Shout at the Devil

by MalcolmTent6730

Magic wasn't real. That's what Ryan Black was told for most of his life. It was a truth he believed until about a week after his eighteenth birthday, when he was contacted by his dead dad's estate about his own. Being born a squib he had no reason to be informed, except for a small gift his old man left him. Evil pieces in Harry Potter. AU Hogwarts University. Eventual OC-Multi,

26. Chapter 26

November 4th, 2011, Forbidden Forest, Hogwarts, Scotland, 12:00 AM BST

My opening salvo was the cutting curse. Or rather, about a dozen of them. I used the lightest possible touch, condensing them into hair thin blades of magical energy, but quickly ran into an issue. There were too many fucking spiders. Being able to bypass my shield was one of the best tricks I'd learned from Dumbledore, but I was still learning to do it with any consistency.

Maybe half of my six cuts made it out of the dome, the other half shattering on my barrier, and about fifteen spiders died. Which…wasn't a lot.

"Can you tell how many there are?" I asked in a strangled voice. "Because I can't!"

Seras's head snapped up. "Six thousand four hundred and twenty seven, not counting the ones you killed." At my flabbergasted expression she shrugged. "Vampires have this thing about counting stuff."

"Fuck this." I said in annoyance. I let the shield drop, using my necromancy to make a half dome so they'd be concentrated into a smaller area. "INCENDIO!" I bellowed, letting loose a wave of fire across the sea of spiders. I heard screams and crackling, but there were so fucking many of the things they drowned the flames out.

Seras whooped as I pushed out with the darkness, sending the remaining ones flying in all directions. She spun in a full circle before announcing "Four thousand five hundred and sixty two!"

The spiders, apparently smarter than most, spread out again, melting into the trees. I was pretty sure I wasn't lucky enough for them to be running. I noticed most of the bigger ones survived, the smallest having soaked up the majority of my fire spell. Luckily, I wasn't too worried, because I had other spells besides fire.

Closing my eyes, I trusted Seras to protect me as I focused everything on Aqua Eructo. The spell was complex and hard to control, but it offered some flexibility in terms of components, even if that flexibility existed within defined limits.

The main limitation was simple, though extremely unfortunate. The spell had to conjure water. It couldn't do ice, or steam, or even snow. It had to be fully liquid and it had to be H2O. Temperature could vary up to boiling or freezing as long as you met the requirement, and clever users often wielded powerful spouts of boiling water, but I'd decided to go in another direction.

Wizards, by and large, do not do science. I don't do a ton of science either, but compared to most wizards I'm fucking Einstein. One concept wizards didn't seem familiar with was PH balance.

Every single substance in chemistry, water included, has a PH. Most people think that certain fluids are specifically acids, and while that's KIND of true, it's also kind of not. Acids are acids because their PH balance is low, and because water is a liquid, it ALSO has a PH balance.

Most people are aware that water is not acidic, it mainly has a starting PH value of seven which is entirely neutral. For comparison, sulfuric acid, often referred to as Vitriol (which is actually a wide ranging label that describes a bunch of different things) has a PH of two or three. Sulfuric acid being a substance that can eat through fucking titanium, this demonstrates what a low PH is capable of.

What most people DON'T know, is that despite having a starting PH of seven, some of the most acidic substances known to man have been water, with a notable example of tainted water near a mine reaching a PH balance of fucking NEGATIVE SEVEN.

The massive serpent of water that formed from my spell was water, but it was the most acidic water my intent could make, more than three times more corrosive than fucking actual acid.

Grinning, I whirled my wand above my head, and the serpent (admittedly only about fifteen feet long, the intent needed to keep the water so acidic drained me fast if I went any bigger) darted out and made a full circle around the edges of the clearing.

Where the rampaging water monster went, tress just fucking DISINTEGRATED, webs dissolved, and the spiders who didn't manage to get out of the way died screaming as they were melted by the spell that was the single most destructive piece of magic I knew how to use. I was pretty sure even DUMBLEDORE couldn't do as much damage with this spell as I could.

Within seconds, the edges of the clearing had expanded by about ten feet, and I had to call back the snake because controlling it past that point was draining as hell. Seras looked at me in shock. "You can make a bloody ACID snake?" She demanded. "Why the hell didn't you do that earlier?"

The actual answer was because even my substantial power had limits and this pushed them, but announcing your weaknesses in front of an army of angry spiders is a good way to end up naked on the web, and not in a fun way. "Where's the fun in that?" I asked with a wink. "Any chance you know how many are left?"

"I can count fast, I'm not a witch." She paused. "Wait…no, that's not true. Ok, I AM a witch, but I still can't count things I can't see."

I glanced around at the trees. I had maybe five minutes left of this spell, and I was sure we'd be fucked if they rushed me while I was tired. There were too many for Seras to handle alone. "Aragog!" I called casually. "This seems like a waste of time, how many of your kids just died? Half? More?"

"MURDERER!" Howled a screeching voice that seemed to bounce off the trees around us. "You killed them! My hatchlings, my children, you've butchered them."

I shrugged. "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. You're the ones who tried to eat us alive. I think that's considered bad manners in most cultures. Including mine. So fuck you. But we can still end this. If you and yours come at us again you might lose all of them. The big boys hung back, your oldest I'm assuming, do you want to lose them too?"

"Deceiver!" He roared angrily. "We will have vengeance, no price is too great. You will pay for your crimes."

I snorted. "He tries to kill us it's a test, we kill his spiders back and it's a crime. Nothing more pathetic than a spider hypocrite. How many of the big ones did you count at the beginning, anything bigger than like…a chihuahua."

"Well thanks for using that terminology." She drawled sarcastically. "Because it definitely isn't going to give me nightmares for life or anything."

I cocked my head in curiosity. "Do vampires even GET nightmares? I didn't think you guys dreamed?" I actually hadn't really considered it, but sleeping vampires kind of just seemed like corpses when you looked at them.

