"Evening." Harry greeted as he emerged in the Riddle Manor.
"Harry, glad you could join me." Tom replied from his chair, gesturing for Harry to sit in his customary chair. "How was Diagon Alley?"
"It was quieter than it normally is, although it's weird to see all the posters around. Is there any reason for me to ask how you know I was there?"
"Ah, well it turns out when we get near each other, I can feel it." Riddle replied, absentmindedly rubbing his chest. "Can I assume you didn't feel the same thing?"
"No, I didn't feel a thing… Do you think it's just us or would that include Voldemort too?"
"You should be fine being near Voldemort. Because of how I formed our connection, Voldemort shouldn't be able to connect to you in the same way. Problem is, I'm fairly sure I'm not protected in the same way. Funnily enough, it was Voldemort I wanted to talk about."
"Another vision from him?"
"Exactly. Now, I could tell you about it, but for this I think you'd prefer to see it." Tom announced, rising from his seat. Confused, Harry followed suit. With a start, he realised he was now only a few inches shorter than Tom, assuming their astral forms were equivalent to their physical bodies.
"You're looking well." Harry couldn't help saying.
"Why thank you. I got a promotion, I'm now a liaison between the Ministry and the Prophet. It has much better hours, with better pay and it lets me get connections within the Ministry."
"Do I want to know what happened to the last liaison?" Harry asked cautiously.
"I didn't kill her, don't worry. She was asked to leave by the Ministry, because of her 'pro-Potter views'. Ever since your interview with Skeeter, the Ministry has slowly started weeding out people that support you. But, it did allow me to get up in the world. Now, let's go, we don't have all night."
For the first time within this dreamscape, Tom led Harry out of the parlour room. "It's impressive you have such a clear memory of this manor." Harry commented as Tom led him up the stairs. He couldn't help noticing that the manor seemed to be in a much better condition than it had been when Harry had helped Frank Bryce work on it.
"I have a really good memory, even before I took a ritual to boost my memory in my second year." Tom replied smugly. "It helps that I spent a few days in the manor during my summer holiday, shortly after I killed my father. I was planning on buying it and using it, but I'm not sure if I succeeded since I had made the Diary by then."
"Why would you bother buying it?"
"Unfortunately, I couldn't ward it against Muggles without it being obvious to any wizard within the village. But if I ward it against Muggles and wizards, then the ministry would start to question why the area has a high magic concentration.
"Of course, I can't have a Muggle buying what is rightfully mine, so the obvious answer is to buy it the Muggle way." Tom explained. "Now, do you want to keep questioning my dreamscape or do you want to watch the vision?"
"Sure, but why did we have to move to do that?" Harry asked, looking around the landing they had stopped in curiously.
"Because, it seems Voldemort also has a fondness for this house. While I may only visit this house within my mind, Voldemort is living in it as we speak. It makes it much easier for me to review the visions."
With that, he pushed open the door into the drawing room. It was easy to see where Tom's memory of the manor faded into the vision of Voldemort, by how the decay started seeping out of the room.
Inside the room, somebody had pushed the furniture around so that an armchair sat in the centre, with its back to the door. The chair was silhouetted by a green fire within the grate. Most of the windows were covered with paper, but a few looked like they had been repaired with magic… poorly.
"How goes your mission, my faithful servant?" A voice hissed. Shivering, Harry remembered the same cold, unusually high voice from years ago. While Tom had already told him before, hearing that voice against was the confirmation he didn't know he needed, proof that Lord Voldemort was returning.
"Potter is doing surprisingly well, he was able to win the first task without my assistance. He has already figured out the Golden Egg, but I do not believe he has begun working on the task. Most pressingly, in a recent duelling tournament, he has proven his strength." A voice responded from within the fire.
"Excellent! His success will make my victory all the more devastating. You just need to ensure he lives until the right moment. Wormtail assures me the potion is on schedule, but once it is ready we will only have an hour to complete it. Fail in your task, my servant, and you will feel my… displeasure." Voldemort hissed
"I would never fail you, my Lord." The voice replied confidently.
"Succeed, and you will be rewarded above any other. For now, leave the Potter boy to his own devices, only intervene if you fear he will die without your involvement."
