Welcome to another chapter of "Road to Power".
As you all can see, it took me a bit more time to release this chapter. I just want to say that there was no problem with this story and I just lacked the motivation to write overall in the past few days. The motivation is not back yet, but I think that I have enough of it in me to at least write one chapter.
With that said I would like to thank you all one more time for reading and following this story. I am really glad that you all like what I created here and hope to give you better and better chapters in the future.
Like always I tried to answer all of your questions via PMs so please check them out. If I missed you then leave a review again or just PM me.
In this chapter, I will finally finish the first year and hopefully, get through the entire Summer as honestly there is not much that Logan can do during this time.
Enjoy.
Chapter 12. The Calm
"Are you sure that you removed every tracking charm?" Salazar asked probably for the fifth time in the last hour. I wasn't going to lie that it was getting pretty annoying.
I breathed deeply to calm my nerves and answered slowly, "Yes Salazar, I am sure. If I didn't then we would have Dumbledore already knocking at our doors. He obviously didn't expect anyone to know some of the rarer charms he used. I am really glad that your previous heirs updated your library."
It definitely would have been a problem if I stole the stone, only for Dumbledore to track it to me. Thankfully Salazar's library was full of all sorts of books so it wasn't a problem to find every possible tracking charm and its counter that was created in the last few centuries. It took time to learn them all, but in the end, it was all worth it.
"There was still quite a large gap in time where no one updated anything here. I very much doubt that Voldemort left any new books here," here Salazar was right, but I also had access to Hogwart's library and surprisingly information about tracking charms and their removal wasn't in the restricted section.
"Oh well, it all went without a hitch, there is no reason to argue about it," the old wizard nodded in agreement so I continued, "Now we need to figure out what to do with the stone. We know that it can change metal into pure gold and create Elixir of Life... While I will definitely use the first option a few times, we have no clue how exactly the Elixir works. Any ideas?"
Silence fell upon the small room. While we talked a few times about what I planned to do with the stone, those conversations never went too far. Now it was finally time to get this out of the way and move onto more important things.
Really, during the first year, I planned to progress at least to the beginning of fourth year material in the most important subjects. Unfortunately, thanks to the shit with Philosopher's stone and rituals, I was far away from my goal and I really hoped to fix it during the next school year. There was also the problem of practicing my wandless magic so it wouldn't die out.
My summer and second year would definitely be busy. I just hoped that I could deal with Voldemort's Diary before it became a problem.
"There are multiple rituals, potions, or even spells that could help us with discovering the secrets of the Stone," Salazar said suddenly, "We won't be able to use them now. I very much doubt that Hogwarts has half of the required ingredients, besides someone would finally notice if you stole so much of them. The spells you can probably master given time, so you will need to research them before leaving Hogwarts."
"That's fine," I responded quickly, "I will need to find someone who would buy pure gold from me, so it's gonna take a bit of time. No money, no ingredients. I could ask goblins, but their reaction is something I cannot predict."
"They will buy it," Salazar reassured, "They won't even ask any questions as quite frankly they don't care if you can provide them with gold. The problem is with the price. You are a child and they will definitely use it to get a better deal."
"There is not much I can do about that and if I try to sell the gold in Knockturn or any other shop then the deal won't be much better and they will definitely ask questions I can't answer. I will just sell it to goblins and use the gold I get from my high marks in school. It should be enough to buy what I need and I have one more idea I need to try before leaving Hogwarts," I explained after a bit of thought.
"What about muggles?" the old wizard asked out of the blue.
"You want me to sell the gold to mundanes?" at his nod I shook my head, "No. Definitely no. While I could get away with selling a bit of gold if I took an aging potion or used some mind magic on the trader, it would still be risky in the long run. I told you about SHIELD and if they notice an unknown person selling gold then they will definitely investigate. I doubt they don't have any magicals in their ranks and with my current abilities in mind magic, I will be easily discovered by someone more experienced."
Salazar sighed in his frame, "I completely forgot about them... It is still a bit new for me."
"Understandable," I assured the old wizard, "It is a shame that my talent lies more in defensive mind arts than offensive."
The portrait snorted, "I never had a descendant that was so useless with legilimency and offensive mind spells. I still wonder how you even managed to access the surface thoughts of muggles."
I instantly glared at Salazar's smirking face, "Rub it in, why don't you. I can't be talented with every art of magic in the world. I am good, but not perfect. Besides, you told me that with time I would get better. Very slowly, but still better."
It was one of the things we discovered when Salazar finally began to instruct me in proper occlumency, legilimency, and some mind spells.
Occlumency was quite easy for me and my mind was finally at peace after a few lessons with Slytherin. Unfortunately the same couldn't be said for the offensive part of mind arts. I struggled very hard to even master the basics of legilimency and mind-altering spells didn't really work for me. I tried to perform the confundus charm, but it didn't really work as it should.
Salazar explained that I would never be good at the offensive mind arts, but I could still get better with practice. That was enough for me, I didn't need to be a master of every magic in the world.
