Another wonderful pair of weeks, and the final chapter covering the Chamber of Secrets content, hurray! Personally I have to say I am particularly pleased with this and the next few chapters, and I hope you all enjoy reading them as much as I did writing them. R&R!
Chapter Twenty
Lockhart's Legacy
Veneficus glanced down at the little black diary after the shade of Tom Riddle ceased to be. The tiny dark book was badly burned and still smoldering in several places, and Veneficus could only sense a gaping wound-like hole in the object where magic had violently dispersed. Frowning slightly in confusion, Veneficus swept the area with the Force, trying to discover where the ejected magic had gone. It was destroyed, as that was not possible, as the Force like any energy could not be truly created nor destroyed, merely moved from one place or state to another.
Finding the location of the displaced power was only equally curious for the Sith Lord. All the magic from Riddle's diary had seeped directly onto himself, specifically the scar that he had carried since he could remember the same scar that he was famous for receiving from the hand of…
He froze, comprehension dawning like a thunderbolt. It was no wonder that Anguis kept feeling that the Diary and Veneficus were magically similar. Tom Riddle had left part of himself magically imprinted in the diary, that fact was clear, and Lord Voldemort, years later, had had his powers broken asunder in whatever event had occurred when the Sith was an infant, which could only mean that, somehow, the dark wizard had managed, intentionally or not, to imprint some of himself on the infant child of the Potters.
It certainly explain a great many thing, Veneficus mused as he slipped the diary into his robes, summoned Ginny's wand to him, and turned to address the still waiting Basilisk. "I have defeated the pretender, great one…" he hissed, bowing his head slightly in mock humility.
"You have, ssspeaker of the noble tongue. What isss your bidding for the ssservant of Lord Ssslytherin?" the massive snake replied, head weaving back and forth as it hissed.
Veneficus knew that the girl would be stirring soon, and he had much to do to hide away the events of the night. Much had been revealed by his vision, and he knew the Basilisk had to disappear for some time yet. Commanding the beast to return to its slumber until it was called again; Veneficus turned and levitated the girl with her own wand, leading her out of the Chamber as swiftly as he dared.
Anguis materialized from under the cloak the moment Veneficus returned to the school level, and Veneficus quickly took the objects that were once Gilderoy Lockhart and all his possessions, secreting them just inside the Chamber for the time being, as the enchantments would hold until he was safe to return.
Nodding for his acolyte to depart, Veneficus stealthily made his way, with Ginny floating beside him, back to Lockhart's old office. For his plan to work, no one must know of his involvement, especially not Dumbledore. So, as the girl awoke, Veneficus quickly erased her memory of being controlled by the diary, and anything that occurred inside the Chamber itself, as well as creating a new memory to explain her disappearance, as well as the entire goings on in the school. For good measure, he hastily and sloppily modified the newly created memories, to wipe them from her active memory, but leaving them deliberately recoverable.
Checking again with the Force, Veneficus was moderately satisfied with the result, knowing that if discovered, the original memories would never be recovered, and the found memory would openly place blame directly on Lockhart, who would never be found and thus presumed to have fled. Veneficus had learned through distinct observation that the man had only truly mastered spells that related to the mind, having extensive spoken about the subject with him when the man would pull him aside to 'chat'.
Conjuring a blank book, Veneficus transfigured it to look and feel like the original diary, minus the powers that it once possessed, and placed it and the girl's wand with her, stunning her for good measure and leaving her in the room to be discovered at a later time.
Finally escaping to the dungeons, and narrowly avoiding several teachers and presumably the girl's parents as the latter arrived to learn of their daughter's previous situation, Veneficus breathed a sigh of contented relief. Everything was set, and would proceed exactly as he had foreseen.
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Albus was tired.
He had only returned to Hogwarts hours ago, after receiving word from the majority of the school governors about the abduction of Ginerva Weasley into the Chamber of Secrets, and that he was to be reinstated immediately. Many had, not surprisingly, offered their apologies for dismissing him in the first place, explaining that they had been manipulated or threatened by Lucius to do so.
The girl's parents were here, poor Molly sobbing quietly while Arthur paced in a deathly silence that hid nothing of the emotions the man was feeling. Minerva was doing her best to console them, but Albus' mind was elsewhere, trying to find where she had been taken. The Chamber had been hidden for centuries, but if there was any possible chance, Albus would do whatever he could to find it, and save Ginny, if he could.