"Not the time!" She scolded. "There were only about three hundred of them that big. I'm guessing you got a bunch with the snake though. They seemed to be using the smaller ones as meat shields, and I don't think that would've worked against…that." She gestured at my spell.

"Hah!" I barked. "That would be about as useful as trying to block a volcanic eruption with a single layer wall of snowflakes. Most physical creatures would melt in seconds if I hit them with this bad boy. Amusingly, a magic shield is pretty much the only hard counter, and since they're spiders they don't have one."

The chittering from the trees increased, and Seras's eyes narrowed. "They're coming." She warned.

I set my feet again, ready to bring my snake to bear (pun intended). The spell flashed forward, weaving back and forth in a literal serpentine motion to try to consume as many of the spiders as possible. Seras flashed forward, black claws dancing as she tore into the incoming wave as they got past my defense.

I'd seen fast before. Tanith was fast, Shaggy was fast, hell, when I put my mind to it I was pretty fast. The spiders though…some of the bigger ones were BEYOND fast. Massive legs propelling their bodies at nearly invisible speeds, leaping and darting as they came for us.

Straight line acceleration they probably weren't as quick as either of my Knights, but they didn't DO straight lines, darting back and forth as they came.

My hand came up, darkness surging as my necromancy created a field of spikes around me, my snake wrapping around the edges to mop up the ones that avoided it. To my shock though, one form stood out from the rest, faster and more determined.

Aragon himself, moving with speeds I could barely perceive, bounced off the spikes and wove around the flashing darkness as it tried to grind him up. My spell blurred after him, trying to intercept, but he avoided it easily. I prepared myself for a head on collision, drawing my necromantic darkness in and wrapping it around me like a suit of armor.

The removal of the field of spikes let them get in closer. Seras had taken a chunk out of them, tearing them apart with claws and based on the dark fluid on her face, fangs in some cases. Her eyes glowed red as she roared her rage, but she had enough presence of mind to notice Aragon coming.

She whirled and threw herself at him with all the strength of her Rook body, hurtling in a long, low arc to slam into the monster from behind, taking him to the ground in a snarling tangle of too many legs and claws.

I wanted to make sure she was ok, but the wave of uber spiders hit me, and I was drowning in limbs and mandibles. My necromantic armor was shoddy but it did the job, keeping them off me, I whirled the snake around me, condensing it down smaller as I made a ring around myself, crushing the ones already inside with devilish strength.

The frantic melee made it impossible to tell how many were left, but I couldn't care, I was stomping and punching and grabbing and slashing (I condensed a bunch of shadows around my wand to protect it and made it into a big ass sword). Finally, I didn't feel any more of them, and I dismissed the water construct, leaving the shadow armor.

I turned to find Seras and was shocked to see her standing over the mutilated corpse of the biggest spider daddy, clothes in ruins under her robes. Her basically naked body was smeared with spider guts and blood, and her eyes glowed a feral red as she snarled down at the body.

Her necromancy had protected the robe, because it was still hanging together despite quite a few tears, and as I approached and she reclaimed her sanity, she pulled it around herschel.

Flicking my wand, I commanded. "Reparo." Putting as much Intent as I could into the spell, FORCING it to work. The tiny fragments of clothing flew out of the forest of corpses and rebuilt her uniform, and she gave me a grateful smile.

"Well." I said cheerfully, ignoring the small headache from so much power usage. "That was lots of fun. I think we've accomplished our mission though, want to go back to the castle."

She burst into nearly hysterical laughter, doubling over as she cackled until her eyes dripped bloods tears. I didn't comment, sometimes you need to let the tension out after a mess like that. Eventually she stopped, nodding in exhaustion. "Yes." She said finally. "Yes I desperately want to do that."

Walking over to her, I offered my arm, and she took it, leaning her head on my shoulder as we walked back to the castle the same way we'd come. I was just happy to get that last data point for the search. With this, the Chamber was within our grasp. I couldn't wait to see what was down there.

November 4th, 2011, Slytherin Dorm, Hogwarts, Scotland, 1:00 AM BST

"Daphne." I said tiredly as I shook my girlfriend. She groaned, rolling over and covering her head with her pillow. "Daph!" I said louder. When she didn't respond I pulled the blanket aside and gave her a sharp smack on the ass, not enough to hurt much but enough to jar her awake.

She groaned again. "What?" She whined. "What could you possibly want at…" She flicked her wand, murmuring 'Tempus' and then glaring at me. "One in the damned morning?"

I had REALLY considered pranking her by bringing a severed spider head and showing it to her, but I decided both my sex life and day to day happiness would be better served by just verbally describing the situation. "We killed a bunch of giant spiders in the woods." I said succinctly. "We're pretty sure they're worth something."

Her eyes widened, her demeanor going from dull and annoyed to predatory as she jerked upright. "Wait…did you say giant spiders? How giant? Are we talking the size of my hand or the size of my bed."

"Kind of a spectrum." I said with a shrug. "Lots of them are seriously damaged, but there are a few we think might be salvageable if we hurry."

The delight on her face was palpable. "Acromantulas!" She said, hopping up and sprinting to her trunk to get dressed. I'd expanded her room already, so it wasn't close by. I got momentarily distracted by watching my very naked girlfriend bounce across the room, but quickly focused up.

"So I assume this venom is useful for something?" I asked as she slipped on her uniform.

She snorted. "Exceptionally. It can be used to make potions of invisibility. We have to get to it quickly though, it dries out not too long after death and then it's worthless."

I'd sent Seras back to her dorm to let Suzie know what was going on, so it was just the two of us when I teleported us to the clearing. "So probably be careful. We killed a LOT of these things, but one might be alive somewhere in the viscera. Seras tore apart a lot of the big ones, the little ones I melted but I don't think they have the venom anyway."

We started sifting through parts. It was messy and not particularly quick. The ones I took out with the snake were a lost cause, obviously, but the ones Seras ripped apart and the ones I got with the cutting curse were still whole enough to work with. Daphne, shockingly, was a pro at extracting the venom, having practiced similar stuff with her dad.

