[ September 4, 1973. ]
The morning started with the return of four doppelgangers from the Room of Requirement. They brought back three bags: the first held valuable but non-magical items that could be restored and sold — books, jewelry, records, and so on; the second contained non-dangerous and clearly defined magical objects; the third was filled with openly dangerous, cursed items and those whose properties couldn't be determined. The obvious junk and trash — which turned out to be the overwhelming majority — was left behind. Maybe someone would find it useful later, to light a fire or something.
I didn't tell anyone about the finds. What was the point? Just hand everything over to the headmaster? Maybe I should gift him the basilisk carcass too, and the suitcase where the artifacts lay? No, if I find clearly identifiable family artifacts, then... I'll study them and return them to the room, because I have no desire to explain where I found them and why I'm not a thief.
Hal monitored each of the doppelgangers, so I asked him — or rather, the solid illusion of the butler that I helped him create. My vassal really wanted a body for himself.
"Hal, did anything among the finds stand out particularly strongly?" I asked, though I wasn't really hoping to find treasures among the pile.
"A dagger made of, presumably, adamantium and a diadem that looks very much like Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem. Unfortunately, the dagger is cursed, and the diadem... It very much looks like there's a piece of someone's soul inside it. It nearly took control of one of the doppelgangers," Hal stunned me.
No, definitely, this was a school of natural selection. If you survived among ancient monsters and cursed artifacts — well done, but if not, then you turned out to be weak.
"What kind of monster would corrupt a legendary artifact? Can it be restored?"
"The artifact itself isn't corrupted. If we extract the soul and move it to another container, then we can cleanse it of the remnants and its influence. But it won't be easy." — As if anything had ever been easy for us.
"Florentina," I called Rena. I decided to give them proper names, because somehow it wasn't dignified for elves to have such simple names.
"Yes, master?" A beautiful girl with a bundle of light hair that didn't hide her pointed ears appeared before me with a pop, wearing a Roman toga and looking at me with delight and attention. Although I could have ordered her to walk around naked, I'm not made of iron — if not on her, then I'd take it out on Dorothea. And it took titanic efforts to convince her to wear the toga, persuading her it wasn't clothing, as they thought I wanted to throw them out. And after the transformation, they began to consider me not just a master, but almost a god in the flesh.
"Prepare the workshop for work, wake Dorothea and prepare breakfast for her."
"It will be done, master," she smiled happily and disappeared with a bow. Brr, as an empath, it's hard for me to be around house-elves — they really almost have orgasms from me giving them orders.
"Is Sebastian training?" I asked Hal.
"Yes, he entered the space with accelerated time." — It's quite inconvenient to constantly change the coefficients of an entire world. Therefore, after expanding the house, I made a separate large and protected room with accelerated time. True, I had to solve problems with heat removal, nutrition, sleep, and air recirculation, but I'd done similar things before, so there weren't any particular difficulties. But thanks to this, my elves now speak like normal people, don't bang their heads against walls, and know not only their elven magic but are also studying human magic. Moreover, they don't need wands at all — it's like offering a crutch to a healthy person.
Soon sleepy Dorothea came downstairs and, after breakfast, didn't ask me — no, rather firmly said:
"I want to go to school with you today!"
"You understand I can't go with you? How would I explain your presence there?"
"Say I'm your familiar!"
"Dorothea, I..." — and then she stumped me. Because she pouted and turned into... a fairy. A very familiar fairy. No, I understood that Dorothea was my Pixie, I felt her, but for some reason I thought she had changed her species affiliation when she was reborn. But it turned out like this...
"Arthur, are you listening to me?!" She transformed back and began shaking me. "And why are you smiling?"
"Just something came over me..." I grabbed my familiar in an embrace.
"So can I be with you?"
"You'll always be with me, my girl."
Finally coming to my senses, I went to deal with the artifacts, though I didn't really feel like it anymore. But I wasn't used to putting things off. I had to leave my familiar behind, because when working with dangerous artifacts, I could barely protect myself, let alone others.
Going up to the second floor, I cast a complex of protective charms on myself, put on enchanted leather armor made from dragon hide, artifacts, and told Hal:
"Turn on spatial isolation mode."
"Are you sure? Then I won't be able to help you, and you won't be able to escape quickly yourself."