Finally, Salazar's chuckle brought me back to our conversation, "I know. I just like to see your reaction when I mention legilimency... Now tell me, do you have any plans left for the last few days of school and summer?"
I shrugged, "Apart from a quick visit to the Room of Requirements? Not really. During the summer I will just catch up to what I missed in the mundane world and use the wardstone we created to practice some more casual magic."
Salazar nodded, "Plain and simple. Also if you find a good way of transport then try to visit. It would be a waste if you didn't perform at least one ritual during those few months."
I frowned slightly, "I am not sure about constant visits, but I am pretty sure that I could find a way to come here once or twice. Do you have a ritual in mind?"
"I do," he replied, "It is pretty simple, but it will definitely make other rituals regarding the body easier and give you a nice benefit. Now go, you have been here for more than an hour and there isn't much more we can do. Tomorrow I will tell you what we need and what to study for the next ritual."
I nodded and made my way out of the Chamber of Secrets.
The Room of Requirements.
According to Salazar, it was created by Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff when they got bored with their private projects. It took them about ten years to finish it and was probably the most magically advanced room in Hogwarts, if not the whole world. It could provide the user with almost anything as long as it didn't break the basic laws of magic.
It was a room that fanfiction authors mentioned in almost every story and they always worked differently. Today I came here to test those theories and see for myself what the room was really capable of.
"Let's see what you can do," I murmured as I stood in the large empty hall created by the RoR.
First, I began with some simple things, like adding some furniture or doing basic changes to the hall's layout. Unsurprisingly the room listened and changed just like I wished.
Next, I moved onto books and tools that could be of use to me later on and the room again proved its usefulness by summoning multiple shelves of books and things I couldn't even recognize.
For the next hour, I continued my experiments and found out that most of the things I read about were true. Still, there was something I wanted to test. Something that was used a lot and would definitely help me in combat training even if I really doubted it would work. The room was an incredible piece of magic, but I didn't think that it was created for something like that.
The creation of dummies or any kind of enemies that would fight against me.
The room knew what I wanted, but all it could summon were unmoving wooden dummies or stone soldiers. Disappointing, but expected. It would be too easy if I just had an unlimited supply of foes to train with...
Oh well, I was sure I could think of something else to help me later on.
Now there was one last thing I wanted to do with the Room of Requirements or rather the room of hidden things. To access it I needed to summon the entire room one more time after stepping out of it. I didn't know why I couldn't just summon it from the inside and I didn't really care to find out.
When I finally entered the room full of random things, I began my long search for money. That was right, I planned to gather at least some cash from this room. After all, people lose things all the time and I really hoped that among those lost things I would find some galleons.
Thankfully I was right and after about three hours of searching, I was richer by at least forty galleons and a few sickles and knuts. Not bad for my first run and I definitely planned to come back here to both gather more money and browse through the books that were abandoned here.
With a small smile on my face, I left the room and began walking back towards the Gryffindor Tower. It was getting pretty late and all of this searching tired me a bit. Besides tomorrow I would be finally going back to the Children's Home. Having a room all to myself would be godsent after almost a year of living in a dormitory with eleven-year-old boys...
Just as I wanted to give the password to the Fat Lady, I heard someone calling out my name behind me, "Mr. Hunt, please wait a moment."
Turning around, I saw the Head of Gryffindor House, calmly walking towards me. That was a bit of a surprise, I didn't think that that was anything McGonagall could want from me, but I still asked politely, "Professor, am I in trouble?"
"Nothing like that Mr. Hunt," she replied after arriving next to me, "The Headmaster wishes to speak with you. If you could follow me."
She didn't give me any time to answer and just began walking away. I quickly caught up to the older woman and wondered what Dumbledore could want from me.
It could be about the whole fiasco with Philosopher's Stone, but I really doubted that they even suspected me. Oh, I knew that Dumbledore probably already knew that it wasn't Voldemort's work, but to suspect me? Yeah, that wasn't going to happen.
Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with an idea so I could only silently follow McGonagall and hope that it wasn't anything too important and maybe Dumbledore just wanted to check on the son of his biggest enemy.
"That sounds about right. He is probably curious how I am adapting to the new world, but waited until the end of the year to finally approach me. After all, I am just a muggle-born to everyone so it would be weird if the Headmaster took an unnatural interest in me," I mused.
Finally, we arrived before the gargoyle that guarded the entrance to the Headmaster's office. McGonagall gave it a really weird password and the entrance appeared before our eyes.
The transfiguration professor then led me through the short corridor where the final door waited. Without any further ado, McGonagall pushed the door open and for the first time in my life, I found myself in the Headmaster's office.
It was a large circular room with many windows and many portraits of old headmasters and headmistresses. There were also a few shelves with books and various magical trinkets that I remembered from canon. There was also a large perch for a bird, but it was unfortunately empty. Damn, I really wanted to see a phoenix for myself. Oh well, maybe next time...