As a potion supplier Cyrus was well versed in all manner of gathering practices and had made sure to pass on his craft. I had to teleport to my moms place to get us a bunch of sealed vials that would keep, but after about thirty minutes we were done.

Daphne looked absolutely thrilled with the results. "This is…incredible." She said, staring at the TWENTY FIVE vials of the stuff we'd collected. "This stuff can sell for four hundred galleons a vial to the right buyer. And that's just in england. Some colder climates are inhospitable to Acromantula. You can get as much as six hundred for it there."

I whistled. "Fifteen grand is nothing to sneeze at. I still have Lucius's payout but I don't feel great about taking cash from the Black Vaults now that I'm not Lord anymore. Sirius has control of the finances and asking him for money seems shitty."

Luckily my goblin liaison had suggested I put Lucius's penalty money in a separate account, something about snowballing interest rates and centennial tax brackets. I'd offered it to Sirius, but he refused, telling me that without me he'd never have gotten the accounts back anyway. He'd wanted to leave it with me, but I pointed out he had Harry to think about, which seemed to calm him down.

I'd been spending Lucius's money hand over first since I got it because I had the Black vault as a backup and I considered it pocket money. Now that it was my only source of funds I'd been trying to cut back, but I'd still eaten into it pretty deeply. This windfall should be enough to bring it back up to the full hundred thousand and then some, which would really help me feel better.

Not that I'd mentioned my unease to anyone. It felt petty to complain because I was only a thousand times wealthier than most middle class wizard families, instead of being ten thousand times wealthier like I had been.

"So I assume your old man has contacts that can unload this for us?" I asked excitedly. "Assuming I can act as transport?"

She giggled. "Oh definitely. Since you saved Stori he probably won't even take a cut." She was filthy after the harvesting, but I'd never seen her look happier. After the glow wore off though, she glanced down at the corpses. "Also…how the hell did you do all this?"

I shrugged. "Combat lessons with Dumbledore." I said smugly. "I have a new trick I've been working on, plus Seras helped."

She gestured to the melted trees encircling this clearing. "What kind of TRICK can do this? And can you teach it to me?" Her face was half horrified half admiring, which was a fair reaction to this level of destruction.

"No." I said bluntly. "Val is the only one I can think of that could cast it. Power wise I'm WAY weaker than a devil with a king piece should be, but also way stronger than a normal wizard. Used to be about ten times, same level as someone like Dumbledore or Voldemort, but I've grown. Now it's more like thirteen times."

Frowning, she cocked her head. "But we're all stronger than a normal wizard too."
"About three times." I agreed. "Skulduggery is five. Val is ten, because she was already a beast when I made her my Queen. I think I'm growing faster because of the rest of you. Fulfilling the contract with Vincent by catching the ghosts helped a lot too. Regardless that spell is draining as hell and I'm casting a miniature version of it."

My acid snake (I'd started calling it Asclepius in my head because it was a snake and also sort of a poison) was a draining spell, far more than the normal Aqua Eructo, and that was at only fifteen feet.

After we finished collecting the venom, Daphne took care of the bodies, since I could barely stand at this point. Then we headed back to her room.

In the morning, we headed straight to the library without breakfast. We could eat later, but the information we had needed to be shared. Everyone was waiting when we arrived, and I thumped down a map on the table, grabbing a pen and circling a bathroom.

"That's the one." I announced eagerly. "That bathroom is the place where the spider tunnel crosses the axis of the lake tunnel, and it's within the radius of the original pipe refit. The entrance to the chamber of secrets is in there."

Ron leaned over, nodding with interest. "Oh! That's moaning Myrtle's bathroom."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Who or what is a moaning Myrtle? It sounds like a pornographic houseplant."

He shrugged, face flushing at the use of the p word. "Uh, Myrtle is a ghost. She used to be a student here, died in one of the bathrooms like fifty years ago. Now she haunts the place and annoys anyone who goes in there."

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath and counting to ten. "I'm sorry." I said slowly. "You're telling me that one of the three bathrooms we narrowed it down to after the lake trip has the GHOST of a dead student living in it, and you didn't consider that her death might be related to the secret chamber we're looking for and the monster living inside that's been unleashed on the student body?"

He looked embarrassed. "Well, none of them have died. No students were even attacked, just a frozen cat. That's not the same thing right?"

Hermione cleared her throat. "I'm sorry." She said to all of us. "Ron's used to these things, he has an excuse, but I knew about Myrtle too, and I should have considered she might be involved in this. It would be absurd now that we've narrowed it down to that bathroom to assume she isn't connected to the chamber."

"So we go in, right?" Blaise asked eagerly. "Now that we know where it is, we need to go check the place out."

Suzie cut in. "No." She said bluntly. "It's too dangerous. We just found out a girl died in that bathroom, and it might be connected to the chamber. We need to find out as much as we can about the monster. We'll talk to Myrtle and try to figure out what the guardian is. We have plenty of information now."

"That's true." I agreed. "The Acromantulas said it's some kind of ancestral enemy of theirs."

Hermione nodded excitedly. "I'll bet it's using the pipes to move around too! Since the Chamber is connected. I'll do some research on it first thing."

"In the meantime, buddy system people." I reiterated. "I don't want anyone moving around alone." I shot D.B a stern look, making it clear she would be teleporting back to her dorm when necessary, and sticking with us otherwise.

Part of me wanted to walk down to that bathroom and blow it apart until I found the entrance, but Suzie was right. I was getting Prideful again. Whatever this thing was it had a body count, and the petrification made it seem like it was something dangerous. There might be a Medusa down there or something.

Devil bullshit helped in fights, but if a gorgon was waiting in that chamber I'd be shit out of luck probably. Best to figure out what it was and be prepared, which meant waiting. I supposed I could focus on classwork until then.

Not to mention Lockhart. I turned to Harry, who was having an amicable chat with Stori. "Hey did the twins mention anything to you about Lockhart? I still think he might be involved."