With that, the vision ended, with the room fading back into its original appearance.
"Before you ask, no I don't know who the spy is." Tom announced, predicting Harry's first question.
"So, what I want to know is why could we see the entire room?"
"… What?" Tom asked, confused.
"Well, it was you seeing the event because you are linked to him right, so shouldn't you have seen it through his eyes?"
"That's because the visions are like pensieve memories." Tom stated, as if that should explain anything. Seeing Harry's confusion, Tom sighed and sat in an armchair that looked eerily similar to the one Voldemort had just used.
"Okay, so to start with, despite popular belief, pensieves don't let you review the actual memory itself. If they did, the memory would be extremely limited to just what was originally seen, along with being heavily biased towards whoever gave the memory.
"Indeed, if that was how they worked, then they'd be useless. You'd need to be a good occlumens to even bring forth a memory, at which point there's no reason to move it elsewhere to view it."
"What about letting other people see the memory?" Harry pointed out.
"Perhaps, but even basic Legilimency would allow someone to share their own memory. Of course, the main use of pensieves used to be for court cases, where unreliable memories are pointless.
"Instead, pensieves are basically really reliable scrying bowls. The memory you add to the pensieve forms a sympathetic bond, giving you the exact event instead of the usual vague visions.
"Incidentally, that is also why pensieves are so rare and expensive. For a start, you'd need to find somebody licensed to form a sympathetic bond. Then they need to be knowledgeable enough to make a bond vague enough that an inexperienced user can change the root of the bond.
"This is why the 'memory' in a pensieve is in third person, since you aren't seeing through the eyes of the memory, but instead getting a vision of the exact event as it happened. It is possible to tamper with your memory of course, in which case the pensieve will form an incomplete bond.
"Unless whoever modified the memory is a true master of the mind arts, the pensieve memory will be visibly corrupted, especially when they clash against the real events."
"And your visions of Voldemort work the same way? I'm assuming whatever links us to Voldemort replaces the memory in the sympathetic bond?" Harry guessed.
"Exactly. In most cases, when I see the visions they can be days after the actual event… or sometimes I might foresee the event before it happens. The bond between myself and Voldemort is what allows me to see him, even through the wards he's erected to prevent spying."
"That's also what allows you to form these meetings, right? Is there a way to prevent either these meetings or the visions? With you, I don't mind, but I don't think I'd like to have Voldemort having visions of me."
"There is little either of us can do to stop our psychic communications, outside of what I have already done. While we both live, we can only psychically meet each other. The only other way to guarantee that is to close yourself off from divination magic entirely. For some that would undoubtedly be appealing, but while any type of divination magic wouldn't work on you, it would also be impossible to use the magic.
"Active divination like our link bypasses almost every type of ward, but it is limited. The only reason I can initiate these meetings is because I used a fairly powerful ritual, but actually accessing your mind remains blocked. Whatever shields you employ, they are exceedingly powerful."
"So, as long as I maintain my defences, Voldemort can't read my mind?" Harry clarified.
"Essentially. Honestly, our greatest defence is that he doesn't know about your connection or even my existence. The longer we can keep that secret, the better."
Huffing angrily, Fleur sat down heavily in the sea beside him.
"What's wrong?" Harry asked cautiously. She had been rather terse after he had so thoroughly beaten her in the first task, leading to her spending more time with her other friends.
"Your friend, Weasley! I was talking to Cedric when your friend walked up to me, shouted that I should go to the ball with him, zen ran off before I could reply! I get enough humiliation about not 'aving a date, I don't need your friends to add to it!"
"That doesn't sound like Ron… From what I know of him, he wouldn't have the confidence to do that." Harry hesitantly argued.
"It was ze allure, Cedric is immune so I was relaxing my control. But I did not expect the nearby students to be so susceptible." Fleur explained, causing Harry to nod in understanding. She had previously confided in him that while she was used to reining in her allure, it was tiring.
"Well, I'm sorry about him. If it helps, I'm sure he didn't mean to upset you."
"Merci, it does 'elp a bit… May I ask why you haven't asked me to be your date?" She asked curiously.
