DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter was created by JKR, I do not own the rights to any characters, nor do I pretend to.
Harry's portkey took him straight into Amelia' Bones office. It was past midnight, but it seems like she has been working later and later nights as the weeks drag on.
Amelia was expecting him, so she wasn't surprised when he showed up. "Report?"
"There were no signs of anyone there. There were 4 boxes, three of which contained miscellany and the 4th contain these." Harry pulled out the case filled with the diagrams, and the note.
She leafed through the diagrams for a few minutes. "These are disconcerting to say the least. Various lost tombs and crypts. I know the Department of Mysteries looks into those kinds of things so I bet a few of these are already empty. These building diagrams, I recognize most of them. Your estate is here, as is the Flamel estate. Naturally Hogwarts is too. I'm surprised I don't see the Ministry, but there are enough disguised Death Eater's walking around I suppose they don't need it."
"The Flamel's? Dumbledore told me they will die since they don't have the philosopher's stone to make more of the Elixir of Life?"
"Oh yes, they will die, eventually. However they have more than enough elixir to last probably another 100 years. I'm sure they could make another stone in that amount of time."
"How do you know this, if I may ask?"
"Who do you think my contact is in the D.O.M. to get you your badge? One does not live to be over 600 and not be involved in that place. That is all I can say." She picked up the note and began reading it. She took out a piece of parchment and had the note decoded in less than 5 minutes. "The note doesn't say much, just written to the Dark Lord, and from some guy named Lieutenant Maximcdermous. The main body of the letter is just frivolities and an offer of the located goods. There doesn't seem to be any hidden messages or inert magic."
While she was examining all the papers, there was a bright flash of light.
A magnificent blue and white phoenix appeared in the room holding a note. After Amelia and Harry both picked themselves off the ground from shock, Harry asked. "For me?"
The phoenix nodded its head and Harry took the note.
Kid
The Dark Lord broke into my shop last night and took the bait. I set up a trap involving one of the duplicate wands and when he picked it up the shop exploded on top of him. I'm sure he's still alive, but it's going to take him some time to re-grow his limbs. Luckily I packed up all the important crafting supplies and left the shop a week ago when I heard that Gregorovich was killed. I'm currently safe living in my former prison- I redecorated of course. My phoenix' name is Radegast, I've allowed her to answer your call if you need to send a letter to me.
-GG
"It's from an ally. Apparently the Dark Lord is incapacitated after an attack a few hours ago. He mentioned something about the Dark Lord having to re-grow limbs. Do you mind if I make copies of these plans and the note?"
"Sure. Do you need a portkey back?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks for completing this task. You did good work, these documents could be very important."
Harry wrote a quick note back to Grindlewald
GG
I would like to meet with you in person. I have discovered some very disconcerting diagrams and would like your expert opinion. If it is okay with you, I will invite you to the castle and key you into the wards. Maybe you could add a few of your own?
-HP
Harry said farewell and took the offered portkey.
Within seconds of Harry appearing, Daphne was already on top of him.
"I was so worried! You have no idea!" she screeched most unlady like.
"I think I do now." Harry grumbled. "It was perfectly safe"
"Did you find anything interesting?" she asked.
"You bet. Diagrams and schematics of a dozen locations, including here. We are going to have to put up more wards. First though, we need to meet with Gellert, see if he has anything to add to what Amelia told me. He sent a letter to me saying that he blew Voldemort up at his shop." He handed the letter over to Daphne.
"I'm coming with you." She said this with a look that said 'and you better not stop me.'
"Fine." Seemingly on cue, Radegast the phoenix appeared before them with a note.
HP
Here's a portkey, use it when you want to talk with me.
-GG
"Convient." They both grabbed onto the small disk that provided. "Activate!"
They both arrived in a heap on the stone ground. They both looked around in awe. They appeared to be in a veritable stone fortress.
Grindlewald was walking towards them with hands outstretched. "Welcome to my humble abode, Nuremguard."
"Nice place. "
"More secure than Gringotts and Hogwarts put together." He said with a smirk. "Come now, we will go to the war room and have a look at your diagrams."
Grindlewald turned around with a flair of his robe and made off inside at a brisk pace. Daphne and Harry nearly had to jog to keep up with the old man.
The old man was explaining some of the design work of the castle as he walked, and seemed to ignore the fact that he was walking faster than they could jog.
After about 15 minutes of twisting turns they arrived in a very large room, with a large oval table.
"Very well, let me see what you got."
