Pre-Chapter A/N:Remember when i said this one might end up coming a bit late? Guess who underpromised and over-fucking-delivered? This guyyy. Thank you for the kind wishes. The assessment went well, I think. So full speed ahead to the bar finals, I guess. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
"The first thing you need to understand is that Ojin was, in many ways, the brightest apprentice I ever had, and will most likely ever have," Flamel began the conversation with, a smile on his face, looking surprisingly proud. I gave him the most doubtful look my face could contort itself into, because this man had trained Dumbledore. And by Ojin's own admission, he was scared of the Headmaster.
"Albus? Yes, I see why you would think that. Albus Dumbledore is a genius. Easily a once-in-a-generation intellect. But far from the brightest I ever taught. I would place him as one of the five greatest, but not as number one."
"You've taught five people brighter than Dumbledore? And you think Ojin is brighter than four of them?" I asked, still doubtful.
"Indeed. When it comes to magical talent, Albus has more of it in his finger than I do in my whole body. In truth, he was probably a wrong fit for me, because my talents have never lain in my magical ability. While over two millennia, I have been able to work my way into becoming a wizard that few could hope to contend with, that is more a function of the amount of time I have had to work at it than my magical talent. My mind, however, is unmatched. Bright as Ojin might be, I am brighter. Dumbledore would fall on the other end of the spectrum. His mind is sharp as most you will ever see, but not quite at the level to compare to some of the best in the world," he said.
"And what makes Ojin so bright? So much better than everyone else you've ever trained?" I asked, silently killing the urge to ask him where he felt I fell on that spectrum. That was not the kind of question that would do anything useful for my sense of self.
"He can see things in the world no one else can. See connections the world remains blind to. His mind allows him to use these connections he sees to create the most fascinating outcomes. His research has for the most part been on connecting magical creatures and humans, making halfbreeds of creatures that were previously thought incompatible with the human genome," he said.
"So he's a crossbreeder then. Sorry to burst your bubble, Nicholas, but Hagrid, the Groundsmaster at Hogwarts, does that as well," I shot back.
"Did you have the chance to meet that daughter of his? Truly a fascinating creature," he said.
"What is she? Another halfbreed? That's not all that impressive, far as I'm concerned," I asked.
"What? Oh, she is fully human."
"That's not possible. I saw her skin turn blue and she was using ice like second nature."
"Indeed. And yet I can assure you that if you were to scan her with all the most advanced spells, the outcome would be the same. She is fully human. He created her by binding the spirit of an elemental with a human soul. Killed the poor thing's mother in the process, but in doing so created one of the most unique specimens the world will ever see," he said. Not having any reply to that, I took us back on track.
"So we can expect him to have a horde of halfbreeds at his defense when we go for him. What else?"
"What else, indeed," Nicholas chuckled before continuing.
"He will be expecting us. In fact, by now he should be aware of the fact that I am aware of his theft. If he has any wisdom, he would have gone to ground in Japan where I will not be able to touch him."
"You will not be able to touch him there? I thought you said we were going to Japan?"
"We are. But beyond getting you there, you will be doing the bulk of the work for stealing my stone back."
"What?"
"I will, instead, create the kind of distraction that will be necessary to give you the opening you need. Magical Japan is unlike anywhere you have ever been, so trust me to say, you will need to be prepared."
"Yeah, yeah, but I still haven't heard why I will be doing the bulk of the work as you say."
"Well, you are the one who lost the stone."
"Nah-uh, you knew he was after that. Either him or someone else. Why else would you have left me with the stone instead of taking it yourself?" I asked, letting one of my suspicions out.
"I had not expected him to make his move the way he did. In truth, you were bait so I would find out who had corrupted Julian. If I had known Ojin had begun operating in Europe again, I would have taken my stone and gone to ground."
"Well, either way you can't blame me for the loss of the stone when you were the one who chose to use it as bait in the first place."
"Good argument, but you are the apprentice here."
"And so?"
"And so you have to do whatever it is I say."
"No dice, Nicholas. I am willing to do the stealing if you prepare me well enough. But let's just say I'm going to charge a lot more for it."
"What do you want? More vials of the elixir? I am willing to bump your payment to five?" I laughed at the suggestion.
"Nice one. Twenty vials at the minimum. Plus twenty million galleons."
"Yes to the gold. Six vials of the elixir at most," he said, saying yes to what I felt was a ridiculous ask easily. Fuck. I should have gone higher with the gold.
"Ten vials and twenty-five million galleons," I said.