"Oh, well I did think of it, but I was told champions cannot take each other as dates… I just assumed everyone got told the same thing. But, if you need a date, I think two of my other friends are still free. They are also immune to your allure and won't humiliate you at night." Harry offered. Just the other night Draco had been complaining about his lack of date.
"Non, I was not told… Who are these friends?"
"Neville Longbottom in Gryffindor and Draco Malfoy in Slytherin."
"Draco Malfoy, is 'e not the arrogant one who seemed to think that everyone should know 'is father?" Fleur asked.
"Yeah… that sounds like him. He has been getting better, but perhaps it was wrong of me to suggest him." Harry admitted. "What about Neville?"
"I do not think I have heard anything about him, good or bad." Fleur admitted.
Nodding, Harry retrieved his wand and conjured some paper, partially showing off by writing his message into the paper as he made it. 'Hey Neville, if you still need a date for the Yule Ball, come and see me. Fleur Delacour wants to talk to you.'
Seeing the message had formed correctly, Harry tapped it with his wand. The animation charm then folded the paper into a perfect paper-airplane, which then flew over and landed in front of Neville.
Looking confused, the boy looked at Harry before opening the plane. After finishing the note, he then looked back at Harry in shock, before turning and looking at Fleur. After visibly gathering his courage, Neville then stood and smoothed down his robes.
"You… wanted to see me, Harry?" Neville nervously asked when he drew close.
"Yeah, I wanted to introduce you to Fleur, I don't think you've met yet." Harry said, indicating the girl beside him. Neville bowed to her politely, right as Harry finished with "You see, we were just talking and it turns out she doesn't have a date yet, and unless you managed to find one recently, I believe you are also in need of a partner."
"It's… It's nice to meet you, Miss Delacour. You… you need somebody to go with you to the Ball?" Despite his slight stuttering, Neville was able to project a mildly convincing air of confidence.
"Oui. You see, most boys 'ere seem incapable of withstanding my allure. If I am to enjoy my night, I would not want to be constantly maintaining it. Other than that, I only require someone who can hold a conversation and enjoys dancing." Fleur stated matter-of-factly.
As she spoke, her allure gradually became stronger, drawing a few eyes towards them. Seeing this, Harry cast a notice-not around them, which went a long way to stopping her allure from affecting those around them. With a sense of pride, Harry noticed Neville seemed unaware of the allure, even if he seemed to become less nervous under its effects.
"I'll be honest, I'm not sure I can withstand your allure, I don't think I've come into contact with it yet. But McGonagall says I have a talent for dancing. If I may ask, what would you be wanting to talk about?" Neville replied honestly, drawing a smile from Fleur.
"I am sure you will be fine against my allure. As for conversation topics, I suppose we could start with our favourite classes and go from there? 'Arry tells me you have a passion for Herbology? While I can't say it is my best class, I do find comfort within the plants." Fleur answered, easily drawing Neville into a conversation about the difference between British and French plants.
'Funny, I don't remember telling her anything about Neville.' Harry thought wryly as he slipped away, patting Neville on the shoulder as he went.
When Christmas Day arrived, the school seemed to have an anxious air about it. The Weasley Twins had become infamous for their 'canary creams', which managed to spread around the school overnight. For several mealtimes it became common for someone to spontaneously erupt with feathers, before people began inspecting their food before eating.
Surprisingly, Moody seemed very supportive of the prank. "It may be canary creams today, but it could be poisoned tomorrow! Constant Vigilance! Here's a nifty food detection spell I personally use."
Despite this, there was an outbreak of canaries at Breakfast, with most people being too nervous of the upcoming Ball to check what they were putting in their mouth.
Then as the day wore on, students began vanishing. First any student under the age limit was allowed to attend a festive themed lunch within the Great Hall, while the older students either ate in their common-rooms or the Spare Hall near the Hufflepuff common room.
Over time, the female population then started retreating to their rooms, leaving the boys relatively unsupervised. The resulting Snowball fight was easily the biggest Harry had ever seen, with almost every male student involved. In the face of such snowy conflict, Houses were forgotten as students teamed up and split apart at rando.
While he generally tried to avoid the conflict, by the time it drew too dark to see Harry found himself bunked down within his fort, one of the Weasley twins crouched beside him. Across from them, the other twin and Ron held off another set of attackers, while Neville and Cedric Diggory prevented the enemy from storming the fort.