Harry handed him the note and bundle of diagrams.
"I don't know who this lieutenant fellow is. Probably a third party, and not a follower. This note doesn't give away too much. The only thing that worries me is that lieutenant's report to someone higher up. That means there is another potential Voldemort out there who rules more like a dictator than a tyrant. Let's see those diagrams."
Grindlewald spread out the diagrams on the table while Harry shivered at the thought of another Dark Lord working with Voldemort. Thankfully it looked like Grindlewald was serious about being allied with Harry and his friends.
"Fascinating. I know of all these catacombs."
"How?"
"Because I've already explored them all. Most of them were empty but a few had artifacts. This was during the 40's so these diagrams are vastly outdated. These property and building diagrams… Hmm… Your residence is here too…" Grindlewald went over to the largest of the papers, the one that was of Hogwarts. "Ah, I see a weakness here already. The underground cavern that is connected to the lake. Some of the wards don't overlap properly and are slightly out of sync."
"You think we should tell Dumbledore?"
"It's your choice. I don't know if Voldemort is skilled enough to notice this slight weakness."
"What about the other places?"
"Well the Flamel's manor is very thorough and has a lot of ancient wards. However they lack a lot of newer developments. Hard to tell if that is a positive or a negative. Your castle has solid wards, but I see places where I can improve if you so wish. You have adequate detection wards, but not enough subdual wards."
"We would all be most grateful for any help you can give."
"Very well. I'll gather up my supplies and be over tomorrow at noon. That gives you time to prepare."
"Oh, we almost forgot. What did you do to Voldemort?" Daphne asked.
"Ah yes, how could I forget?" Grindlewald smirked. "I packed up all my crafting supplies and brought them here. I closed the shop and left only cheap wands like the kinds you would get from Ollivander. I set up a trap involving one of the duplicate Elder Wand's, figuring that Voldemort would be searching high and low for the real one. I charged up the wartime warding system on the store and laid a trap for him."
"Did he get through?"
"He did. The wards were not meant to be impenetrable. In fact, those wards were half a century old, I just repowered them. After all, I wanted him inside to get at the wand. I set the wand up with a piece of line and hooked it up to a triggering device. The triggering device exploded a dozen barrels of black powder and an erumpent horn."
"Wow. Do you think he's alive?" Daphne asked.
"Probably. Half the alley was leveled, but there was no sign of Voldemort. The smell of charred flesh was in abundance however, so he must be in a world of shit."
"Do you think you could add some defensive traps to the castle also?"
"I'll see what I can do. Why don't you kids go and get some rest?" Grindlewald gave back the papers and led them up to the surface. It was noticeable lighter out, nearly dawn.
Voldemort has had better days. Even the day where his killing curse got reflected back to him by Harry Fucking Potter was a better day.
Voldemort thought he was superior to pain. He thought wrong. You can't help but to notice your limbs are being incinerated off into stumps and the flesh melting off your muscle and bone.
Of course he wouldn't die from such trivial things as mortal wounds. It was for occasions such as this one that caused him to create horcruxes.
Voldemort felt pain like he has never felt before. But if he was honest to himself, he wasn't all that used to pain. He is usually the one giving pain, and never receiving. Sure, his Dark rituals hurt sometimes, sometimes a lot, and some of those rituals were used to increase his pain threshold. He never actually thought he could feel pain after all the rituals that he has undertaken.
Regardless, He would have rather been forcefully ejected from his body after being hit with a killing curse than having to feel his limbs melting off.
The pain was so intense that Voldemort was knocked unconscious. When he did finally wake up a few hours after the explosion, he was pissed. Voldemort's very potent inner magic managed to heal some of his basic functions, but he was still missing his limbs.
Voldemort looked down to where his hand once was. He then saw the ashes of the wand he has spent all his time looking for. Voldemort went into a frenzy at the sight. He could barely even comprehend that the wand was destroyed.
"GRGgggggghhhhhh!" Voldemort screamed as foam flowed out his former mouth.
Voldemort took a few deep breathes and finally came to his senses. He couldn't activate is emergency portkey so he apparated back to his headquarters. He was in no condition to apparate and as a result he splinched off his one remaining butt cheek.
"Hey Daphne, before we go back to the castle you want to head to the Chamber of Secrets library?" Harry asked. "I want to see if there is anything on Holy magic in there. There's bound to be something, but I don't remember seeing a single thing in all the other times I've looked through the books. Some new wards would be nice too, especially since our enemy had a map of some of our wards."