"Nope. Already said yes to your gold offer. Next time be a bit more ambitious. As for the vials, seven is the highest I am willing to go. That gives you seven whole lifetimes. Who would need more?" he asked. I gave him the best 'are-you-fucking-with-me' look I could manage.
"So says the immortal alchemist."
"Be that as it may. Seven is my final offer. Don't act like you aren't aching for the trip to Japan already. You want your revenge on Ojin just as surely as I want my stone back," he said.
"Fine. Deal." I said.
"Good. Now the first thing we need to do is get you ready."
"Get me ready?" I asked, wondering what he was talking about.
He turned to me, his eyes half-lidded.
"The last time you faced Ojin, you didn't even last more than a few seconds according to your own admissions. I need to get you to the level where you would manage to escape from him with some effort," he said.
"Escape? Escape? What use is that? I want to beat him," I said, clenching my fist.
"The goal is to steal my stone back. What part of the goal makes you think a long battle with Ojin falls into my plans?"
"Well, shame for that plan. You want your stone, and as you said, I want my revenge. I want to beat him," I said, feeling the desire burn itself into my very being. What he had done to me— leaving me there like I was some sort of fodder that did not matter. It was unforgiveable, and I would not rest until I got to do the same right back to him.
"Do I look like I happen to be made of time? We haven't the time to get you to that level," he said.
And that was exactly what I expected him to say because I was already slipping my hand beneath my neckline and pulling on the chain I wore around my neck to reveal the time turner.
"Is that a—"
"Yes," I said, and instead of doubting it, he nodded like it made perfect sense that a teenager would have one of the most dangerous magical items in the world in his position with the freedom to use as he wished.
"That explains a fair amount of your progress then. So you want to use this time turner to accelerate your progress with training?"
"Accelerate? That's too tame. Nicholas, you and I are going to supercharge my progress," I said.
"Well enough. With this, we can make a fair amount of progress. If you apply yourself and have as much magical talent as I hope you do, then this will be possible. It will be the hardest thing you have ever done— the training I will put you through, but you will come out of it stronger than ever."
"I don't need a sales pitch, Nicholas. This was my idea after all," I said.
"That was a warning, you brat," he said in reply.
"Huh. Sounded like you were only listing the pros. I don't care how hard it is. There is nothing that will stop me from achieving my goals."
"Let us hope that this is not something you come to regret then. I will ask permission from your Godfather for Perenelle and I to stay a bit longer than planned. That should give us the time to get a few things into your head. And you, you will be going to see Perenelle," he said, turning away, and heading back to the Villa proper.
"Perenelle? What do I have to go do with her?"
"That's my wife you speak of, boy. I would be more polite if I were you."
"I am being polite. She scares me," I said, making the admission with no shame at all. I really should not have kept talking when she was conjuring my bones yesterday. I couldn't prove it for sure, but I was relatively certain that she had conjured the bone on my fingers without any joints on purpose.
"She scares me as well, Harry. Now suck it up and go see her," he said without turning around.
—
"It's only due to what I can only describe as a stupendous amount of dumb luck that you are still alive, Harry," she said as she examined the spectral avatar she had conjured from my body after she had me lay down on the conjured examination slab.
It was unlike any diagnostic charm I had ever seen. I could see a completely translucent version of myself floating above my body. She could see inside my bones, and muscles, and even my magic, swapping between them with waves of her wand. Part of me wanted to ask what this was, but the better part of me— the majority— recognised it was a bad idea because of what she had done with my hands only a day earlier.
"Don't worry, you can speak freely, Harry." What? How had she known what I was thinking about exactly?
"How did you know that? Are you some sort of mutant Legilimens?" I asked, because that was the only way I could imagine that she had managed to get my train of thought so exactly.
"Let's just say I have a talent for finding out what I want, the second I want to. Also add the fact that one needn't be a Legilimens to learn to read body language. A skill that I find more useful now that the more knowledge of Occlumency is out there. It bleeds down to the masses, they spend all their time learning to guard their minds from invasion that they never have the time to wonder in which other ways they are giving away all that is going on in those heads of theirs."
"I see. But that's enough of that. What do you mean I should be dead?" I asked as she continued to look through the scan.
"The ritual you did. Let's just say that you somehow managed to botch it, but instead of your skin turning inside out and your bones turning to dust, it seems magic itself stepped in and allowed you to get away with it."
"What?"
"You think adding so many creatures into the ritual while your magic remained in a state of flux would have ended well in a usual situation?" she asked.