"But whatever's inside the artifacts won't affect the rest of the bubble and the house."
"Executing, master." — I didn't tell my servants to stop calling me master. After all, they really are my vassals and there should be subordination. On the other hand, I already treat them normally, and being too familiar would rather lead to me feeling awkward giving orders to friends. No, in boss-subordinate relationships, excessive friendliness usually only leads to subordinates allowing themselves too much and stopping obeying the boss. Working at the museum, I'd already seen this.
I extracted artifacts from the bag exclusively with charms, telekinesis, and if they had protection against that, then with doppelganger hands. So now I sat in the workshop chair while three doppelgangers worked under my control behind a dome of protective charms.
First, I chose something simpler — the cursed dagger, though by length it was more of a double-edged knife with a blade fifteen centimeters long, and twenty-five with the handle. It would be uncomfortable for an adult to hold — the handle was too small and thin, but quite normal for a child or goblin.
That the blade belonged to the big-nosed dwarfs was also indicated by the clan mark of Ragnok — a goblin smithing clan, now extinct. Apparently, during one of the goblin uprisings they attacked Hogwarts, as besides the dagger there were many goblin weapons, though made from ordinary materials: silver, steel.
The curse placed on the dagger was unknown to me, so one of the doppelgangers took a mouse from the bag and threw it at the dagger. The poor mouse immediately rotted, leaving a puddle of stinking decay. Flesh rot — a vile curse I'd only read about. However, it could be removed in several ways: unravel the spell, dispel it, or exhaust it.
The first would work if I'd dealt with something similar at least once, but a mistake here could cost dearly. The second would work with unfixed runic charms, but here, alas, it was different. And the third — surround it with a barrier that sucks out mana and bombard it with living creatures.
The third option suited me best, as I felt sorry for the mice, but magic requires sacrifices. Especially since the enchantment was almost exhausted anyway. Around the twentieth mouse, the charms started failing, and one powerful finite maxima, enhanced by my wand, finished off the charms.
But I went over the dagger several more times with canceling charms through doppelganger hands, then with cleansing ones, from all sorts of emanations. Only after this did one of the doubles take the dagger in hand.
It was impressive that it was still sharp, and the blade itself looked like new, while the handle had dried out and almost fell apart in the hand. I immediately took the adamantium matrix from the blade for metal transformation.
What is adamant? It's a metal that forms only from the flesh of gods over millions of years. It's as rare as it is powerful, and capable of killing and cutting anyone and anything. But finding it is an impossible task even for the strongest mages.
Therefore, alchemists synthesized adamantium — having the physical properties of adamant, but not the magical ones. That is, it's strong, the strongest metal on the planet that can be created, but it doesn't kill gods and doesn't cut everything in the world.
This little dagger alone is worth a fortune, and the goblins would kill me if they knew I had it. Only Godric Gryffindor's sword is better, which besides Rowena's enchantments and runes, was rumored to be fused with the soul of an unknown creature, making it a sentient artifact.
But the main thing for me wasn't this, but the metal matrix, which was needed for transformation and materialization of various things according to the Sumerian variant. The Sumerians themselves couldn't transform adamantium, only synthesize it with the help of the philosopher's stone. After all, you need to change or create not only the physical but also the astral body of the metal to obtain it.
But here comes the achievement of modern magic — eternal transfiguration, which fixes transformation for such a long time that the astral body adjusts to it. Roughly the same effect was used in transforming the house-elves' bodies.
In general, I was glad I wouldn't have to go to goblins or alchemists and pay them a fortune for a couple grams of adamantium. And even then they might just not sell it to me.
However, for now I sent the dagger to personal storage and proceeded to the diadem.
As soon as I took out what I won't hesitate to call a miracle of jewelry art, the pleasure from its beauty was washed away by weak but constant mental pressure, as well as a black-putrid blot that stained the diadem in true sight.
The artifact itself was in the form of a silver eagle with wings decorated with diamonds that transitioned into a rim, and instead of a chest was a huge sapphire. Under the eagle's chest was a pendant of another sapphire and blue diamond. All along the rim and lower part of the wings in Old English was an inscription that was Rowena's motto: "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure."
On the reverse side were engraved chains of runes. Even without considering the historical and magical value, it would cost insanely much. And its properties: accelerating thinking and clarifying thoughts, spoke of the mental nature of the artifact.