But so far every attempt to locate it had been in vain, and Albus was growing discouraged. Trying once more, Albus silently cast a spell to locate young Miss Weasley, and his eyes widened as her location ping in his mind, unlike the past several times he had. Brows furrowing, Albus stood quickly and bolted from the room, moving with a speed he knew shocked those around him. Albus may be well over one hundred and fifty years old, but his body was as strong as ever, only relying somewhat on his magic to carry him along.
When at last Albus arrived at the location of Ginny Weasley, he stopped, confused to find himself outside Gilderoy's office. What was further puzzling was the lack of any and all personal effects within as Albus pushed the door wide, revealing the girl lying unconscious in the middle of the empty room. Rushing to her side, Albus muttered quickly, "Enervate."
Her eyes fluttered open, and immediately Ginny started hyperventilating, "I… where… what?" she said, looking around in terror and confusion.
"Calm yourself Miss. Weasley," Albus said gently, helping her sit up and patting her hand, "you are safe now, but I need you to tell me what happened to you after breakfast this morning,"
"I…" she started to say, still looking around wildly, "I can't remember anything about today…"
"If I may my dear," Albus said gently, lifting his wand, "I may be able to recover whatever memories you may have lost."
The girl nodded, still shaking with confused fright, as Albus spoke the incantation. Normally, he would have brought her back to her parents immediately, and only performed legilimency with their approval, but he felt that in this circumstance, it was for the best if he discovered the culprit as quickly as possible. 'Better to ask forgiveness than permission at times,' the voice of Gellert sounded in his mind, but Albus pushed his onetime friend and foe's voice from his mind, focusing on searching young Ginerva's mind for the memories that had been taken from her.
The memory charm was hastily done, nevertheless a professional had indeed cast the spell, but Albus, with some concentration and careful spell work, was still able to pry the hidden memory back without causing any damage to the girl's mind. The viewing of the memory itself left even more questions than answers.
Albus found himself in the corridor just outside Gilderoy's office, appearing just in time to see Ginny approaching the office with determined strides. Something or someone within the room was making an awful amount of noise, scrapings, thumps and many hurried footsteps sounding in frenzied activity.
Ginny knocked confidently, and all noise within suddenly silenced itself. Then the door opened the tiniest crack and Albus could see Gilderoy himself peeking out at the red haired girl.
"Oh… Miss Weasley," the man said, opening the door slightly wider. "I'm rather busy at the moment, if you would be quick…"
"Professor," Ginny said, looking somewhat sheepish at talking directly to her Professor, "I just wanted to get that book you borrowed from me back…"
"Er… well… it's not terribly…" Gilderoy stuttered, looking extremely uncomfortable before finally deflating slightly, "I mean… well, all right…"
He finally opened the door and admitted Ginerva and Albus into his office. The room was nearly bare, with two large trunks standing open on the floor with a plethora of Gilderoy's possessions strewn about. The man had obviously been packing to leave.
"Are you going somewhere?" Ginny asked innocently as Gilderoy searched for the book she had requested.
"Er… well, yes," the professor replied, shoving several handfuls of objects into the nearest trunk, while still looking around wildly for something in particular. "Urgent call… unavoidable… got to go…"
"But," Ginny said, confused, "What about Slytherin's monster and that Chamber of Secrets?"
"Well, as to that... most unfortunate…" Lockhart replied, avoiding the girl's eyes as he started to rummage through a drawer and pulling the contents out to pack. "No one regrets more than I…"
"You're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!" Ginny said, growing frantic. "You can't go now! Not with all the Dark things going on here!"
"Well… I must say… when I took the job…" Gilderoy muttered, continuing to scurry about the room for any last remaining odds and ends. "…nothing in the job description… didn't expect…"
"Are you running away?" Ginny asked in disbelief, "After all those things you've done in your books…"
"Books can be… misleading," Lockhart said delicately. Albus silently mourned the full truth of what Gilderoy had confessed in those words. Naturally he had not believed a word of the man's novels, as with the rest of the staff, but he had hoped that the man had at least written some ounce of truth in the many pages, but alas it seemed not to be.
"But you wrote them!" Ginny shouted desperately.
