Ares couldn't decide if it was a good thing or bad. The Wand Ritual he was going to prepare was to be done 5 days after the full moon and the best time was in a few hours. He already had all the ingredients and it would take him only an hour or two to prepare the Chamber of Secrets for Ritual. If he did it in the Room of requirement, he wouldn't even need to prepare as the room would be already prepared. After all same Ritual was done by both Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw in the room of requirement, according to a book he found there in his past life when he attended Hogwarts as a guest for the lecture in defence. Of course, the ritual belonged to the Black Family, but the Ravenclaw line had close ties to the family thus they had access to it.
Still, the Chamber of Secrets was safer as no house elves could reach there without an invitation. Cunning indeed!
He took the ingredients and wrapped himself in his invisibility cloak. There was no one present in the common room. It looked like Flint and Toadies were sent to the Hospital wing by some other Slytherins. He stopped before the main Emblem of the common room and hissed at it.
"Great protector! I want the passage to the secret chamber of Lord Slytherin."
The snake's eyes glowed as if assessing him which was funny in his mind as he was invisible. A moment later, the wall beneath the emblem separated to present a pathway. Area stepped in as the bricks rearranged themselves sealing the secret entrance.
Ares conjures a mask made of magical energy to protect him from the effects of decomposing Basilisk, slayed by Iris Potter. He stepped out of the passage, just in time to see one of the the numerous snake statues that had shifted to make his entrance to the chamber, shift back in place.
Swishing his wand, he sent a rush of magical energy through the corpse of Basilisk stopping its decomposition immediately. He then conjured the prison of Ice around the corpse to keep a bit of it preserved. The scales were nearly unusable but the eye-strings and fangs along with poison, which was the only thing that couldn't decompose, would be useful.
He levitated the complete Basilisk corpse embedded into ice and suspended it there. Channeling his energy, he swished his wand around him and with a command of "Scourgify!", the magic started to clean the chamber.
It took 15 minutes and hard concentration before the chamber was completely cleaned. The rubbish and dust gathered in a corner as a pile of impressive height. Ares conjured a sphere of ice around it and banished it out of the chamber.
He let his magic flow through the rune-writing magical chalks and manipulated them to draw the required shape of a ritual altar. He then added numerous required runes with them. Satisfied, he started to put the ingredients in the required mandala. A branch of Holly, ashes of a phoenix, eggshells of a thunderbird and 20 or so required artefacts. The sentient magic of Hogwarts started to thrum before even the start of the ritual. Luckily, the headmaster who was the only one able to feel it through control of wards, was out on some ministry business. Not that he would have been able to find where the ritual was being done. Both the Room of Requirement and Chamber of Secrets had separate defences and wards.
Finally placing his wand in the middle of other ingredients, he joined his ritual circle, keeping his palm over his wand. He then started the required chants which took no shorter than 50 minutes. During that, the temperature of the surroundings kept rising, until at the end when black flames appeared over his wand and started to spread to consume other ingredients with it.
Ares' body felt like it was on fire and then a cut appeared on his palms, his blood dropping on the flames as a sacrifice. As soon as 7 drops of blood fell onto the flames, its size increased and it consumed the whole ritual alter in it including Ares.
Ares nearly couldn't take it more. He felt like Fiendfire itself was consuming him but he somehow held himself strong. In a moment, the fire died down to a small area leaving nothing but a pile of ash in place of ingredients, including his wand. He felt his heart breaking but controlled his emotions knowing his wand would return.
And it did. From the ashes, his wand was being reformed and his magic was going through changes simultaneously. His dark-coloured wand made up 11 inches of Holly, containing the core of a phoenix feather, reformed but not the same as it was. Now it sported the head of a phoenix at the end of the grip in the same colour as the wand. Though with each pulse of magic that channelled through the wand, the eyes of the phoenix glowed red.
He took his wand and it emitted black, green and sharp blue sparks. He also felt magic channeling through his body activating changes made in his magical core due to his ritual. He placed his wand in its hostler and held out both his palms, channelling magic through it. On his right hand, black flames similar to the ritual flames were conjured and on his left, a sharp construct made of ice appeared.
"Hmm... Ice and Fire. What an Irony?" Area shook his head.
He was preparing to clean the chamber and leave when he heard a sound that was a mixture of a hoot and a trill. The hoot reminded him of Hedwig, his familiar who gave her life to protect him. Shocked beyond comprehension he looked at where the sound originated from.
He was astonished to see a tiny phoenix chick, completely black in colour with yellow eyes staring at him lovingly like Hedwig used to do. Tears came into his eyes as he heartily thanked magic for the unexpected gift. After all, it wasn't supposed to happen as a result of ritual. He took the small chick in his palms and peered into its eye.
She wasn't Hedwig, that was for sure. But the chick had every aspect of her personality as it was taken from Ares' mind by magic to prepare the gift for him.
"Hello, girl! I am gonna call you Hedge, after my first familiar Hedwig. She was a great friend and I know you will be too." Area cooed at the bird who chirped happily in response. He enjoyed the antics of the newly born phoenix as he knew she wouldn't be a chick much longer and would turn into a beautiful black phoenix very soon.
At the same time, there was a sound of trill which made little Hedge very excited. Area knew it to be Fawkes. He smiled as Dumbledore's familiar trilled melodically to the young one of his kind.
"You will help me take care of her, won't you Fawkes?" Ares asked while looking at the interaction between Hedge and Fawkes.