Besides the foreign soul and original charms, unbreakability charms were very roughly imposed on the artifact. Not Sumerian ones, but modern ones, which together with the destruction-resistant horcrux created a connection that wasn't so easy to destroy. And it was even harder to extract the soul without destroying the artifact.
But I'd have to do it, as without this it wouldn't be possible to remove the charms. So, holding mental shields, I ran the diadem through several diagnostic circles and charms.
As a result, I can say that Rowena was a genius. Her artifact was also sentient and resisted as much as it could the fragment of the dark wizard's soul, which meant not all was lost — that was good news. The bad news was that simply removing the charms wouldn't be enough; I'd also need to settle some creature there. However, if there was a spirit of reason there, then everything was much simpler.
***
Having passed all the information to Hal, I went to breakfast with Dorothea in fairy form on my shoulder. Already on approach to the Great Hall, everyone who saw the fairy started turning to look at me. And in the hall itself, I almost had to fight off the little ones.
"Wow, is that your fairy?" asked a first-year Ravenclaw girl.
"Yes, it's a fairy," I replied.
"Can I pet her?"
"Pixie." — I decided to call her that in public so no one would later connect her with Dorothea. Eh, if she'd learned to transform earlier, there wouldn't have been problems with her legalization. And now, conversely, the problem was that Dorothea was already legalized. — "Do you want the girl to pet you?"
"Pi-pi!" — yes, in this form she still couldn't speak. But she could cast spells quite well. The fairy flew from my shoulder and kissed the girl on the cheek, making her blush.
"I think she likes you," I laughed, heading to the Ravenclaw table and approaching my student. "Pandora, will you come to my room doors after dinner tonight?"
"Will you show me the Crumple-Horned Snorkack? Or take me into this... sexual slavery?" A couple of people choked, another ten giggled, the rest openly laughed. Maybe she was joking?
"No, to your disappointment. We'll be studying," I replied.
"Your fairy," Lovegood raised his gaze to me, smiling blissfully. "She's strange. She triples."
"Xeno, did you eat those mushrooms again?" Pandora began scolding him, and I left before my brains were still intact. This time it was the Hufflepuffs' turn, with whom I spent a cheerful breakfast. Dorothea flew around the entire table, treating herself to sweets that they gladly fed her.
I was afraid they might harm her, so I loaded her with artifacts beyond measure. And just try to hit her. And I was thinking about recruiting supporters. Right now I couldn't say which students I could recruit. Actually, I could recruit anyone, just show a tiny bit of my capabilities, but did I need them all? A mystery.
If I put loyalty and strength first — then it would be better to go to veela and werewolves, those would be ready to sign even a vassal contract for freedom, normal pay, and safety. This was worth thinking about, but later.
After breakfast, sending a message to Medici that I had an ancient basilisk carcass and asking if he wanted to buy it, and also if he knew a good master who could properly cut and process basilisk skin, I sent about ten clones to the secret chamber and sealed it just in case. It was unlikely another basilisk would be found there, but one was enough for me to start being even more cautious.
And while those under Hal's command explored the chamber, I went to classes. I should appear at them at least sometimes, right? And to combine the unpleasant with the useful, I went to seventh-year classes.
"Mr. Marlow," Septima Vector greeted me dryly when I entered the Numerology classroom door. "I'm glad to see you've finally become interested in classes, but didn't you mistake the year?"
"The headmaster said exchange students could attend any classes. I decided to attend yours, as I was told you're a wonderful teacher," I replied.
"Well then, sit down and don't interfere. If you have questions, come after class, as I'm not conducting the lesson personally for you."
I bowed briefly and went to find a seat. Seventh and sixth years had about half as many students, as not everyone continued education after fifth year. Moreover, to attend the already unpopular numerology and runology classes, you needed at least an Exceeds Expectations grade in them.
This led to them being attended only by those who needed them for their profession: healers, curse-breakers, spell-crafters, artificers, and ritualists.
Numerology was a mixture of ordinary mathematics, mystical meanings of numbers, and geometry. Together with astronomy and runology, they made up the "Basic Three of Ritualism." Although astronomy could be neglected by increasing the amount of energy invested — what's the point of waiting half a year to reduce ritual costs by a third, for example? Unless the ritual was extremely energy-consuming.