"Nothing specific." He frowned. "I know he's got a habit of leering, and some female students don't like him." He cut his eyes at Hermione. "Of course, some of them do, so that isn't saying much."

D.B frowned. "I don't." She said bluntly. "My friend Luna doesn't either. She's a freshman this year, but she says his first year class is terrible and he has bad energy. I think he's been bothering her in class, she's been sort of out of it. Pale and withdrawn. Might just be her though, I haven't known her long."

I grimaced. "If he's harassing a student enough to lose sleep we need to do something about it." I wasn't an altruist, but my girls were in that class, and I wasn't going to let some weird mind controlling sex predator try to get in their heads, even if I knew he would fail. If he tried to put a hand on Susan or Daphne I'd rip it off, and if he tried with Seras…well that might be funny to see. Vampires were hard to mentally tamper with.

"On that note we need to go." I sighed as I checked the time with my wand. "We have class, Trace." She blinked, then hopped up, kissing Shaggy on the cheek and we both booked it for Flitwicks while everyone else scattered. We were still working on anchors, but I'd been having fun in class, and I wanted to browse Flitwick's bookshelf for some more unusual charms I might be able to learn. Still, as we walked I couldn't help but dwell on everything we'd heard. Things were getting complicated. I just hoped we could end it soon.

December 9th, 2011, Great Hall, Hogwarts, Scotland, 7:30 AM BST

I slumped into the seat with my friends, glowering in annoyance. "Anything?" I asked tightly. As usual, no answer was forthcoming. I sighed and dug into my breakfast sulkily. Beside me, Seras snickered a bit, patting me on the shoulder. I sighed, glancing around to take in the empty seats around us. "Why am I not surprised?"

There had been another attack recently, and people couldn't seem to decide if they wanted to blame me or Harry. Everyone was avoiding us like the plague. Harry got more actual hate because people were too scared of me, but I saw the looks.

On the one hand, I knew it was a smart idea not to go down into the chamber without figuring out what the hell was down there. On the other hand, a month of 'hurry up and wait' was driving me insane. I wanted to rage, to break something, to unleash my wrath on whatever was implicating me in this bullshit.

Suzie sighed sadly. "I know, love. But whatever did this is dangerous. We can't go down there without preparing. You told me to remind you when you were letting your sins control you, and this impatience is nothing but wrath. I still think we should tell professor Dumbledore."

I slashed my hand in the air, cutting her off. "No. Dumbledore is a big softy. Word around the common room is he's gun shy about anyone in the school killing sapients. Seras and I wiped out a whole spider colony. Talking spiders. I'd prefer not to wind up in wizard jail for Arachnacide, because you just know that dumb shit is something they would do."

Not to mention I didn't really trust the old man. I respected him, but letting me keep the stone had been an objectively stupid decision from his point of view. Even I knew that. It stunk of someone playing games. Appreciating his lessons was fine, but this involved a lot of my secrets.

Which…kind of made me responsible for that Creevey kid getting petrified, but he was still alive. They'd unfreeze him and the cat in a few months from what I'd been told.

"Just…figure it out." I sighed. "I don't know how much longer I can resist blasting the floor open and going to take a look."

Val nodded in annoyance. "I'm with you boss man." She said bluntly. "You me and Knockers can take anything we run across. Even some stupid medusa. Just because it took down a few randos doesn't make it a badarse."

"It's not a Medusa." Cut in Daphne. "First of all because Medusa was a gorgon, and Medusa was her NAME. Second because we ruled that out. The petrification doesn't actually turn anyone to stone. Plus Medusa didn't have any issues with spiders." Blaise opened his mouth and she pointed at him threateningly. "Mention that story about her eating Ariadne's first born to me again and I will hex you. Whatever book you found it in was fiction."
Blaise sighed. "Truth is, we'd have a better idea what was going on if the damned thing was killing people. Petrification narrows the list down to a lot of things that don't add up."

"Worst case we can consult the library at Grimmauld." I said in annoyance. "Sirius is hosting everyone this year. After the raid on Malfoy Manor he's worried enough to overlook how much he hated his mom. The Black family home has the best wards, so that's where we'll be." Casting a tempus charm, I scowled. "Anyway, we have to go Trace, we've got class."

The one upside of the last month was our smooth advancement into the further reaches of enchanting. In point of fact, we'd advanced so smoothly Flitwick was going to let us start work on our first enchantment today.

Only a single charm, but still, it was a huge step forward. Tracey rolled her eyes, and I gave all three of my girls a quick kiss before we headed out, wanting to get a good seat.

When we arrived in Flitwick's class, it became clear we weren't the only ones excited. The diminutive teacher's room was already filling up. We managed to bully our way to the front (mostly because nobody wanted to get in my way) and grab seats, excited to see what was coming up.

Flitwick, who had been muttering to himself and scribbling on a parchment absently, finally seemed to notice us being here, and looked up, scanning the room. "Ah, I suppose you're all excited to get started. I always forget how big of an event this is for all of you." Hopping up onto the desk, he walked casually to the opposite side and then plopped down to sit on the edge.

"So." He said as he watched us. "Today will be your first true foray into enchantments. The skills and spells you've learned, vis a vis persistent charms, anchoring, and the various means of identifying materials, will all be put to use today, despite the relative simplicity of your first project."

Tracey put her hand up, and Flitwick nodded to her. "Hi, sorry, just wondering what that project is? Based on that comment I assume this will be a specific task we need to accomplish instead of being more freeform?"

"Very much so." He said with a smile. "As we move forward, your first several enchantments will be under my direction, as will your first several multi layer enchantments. Different charms work together differently, both with each other and with materials, and it's important you learn those mechanics in controlled circumstances."

This time I raised my hand, he rolled his eyes, calling on me. "Does that mean we will be designing our own enchantments eventually?"

"Yes." He said with a chuckle. "It'll be your final project, making an enchanted object with two charms on it. But you have to walk before you can sprint, and so this first enchantment will be mine to select."