The last part of the room was of course the headmaster's desk with Dumbledore himself sitting behind it.
"Thank you for bringing Mr. Hunt here Minerva," the old headmaster said kindly, "You can go now. I won't hold your pupil here for too long and he should be back before the curfew."
McGonagall only nodded and left the room as quickly as she entered it. I also relaxed slightly as Dumbledore's single sentence made me realize that he definitely didn't know about my role in the theft of the Philosopher's stone.
So he was just doing a standard check-up. Good.
"Please sit down," Dumbledore said motioning to the seat across him, "I know that I said it wouldn't take long, but I am sure it would be more comfortable than standing during our short talk."
I didn't have any problem with that, so I nodded politely and took a seat, "Excuse my Headmaster, but why did you want to see me? Professor McGonagall wasn't too forthcoming with the information."
Dumbledore chuckled lightly, "You'll need to forgive Professor McGonagall. With the end of the year coming, she is a very busy woman. As to the reason I called you here... I have a conversation about this subject with every first year that lives with a muggle family."
Suddenly I knew what he was talking about and couldn't stop myself from blurting out, "It is about the disappearances, isn't it?"
Dumbledore's eyebrows raised a bit, but after a moment he nodded, "I shouldn't be surprised you figured this out by yourself. Most of the professors have a very high opinion about you Mr. Hunt and I can slowly see why."
I smiled a bit a the praise but remained silent so Dumbledore could continue, "As you probably found out, the disappearances are something that the wizarding world prefers to not speak of. It is understandable, but I wanted you to know that even after all those years we are still trying to prevent those things from happening and trying to find those who disappeared. And that's why you are here today, Mr. Hunt."
I nodded in understanding even if Dumbledore's vague style of speaking didn't explain much of the situation. Still, I wanted to know how it all would go down and I probably wouldn't get a straight answer if I didn't ask for it.
"I will get some kind of protection headmaster?"
"You will," he replied, "I won't bore you with all the details as with your current knowledge you would only understand some bits and pieces, but you can trust me that I and the ministry will do everything we can to make sure you will be safe. We failed enough times..." the last part was said in a whisper, but with my slightly enhanced senses I picked it up.
I really wanted to ask him why I wasn't informed of all of this before coming to Hogwarts, but I felt like it was better to leave this subject alone. Besides, I could do some research on my own.
"Thank you, headmaster. I feel a bit better knowing that someone is trying to protect us," there was not much else to say and I really wanted to finish this conversation fast. I still had some packing to do.
"Don't thank me now child. Leave it for the moment when the protections will save you, even if I pray that you will never need them," he said giving me a sad smile. It was a bit weird that Dumbledore would have a conversation like that with a young child... Right, this talk was probably reserved for parents, but with me being an orphan he still needed to talk about it with me, "Now you better get going. I promised your Head of House that I wouldn't hold you for too long"
I nodded and after I bid the headmaster farewell, I walked back to the Gryffindor Tower.
"This was one weird conversation..."
The End-of-Term Feast went as I expected and just like in canon the Gryffindor House won the House cup. I didn't really care about it, but it at least confirmed what happened in the third corridor after I escaped.
After the Feast, I found an empty compartment in the train so I could catch some sleep after the long night in the Chamber of Secrets. Salazar had a few more things to say and I also used these last hours in the castle to practice some more powerful spells. After all, I wouldn't be able to use them with the small anti Trace wardstone.
When I finally arrived back in the Children's home I only needed to wait one day for Dumbledore to show up with two ministry workers that were responsible for the protection of students during the summer.
They explained that they would be setting up some powerful wards around the Children's Home that would protect me, but also wouldn't hinder the mundanes living inside. I was also given a portkey for emergencies and written permission to use magic if I was attacked. Apart from that, I would be also visited every two days by a ministry worker who would be checking on the wards and my safety.
All in all, I knew that those protections were probably pretty good, but I doubted that they would prove a challenge to anyone who would really want to get in. Maybe I was wrong, but I definitely would be investing in some protection myself. After all, I wasn't some random kid who only knew some basic spells. No, I was a reincarnated survivor that dealt with a lot of bad shit in his past life.
No way in hell that I was going to go down without a fight...
And that's it, everyone.
Finally, the first year is over... Damn, it took longer than I thought it would. It really takes a lot of time to handle every possible angle and not leave too many plot holes everywhere. I still skipped a lot of stuff, but I doubt you would want to see how Logan does during lessons or how he interacts with characters that won't be important anyway.
With that being said we are moving onto the summer. I don't think that it will take me more than one chapter to move to the second year. There are a few things Logan will do during the summer, but they don't require multiple chapters.
I am really excited to show all of you what I planned for the next year and I really hope you'll all enjoy it. Trust me if you thought that I will follow every part of canon then you were very, very wrong.
I won't spoil anything so you will need to wait and read for yourself.
I hope you all enjoyed it, let me know what you think.
Have a good day/night everyone.