The main thing here was tracking eclipses, planetary parades, equinoxes, solstices, and some holidays like Samhain — as on these days the costs of some rituals became prohibitively high, while others could be done accidentally.
So, back to the classroom, which had not a double lesson, but a quadruple one with all years. There were fewest people from Gryffindor — I saw only one girl, and most from Ravenclaw — a whole five people. There were three Slytherins, and among them I saw Narcissa sitting alone, so I sat next to her.
"You shouldn't have sat here," the girl replied quietly.
"Why? Is this seat taken?" I asked, half-listening to Septima's lecture about the meaning of three-digit numbers.
"No, but the last time a guy sat with me... Well, they found him beaten up later."
"Oh, so your fiancé is jealous?"
"Rather concerned about his honor," she replied coldly, but empathy told me she snorted. And with her eyes she was actually following Dorothea, but didn't dare show she was interested in her.
"I didn't know the Malfoys had honor, I thought they sold it to the goblins for a higher price." — There's such a tale that the Malfoys are worse than goblins in terms of profit and gain. And not without reason: having arrived with William the Conqueror a thousand years ago to Britain, they were mostly merchants, and did the same in England.
Essentially, they bought their aristocratic title, paying considerable dowries to marry into noble but impoverished families, or achieved it through intrigue. Not for nothing does "Malfoy" translate directly as treachery. The girl barely restrained herself from snorting with laughter.
"Mr. Marlow, am I not interfering with your seduction of someone else's fiancée?" Vector asked me ironically.
"Would you like to help?"
"If you belonged to some house, I'd take points from you. But since you're an exchange student, I'll ask you a question. What number is best suited for a conception ritual if the man was born May 15th and the woman November 4th?"
"Depends on the year. If it's a leap year, then July 3rd, and if an ordinary year, then April 8th. Though considering the existence of conception potions and the same charms, I don't understand why such complications are needed now. In the past, wizards had problems with this, especially if one partner was much stronger than the other." — The Gryffindor girl blushed, a couple of Slytherins chuckled, but the Ravenclaws were carefully taking notes.
"I admit, I wanted to embarrass you. What's your level in numerology?"
"I calculate the Isaac-Jacob reaction correctly in nine out of ten cases." — There's such a nasty potion that reacts to absolutely anything. Including date, time of reaction start, temperature, even the slightest breeze. The potion itself is essentially useless, but serves as litmus paper for potioneers and numerologists.
"Very good, if you're not lying. Sit down and don't interfere anymore, please."
"Sorry," I sat down. But I didn't stay quiet, casting an interesting barrier on us. We could hear everything, but no one could hear us. I should have done this right away.
"How do you like my gift?" I nodded at the circlet on her head.
"Frankly, it's amazing. Cissy can do everything I can."
"Cissy?"
"That's what I named the spirit in your magocog... crystal." — Well, I came up with a complicated name, but I like it.
"Moreover, your Cissy will develop," I began telling about the crystal's capabilities so she'd start advertising for me faster, primarily among the Blacks. After all, it's one thing to "throw" a half-blood, and another — benefit for yourself.
From the crystal topic I smoothly moved to various interesting stories, reinforcing this with veela aura, consolidating and strengthening the already achieved effect. Unfortunately, I didn't yet know how to approach Regulus — it would be extremely strange for an upperclassman to communicate with a second-year. But with Narcissa there were no such problems.
In general, we got so carried away with conversation that we left the classroom together, meeting face to face with Lucius.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Malfoy," I smiled at him, which only irritated him more. Actually, having deciphered Narcissa's matrix, I found out that Lucius treated her like an expensive vase: afraid to break her, proud of her, but for him she was nothing more than a thing. A status symbol, benefit from the Black house, and future mother of his heir. No more, no less.
A quite ordinary situation in pure-blood families, where after or between births, aristocrats' wives lead idle lives, engaging in "permitted" hobbies like horseback riding, knitting, sewing, attending receptions. And this despite there being families with complete matriarchy, where de jure the man is head, but de facto, this man's balls are firmly held by a woman.
Rumor had it that the Blacks currently had exactly this situation, or close to it. Orion was the head, but essentially his wife Walburga was feared and respected more.