We all waited with bated breath as he hopped up, turned around, and walked over to a box on his desk. Flipping it open, he drew and waves his wand like a conductors baton. As we watched, small objects began to float out one at a time, and as they came, they expanded in size.

As they emerged, it became clear they were bricks, floating across the room to thump down before each of us. It was an entertaining sight, and reminded me a lot of that old disney movie 'The Sword and the Stone'. Finally, the last brick thumped down, and he turned to grin at us as we all looked expectantly at the bricks.

"This," he said brightly. "Is Calk Stone. It is a low level enchanting material and particularly receptive to defensive enchantments. Today, we will be performing a basic hardening enchantment to give the bricks more durability. It is a common enchantment used in construction of high level buildings."

My face split into a grin, my earlier annoyance forgotten. This was PERFECT for me. It was exactly what I needed.

He walked over and began scrawling on the board from atop the desk. "Now, there are many factors that make enchanting complex. As we've mentioned before, intent and power are key, making much more potent enchantments. However, one of the quirks of enchanting is that the process must be altered to account for the strength of the caster."

Scrawling a rectangle with a series of lines, he circled several spots where they overlapped. "As you might have guessed, this is a rough approximation of the nodes you might find in a material that you would use for enchanting. Specifically, a common layout you'd find in Calk Stone."

"So this is what the inside looks like?" Asked Tracey as she poked with a stick, having used her detection charm to identify its ability to store energy.

Flitwick shook his head. "An approximation, as I said. You'll be learning to see within the stone before we begin. This is simply to help you understand the process. As you can see, different nodes are made up of different numbers of overlapping pathways. This means they have different levels of tolerance. Care to guess what effect that might have?"

Tracey looked pensive, before her face lit up. "Magic density. You said this varies based on the strength of the caster. More powerful spells would need to be applied differently."

"Correct." He said beaming. "And this comes back to magical tolerance. When enchanting an item, there are ways to make the tolerance go further. Saturation plays into this process as I mentioned so long ago. Specifically, by stretching your spell out and winding it through the nodes you can optimize the saturation of your material. What does this mean, miss Davis?"

"It means each time your charm spreads to a node some of the power is leached away." She said slowly. "So you have to thread the nodes in the correct order depending on the strength of the spell."

Flitwick slapped the table. "Magnificent." He crowed. "Ten points to Slytherin, that is exactly right. But don't forget, partially enchanted items won't function correctly. So even lower power spells need to be evenly applied, and that in itself takes a different kind of skill. Strong or weak magic, all must be taken into account."

He spent the next ten minutes instructing us on how to sense pathways and nodes, how to steer our magic (spoiler alert, it was with intent) and led us in priming our bricks, but finally it was time for us to begin.

We cast the hardening charm, one we'd learned early in the year (Duris), and then the fun began.

It was intoxicating. Power is a big thing to devils, and I'd gained lots of it, but in this instance, it was barely relevant. I half expected to suck at this like I did transfiguration, but I didn't. Something about the process felt easy, fun. I pushed my magic into the pathways of the brick enjoying the sense of a white hot star of magic in one end of the brick.

Flitwick hadn't mentioned that too much magic might burn out the material, but as I watched the stone started to fracture. I almost panicked, but ignored it, pushing it forward into the first node I was using, the largest (wasn't sure how I knew that) of the five or so at the end of the brick I started with.

As mentioned, the node absorbed some of the magic, the primed material greedily drinking in the spell, and then I pushed to the next largest node. I could see what would happen if I didn't pick a large enough node, but I was going slow and taking my time.

The brick had a total of about fifty nodes, the material crisscrossed with hundreds of pathways, but I didn't need to hit ALL of them, that would have been insane.

I needed to fully saturate the brick, but that meant an even number of nodes activated across the object, not all of them, even my spells didn't have that much magic. I pushed on, spreading across the brick one node at a time until I finally created a stable, evenly distributed web of magic in the brick.

Then, the last step. I had to feed the now relatively feeble thread of magic back into the first node to connect the enchantment, establishing the spell.

When it connected, I felt a rush of excitement as the magic inside the brick sort of…clicked. Suddenly it wasn't my magic anymore. It was the brick's magic. I could sense it, the same way I could sense any magic in the pathways of an object with the method Flitwick gave me.

Blinking, I looked up to find my smiling teacher standing in front of me. "Are you finished, Mr. Black?" I nodded, weirdly exhausted, and he grinned, flicking his wand in a powerful cutting curse. It hit the brick and bounced off at a controlled angle, smashing into the ceiling and sending down a plume of dust. "Well done." He said warmly. "As I expected."

Then he moved on, checking Tracey's and I felt a sense of triumph flood me. I'd done it, I'd made my first enchantment. It would be exponentially harder with more spells, but I knew how to do it. I couldn't wait to learn more.

December 18th, 2011, Hogwarts Express, Scotland, 12:30 PM BST

"I can't believe we're just leaving!" I moaned into my arm as I laid across Suzie's lap on the train. "We KNOW where it is, we could just pop down there and check it out before the break!" We were getting nowhere on identifying the monster, and I'd promised Suzie I would wait, so we STILL hadn't gone down into the chamber of secrets.

Even working on my enchanting hadn't been satisfying enough to distract me, though it had come pretty close.

Daphne snorted. "Your family library is likely to have better sources for dark creatures than Hogwarts anyway. Stop being so glum, we're going home for Christmas, and Stori and I are even staying with you for the holiday."

"Yeah." Said Astoria from the side where she was sitting next to Harry. "It's Harry's first family Christmas. Stop being such a sourpuss."

I snickered at her old fashioned terminology, but I sat up with a sheepish grin toward the boy who lived. "Sorry man." I said with a shrug. "Didn't really think about it. I didn't mean to kill your holiday buzz."

He just chuckled. "Not much to have a buzz about. I don't know what I'm getting into here. Stori insists it'll be the best Christmas ever, and aside from being terrified to disagree with her, I can't say that's a high bar. I'm definitely looking forward to getting away from Hogwarts for a bit. First time I've ever said THAT."