The game officially ended when a row of seventh years finally managed to reverse Harry's transfiguration, causing the previously protective walls and ceiling to collapse on top of the defenders.
Rushing inside, Harry returned to his workshop room and changed into his dress robes. They were certainly worth their extortionate expense. To start with was the white acromantula silk shirt, where each strand was arranged in such a way that the shirt would catch any nearby light and positively shine.
On top of the shirt was a low cut, pitch black dragonskin waistcoat, with golden embroidery. The designer had somehow woven pure gold strands through the dragonskin to form what looked like a wave of fire on his left side, which spread to the right side where they were held back by the silhouette of a wizard, wand held high and jagged robes fluttering behind him.
It certainly wasn't an accurate representation of his stance against the real dragon fire, but the public didn't know that. Just like the silk shirt, the gold would sometimes catch the light, but this time it would make the pattern blaze and shimmer.
His bottleneck green bowtie was certainly plain in comparison, although it was the most practical. After a fair bit of struggling, he had managed to inconspicuously hide his mithril earrings between the tie and collar. This left a fair bit of the top of his hair out of the invisible protective bubble, but would still protect his head from damage.
Wrestling with the earrings was yet another reason Harry had come to despise the Goblet and the contract it had forced him into. Ordinarily he could've easily reformed the earrings to better fit under the collar, or simply made a whole new object to serve the same purpose.
Finally, the actual dress robes were made of the same bottle green material of the bowtie, making them far more fluid and lighter than his old school robes. In an extraordinary effort, himself, Dumbledore and Nicholas had managed to attach the Invisibility Cloak to the inside of the dress robes, hoping to disguise it as an elaborate lining.
It was a risk to have the Cloak so blatantly on display, but the only people who would recognise it as the Cloak of invisibility would probably already know the Potters were rumoured to possess it. As it was, the Cloak would both protect Harry from any surprise attacks, while also blending in with some success.
The outer portion of the robes had only one pocket for a handkerchief, which made Harry miss the numerous pockets on his normal coat. It was even worse given the inner pockets and wand holster were blocked by the Invisibility Cloak.
The lack of pockets had developed into an actual issue when Harry pointed out he had nowhere to store his wand, since having it on display was 'uncouth'. They had solved that with a wand holster on his upper arm, which was then enchanted to be bigger on the inside.
Smiling to himself, he exited his room and met Luna waiting for him in the main room. She was dressed in a frilly tiered silver dress, with star shaped earrings.
"You look great." Harry announced.
"Why thank you, you look good in those robes too, although I think you'd be more comfortable in your trench coat." Luna replied happily.
Grinning in reply, Harry stuck out his arm, which she gladly took, and began leading her to the Entrance Hall. It was already packed when they arrived, but the moment he was seen a hush fell over the crowd as they gave them space.
"Hey Harry, Luna." Ron greeted glumly, having waded through the crowd to reach them.
"Hey Ron, what's up?" Harry asked.
"Well, I couldn't get a date and I've got to wear these awful robes." Ron moaned, picking at the frilly lace on his dress robes.
"I can fix that, if you want? Just tell me what you want done." Harry offered.
"Would you? If you could get rid of the lace and perhaps change its colour from maroon?" Ron asked eagerly, to which Harry obliged. Tapping Ron on the shoulder, his transfiguration spread down Ron's robes, changing the maroon into a midnight blue. When it was over, Ron's robes were considerably less noticeable, blending in with the other students quite well.
"An excellent transfiguration, Mr. Potter." McGonagall complimented, appearing out of nowhere. "Now, if you and your date are ready, could I ask you to make your way over to the doors?"
"Oh, I'm not his date, Professor McGonagall." Luna told her "He just did me the honour of accompanying me here."
"Very well. Potter, when she does arrive, please don't hang around. We can't open the doors until the champions are ready."
As she hurried off, Harry spotted the Slytherins making their way up from the dungeons. He waved to Vincent and Daphne, but couldn't find Draco. Crabbe was dressed in moss green robes, with a white bow tie.