"Now I wonder how you could have managed to put your magical system in such a persistent state of flux in the first place," she said, asking the question without asking. I turned away, not interested in getting into that one.
'Oh, I am an inter-dimensional intruder to this universe and I took over the body of Harry Potter and then combined him with the fragment of Tom Riddle's soul to create an even bigger whole than the sum of their parts would have ever been able to manage and that probably had my magic doing strange things for a while'. Yeah, saying that wasn't going to end well in any way.
"Fine. Be like that. Nicholas says you intend to train with a time turner to improve your progress," she said.
"Wait. He was heading in literally the opposite direction, and I came straight here. He hasn't come in since then either. So how do you know that?" I asked. She rolled her eyes in response. "Magic, of course."
"Of course," I echoed sarcastically.
"Are you sure that is the route you want to follow?" she asked.
"You're speaking like I have other options."
"You always have other options. Nicholas won't be ready to move for a few months at least. You could just accept the progress you make naturally in that time," she said.
"But then I could make double the progress in that time instead. It's not really a question as far as I am concerned."
"Ahh... The impatience of youth. Either it happens now or it never happens at all. Such a short-sighted way of thinking," she sighed, looking disappointed.
"Well, it could be that, or it could be that immortality has blinded you to the fundamental nature of humanity. We have finite lives here. Our lives are short, so of course we hurry from place to place and from objective to objective, trying to save as much of that precious time as possible. You on the other hand, are like a child with infinite gold placed in a toy shop. You could feasibly buy anything. Do anything you want, because eventually you will find the time for it no matter what. Just from speaking to you a few times, I can tell that you could do everything, and so you tend to do nothing most of the time. Paralyzed with the infinite array of choices before you," I said, turning to gaze into her eyes, and finding them looking into the distance. She was silent for a moment and then she turned to the side.
Her trunk opened up and a tray of potions came out of it.
"These are inventions of mine," she said as the tray floated until it was right in front of me. There were about a dozen of every potion, and four unique potions within it.
The potions were arranged in order, twelve of each, and each demarcated by a small barrier in the tray that separated them from the others.
"This is the cocktail of potions I have Nicholas use whenever he decides to embark on a similarly foolish jaunt through time. Of course, he does it so he can study time itself, not out of a foolhardy desire for power."
"Yeah, yeah, you don't like my priorities. Gimme," I said, making a grabbing motion with my hands. She sighed. I noticed she did that quite often.
"Settle down. First I have to explain what each of these will do to you so you understand why you will be taking them. I find that when Nicholas understands the rationale behind what he is taking, he is more likely to actually follow through and I suspect you are much the same. The first is a mental acuity potion. My own brew. It will prevent your mind from dulling no matter how much strain you put it through. This is ideally taken first thing in the morning. They each have ideal times for taking them, but I have engineered them so they still are effective even if you choose to chug them all down first thing in the morning as Nicholas often tends. This potion is perhaps the most important of the four, as it is the only thing that can allow you keep up with having four days in one without breaking down," she said, pointing at the one that glowed a bright ethereal blue.
"Four days in one?" I stumbled.
"Did you not say you were interested in accelerating your progress? Nicholas has found that at anything more than five days in one, the turner begins to exert too much force on the human body for it to be a comfortable experience. So four will be your limit," she said, and I nodded, even as I realized that this was a far more ambitious schedule than I had dared to imagine. Four days a month for a month was four months worth of progress. Three months was a whole year.
Next, she picked up the one that was clear as water.
"This is a sleep enhancer. It optimizes your sleep so you receive unnatural benefits from your sleep. The science behind it is complex, but I can summarize by saying it converts all your sleep to REM sleep. Of course, not just that, but that's all you need to know about it. If you manage eight hours with this, it can feel like you've gotten about thirty-two hours of rest. So use it right before a sleep cycle," she said, dropping it and picking up the bright red one.
"This is for your body and magic. It will enhance the rate at which both recover to allow you to have multiple training sessions as you intend," she said, not going into much detail before picking up the orange one.
"Now this one will allow your body to handle the strain of living multiple days in one. It's my best attempt at trying to shield you from the temporal energies you will be exposed to. Regardless, you can expect that you will be aging at an enhanced rate," she said.
"Enhanced rate?"
"You will be living four days in one. Expect to age at half again the rate as if you had lived all four days in truth," she said, and I whistled.
"Indeed. Good thing you are so young. Now take these and begone."
She didn't need to tell me twice.
A/N: Training arc? Yeah, yeah. Next four chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.