"Nah, I get it." I said with a laugh. "You've been getting the short end of the stick, even with Stori hexing people who mess with you." I smirked at the surprised look on her face. "Yes I know about that, though I'm impressed you've been getting away with it." She hadn't, I'd been having Val follow her and make sure she didn't get caught, but it didn't hurt to bump her confidence.

It was really sweet to see how seriously she was taking this friendship. Harry was like a skinny puppy, and Stori had all but adopted him. She looked out for him, talked to him when he seemed down, she even made him come to the grand hall to eat when he was feeling down and wanted to skip meals.

Shockingly, Blaise didn't seem overly jealous. I'd expected my self-absorbed friend to go on the attack with how she was so concerned with him, but he surprised me by taking the guy under his wing. Harry needed to 'learn to act like the badarse he was' according to Blaise, and he had taken it upon himself to 'teach him how to live'.

Harry beamed at her. "I knew there had to be a reason that Smith and his goons stopped cornering me in the halls."

"Actually that was me." I admitted. "I saw him harassing you and got annoyed, so I caught up with him and his friends on one of their jaunts and taught them a lesson." He raised an eyebrow at me and Suzie frowned, but I just winked at her. "I didn't hurt them, I just demonstrated how inconvenient the full-body bind can be when you anchor it."

I knew for a fact they'd gotten out of it, but I was betting it took whoever found them a few hours to think of disenchanting their ties.

Hermione, who had been reading up to now, sighed and slammed her book shut, briefly stirring a sleeping Ron, only for him to settle back in to sleep. "Do you MIND?" She sighed. "I'm trying to continue my research."

"Oh come off it Granger." Said Daphne with an eye roll. "Even you need to take a break sometimes. You've been looking for the answer non stop, and I somehow doubt it's going to be in those library books you've already read."

Suzie beamed at her. "Daphne! That was almost friendly! I'm so proud of you!" She threw herself across the car, wrapping her arms around my other girlfriend and squeezing her tight.

Laughing at the absurdity, Daphne broke down in giggles. "Get off me! I'm glad you're happy but I have a reputation to maintain." She pouted when the redhead refused to let her go. "Everyone is going to think I'm a weakling."

Val, who had been reading one of her uncle Gordon's books, snorted at that. "I'm the strongest person here." She said bluntly. "But if you ask any of these people who they're more scared of it's you. Seriously, princess, you're a stone cold bitch. I hope I grow up to be just like you."

Giggling, Suzie nodded. "What she said. Except without the cursing. I think you're really very sweet."

"You think salt is sweet." I snickered. At her pout, I held up both hands. "That's not an insult. We all love that about you. You're the heart and soul of this whole operation, and even if everyone is scared of Daphne, they're even more afraid of disappointing you."

It was why I'd picked her to be my conscience, and why I listened when she told me not to go down into that badass treasure hole. I looked over my friends, amused to see several of them sleeping already. Hannah and Theo had stayed up all night just to try to sleep through the ride. Hannah apparently got motion sick, even if she did a good job hiding it.

Tracey had passed out too, lying on Shaggy's lap, who was drooling on Scooby's fur. D.B was reading quietly, our only Ravenclaw every bit the nerd her sorting implied, and I couldn't help but smile at the peace and quiet in the train car, despite how overcrowded it was.

Seras wasn't here, having decided to teleport home. She could be out during the day, and often did so, but sitting in a train car baking in the sun was a bit much, so she took the short way back to London and met up with my mom.

But there was a darker side to this holiday too. War was coming to the wizarding world. Oh, the cult of the faceless had faded for the moment, retreating into the shadows without much sign of where they'd gone, but I knew better. Voldemort was pulling strings, and he was on the way back up. He'd hit us when we least expected it, and we needed to be ready.

I planned to get some combat lessons from my uncle while I was home for the holidays. He was no Dumbledore, but he and Harry's dad had been aurors back during the war. He was apparently a genius in DADA according to mom, and he had a knack for Transfiguration too, not that I expected to make much progress there.

Suzie, finished playing around with Daphne, walked back over to where I was sitting and plopped down, entwining her fingers with mine. "Sickle for your thoughts?"

"Wouldn't it be a knut?" I asked with a laugh. "I'm not sure my thoughts are worth a sickle."

She giggled. "I think they're worth more than that. Sadly the value of the Galleon has been dropping, inflation and all that. It's a buyers market. So I have to take advantage of my feminine wiles to bring the price down." She looked down at her tits, now a C-cup. "I'm not certain it'll be enough."

I smirked as I flicked my eyes to Daphne, who was staring at our redhead hungrily. Daphne liked politics and money, and hearing our sweet little Suzie joke about coin like that was bound to get her all worked up.

Not to mention Suzie was filling out her shirts awfully nicely lately, whether her devil shapechanging or the genes she got from her absurdly busty aunt were to blame I had no idea, but Daphne had been…appreciative. I was pleasantly surprised, but not really shocked. Daphne's animosity towards busty women had always been questionably intense, and finding out she liked top heavy girls had explained a lot.

Tracey, oddly, never seemed to notice, insistent Daph was just resentful of Stori's endowment. I wondered if wizarding culture was just really down on bisexual girls, that neither of them had seemed to consider it.

With me as an excuse though, Daph and Suzie had been getting awfully close, and I was looking forward to seeing them…come together, over the holidays. I was planning a little three way celebration when we could slip away, and I had high hopes for a wonderful evening.

It was funny, based on her casual demeanor when talking about it, I'd expected Seras to be the first to be open to a threesome, but my vampire remained pretty closed off to anyone but me. Not that I was planning to push. Seras was making good progress opening up to me and treating me more like a boyfriend than a boss. I had no desire to flush all that progress down the toilet because I wanted to get my dick wetter than it already was.