"Dear girl, do you use your common sense." Gilderoy said hotly, straightening and frowning at the girl. "My books wouldn't have sold half as well if people didn't think I'd done all those things…" Albus shook his head sadly as the blonde fool continued to rant about his criminal success.
"So you've just been taking credit for what many other people had done?" Ginny said incredulously.
But Gilderoy had stopped listening, focused as he was on closing and locking his trunks, "Let's see," he said to himself, "I think that's everything. Yes, only one thing left."
The memory of Ginny gasped as the man pulled out his wand and whirled on her.
"Awfully sorry my dear, but I'll have to put a memory charm on you now… can't have you blabbing my secrets all over the place. I'd never sell another book…"
Ginny had turned to run just as Gilderoy raised his and calmly said, "Obliviate…"
The memory blanched white, and Albus hastily withdrew from the girl's mind. Hastily withdrawing a copy for later analysis, the wizened Headmaster led the terrified, albeit now less confused young girl back to her parents.
Molly broke down into tears of relieved joy at the sight of her daughter. Arthur bombarded Albus with question after question, and the aged Headmaster told him exactly what he had seen in Ginny's memories, that Gilderoy Lockhart had obliviated her when she unintentionally discovered him fleeing the castle.
As to why the man had been fleeing was not so certain, but the speculation was that Gilderoy was responsible for the entire Chamber of Secrets scare in order to pave the way for a new book, and many thousands of more galleons to fund his lavish lifestyle. Albus allowed such rumors to spread, while keeping his personal fears close to his heart. Somehow it just didn't add up, for Lockhart to be clever enough to organize and execute such a complex and in-depth plan.
Adding to the difficulty of obtaining the truth was Lockhart's mysterious disappearance. He had simply vanished without a trace. Not even Severus had any luck in tracking the man's exit from the castle. It defied every aspect of the man's personality over the last decade.
Escaping to his office as quickly as the Weasleys would allow, Albus poured over the memory several more times, looking for some sign, anything that verified what he feared. Only after the sixth time of watching the memory did Albus notice the magical pattern behind it. It was so distinctly familiar to a previous memory, from one Ernie Macmillan. It was hidden much better than the boy's had been, but the similarities were there. Ginny's memory had been carefully constructed by persons unknown, just as Earnie's had before.
Sighing slightly, Albus looked up just as the wards to his office chimed the ascent of a visitor, one that Albus had expected since returning to the castle. Two swift knocks, and the door opened to reveal Lucius Malfoy, suppressed fury etched in his face.
As proud pureblood stalked to Albus' desk, the aged wizard smiled pleasantly up at him, "Good evening, Lucius."
"So," the man replied, his eyes flashing coldly at Albus, "You've come back. The governors suspended you, but you still saw fit to return to Hogwarts."
Albus shook his head sadly. Apparently poor Lucius was quickly being left out of the loop of the goings on of the board of governors.
"Well, you see Lucius," he explained, smiling serenely at the man's irritation, "ten of the eleven other governors contacted me earlier today. It was something akin to being caught in a hailstorm of owls, to tell you the truth. They'd heard that Arthur Weasley's daughter had been killed and wanted me back here at once. They seemed to think I was the best man for the job after all."
Albus paused in his speaking, turning to watch Lucius, "Very strange tales they told me, too… Several of them seemed to think that you had threatened to curse their families if they didn't agree to suspend me in the first place."
Lucius' pale became instantly paler than ever, and his eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. Before he could speak however, the wards outside the office chimed once again, and both men's attention turned to the door as the tall form of Alexandre Blackmoore strode in, bold and confident even while remaining silent and unobtrusive. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything," he said pleasantly, "I was called by the board of governors to locate and speak to Lucius Malfoy and Albus Dumbledore."
"And what do you have for me, Lord Blackmoore?" Albus replied, cutting over whatever response Lucius was going to offer. The graying man sidestepped the Malfoy patriarch to better address Albus before speaking, "The Hogwarts board of governors wishes to inform you, Headmaster, of a very recent reorganization of the board itself…"
"Why was I not informed?" Lucius interrupted, to which Lord Blackmoore turned to him with a neutral expression, "You were not informed, Lord Malfoy, because the vote in question was over your removal from the board. Apologies, but the motion passed." Albus noted that Blackmoore neither looked nor sounded remotely sorry for Lucius abrupt removal from the board.