But Harry didn't spend long inspecting Vincent, not with Daphne on his arm, wearing a beautiful flowing layered emerald green dress. Her blonde hair had been braided and tastefully thrown over her left shoulder, held together by a pendant with the outline of her family crest, a shield with several blades of grass within.
"You look… amazing." Harry breathed when she drew near, then took her hand and grazed a kiss onto her knuckles as she curtsied. Nodding at Vincent, the two swapped partners, with Luna's silver dress working well against Vincent's dark green.
"Well of course I do. What's a surprise is how great you can look, when you put the effort in." Daphne replied teasingly.
Reaching his other hand into his robes, Harry used the Gauntlet ring to conjure a rose made of rubies. With a flourish, he revealed the flower. "For you, my lady." He announced solemnly, causing her eyes to widen in surprise.
"Sure, don't worry about us, we don't mind being shown up, not at all." Ron muttered, getting a soft smack from Vincent, which sent him flying forward. Smiling, Daphne pinned the rose
Seeing McGonagall staring his way, Harry began leading Daphne over to where Cedric and Fleur were waiting. As he had suspected, Neville had ended up as Fleur's partner, while Cedric had taken Cho Chang.
"Just waiting for Krum, then." Cedric proclaimed cheerfully, seemingly immune to the anxious atmosphere steadily filling the hall. Just as he said it, the doors swung open as Karkaroff, Viktor Krum and the other Durmstrang students entered. Amongst the students, Harry could just make out Draco and a Durmstrang girl within the crowd.
Under McGonagall's ministrations, Krum was swiftly led over, where they only had enough time to nod to each other before the Great Hall opened and the students began flooding inside.
Once everyone was inside, McGonagall ordered them to line up, ladies on the left and gentlemen on the right. When she was satisfied with their positioning, she then began marching into the Hall.
"Ready?" Daphne muttered as Cedric and Cho began moving in front of them.
"Yeah, let's go." Harry replied, breathing deeply as the music rose and they entered the hall.
Inside the hall, Harry was startled at just how full the room felt. In theory, there were less people than normal, but with everyone sitting around a hundred small tables, it felt stiflingly packed.
As they walked up to the top table, Harry noticed that Mr. Crouch was missing. In his place, Percy Weasley was smugly looking down on the Champions. While he hadn't known the boy well, they had interacted when Percy had occasionally sat beside Penelope Clearwater at the Ravenclaw table.
Harry considered Percy the best of the known Weasleys, with his no-nonsense attitude. The main problem Harry had was that Percy saw magic as a tool and nothing more, an attitude shared by many Purebloods.
To his confusion, Percy seemed content to completely ignore his existence, favouring instead to stare meaningfully at Cedric while he pulled out the chair beside him. But it was hard to feel insulted, when Dumbledore indicated for Harry and Daphne to sit beside him.
"Merry Christmas Harry, Ms. Greengrass." Dumbledore greeted them joyfully, "I trust you both had a good day?"
"Yeah, it was alright. Got into a giant snowball fight outside, which was actually really fun. Got some good presents this year as well." Harry replied, seeing that Daphne seemed unwilling to do anything more than nod.
"Oh? I hope my present wasn't too confusing? I had planned on including a letter explaining how to use it, but unfortunately I ran out of time." Dumbledore lamented.
Dumbledore's gift had been what had looked like a simple copper key. It was only after a deep scan with his magesight that revealed a partial conditional charm. He had then needed to leaf through Dippet's book on conditional magic, a book he had assumed he had finished, to find the final conditional charm.
He didn't know how he had missed it, but the charm was missing a piece of its magic, making it unable to trigger. Experimentally, Harry had placed the key directly over the charm, at which point both charms had connected and activated. The key had then been transmuted into a final page, clearly written by Dumbledore.
This final page instructed Harry on how to create every single conditional charm, ward and rune within the book, in detail. Even though Harry had reverse engineered a few of them, even using them to protect his new workshop, it was nice to have the instructions to hand.
"Yeah, I was able to figure it out. Will you tell me how you managed to turn the key into the paper?"
"Ah, well you see, that's deceptively easy. You see, I didn't turn the key into the paper. I actually wrote the page, then used a conditional rune that would turn the paper into the key unless it was placed in your book." Dumbledore explained slyly.