Looking down at a softly smiling Suzie, I grinned. "I was just thinking about how much all this means to me. And how I need to protect it." I didn't give voice to the rest of that sentiment. To the dark wrathful cauldron of bubbling rage that flared up at the idea of someone taking what was mine, or to the horrors I was pretty sure I'd inflict on anyone who tried.

Beaming, she laid her head on my shoulder. "You will. And we'll all help. Don't forget you're not doing this alone. We're all here for you."

Oh yes. I'd do horrible things to keep that smile on her face. Terrible things that would make your average man sick. Asclepius was a good first step, but I needed more power. More versatility. Lessons with Sirius and my mom would help.

I wondered how much of this was paranoia. I was safe here, on the train with my friends and loved ones. I could relax, could ignore the pit of fear gnawing at my gut at the thought of Voldemort out there getting stronger. But I didn't. He'd taken my dad from me. He could take more, and I didn't like being stolen from.

That said, I didn't have to live in that place. Even if it was always there, always chewing at me, I could put it away, live my life. Because letting it consume me was just as big a loss as doing nothing. So I shoved the wrath, the pride, and all the sorrow into a box, and I shoved that box in another box, and then I mentally mailed it myself and when it arrived…I smashed it with a hammer.

Chuckling aloud at my mental movie reference, I caught a puzzled look from Suzie. "Sorry, was just thinking of something…" I trailed off. "Hey, who wants to do a movie night when we get to the manor. I'm sure we could dig up something to watch some DVDs on." I wasn't sure of that, but I could teleport transglobally, so it wouldn't be hard to fake.

Suzie lit up. "Oh that sounds so fun! Hannah and Tracey make muggle movies sound amazing, what do you want to watch?" Her enthusiasm was adorable, which pretty much encapsulated my redhead in a nutshell.

I grinned as she snuggled up to me. "Well, I definitely have a few ideas." I said solemnly. "For instance, how would you like to watch a movie about the coolest cat in creation?" Her confusion was even cuter than her enthusiasm, and I launched into a brief but non spoiler laden summary of the Emperor's New Groove, after which she forced me to pitch new movies she could pick from.

Everyone got into it, some of the sleepers even waking up, and we took votes on exactly which movies we would be watching. Emperor's New Groove was a given, but I also had to go pick up a copy of El Dorado and the first two Brendan Frasier Mummy movies. At least my peerage had good taste.

December 18th, 2011. 12 Grimmauld Place, London, England 6:00 PM BST

I was a little put off when we arrived. "Wow." I said as we stepped into the front hall. "This place is…unique." Which was the nicest possible way that I could describe Grimmauld place. It was dirty, run down, and under all the dust the stuff that was actually in here looked old and weird. It was a shithole.

"It's a shithole." Responded my uncle as he stepped around the corner with a grin. "But it's got good wards and it's hard to find. You know what they say, it's not home but it's much." He stepped up and gave me a big hug. "Thank you." He muttered before letting me go, turning to look at Harry. "It's uh…nice to meet you." He said awkwardly. "I'm Sirius Black. Merlin you look like James."

My mother grumbled from behind us. "Can we perhaps have this touching reunion somewhere other than the doorway?" Her tone was light, ensuring none of us thought she was being critical, just pointing out the blockage.

"Sorry Sylvie." He said with an embarrassed grimace. "Come on in you lot, avoid the left side, my mother's portrait is hanging near the stairs and if you disturbed her she'll start wailing."

I grimaced. I'd heard enough about my paternal grandmother that I had no interest in meeting her, portrait or not, though I was guessing I might be able to do something about the portrait if he wanted it gone. Stepping inside and out of the way, I glanced around the living room we stepped into.

Val, who was coming up behind me, whistled loudly. "Damn, this is a nice place. Reminds me of Gordon's but without the good taste."

Sirius barked out a laugh as he and Harry followed us in, my mom leading the others upstairs to drop all their stuff off. Seras was carrying most of the bags, she and mom had picked us up when we reached london, and she was the strongest of us by far. "Yeah, the old bat was always on about keeping everything just so. Honoring our legacy."

"Your legacy are elf heads on a wall?" She asked bluntly. "Because I'll be honest, I'd probably send that one back."

He chuckled ruefully. "Pretty much. I'd claim there's other stuff that's important but 'elf heads on a wall' is as good a description of the Black Family as I can think of. And good taste huh? Maybe your uncle could help me liven this place up?"

Val choked on a laugh. "Somehow, I very much doubt it. He's dead." She paused. "Although, come to think of it maybe he can. Huh."

I laughed at that. I knew Val had a secret crystal recording of her uncle, an 'Echo Stone' as she called it. Given her position as my Queen she'd shared most of her big secrets with me. "So…who all is coming to this thing anyway?" I glanced at Sirius, who was apologizing to a laughing Val.

"Oh, everyone basically." He said with a shrug. "There's a huge dining room in this place for parties. Also a pool somewhere, though we seem to have lost it. It'll turn up eventually I'm sure, but given the kinds of things that sometimes get loose in the house I'm worried it'll have a kraken in it or something."

That got another laugh until I realized he wasn't joking, but I just shrugged it off. I could teleport so it didn't really matter.

I left him and Val to talk to Harry as I noticed someone else entering. A tired looking Tonks with a traumatized Andi and her husband. I broke off to approach my cousin, waiting until she got her parents settled and waved her over.

She leaned in for a hug. "Wotcher, Ryan." She said, despite me having no fucking clue what that meant. "Happy Christmas."

"Merry Christmas." I said with a smile. "You look like shit."

Rolling her eyes, she chuckled at my frankness. "You charmer. I'm sure the girls are all over you." Then she paused. "Shit they actually are, aren't they. That's just so unfair. But yeah, I'm fine. I just…things have been bad. The church of the faceless hasn't shown up again in the open, but the bastards have been scuttering around in the shadows."

"You part of Dumbledore's…" I waved around. "Thing? I don't know, he said something to Lupin about old friends, seemed portentous."