"Good idea. From what I gathered from Viktor's, well, rather tough to understand lesson, Holy magic may just be a recent name for the magic. It is possible that the founders didn't even know about it, or they called it something else. I have a feeling we will find something but not in the form we expect it."
"True enough. Grab my arm and I'll take us to the chamber." Daphne did so and they promptly whisked away to the Chamber forest entrance. They quickly made their way down through the long passage and a few passwords later, they were browsing the shelves.
Harry had to go into the potions supply and dig out an energy replenisher. Neither of them had yet to sleep, but with their possible friends and families lives at stake, they would sacrifice some sleep for their safety.
About an hour of searching later Harry heard his name being yelled out.
"Hey Harry, nothing on the Holy magic yet, but I did find a very useful book on warding spells I have not seen before. Some of these could be very useful. There is some nasty ones in there, the most tame probably being a magic suppressing ward and its counterpart; the magic stealing ward. The magic stealing ward looks like it draws magic from the people inside the ward zone and uses it to recharge itself. Not to mention the people who are being drawn from will feel like shit after a time. The suppressing one is very useful too; if you set it right it looks like you can have the wards prevent all spells of a certain power threshold from being used. It looks like it can stop unforgivables amongst other things from being able to be cast at all."
Harry was listening with rapt attention. "That could be very useful for localized areas. I don't think we would want to suppress the whole castle, unless in an emergency. But if we place those wards over the apparition zone, any attackers will be pretty much fucked. They use suppressing wards like that in Azkaban don't they?"
"A different version of the wards probably. I think they are form of spellweave, where they are constructed right into the magic of the prison wall. Azkaban has been around for thousands of years, though not always as a prison. A runic version of that ward should be very useful."
"Anything else useful in that book?"
"Loads, although a lot of it is pretty specific. Various attack and defense wards that I'm sure Sirius would love to have. Some of these wards still exist today, but slightly altered. I think we can have multiples of the same wards…"
"Would their effects be multiplicative or additive?" Harry asked.
"I don't know. We would have to ask an expert." Daphne replied.
"Great. Let's look a little longer for this Holy magic stuff, and then we can head back."
It was two hours before either of them found anything. But found something they did, not much, but it was a start.
"Listen to this Harry." Daphne said, looking over a book. "The most ancient of magicks, some say that it is the very magick of magick itself."
"That makes no sense." Harry responded.
"This was written a very long time ago, meanings change. There is more." Daphne continued where she left off. "The magick that transcends us and ignores us, for it is that magick that simply is. Magick so powerful that you can turn the most powerful magic user into nothing but a common mundane peasant. Magick so powerful that you can rip ones own magick self into a fireball of uncontrolled energy. Imagine ripping the magick out of another and combining it with your own? This magick follows no conventional rules. This magick is the magick of magick manipulation."
"That's a mouthful."
"It gets better. The name of this magick is Sacred to us, for it was once called Hallow Magick. The secrets of this magick are the most guarded in history. I am from the sect that guards this magic, and if anyone were to discover that I have even written this small piece on it, I will be put to death."
"Wow. Sacred magic… and Hallowed magic?" Harry asked confusedly.
"Do you see? Everything is starting to make sense. We've just encountered Holy magic twice!"
"Really?" Harry asked astonished.
"That spell the Healer used on you- it repaired your magical core. If my interpretation on this paragraph is correct, Holy magic, or Hallowed magic, is magic that affects a person's magical core. The healer said it was ancient magic. This incantation and wand movement was very complicated, but I somehow got it on my first try."
"You told me it felt like your wand did most of the work with that spell. Do you think it is because it was Hallowed spell, and the Elder wand is one of the Deathly Hallows?"
Daphne's jaw dropped. "The naming is too much of a coincidence. That must be why the Elder Wand is so much more powerful than anything else, because the magic that made it is Hallowed magic which is inherently more powerful than any other magic."
"Well, Holy magic is supposedly the opposite of true dark magic. Do you think there is an opposite of the Elder Wand?"
"Oh Merlin! Who knows, but if Voldemort is after the Elder Wand…well let's just hope that no opposite wand exists."
They both shivered at the thought. Both had a contemplative look on their face as they tried to absorb the new info.
"What was the second instance of Holy magic that you were talking about?" Harry asked.
"Oh. We just discovered that ward book. The magic suppressing and stealing wards seem like they might be Holy magic. If they directly affect a person's magical core…"
"It's a possibility." Harry agreed. "Maybe Viktor's mother can finish the mystery."
