A/N- Hey guys. So this one is coming a bit late. Good news is that real life stuff got in the way in the best of ways. I graduated from Uni at the beginning of this week. This means I have a lot more time to dedicate to my writing, so I hope that translates to an uptick in quality. There's so much shit I want to explore and have fun with and now I get to do that. As for this story, expect the next update on Wednesday next week and know you could skip the wait and rea the next two chapters as well as continuous updates on Pa-treon right now. Since I now qualify as an unemployed member of society, all subscribers on my pa-treon are much appreciated. If you enjoy my writing, then please don't hesitate to support it if you can. For Pa Treon, you can remove the hyphen between Pa and Treon and Google it, then search for my username—Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting it in your address bar.
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"Seven thousand Galleons" I repeated with a mental whistle at the thought of taking such a hit to my finances. It was part of the reason I'd been so quick to sell the venom to the goblins at the price I did. It was why I knew that I'd have to pursue means of generating income sooner rather than later. From my first life, it had been a long time since I'd had to worry about how much something cost before buying it, and new life or not, Doom refused to live as anything but what he was. Eminent. Magnificent. Powerful.
He wrapped his first set of robes around himself with a smile, and allowed the green cloak float around him under the influence of his levitation spell before resting on his shoulders. He already had ideas for what he could do with the cloak once he got around to enchanting the bloody thing. Oh that Stephen Strange bastard was going to be so jealous if he ever got to see this thing after he finished. It would teach him. Doom was not one easily spurned, Masters of the Mystic Arts or no.
"Plus tax" Twilfitt added with a smile on his face, that Doom found himself returning. They had settled on 15 Pairs of casual robes, along with several more under robes, and then three dress robes for a variety of occasions, in addition to the two duelling robes that he would have made once he returned with the basilisk skin that the old tailor would be making use of. With a wave of his wand, the requested amount of gold flew from his pouch and nearly piled itself on the cashier's desk.
The tailoring master merely gave the pile of coins a single look before sweeping them into a drawer with a wave of his own wand.
"Would you prefer delivery by owl, or to return here in person to receive the rest of your clothes? I was able to make the first few sets with some haste, but the others will take no less than a week, and the duelling and dress robes will take even longer" he said.
"I will return in person to pick them up. Expect me in a few hours with the basilisk skin as discussed so you can begin with the duelling robes as soon as possible. As you are obviously aware, you will have to hasten the production of the first set."
"Indeed. The first task approaches. Best of luck, Mr Potter" he said, and I left the shop with a nod at him as I commanded my purchases to float beside me. Shrinking them was going to be impossible or rather more magically tasking than worth it. The robes, made of high grade acromantula silk for most, and then either tautersheep wool or cashmere from the rare Myotragus goat, were highly magical resistant and so any magic I used on them would wear against that resistance. It didn't mean I could use them to block offensive spells in lieu of a shield charm, but it did mean they were unlikely to be animated to strangle me. I made it to the Alley's apparition point, making sure to memorise it for my return trip, and spun on my heel with a sharp crack.
The second trip to the alley was quicker than the first. A stop at my box to collect my potioneering equipment and about 30 magically inert flasks-basically my whole supply, but I wasn't attending potion classes so it was not like I had anything better to do with it. Especially since Potter had never needed the flasks in his potioneering kit in four years of magical education and since he had the habit of refilling the kit every year without fail, his flask supply had got somewhat ridiculous. Each flask was rated to contain about 20 ounces of the magical liquid. That meant that filling each of them up should net him about… 450 galleons per ounce, 20 ounces per flask, and 30 flasks made 600 ounces of the fluid all in all and that was a total value of 270,000 galleons. He had to double take and run the numbers again to be sure.
And then he made a decision. Fill only 10 flasks to cement his place as a supplier, while alluding to having more. Gringotts goblins did not have the largest cursebreaking division. That honour went to the American goblins, so he figured that the local infestation of the cursed creatures were going to use only about half for their own sites and then sell the rest on for a tidy profit. It was what he would have done in their place, since opening all the sites was also going to come with certain disadvantages. All this, Tom Riddle had learned from a combination of Binns' class and conversations with all sorts of pureblood with differing levels of relationships with the goblins. He'd known that he was the heir of Slytherin, and had been careful to research the creatures before his disgrace, and afterwards, his research had taken a different turn. More on killing them, ruining their business, and all sort of ways to get revenge on them for the disgrace they'd subjected him to. It put Riddle's slaughter of Gringotts at the end of the last book in an entirely different light.
Filled vials in his satchel, he apparated to the Alley once again.
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Occlumency means the art of hiding the mind. To occlude, to obscure, to make difficult to read. It was not so much about creating shields or mental fortresses or whatever generations of fan fiction writers and online theorists had thought up, but simply taking the mind and hiding it from those who would seek to influence it for their own ends.