She nodded. "Order of the Phoenix. Some old boys club of wizards held over from the first war. Most of the originals are dead, but there are a bunch of them from the fight with You-Know-Who still ready to scrap. Problem is we don't know exactly who to scrap with."

"Val can put you in touch with someone." I said after a minute of thought. "Her friend China grew up with those assholes. What about Voldemort's crew. I told Dumbledore about being attacked by Crouch and Greyback, he pass that on?" Those weren't even close to that bastard's best, but Greyback was his in with the werewolves at least.

She sighed. "He did. But these faceless freaks are working with more than just him. Grindelwald had an entire battalion for interfacing with vampires and werewolves, and they're still around. They went to ground in muggle germany after the war, before that muggle dictator lost his hold on his forces but we've been hearing rumblings of them resurfacing. They're calling themselves Millenium."

"Fantastic." I drawled. "Because that's all we need. Nazi werewolves." I waved her off. "I'll put Dumbledore in touch with Vincent and Alucard when I get back. For now, it's Christmas. Let's just enjoy the holiday. How is Andi?"

That got another sigh. "Not great." She admitted. "I wish I could tell you different, but she and Cissy were…well not close, not anymore, but my aunt was the one member of her family that never really severed all ties. Even if it was just the occasional sneering conversation, she was around."

I frowned in sympathy as I saw Ted try to convince his wife to take Sirius up on a glass of firewhiskey. He was introducing Harry to Andi, but the woman mostly just seemed lost. "It's been like this since she heard?" I asked worriedly. I'd seen how down she'd been last time we'd talked, but that was expected. Still being so out of it after months was worrying.

"She has good days." Tonks said miserably. "But they're few and far between. I'm not sure what to do."

I was. Or I had an idea. "I'll have Seras talk to her. Maybe hearing from someone else who's lost people semi recently will help." It was hard to believe Seras had been with us for over a year already. Her presence was just kind of something I took for granted. I resolved myself to spend more time with her. She was less insistent than Daphne and Suzie, and it was easy to put her on the backburner, even if I shouldn't.

Tonks brightened. "Oh, I like her. That might help. Thanks Ryan. How about you? Word around the auror office has been Hogwarts is kind of a mess with everything going on."

I shrugged. "More for Harry than me. Everyone is too afraid to say shit to me. I imagine being shunned would bother most people, but I can't bring myself to care about the opinions of a bunch of randoms." The concerns of wizards just seemed…small. I was going to live for ten thousand years, and most of these people would be dead in a century.

Of course, I knew that was probably my pride talking, but I didn't care much in this particular instance. The ability to divorce myself from the opinions of my peers was useful, and I had my peerage to keep me grounded. Family too, but the average Hogwarts student could fuck right off.

"Nasty business, this Chamber of Secrets nonsense." She scowled. "If it keeps up the board is going to shut Hogwarts down. I'm just glad everyone there is already an adult. I can't imagine trying to keep the place open if it was a primary school or even a high school. With this kind of danger they'd have shut down in a second."

"Of course." I said with a snort. "It would be wildly irresponsible to keep a bunch of school kids trapped in a castle with an evil creature that petrifies people. What kind of educator would do something like that?"

Heading over to the others, I dropped down next to Andi, who my mom was trying to engage in conversation. "Hey, Merry Christmas auntie, you look lovely as always." I went out of my way to completely ignore her run down state. "Ted's lucky we're related or I might try to steal you away from him." I winked at the other man to let him know I was kidding.

He seemed to know what I was doing, because he shot me a grateful smile. Andi snorted, a bit of light coming back into her eyes. "See, this is how I know you weren't raised a proper Black. We're all much better liars than that. I look like mulched hypogriff dung."

"What the fuck is a mulched hypogriff?" I asked in confusion. "And why is its shit somehow worse looking than regular shit?"

She burst out laughing, covering her mouth as peals of silvery giggles emerged. "Oh, I needed that. Thank you Ryan." She leaned forward to give me a hug. "In case that was sincere a hypogriff is an animal. They're like eagle horses."

"That sounds hideous." I said matter of factly. "No wonder their shit is ugly. I don't get why you'd even need one of those. Wizards can teleport." Badly, granted, and I might have avoided it if it was my only way to travel too, but it was still a thing they could do.

She shrugged. "Same reason people have brooms I imagine."

"Nah, those are for quidditch." I laughed. "Anyway, I'm psyched to have you guys here for Christmas, it's cool that Sirius had us all over. I didn't get you guys anything though. I don't have the bags of money I used to have. Now I have smaller and more finite bags of money."

She laughed again. "I wasn't expecting anything, though I'm sure Sirius shopped for everyone. He's just kind of like that."

My uncle smirked. "What can I say, I've always been a master at giving gifts. Nobody else was half as good. I remember one Christmas I got James a tiny model of a Ukranian Ironbelly enchanted to lie on top of the gold in his vault and guard it from trespassers. He was in stitches for weeks."

"That sounds like the two of you." Andi said with a snicker. "I imagine Lily didn't get a similar toy?"

"What are you, crazy?" Sirius said with a wince. "I got her an acromantula silk robe. She did NOT appreciate gag gifts for holidays." He shot a grin at Harry. "Your mum was very big on holidays. I remember the one Christmas you had with them, she decorated the whole house top to bottom. Even expanded the living room to put in a giant tree and decorated the whole thing. It was brilliant."

Harry was beaming. "That sounds really nice. Do you have any pictures?"

My uncle sighed. "No, my possessions were mostly seized by the ministry after I was arrested. No clue what happened to them, though I'm looking into it. I'll let you know if any turn up."

"So." I said, half to distract them from the downer topic and half because I was curious. "Where's your house elf? Our manor came with one, so this one must have an elf too right?" I glanced around at the filthy room. "Or was that not a thing here."

He snorted, then went off on a tangent about his mothers crazy racist elf. We all laughed, except Hermione who just glowered but didn't say anything. It was a nice night, and I couldn't wait to enjoy the rest of my vacation.

As usual pat-reon has the advanced chapters at that site /malcolmtent