"Maybe. At least we got some answers. And not to mention we discovered a previously unknown link between the Deathly Hallows and Holy magic."
"True. I wonder if Grindlewald knows anything about anti-Hallows?"
"That man knows a lot, who knows? Let's head out of here, I'm knackered."
"Me too."
The next day saw Grindlewald arriving at the Castle to help reinforce the place. Harry keyed him into the Floo, and a few minutes later the old man walked through.
"Nice place you got here kid. Lead me to the ward chamber." Grindlewald said before he was even introduced.
"Er, Everyone this is Gellert. He's here to help with the defense of our home." Harry managed to stammer out before he was chasing after Grindlewald once again. The man could walk like none other.
Daphne and Sirius had to run to catch up with Harry and Grindlewald. Harry led the former Dark Overlord down several set of stairs until they were below the dungeons. They stopped in front of a heavy iron door.
"This is the central wardstone chamber." Harry supplied. Grindlewald nodded while Sirius tried to catch his breath before opening the door up.
Inside was a somewhat plain room. There were several pedestals with large crystals perched on top, and a humongous one in the center, with an even larger sphere. The air was thick with oppressive radiant magic, and the humming sound seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once.
"Impressive." Grindlewald stated before he walked over to each crystal and started to inspect them meticulously.
Harry Daphne and Sirius watched Grindlewald work with amused curiosity. The man has obviously seen his far share of warding schemes and knows his way around like none other.
Grindlewald was in his own little world. He had out his runescribe knife and was 'correcting the mistakes' in the wards. Really, there were no mistakes with the wards. But that didn't mean they couldn't be improved. Why settle for 100% when you can get 110%?
Occasionally Grindlewald would absently explain something out loud, but never waited for any responses. The other three followed him around, but did their best not to get in his way.
After about three hours Grindlewald finally stopped his meticulous work.
"I have streamlined and modulated all the current wards. Nothing will be able to get past them. However, since I modulated them, it is now very easy to add new wards to the system. I have a few in mind, the least being inferi disintegrating wards.
Harry nodded mutely while waking Sirius and Daphne up. The thick ambient magic was enough to make you fall asleep if you were idle for too long.
"Show Grindlewald that ward book we found. Maybe he can incorporate some of them." Harry asked Daphne.
"Sure." Daphne reached into her pocket and enlarged the shrunken ancient book.
"Oho what do we have here?!" Grindlewald exclaimed, his interested peaked.
Grindlewald took the book out of Daphne hands reverently, almost like how one would handle a newborn child. Grindlewald opened up to the first page and a smile slowly came across his face as he started reading.
"This book is amazing, there wards in here that haven't been seen in thousands of years!"
"The ones that interested us most were the magic draining and suppressing wards."
Grindlewald turned the book to the specified page and gleamed over the spell, and gave a barking laugh. "Vicious, very vicious. I like it. It shouldn't be a problem to configure it in to the setup. I'll add a few of the other ones in as well. These runes are very old, but nothing I am not familiar with."
Grindlewald went to work again. He was working fast, but there was a noticeable spring in his step. It was almost as if he enjoyed knowing that the new wards could drain someone to a husk. In fact, he probably did.
It was another two hours later that Grindlewald said he was done. The man worked faster than any warder that Sirius has ever seen.
"All the runes are scribed. They just need to be charged at the emitter stones. Harry and Daphne, you go take care of that. Sirius and I will go configure some active defense traps."
Grindlewald took off up the stairs with Sirius in tow. Harry took out a schematic of where all the emitter stones were located. There were quite a few and he didn't have them all memorized.
Harry led Daphne outside into one of the many gardens that surround the castle. It was no coincidence that the gardens were all growing on top of the wardstone sites. The ambient magic from stones caused plants to flourish.
Oddly enough, it was also the reason that one Luna Lovegood was humming to herself while dancing around one such garden.
Harry and Daphne walked upon the strange, but not unexpected, scene.
"Uh, hi Luna." Harry greeted lamely.
"Hello Harry Potter and Daphne Greengrass." Luna responded serenely. She was now dancing around one the birdbath statuettes.
"You like it out here?" Harry asked curiously.
"It's nice. I feel all tingly when I sit out here."
"That would be the magic coming off the wardstone. If you like this garden, you should see the garden above the main ward chamber. I can show you it after we are done if you want." Harry offered.
"That would be kind Harry Potter." Luna replied. She turned her focus to two figures flying on brooms of in the distance.
