Tom and Shen had gone to the Yin Yu to buy supplies they needed for their next round of experiments and had been gone all morning and into the afternoon. Lena had, strangely enough, passed up the chance to go with them to get to work on a potion she was dying to try. But when they returned, they found someone waiting for them in the front garden, looking rather grave. Tom never would have realized who she was by sight, even though he knew her rather well. Even Pei Shen was surprised to see her at his home.
"Zhi, what are you…" But the witch cut Shen off and started talking rapidly.
It was the first time Tom had seen the woman (Fai Zhi, one of the elders of the group) without her mask on, and her visage actually surprised him. Her face was kind and grandmotherly (kinder than he could have imagined after some of the things he had seen her do) and set with green eyes, a rarity among Oriental peoples. She was older than Voldemort had guessed. She appeared to be in her late sixties, though her hair was still very black without the slightest hint of gray. She was talking so fast in Chinese that even Shen was having a hard time following her (Tom was completely lost), but the Chinese wizard got the main points she was trying to make and his look turned very grim as he looked over at his guest when she had finished.
"I do think it's time you were going."
The British wizard was still completely lost and shook his head slightly, surprised by this sudden announcement. "But why?"
Shen sighed heavily, knowing that his companion was not going to like hearing this news. "There's apparently an Auror here looking for you."
"An…" Voldemort had never heard Shen use the word "Auror" since they had left Greece, as the term for them in China was Guangshi. His first thought was of an Auror having followed him and Shen from Greece, having traced them from the Nychta Paidia. But still, that did not seem likely, not after so long. There either had to something else going on or it was all just a mistake. "But how do you know they are after me?"
"He's been asking around about any European wizards in the area. One of the shi we have on our side said he's from England." Zhi was talking now and had hardly slowed down from the pace she was at a moment before, but Voldemort still understood her, but barely. "Someone says they heard your name mentioned – your given name, that is."
Tom's mouth fell open slightly in shock. Okay, so this was not just some mistake. "He…"
Another sigh, this one sounding rather depressed, came from Shen. He did not want his guest to leave, they had done so much together, but it was better - safer - for him to go. "This is serious, Voldemort. You must leave immediately."
It took him a moment, but he nodded. He was leaving much sooner from here than he had ever planned to. He had not even finalized anything with any the gurus about his coming to learn under them. He did not like having to make yet another quick departure. He did not like always being forced from the places he was studying. But this time, it was far more important to leave as fast as possible. Without another word to his host, he hurried off to his room to inform Lena, hearing Shen and Zhi started up another fast conversation as he went. And, as he went, what had just been told to him was just really starting to sink in.
A British Auror was in China looking for him. This did not bode well at all. Something strange was certainly happening, but what he had no idea. He began to think over all the possibilities as he headed to tell Lena they had to pack, but when he got to the room, he saw Lena was already packing. Half her things were already put away. And even with magic, there was no way she could have had the time to do that since Zhi had arrived with the news - as he had caught in her hurried explanation to Shen that she had been waiting there only an hour. Had Lena already known? She had to have…
"Where have you been, Master?!" She had only spared him a glance before she went back to her frantic packing. She was clearly out of breath as she dashed back and forth to put various potions' ingredients into a magical bag. Magic would have made her task a lot easier, but, clearly, she was somewhat panicked at the moment. "I looked for you and looked for you. We have to…"
"Yes, I know this, but how did you know," he asked, going to help her, though he had a hunch he already knew how she had come by this information.
"I received a letter from my father this morning. He told us to leave, that it wasn't safe."
Voldemort suddenly wondered if her father had just meant for her to leave when he sent the letter. "So how did your father know?"
"He has connections and all, you know. He heard that there was someone coming to look for us. He didn't want us to be caught or anything."
That just sounded a bit too suspicious to him. "But why would anyone be coming to look for us?"
"I've no clue." She closed one bag, shrunk it, and set about filling the next. "I just know he told us we have to leave."
There were too many things that his mind was mulling over while he packed for him to be going at any speed. Lena ended up doing most of the packing for him because he was so preoccupied. And the entire time they were packing and while Tom went to say his farewells to the few Gaoji members he knew well enough to know where they dwelled, he wondered about Lena and her father. Was either of them really trustworthy? Should he send Lena back home to England so she would be with her father and so he would not have to worry about Korbin knowing the exacting details of what was happening to them? Should he simply kill her and be done with it? He did not really know. But the thought of carrying on his journeys without Lena did not set well with him. He needed her still and he did not want to get rid of her quite yet, even though she might very well be a threat. Soon things would have to change, though…one way or another.
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To my reviewers -
Mayhem El-Diablo - I still think that Lena has enough trouble ahead of her that she doesn't need any extra torturing, though you have helped in planning that "trouble" now, so I hope you feel pleased about that. Thanks so much for offering to assist me with the story and talk some stuff through with me, it's really helped (though I think I've told you that already a few times). Talk to you laters…
insert name here - Lena does miss him some, actually, and it's the "just lonely, with Tom off learning global terrorization/domination" part you mentioned. She misses his paying attention to her, as he definitely pays more attention to his studies now than he does her (that's one of those things I tried to bring out about her borrowing the diary). And I just said that the diary would repeat everything to him as sort of a threat, if you can understand my meaning there - but it also let her know that if she wrote it, the diary would repeat back to him some of her more pressing issues (another thing about me having her borrow the diary in the first place). And if I rewrite the story, it's not going to just be some things that get changed - I'd get Lena out of Tom's life when they're in sixth year (after her mother dies), so he'd be alone on all his travels that I'm now writing about. And that would be very hard… But going back and making the "second edition" with some minor edits and revising here and there, I will eventually get around to, but nothing as drastic as I had been planning.