"And who is replacing Lord Malfoy as head of the board?" Albus asked, knowing the answer before Lord Blackmoore said anything. "I have been voted in for that responsibility."
Throwing up his hands angrily, Lucius stormed from the room, slamming the office door as he departed. Albus caught a momentary smirk cross Blackmoore's face before it returned to its neutral passivity. "So," he said again after a few silent moments, "have the attacks been stopped and the culprit identified Headmaster?"
"They have, and we did." Albus responded, smiling outwardly but inwardly frowned.
"And they guilty party is?" the man questioned, and Albus felt the eerie feeling of something off putting and unnatural about the man again. The powerful wizard had to pause and readjust his Occlumency shields in order to think clearly.
"Gilderoy Lockhart it seems," Albus said moodily, looking down in disappointment. Not at giving a potentially false answer to the board, but that he had no other answer at the moment.
"How unusual," Blackmoore said, frowning slightly, "from what the other members of the board have let slip, Professor Lockhart wasn't the… ah, most subtle of wizards…"
"So it had seemed," Albus agreed, his suspicions still burning inside him, "but we have irrefutable an eyewitness account, and soon we may have others to support it when the rest of the students are freed from their petrifaction."
"And he has escaped without a trace." Blackmoore finished, which caused Albus to raise his eyebrows slightly. He had never mentioned that Gilderoy had disappeared completely.
"Yes, he had." Albus confirmed, and Blackmoore nodded.
"Ah well," he said as he turned for the door, "I had better bring this news to the rest of the board, as a new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher will need to be appointed for next year then. Hopefully one with a much less dangerous heart than the last has been." And without another word, the man departed.
Albus was left with a strange sense of foreboding, uncertain about the man Blackmoore, and his strange actions. Stranger still was trying to explain his feelings when he had very little evidence. Momentarily he wondered if this was how Severus felt often when he spoke with Albus. But for lack of a better explanation, Albus had a gut feeling that Blackmoore was going to turn out to be the cause of extensive problems for the school, even more now that he was head of the Board of Governors.
From that, Albus' mind drew back one year to the strange behavior of Harry Potter, behavior that had not ceased during the current term, only growing more mysterious and shocking at times. There had to be a connection somewhere, but Albus needed a fresh perspective on this mystery, preferably one that was familiar with the Potters and would stop at nothing to rescue young Harry from any threat, be it Voldemort or Blackmoore.
"Of course…" Albus said to himself, smiling at the plan now forming in his mind. Pulling out parchment and a quill, he quickly set to work penning an invitation for tea over the summer to one Remus Lupin. If there was anything the young man had for Albus, it was trust and respect, and if he felt that remaining member of his best friends' family was in danger, not only the man, but the wolf would be relentless to discover the truth.
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Hermione awoke with a startled scream, the vivid eyes of the basilisk still shining in her mind. But the sharp whiteness of the room she found herself in silenced her, and she stared around confusedly, trying to orient herself.
After several moments she finally realized that she was in the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey moving from bed to bed administering potion to other students that had been attacked like she was. Across from Hermione, Colin Creevey sat up groggily and looked toward the entrance. Hermione followed his eyes, and smiled when she saw their visitor.
Harry leaned casually in the doorway to the infirmary, eyeing the pair of them as the Matron gave them both last minute checkups before dismissing them to rejoin the school.
"Miss Granger, Mr. Creevey," he said with a small smile as they approached. The younger Slytherin was bouncing with excitement, chattering animatedly about the night he was attacked. Hermione smiled at the amount of up close interaction she was able to observe between the two. Harry was, while not overwhelmingly warm or open with Colin, patiently allowing the boy to speak his mind, occasionally directing the conversation back to a trivial topic.
By the time they arrived at the entrance hall, the black haired boy had gentle urged young Creevey to detach from them and sent the boy off to the dungeons to investigate his belongings and what had become of them. "So," Hermione said once they were alone, lingering outside of the Great Hall where the sounds of a late night feast for the students who were petrified was well underway, "what actually happened? I mean, who was behind all the attacks?"
"Professor Dumbledore says it was Lockhart," Harry said flatly, "He seemed to have wanted more material for a new book, so decided to reenact the attacks from fifty years ago to create a scare so he could save the day. But Ginny Weasley found out and confronted him, forcing him to run off."