Before anyone else could engage him in conversation, the headmaster then scanned down his menu and loudly announced "Pork Chops."
For the briefest of moments, students looked at Dumbledore like he was mad, but when his dinner magically appeared on his plate, they quickly began ordering their own food.
As a test, Harry decided to imbue his finger with the magical intent of 'Turkey Roast' and tapped it to the side of his golden plate. Despite some resistance from the metal, his food did appear on his plate, no doubt courtesy of a diligent House Elf.
As he began tucking in, he was doing his best to listen in on Krum and his Beauxbatons date's conversation, which was in what seemed to be perfect French.
"Our castle is not as big or comfortable as this, I think. We only have four floors, while our fires are only for magical purposes, but our grounds are far more impressive." Krum was saying, seemingly unconcerned that Harry and Fleur were blatantly listening in. No doubt the other students around the table would also have listened in, if they could understand the language.
Before Krum could talk anymore about his school, clearly a subject he was eager to share, he was interrupted by Karkaroff. His Headmaster made a big deal about protecting their secrecy in English, concluded with an obviously fake laugh.
Then Dumbledore, always eager to stir up trouble, then innocently asked why his fellow Headmaster was so concerned with secrecy, figuratively laying down a rug. Unknowingly taking the bait, Karkaroff took that figurative step forward, as he began boasting about how 'they' guarded their secrets, only for Dumbledore to pull the rug from under his feet.
"Oh, I would never dream of assuming I know all Hogwarts' secrets, Igor." Dumbledore replied amicably, pretending to not notice Karkaroff's agitation.
"Only this morning, for instance, I took a wrong turning on the way to the bathroom and found myself in a beautifully proportioned room I have never seen before, containing a really rather magnificent collection of chamber pots.
"When I went back to investigate more closely, I discovered that the room had vanished. But I must keep an eye out for it. Possibly it is only accessible at five thirty in the morning. Or it may only appear at the quarter moon… or when the seeker has an exceptionally full bladder."
While making a note to ask Dumbledore about that later, Harry was sure he caught Dumbledore winking at him, along with Percy frowned disapprovingly in the background. Meanwhile, Fleur and Neville seemed too busy comparing Beauxbatons decorations to Hogwarts to notice anyone else.
Eventually, once all the food had been consumed, Dumbledore got to his feet and asked for the students to do the same. Then in an impressive show of magic, picked up and moved the hundred small tables to the walls in a single move. He then proceeded to conjure a raised platform, which was quickly filled with instruments by the Weird Sisters' stage hands.
As the Weird Sisters began picking up their instruments, Harry felt Daphne try to drag him along. Seeing that the other champions had begun to move to the stage, Harry realised he had missed some sort of cue and allowed Daphne to lead him onto the stage.
Taking their spots, Harry rested his hand on her waist, while taking her off-hand in his. As the music began, Harry did his best to lead Daphne through the waltz. While it wasn't his favourite style of dance, Tonks had ensured he was competent enough at it.
If it wasn't for Neville and Fleur gliding past as if they spent every day dancing, Harry would have felt proud.
"Don't worry about them." Daphne muttered, correctly guessing what Harry had been thinking about. "You're doing fine, but there's always going to be someone better than you at something. Really, it's good for your ego." she finished teasingly.
It didn't take long for others to join, with Dumbledore and Madam Maxime being the first to enter the floor. Draco and his Durmstrang date were amongst the first students to join, who managed to dance close enough to give a nod towards them.
In the corner of the dance floor, Luna was doing some sort of fluttery dance, while Crabbe did his best to mimic her. At the very least they both seemed to be enjoying themselves. Even Professor Moody was doing an ungainly two-step with a Professor Sinistra.
As they crossed paths, Harry saw Moody's fake eye give them a brief inspection. Upon noticing his gaze, Daphne glared and huddled a bit closer to Harry.
"I don't like him." She muttered once they had danced out of earshot, "That eye should be banned."
"Moody's not too bad. And his eye can only see magic, it's not like he can see your skin through your clothes." Harry replied in an attempt to ease her.
"It doesn't matter, it still feels like he can." She returned, shivering "And every time I feel his eye on me, I remember how it felt to be under his Imperius."
"Well, it's natural to dislike being under control."