Even as a child, Tom Riddle has had some amount of talent for the mind arts. The meeting with Dumbledore gained a different level of clarity when I experienced the memory with the understanding that a Tom Riddle who had been used to reading people like open books could not get a single glimpse into what Dumbledore had been thinking. During their trip to the alley, it was Dumbledore who advised Tom Riddle to be more careful with his legilimency probes. That action alone had probably saved the boy's life. Of course, the words Dumbledore used had too him to stop them altogether, but just like with Doom and Potter, Tom Riddle cared little for authority that was not his own and took the words to mean, "don't get caught".
Now, I'd inherited much of that talent. I just had to actually use it. An unorganised mind could scarcely be hidden. Sure, talent was enough for cursory probes like what one would expect from the Headmaster in a crowded room, but I had to take it to the next level if I had any intention of surviving in this world for any longer. The first decision was to avoid treating my mind like 3. That was where insanity lay. There was naught but foolishness in that direction, so I brought them all together. Riddle, Potter, and Doom. All three lives would have to coexist in the same set of memories. The basis would be Doom. He had lived longest and had the most dominant personality of the three regardless.
On top of Doom came Riddle, and then after that came Potter. No longer Doom, Riddle, and Potter, they were now one. Me. I considered my options after that, choosing to organise the memories this way also meant that Potter's memories would be the first that anyone who managed to breach my Occlumency would be subjected to, and with the knowledge that those were my least valuable memories, I left things that way and moved on.
I straightened up, and just as I'd expected, the hours had passed quickly. The body of the Basilisk was reflected in the smooth marble floors of the chamber, giving the entire place a brilliant green glow that remained regardless of what hour it was. But still, the watch on his wrist told him that curfew had long passed, so he could get to work on the mission of the night.
A wave of his wand sent the pillows he'd been meditating on flying right back into the mouth of his ancestor's statue, and summoned his box to him in the same movement. Death's invisibility cloak did not answer to human magic, so it was not possible to summon it across distances. Instead, he'd taken to having it on him at all times outside the chamber. For one, it made it ridiculously easy for him to do so. For another, if there was ever a time he needed to make a quick getaway, he knew the cloak would not fail him. Folding it on itself, it only took a few folds until it was about the size of a handkerchief, and magical effects he could not understand meant that it took on that same level of thickness when he went to slip it into his pocket.
That done, he waved his wand over himself-executing a few quick transfigurations. In low light, with his now blond hair, higher cheekbones, and thinner features, he would be mistaken for a Malfoy. That done, he then tapped his wand over his head, resisting the urge to wiggle as the sensation of an egg breaking above him travelled over his body.
Disillusioned and disguised, he began his trek towards the forbidden forest. The Chamber of the Secrets had a few entrances and exits that he was aware of, and probably more that he had never been able to find. One of them was right into the heart of the forbidden forest, and that was what he was going to be using. Considering Tom had been the last to see it, he did not feel comfortable enough to consider apparating to it. Ginny had been possessed by the Diary for a whole year, so it would not turn out to be much of a surprise if he had made a few changes in the area, and the slightest mess up when it came to visualisation could throw off one's apparation by quite a bit. Wizards in public were more than willing to risk it as the ministry was quick to respond to reported splinchings, so the risk was lower, but he would not have such a safety net for a long, long time. Possibly, even never, depending on how things ended up developing in the war or wars to come.
He arrived at the exit, and took a deep breath and thanked his better sense for not apparating. The space he was familiar with had suffered some sort of cave-in. He waved his wand to clear the space and repair the arch only to be forced to notice that the damage was purposeful. Much like that of a blasting curse. Considering the forbidden forest exit was the one way for the basilisk to leave the castle and go hunting, then it had been done to keep it stuck here. Stuck here and hungry. The more he thought about it, the more doom was forced to realise that Tom Riddle, even after only a single horcrux, had been a uniquely cruel soul. One did not need to be Shakespeare to figure out was intended.
Dumbledore had been chased from the school. The Boy Who Lived should have died in combat with the basilisk in any reasonable man's contemplation, and Tom Riddle would have a brand-new body gained from the life-force of a freshly dead Ginerva Weasley. One way to smear the old man's reputation forever and ensure that the attention of the Wizarding world would be far from him and his reawakening would be unleashing a hungry basilisk in a school full of children. He had gone to the effort of killing all the roosters as well, so there was no chance of the beast being taken out easily. It would have killed hundreds before being either defeated or trapped and locked away.
A massacre of such scale would create the perfect smokescreen for whatever he wanted to do in the aftermath. Would also serve as one hell of a way to introduce the world to a new Dark Lord. Would probably get him more props than Voldemort just off of sheer evil alone.
Doom walked through the arch and into the forest proper after making sure to silence his movements with a quick flick off his wand.