Hermione frowned. Something about the story sounded off to her, but she couldn't place what it was. While she had at first been enthralled by Professor Lockhart like most of the rest of the students, she had quickly realized that the man was not all that his inflated ego claimed. But to go so far as to harm children to make money, it didn't fit.
But Harry had already started for the Great Hall and the feast before Hermione could question further, which prompted her to join her fellow Ravenclaws. There she heard more of the same story spiraling around, but minus several details that Harry had said. Normally she wouldn't have thought much about it, but when it concerned Harry Potter, she paid attention to even the minutest detail.
No one at the Ravenclaw table had heard definite fact that Lockhart was behind the attacks, but it was the general speculation. The oddity behind was that Harry, normally so cautious and methodical in reasoning, had spoken about Lockhart as if that was the only and definite answer. It only added more to Hermione's suspicion that all was not as it
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The rest of the final term passed uneventfully, and for that Veneficus was most grateful. Despite the assurance of the Force that his actions in ending the Heir of Slytherin and his rampage on the school would not be uncovered by the faculty, he had still held some doubts, especially about Snape and the blatant repulsion of the man's attempt to probe the Sith's mind.
Defense against the Dark Arts had been cancelled, due to lack of a teacher, which no one in the school felt compelled to be remorseful about. It was all the better for Veneficus, as it gave him plenty of time to prepare the Chamber for his uses. Despite the room hidden on the seventh floor having infinite capabilities and limitless recourses, it was simply too far of a climb from the Slytherin dungeons to be practical, while the second floor bathroom was much more conveniently located for the Sith Lord's purposes.
The ghost that haunted the girl's bathroom, whose name Veneficus found out was Myrtle, was easily ignored and acted as the perfect deterrent for anyone to wander in unannounced on the hidden entrance to the Chamber, so the Darksider permitted her continued residence. Inside the Chamber itself, Veneficus had made several alterations, mainly to remove the copious amounts of water that had leaked in over the centuries from the lake above, and to clear away layers of grime and filth from the central atrium.
Several side passages had been discovered, by both Veneficus and Anguis, the latter being permitted only when Veneficus was certain that the Basilisk was hibernating once again, and would not disturb them in their work unless called for. Several of the off shooting rooms were private studies, one that was a copy of the library in the main school, with several additional wings with books that drifted to the far darker aspects of magic than the Headmaster would have allowed.
Another room was devoted as a Potion lab, and Anguis found great delight in practicing the art with the large supply of ingredients that had been magically preserved. But the greatest find of all, in Veneficus' view, was the largest of all the chambers. The runed door was magically sealed, and only Parseltongue would unlock and open the stone doors. Within were long stone table with a menagerie of different tools, blades and containers distributed over them, with several daises set in a wide circle over the center.
Veneficus recognized the room's purpose immediately, the ancient Sith having used similar ritual rooms for their own dark spells and creations over the millennia. It was here that he would complete the third, and last, of his dark rituals for that school year. He had, by magical dictates, skipped the vernal equinox, as the power of the Light Side of the Force would have been on the rise, and as a follower of darkness he would not have attempted to coax the might of the Force on that day. But here, on the last day of the school year, the summer solstice, he could once again resume his practices.
Not to bask in the glory of light, but to celebrate its waning, that the day of most light marked the end of its reigning power, and that darkness would grow in the world once again, the tides shifting once more in its ever flowing cycle.
It was now that he would perform the ritual that the Sith Lord, Darth Zeemar, had instructed would mark a great progression of his power in the Force. The pureblooded Sith's Holocron was enshrined upon one of the many pedestals within the special ritual room, along with the collection of things that Veneficus had collected from the magical room on the seventh floor from his previous rituals.
Before the Holocron's pedestal floated a basin of water. A knife lay on the side of the basin, upon which Veneficus had etched runes in the Sith language. This ritual required a payment of blood, and while a Jedi would have been ideal and traditional, given the circumstances the Lord of the Sith had an appropriate victim for his offering to the Dark Side.
Withdrawing a small pebble from his robes, the Dark Lord surged his will into it, along with a muttered spell, returning the stone to its original form. Gilderoy Lockhart fell to the stones with an undignified yelp, trying to orient himself in his drastically changed surroundings. "Wh-what's going on… where am I?" he demanded, spinning on the spot and looking terrified at the sight of the Sith, who had removed his glamours and masked in the Force to allow the great power to flow unhindered.