Fawkes replied with affirmative excited trill and continued to play with Hedge, unconsciously training her to use the ability of Phoenix.
"Yawn... It's already 3 a.m. I will be going to sleep. Bring her back to me after both of you are done. Alright Fawkes." Ares said as again Fawkes replied with an affirmative trill.
With a smirk on his face, Ares concentrated and in a flush of black flames, he was back into the dorm room to get some sleep. It was a productive day after all.
[Next Day]
Ares yawned a bit as he helped himself for breakfast. Fawkes and Hedge had returned to him a few hours after he left for dungeons but she had again left with Fawkes when he got up, as Fawkes was training Hedge how to flame properly. Currently, she could only flame to where Ares was and the distance she could see.
He noticed both James Potter and Sirius Black were present as representatives of DMLE, for the Triwizard tournament. He had, of course, taken steps to ensure that Iris wouldn't face the backlash of being chosen as the champion, by pushing the ministry to decrease lower age limit to 14. This way only Iris will be chosen as the champion. He was sure, Goblet would judge her more worthy than Cedric, seeing her experience. Thus, not only had he saved Cedric from dying untimely, but also ensured that Iris would receive full support from Hogwarts as her champion.
He noticed the excited murmurings of students, all over the hall and remembered something. He opened the advertisement page of the Daily Prophet and understood the reason. Today was the date he had launched 4 of his brooms in the market. He had also managed to draw out a deal from Puddlemere United, to use his brooms. Of course, the players of the team loved it. The reason he had chosen to deal with PU, rather than other teams that could have given him more profit, was simple. The team was missing a seeker, a chaser and a keeper. He knew that PU didn't have much luck from 1994-1998, the last time around as they were unable to snatch good players to fill the void. Oliver Wood, joining as Keeper, led them to the semi-finals in 1998 league but it wasn't until he joined the team as a seeker in 1999, that the team won their first league in a long time. They had crushed Holyhead Harpies, which Ginny had joined as a chaser, by 440-160. Wood had blocked 20 or so goals and he had finally caught the snitch to lead them to victory.
In this world, Iris played chaser rather than seeker. He had managed to anonymously pressure the school board governors to make sure that even if the Quidditch Cup is shortened into each team playing only one match each with others, they are not cancelled. He had also managed to make sure the scouts of PU to visit the games in Hogwarts. And with how good both Iris and him were on brooms, which was far ahead of their peers, they were sure to be contracted. This will help to make Iris' reputation as something more than Girl-who-lived, or daughter of the best auror, or daughter of the most brilliant witch of her generation. In addition to that, he had made sure Oliver Wood, who had joined Ballycastle Bats as a reserve in his world, was brought into PU training camps earlier this time around. With him as a seeker, Iris as a chaser and Wood as a Keeper, the team was sure to dominate the league for years. The Quidditch fan base would give Iris the perfect reputation and immunity to be a force in politics if she ever wanted.
He read the daily prophet advertising his brooms.
The brooms are launched by a company named Nick Harry. The brooms are futuristic and are predicted to be quite popular. Unconventionally, the company had launched 4 types of brooms at once. The models are named after Magical creatures capable of flight. The first model is said to be Thestral. This model is claimed to be the fastest broom in the market, going from nought to 160 miles per hour in 10 seconds, leaving behind the infamous Firebolt, which is capable of speeding nought to 150 miles per hour in the same amount of time. It is also said to trump Firebolt in the area of stability and control.
The other brooms are Phoenix, Gryffin and Dragon. The speed of the broom decreases and stability increases respectively.
The experts said the Thestral is a broom built for Seekers, Phoenix for the chasers, Gryffin for the Beaters and Dragon for the keepers.
In the end, all of the brooms were displayed as magical pictures.
The students were excitedly whispering about trying the brooms or getting them for themselves. Unfortunately, it won't be possible for everyone. With the number of safety measures, stability runes and acceleration runes in addition to quality woodwork and self-maintaining bristles, the cheapest of the four brooms was twice as expensive as the Firebolt. The Thestral was the most expensive, worth 2500 galleons followed by Phoenix worth 2300 galleons. The Gryffin costs 2100 and Dragon costs 2000 galleons.
Though he had to give it to Slytherins. None of the other houses knew about the incident that took place last night in the dungeons. Of course, it won't be long before Snape knows about it from a student's mind and reports to Dumbledore. After all, the hospitalisation of 7 students who controlled the flow of Power in Slytherin was not a small deal. Of course, Ares wasn't troubled. He knew how to handle the situation without giving much to Dumbledore.
There was a chirp and a trill which distracted everyone from whatever they were doing. In a woosh of black flames, Hedge had used the flame teleportation to land herself on Ares' shoulder. The trill came from Fawkes who flew around Ares and Hedge for a moment before landing on Dumbledore's shoulder.
All the whispers and murmurs about the brooms stopped and were replaced by the gossips about him and Hedge. He discreetly looked at the staff able to find everyone being flagstabbered. He had seen both curiosity and anxiety in Dumbledore's expression, whereas a tightening of features on Snape's. Oops! Looks like Snape saw the incident from last night in someone's head. Ares saw him bend and murmur to Headmaster whose expression was torn between astonishment and Suspicion. He just stood up and sent a mental command to Hedge. She chirped and both disappeared in a whoosh of black flames. As a result, the whispers and murmurs turned into shouts and exclamations.
Ares sniffed. Yes, it was going to bring him unwanted attention but no way was he going to hide Hedge away.