"Point me Dragons" He tried, placing his wand on the flat of his palm and intensely calling up the image of a dragon in his mind. The wand span out of control, moving in every which way for a few seconds before coming to a stop pointed directly in front of him. The book had described this effect. It meant that there were no dragons within range of the spell. That meant he had to walk deeper into the forest because he was certain that there was no chance that the dragons would be any closer to the castle than this, so they had to be further.
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The Forbidden Forest. Some thought of it merely as an addition to Hogwarts grounds to give the school some aura of magical supremacy. Of course, those were fools who knew less about history than children. The Forbidden Forest had been around long before Hogwarts foundation was laid. It would exist long after the School was torn down. It was an inherently magical site, even older than Stonehedge when it came down to it. It was the home to so many magical creatures that even the books had no idea what exactly called the forest home.
One author had written that it was more likely for a creature to be found in the forest than it was for it not to be. Of course, that was only really the case when it came to the truly deeper areas of the forest. The areas where the ministry and Hogwarts had essentially given up on regulating and instead allowed to operate as a place of its own. The areas of the forest where the sun did not reach and things went bump in the night.
It was those areas that he found himself walking towards as he went deeper and deeper into the forest. His point me spell was yet to register anything, and he was beginning to have the sinking feeling in his stomach that there were no dragons in the forest, and that could mean a million and one things. He just hoped it was not the case. Such a canon divergence so early in his time here would toss into doubt a lot of the things he hoped he would be able to rely on, and so he kept searching. Of course, the sinking feeling was not helped by the sounds of skittering as multiple giant spiders- acromantula- moved across the tree line that he walked beneath.
He had not expected to find a subsection of Aragog's colony all the way here. They lived much closer to the School than this lot were, he knew from the time he'd been forced to escape from them in his second year. He kept a careful eye on both the spiders above, and the foliage below to make sure that he didn't step on anything and trigger their attention. His spells were holding up for now, but he remained alert for any failures.
When he finally came to what felt like the end of the nest, he could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Of course, that did not mean he was home free. In the corner of his eyes, he spotted some sort of creature. He froze as it jumped right in front of him. His wand was already raised to deal with the interference, but it seemed to ignore him and keep on running. After it came the sound of thundering hooves. A centaur. A very familiar centaur chased after the wolf and that was all he needed to see to pursue after them.
They tore through the forest at a rapid pace, and only circulating his magic through his body allowed him to even keep them within his sights as they darted through the foliage with inhuman grace. Where he found himself unable to keep up with their acrobatics, he resorted to magic. A cutting spell removed a root from his headline as opposed to ducking underneath it, and a simple elasticity charm on the ground allowed it to function as a trampoline for him to jump over a massive gorge that both creatures had skied with little thought.
When he landed with a role, he found that the hunt had come to an end. Firenze stood over the creature with an arrow lodged in its throat. At that moment, he noticed that it was the only arrow the centaur had fired all through. And also the fact that there was another arrow lodged in the centaur's bow and aimed right at him.
"The stars foretold your coming, Harry Potter" He said, showing recognition, but failing to lower the boy.
"Well met, Firenze my old friend" I said, only to receive narrowed eyes and a tightening of his grip on the bow. One of his hooves tapped on the ground almost impatiently.
"Mars is bright tonight, Harry Potter. Why dost thou wear the appearance of another?" He asked with audible distrust.
"Just to prevent detection by those who would see me harmed, my friend" He scoffed at the words, turning up his nose at me in a way that made me want to lash out with my magic and bring the damned creature to heel. But I held on and exercised patience. Doom was no stranger to insults. He just had to make sure he got what he wanted in the end.
"What a cowardly means to avoid what is foretold. The fates are not pleased. Mars is bright tonight" He said again, and I almost sighed as I dispelled my transfigurations hoping that would be enough to clear the tension, but it did not.
"I didn't come to fight you tonight, Firenze. I came looking for something here."
"In the forest? This one remembers warning thee that thee hath few friends here in this forest".
"Yes, I know that. I came looking for something recent. Something placed here for the competition taking place in the school".
"Harry Potter speaks about the creature of fire." I breathed a sigh of relief as I watched his grip on his bow lighten.
"Yes. Precisely. The dragons. Where are they?" I asked, only for my hope of a peaceful night to disappear with the sound of approaching hooves.
"You have spoken too much, Firenze. Mars is bright tonight" Another centaur said, and this one, I noticed, did not seem to like me very much.
He came with even more of his kind, and it took me little time to realise that in a matter of seconds, I'd become trapped between the Centaurs who surrounded my front and the gorge to my back.
A/N; Cliffhanger? If you're really excited about this, then you can skip all the waiting and read the next two chapters of this up on my pa-treon right now. And if you come from any of my other stories, please do me the favour of commenting which story that is.