"That no longer matters, Professor," the Sith explained calmly, soaking in the man's fear, and letting it strengthen him for the actions that would shortly occur. "Even if you were to return to the rest of the world, they would hunt you down as a petty criminal. All your schemes are known, and you're a wanted want." He added with a wicked smile.
Lockhart looked as though we was going to beg for his life, but just as he started to open his mouth, the Holocron flared to crimson life, and the gatekeeper of Lord Zeemar appeared, which more than effectively sent the foolish professor into horrified silence.
Completely ignoring Lockhart, Zeemar turned his tentacle covered head to Veneficus, "Is all in readiness apprentice?"
Taking a quick, last minute appraisal of the tools that he had gathered, the runes etched into the stone floor, and the channel in the room's ceiling that was just beginning to glow with the light of noon, Veneficus nodded in approval. "It is my Lord."
"Good, prepare the offering," the Sith Lord commanded. Lockhart tried to scramble away, but Veneficus lifted him with the Force, pulling him toward the centermost plinth, which chains rose from the floor to bind the man down. As an afterthought, to save precious time, Veneficus cast a pair of spells on the man, one to silence him, and a second to paralyze him from the neck down. The man's agony, while enjoyable for the Sith through the Force, would only be a distraction and potential obstruction to the ritual is he flailed at the wrong moment.
The basin and dagger floated over from its resting place to rest over Lockhart, whose eyes alone were left to betray his horrified state at what was about to befall him.
"You much shed his blood into the basin, followed by a single drop of your own," the Gatekeeper explained. Veneficus took up the knife, glancing at the channel in the stonework and waiting for the line of light to pass the mark that Veneficus had set in the stone that would indicate high noon, the point of most light for the entire year.
Hefting the runed dagger over Lockhart, Veneficus watched the movement of the sun through the ceiling as the man opened his mouth wide in a silent scream. Quickly and efficiently Veneficus began to carve Sith symbols into the man's flesh, beginning at the wrists and steadily writing upward, across the man's chest and down the torso, encircling Lockhart's rapidly beating heart.
The blood, flowing freely from the many wounds, lifted into the air as magic and the Force took control, feeding the red rivers into the basin Lockhart's agony sang through the Force, but Veneficus had to ignore it for the time being, cutting himself off from what little human compassion he still possessed. The man was weak, and therefore had no use to the Sith Lord but this, a sacrifice. Slicing his own finger, Veneficus casually flicked several drops of his own into the basin to mix with the swirling vortex of red liquid.
"We may begin," Lord Zeemar stated flatly once the runes were finished and sufficient blood collected, before starting to wave his holigraphic arms in the patterns demanded by the ritual. Veneficus copied the gatekeeper, and together they slowly began the chant, "Vada tolus prosal th'riba, vi tave tsis iv seniai! klase naile, isauga azinimas, rysys su jene'tes, mazo visa jidai valia eile ir gimti! Qyâsik girdeti ir stebe nuyak xuontia! Vykti tave natura jegala iv temias aukifonas irankir vi doz'vamas nuo tu'iea midwan!"
Power wafted over the basin as Veneficus ended the spell. Molding his anger and will within himself to command the Force to his personal benefit, lightening leapt from the Sith's fingers into the basin, causing the blood mixture to begin to boil. The steam, blue purple in hue, surrounded him, filled with angry screams of pain and anguish as he lived the mutilation that he had caused to Lockhart, but the suffering of the weak was beneath him.
A tremor in the Force shook through the air, heralding the Force's compliance, and the mist drifted upward from the basin, congealing into some solid form of darkness, and entering into the prostrate body before him. Veneficus smiled as he recognized the significance of another ancient tradition of the Sith, and how it had stemmed from rituals such as these.
Lockhart's eyes widened in horror as Veneficus turned on him again, bringing the runed dagger down sharply, deeply piercing the man's chest just above the heart. Even Veneficus was somewhat surprised when the man broke his silencing spell to gurgle out his final breaths, blood seeping slowly from the corner of his mouth as he expired. The cutting process was delicate, albeit not difficult, and soon the Sith's prize, still beating in a ever slowing frenzy. Darkness had seeped into the organ, corrupting it with the pure fury of the Force, and it called to Veneficus.