"It's not even that, it just felt… wrong. Like it was him specifically that made it feel so wrong. Now, let's go sit down for a bit, I don't feel like dancing after that."
Leaving the dance floor, they made their way out the entrance hall, out into a rose garden. The fact the garden was lit by literal fairy lights, was quite alarming, given how fairies took up a decent majority of magical horror stories.
The two spent the time wandering around, even finding a part of the garden that overlooked the lake that Harry really liked. That was when they heard a familiar voice a short distance from them.
"So? I don't see what there is to fuss about, Igor."
"Severus, you cannot pretend this isn't happening!" Karkaroff replied anxiously, trying and failing to keep his voice low. "It's been getting clearer and clearer for months, I am becoming seriously concerned, I can't deny it -"
"Then flee." Snape interrupted curtly, "Flee, I will make your - Potter, Greengrass, what are you two doing?" He demanded as the pair turned the corner.
"Enjoying the view, sir?" Harry stated, confused at the professor's angry tone.
While the professor was hardly the embodiment of joy, the man normally limited his anger to 'irritated'. Even when Neville had famously managed to melt his cauldron and forced the class to evacuate the room, Snape had only come across as frustrated.
But now, talking to Karkaroff in a beautiful rose garden, he seemed incensed.
"Well keep enjoying it then!" Snape snapped, brushing past them. Karkaroff spared a moment to stare at them balefully, then hurried after Snape.
"As I was saying, Igor, I have nothing to be scared of, can you say the same? I will make your excuses, but I will remain at Hogwarts." Snape called as they left, making no effort to keep his voice low.
"He should talk a bit louder, I don't think they could hear him in the hall properly." Daphne commented, getting a laugh from Harry.
"I wonder how long they've been on first-name terms?"
"Since they were Death Eaters together." Daphne replied seriously, "Karkaroff named professor Snape in his trial, but Dumbledore stepped up and protected him. They are pretty much the only Death Eaters that plainly admitted to joining, that aren't in Azkaban anymore… Aside from Sirius Black I guess."
While Harry desperately wanted to defend Sirius' name, he knew today wasn't the day. Instead he simply nodded and bore through it. They started to walk through the garden again, only to spot Hagrid and Madame Maxime sitting nearby. Before Harry could decide on walking past or taking a detour, Daphne had decided for them and gently pulled him backwards.
"Whatever they are talking about, I doubt they would want people listening in." She announced, only to briefly stop to stare at Fleur and Neville, half-concealed in a rose bush nearby.
"I doubt they'd want people watching on." Harry mimicked, taking over as the one pulling her onwards.
"… Yeah, I guess. Come on, let's go back inside and dance some more."
"So, do you have any ideas for what you want to do for the second task?" Nicholas asked the morning after the Yule ball.
"Well, I had a thought about a spell, where I can cast it before I enter the water, then move it around and change its properties at will. I'm better at wordless magic than anyone else in my year, but I'm not good enough to trust my life on it."
"An interesting idea… it is certainly possible, but you'd need to make the spell from scratch. If you use Verbarn magic, you'd have to cast the spell wandlessly, which would make it impossible to use underwater. I would be surprised if you could get a wandless spell to travel further than a foot.
"However, if you are only interested in this spell for it's wordless capabilities, I have an alternative branch of magic for you."
"I don't just want the spell for the water, I think it would be cool to have that sort of spell available. Like, imagine during a duel, I can cast the spell and have it circle around my opponent, then turn it into a stunning spell and hit their exposed back."
"It does indeed sound impressive, I'll look forward to seeing it in action when you finish. But I would suggest focusing your immediate efforts on less… extravagate Magick." Nicholas said diplomatically
"If you insist." Harry agreed dejectedly. "What's that 'alternative branch of magic' you suggested?"
"In short: Archaic Sigils." Nicholas announced proudly. "They are an art that my Perenelle, based on numerous similar arts. In short, you can think of sigils as a way of imprinting runes upon the world. In fact, I have already taught you an art similar to the sigils, so you should have it easier than others."
"I assume you are talking about alchemical runes?"