Harry noticed her attention shift, and he turned his head to look. "Who are they?"
"That would be Draco Malfoy and Astoria Greengrass. They've been doing that together for a few weeks. I think they are both lonely."
Daphne looked somewhat alarmed. "Should I be worried that Malfoy has been hanging around with my sister?"
"Astoria can handle herself I think. Malfoy has mellowed out since his father died. He is under the protection of the House of Black so there could be serious ramifications for the Malfoy line should he do anything regrettable." Harry said reasonably.
"You're right of course. But if I catch Malfoy stepping a single toe out of line…" Daphne made a cutting motion across her throat. "On the other hand, Malfoy has connections to the other Death Eater progeny, maybe he will confide with Astoria and give us some information."
"It's a possibility. I think Malfoy is just unused to the change in his life and he is lonely. I'm not going to lose any sleep at night over Malfoy."
Daphne nodded. "Let's do what we came here to do."
Harry shifted the birdbath out of the way. He went down into the hole and retrieved the crystal. Normally, one wouldn't have to recharge a wardstone so soon. But since Grindlewald reconfigured and added a lot to the wards, it would be wise to reconfigure the whole system in line with the changes.
"Try not to blow one up this time." Harry said with a smirk.
Daphne had the decency to blush. She took out the Elder wand and carefully charged the stones up. She managed it properly this time around and didn't blow one up in Harry's face.
The sealed the stone up when they were done and dragged Luna off the next garden and repeated the process. They ended up charging a dozen or so of the crystals when they finally finished at nighttime. It was a very exhausting day and they barely had enough energy to key Grindlewald into the castles wards before they trekked up to Harry's room and fell asleep.
Authors notes: Sorry for the delay with posting this chapter. I've been busy (mass effect 2) plus I ended up rewriting this chapter 3 times, and I still don't like how it came out. I couldn't get the Grindlewald scenes to where I like them. I'm not really one for perfection, but I will revisit this chapter to rework some of it eventually.
Another note about the story. I am trying to show that Harry and Daphne are not gods incarnate or anything like that. The Grindlewald ward scene is to show that Harry and Daphne don't really know that much about wards, certainly not on the level of professional warders, and definitely not on someone like Grindlewalds level. And if you are asking 'just exactly how strong is Grindlewald magicwise?' Well, you will just have to wait and see. Action next chapter! We jump time a little bit to Harry's birthday.
When I think of charging crystals for the wards, I think of the powerstones from the MtG universe, more specifically The Thran novel.
Oh, and another reason why this chapter was slow (nearly 2 weeks for 4k words, not nearly long enough). I've been working on my other stories. My vamp!harry story is coming nicely, although I don't have as extensive of an outline as I do for my other stories. I know what I'm doing for the next chapter, but beyond that, not really. I have started working on the HP/RR story again. It is not abandoned, its just hard to have a bunch of stories at once. I have 5 unposted fics that are around 20k words in length, but I don't think it is fair to the readers to have so many WIP.
For those who are curious to what I haven't posted but am in the process of writing;
HP/Romilda Vane short fic. Premise is opposite canon, Romilda finds out that Ginny is trying to love potion Harry…
HP/DG one shot. I love the DG character too much… I pretty much picture Daphne as the future Lucy Pinder or Gemma Atkinson, I can't help it. This short fic will be a hidden relationship fic, instead an open relationship fic. Sort of.
Azkaban!harry. Harry is guilty for killing Umbridge and is sentenced to 30 years. How changed will Harry be when he completes his time. Sorta gained!powers fic.
Harry Potter (On the wings of a Phoenix) rewrite. I liked the premise and plotline of this story, but not the Harry character. So I am rewriting it to not be pussy!harry. I asked the author for permission to use some elements, but the guy hasn't responded and it's been 6 months. I have quite a bit written for this, and I have started it back up, so if any of these stories get posted soon it will be this one.
AU!harry fic. Pretty much nothing canon about Harry in this story. Harry is known as Polaris Black, ever since Sirius left him in Walburga's care. Polaris is in Ravenclaw and has a pet baby nundu( it's so cute!) Harry has some specials powers, but I'm not sure how far to take it (telekinesis) this will also be a future rare paring. There's quite a few Ravenclaw girls that Polaris can end up with a few years down the line, but I will probably make it MoragMacDougal/HP, but Morag is pretty much a blank slate to do what I want with. Other options would be Su Li, Lisa Turpin, Luna, or Slytherin girl.