Removing it from Lockhart's body, Veneficus gave the man one small look of respect, as in death he had help pave the way for one more powerful than he could have ever imagined, his sacrifice allowing Darth Veneficus to take within himself even more of the Force's energy.
The moment it passed his lips, the Sith Lord felt raw power infuse into him, invigorating his body, and causing him to gasp with ecstasy. His mind began instantly to clear and sharpen, his muscles tightening with newfound strength. Even several of his joints popped and stretched as his body grew mildly. Pure pleasure, mixed with pure pain, shot through every cell of the young Sith, causing him to fall to the ground as the Force overwhelmed him.
The pain left him as quickly as it arrived however, and Veneficus soon returned to his feet in time to hear Lord Zeemar speak, "It is finished, then…"
"It is my Lord," The young Sith replied as he wiped blood from his lips, already feeling the swell of power with him, the Dark Side lending him more of its aid with every passing moment.
"Not many Sith apprentices would have been capable of completing that ritual successfully on their first attempt, even after many years of study," Zeemar said, stroking one of his facial tentacles thoughtfully, "you should greatly consider branching into the darker aspects of the Force that were explored by the Sorcerers of the Sith in ancient days, and fully explore this clear talent of yours, young Veneficus."
Veneficus could only smile at the ancient Sith's praise, thoughtfully licking at the last remainder of blood stuck on his teeth and pondering the possibilities.
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Anguis was pleased with the newly gained level of trust between himself and his master. Lord Veneficus had taken excessive amounts of time the last few days to instruct Anguis is the ways of the Dark Side. In fact, everything that happened to him had greatly improved since the black haired Sith had entered the Chamber of Secrets alone.
At first Anguis had been somewhat resentful that he had been left behind for that part of the adventure, but when he was finally permitted inside the Chamber, his irritation had quickly melted away with wonder and excitement at all the ancient lore and magic that existed within.
With all the interesting things the two Darksiders had found, Anguis found himself once again saddened by the prospects of leaving the castle, and by extension his learning in the Force, for another long and dreadfully dull summer.
Briefly, Anguis had wondered if he could just refuse to leave the express, but quickly shoved the childish idea aside, disembarking after his master. Blaise Zabini shoved past him in the station, exchanging a pointed glace with Anguis before rushing off to his mother. Anguis however, barely registered him, more focused on the arrival of his parents, alongside the tidal wave of darkness that was Lord Blackmoore.
Lucius and Lord Blackmoore were speaking in hushed tones when the two boys arrived, Anguis being crushed by a smothering hug from his mother as Veneficus looked on.
"Good news my darling Draco," Narcissa Malfoy said, "Lord Blackmoore has persuaded your father to allow you to spend the beginning of the summer holiday with him and Mr. Potter at their manor. You seem to enjoy spending time with Harry so much, that we couldn't disagree that it would be good for you to experience some of the special private tutoring that he receives."
Anguis send a confused look at his master, who in turn nodded in Lord Blackmoore's direction. The large man looked down at Anguis, steely eyes seeming to pierce straight through him, before returning to speaking with Lucius, "Yes… it would be more than our pleasure to have Draco spend a few months with us."
"Excellent," Lucius answered, and Draco instantly saw the real reason behind this sudden change of summer plans. The Death Eaters were going to be having extensive meetings at Malfoy Manor, and the last thing that the man wanted was his 'innocent' and 'naive' son roaming about, cooped up in the building with all the illegal and conspiratorial things that were going to be planned and discussed.
However, at the same moment, this was exactly what Anguis wanted. The opportunity to see the Lords of the Sith at work up close and personal was worth more to him than anything in the world, and it was just given to him on a preverbal silver platter. Smiling widely, Anguis bowed his head in thanks to his father and Lord Blackmoore. The next few months were going to be the best of his entire life.
Vada tolus prosal th'riba, vi tave tsis iv seniai! Increase far past limits, as the Sith of old!
klase naile, isauga azinimas, rysys su jene'tes, mazo visa jidai valia eile ir gimti! Remove fear, grow knowledge, bond with darkness, so all jedi will turn and fall!
Qyâsik girdeti ir stebe nuyak xuontia! Hear and follow my command!
Vykti tave natura jegala iv temias aukifonas irankir vi doz'vamas nuo tu'iea midwan! Take the energy of this sacrificial creature as payment for your power