"Exactly. But, unlike the alchemical runes, Archaic Sigils cannot be drawn on a medium, they have to be drawn on the world itself. Secondly, a Sigil has to be drawn in one complete movement, such that they appear almost instantaneously. The main advantage is they require minimal movements and no incantations, making them perfect for underwater use."
To demonstrate, Nicholas held his left hand outwards. Then after letting out a deep breath, rocketed his left arm backwards, while simultaneously launching his right hand forwards. To Harry's surprise, a bright scarlet runic circle burst into existence, sprouting from Nicholas' palm outwards. The completion of the circle was marked by a soft shockwave.
In front of the circle, a larger circular shield faded into existence. To demonstrate the capabilities, Nicholas waved his hand from side to side, with the runic circle remaining stuck to his hand.
"This is a sigil. As you can see, it is bound to my casting hand, which is true for almost all sigils. This causes them to struggle with ranged combat, but I've found few Magicks are able to rival it's close quarters combat. But, can you think of any potential issues?"
"Well, it looks like it would be draining to maintain the runes for so long… but also if it's Archaic Magick, then it wouldn't be able to stop Divine or Verbarn Magick." Harry predicted.
"For your first point, sigils are actually surprisingly easy to maintain. Obviously there is a drain, but Perenelle was able to make these extremely efficient. For myself, my magic regenerates faster than the sigils can drain it, allowing me to keep them up indefinitely.
"As for your second, you are completely correct, sigil shields like this are worthless against anything that isn't Archaic. Unfortunately, sigils create weapons by imbuing power into the world, meaning it can be stopped by any Magick, even if it was started by Archaic Magick."
"So, aside from being useful underwater, why would you use a sigil over other magic?" Harry asked.
"Other than the close quarter combat capabilities I already mentioned, I find sigils are great against magical creatures. You see, because of how sigils imbue their power, even those creatures with magical resistance are affected by sigil weapons. Admittedly, against competent wizards, sigils are vulnerable."
"Creatures such as the ones in the lake perhaps? Sounds good, so how do I go about learning how to cast sigils?"
"For now, you can't. You see, we bound the magic to our family. Now, while I am able to teach you, due to you being my apprentice, you would be unable to cast a sigil. You could try and reverse engineer them, tying them into your own family, but that brings us back to the time it takes to develop a spell.
"It's fortunate me and Perenelle foresaw such an issue, and designed a ritual to unlock the use of sigils. Should you choose to take it, you'd be one of three to take it."
"Okay… so how do we do this ritual?"
"Well, we just take a drop of my blood, I cast a sigil and we're done. Which we could do right now, if it wasn't for the fact that the British Ministry has banned any type of blood based rituals… So, how do you feel about a day trip to France?"
Now, before I talk about anything else, I have an important question. Now, I'm planning on this story going on for a long time, which means there will be a lot of chapters.
With that in mind, would people prefer if I kept the entire story as one long story, or split it into separate 'complete' stories? If I were to split the story, it would most likely be after a few 'parts', meaning the first split would be at the end of Fourth year.
Things I think need explaining:
- Tom detecting Harry: In case this wasn't clear, where in canon Harry's scar hurt when he was near Voldemort, in this Tom hurts when he is near Harry.
- Ministry being anti-Harry: This is essentially the build up of very small moments. To start with, Lucius Malfoy temporarily lost a lot of his reputation in Year 1, because of Harry. This means he is trying to get revenge, but sneakily. After Sirius escaped Azkaban, Hogwarts and England, the Ministry was looking bad, so Fudge wanted to use the Quidditch World Cup to booster their appearance.
The Death Eaters stopped that plan. He then tried to use the Triwizard Tournament, only for Harry to be chosen and very publicly said it was all the Ministry's fault. As such, Fudge is throwing the political equivalent of a temper tantrum, quietly egged on by Malfoy.
- Voldemort's potion deadline: This is my answer for "Why wait until the Third Task to kidnap Harry?". Wormtail only found Voldemort that Summer, during which they needed to get back to England, then free Crouch Jr. That gives them little time to brew the resurrection potion, so Voldemort worked out how long it would take, then compared it to when Harry would be most easily kidnapped, and planned accordingly.
- Sigils: Based heavily on Doctor Strange magic, but instead of being orange the magic takes on the colour of the caster's signature.