"Narcissa, dear, can we talk?" Haughtily ignoring me, he addressed the girl.
"Eh, unlucky with your fiancé, he's also deaf," I replied to his jab. Maybe I was openly asking for trouble, but that's exactly what I needed. To officially show strength. Because if I went around showing everyone my abilities, they'd consider me a show-off. And I just didn't like Lucius. Lots of arrogance, but what had he achieved himself? Been born into the right family?
"I have excellent hearing, I just prefer to let the words of various... spawn pass by my ears," he waved his hand dismissively at the angrily buzzing Dorothea, and he was very wrong to do so. Because he was immediately thrown back two meters, his wrist shattered, and his arm broken in three places. I did say I protected my lovely familiar, didn't I?
"And this is said to me by a person who got owned by a fairy," I shook my head, stoking offense, anger, and humiliation in Lucius. I didn't need him to calm down later and only harm me from the shadows. And I waited. Taking off his white glove from his healthy hand with his teeth, he threw it in my face.
"I challenge you to a duel for the insult and offense inflicted on me! Choose the place, time, and weapon!"
"Duels are forbidden at school. This Saturday at the Black family reception, does that suit you? Weapon — anything except protective artifacts." — This way, Lucius wouldn't come in some family armor that I'd have to pick at for half an hour. True, this would also limit me to some extent.
"I'll send you an invitation!" Barely restraining himself from attacking me right now, he replied. Narcissa, as befitted an exemplary fiancée, helped him stand. Though at the moment she felt pity mixed with some malicious satisfaction.
"No need, I have one," I replied and, turning around, left, stroking Dorothea who was complaining about Lucius and pointing at him. Though actually she was rejoicing at any fun, which there hadn't been in Availon. "Good girl, excellent work. What did you hit him with?"
"Applied Depulso," she replied mentally, making a battle stance with the miniature wand I'd made for her when she was still a fairy.
"My school," I praised her, heading to my room, whistling a cheerful tune and listening to Hal's report about the Chamber of Secrets.
***
I returned to the site of the recent battle with the basilisk. The doppelgangers had restored the damage, especially the columns, half of which the snake had destroyed in rage. And they'd generally cleaned up: removed old skin, trash, bones.
Actually, restoration charms are quite interesting. They're divided into three types:
The first restore an object by its astral body. That is, say you broke a cup, but its astral body hasn't yet "gotten used to that form," and thanks to this it's easy and quick to put together. However, they have one big drawback — if the astral body has managed to "get used to it," they simply won't work;
The second don't quite restore, but rather externally cosmetically improve the object according to the wizard's ideas. That is, essentially, it's a kind of transfiguration. This is used when it's important not to restore, but rather improve appearance or strengthen a dilapidated part. This is how "Reparo" charms work;
The third are practically unknown to modern wizards — these are charms from time magic. They actually roll back time for an object, restoring it to its original form. Such a method won't resurrect a person, but can give original form to a mangled corpse, as long as at least a piece of it is preserved. And then you can resurrect, if the soul hasn't managed to fly to the other world.
It was precisely the first and third methods my doppelgangers used. What was destroyed recently was fixed with first-type charms, what was already damaged was renewed with time magic. Fortunately, this magic doesn't work on enchantments either, so it won't return some ancient traps. Only after this did the doubles proceed to thorough diagnostics of everything, not fearing collapse.
Despite everything being already checked, I didn't neglect protecting myself and Dorothea, so we entered the renewed Chamber of Secrets fully armed.
"It's beautiful here!" my familiar exclaimed in admiration, taking veela form. And I was inclined to agree with her. After fixing the lighting, cleaning up trash, and bringing the hall to a state close to new, it showed itself in all its glory.
First, the columns were actually covered with malachite. It had just peeled and fallen off over hundreds of years. The floor had marble tiles, and Slytherin's statue itself was made from this ivory-like mineral.
"And who is this person? Slytherin?"
"Yes, Dorothea, this is Slytherin," I replied.
"If he died, it certainly wasn't from modesty," she muttered.
"I can't disagree with you." — While she curiously examined and touched Salazar's head with its open mouth, I asked Hal, "What did you find?"
"On the sides of the head are two exits to the Forbidden Forest, inside it is the basilisk's lair with an egg and several rooms: living quarters, laboratory, ritual hall connected directly to Hogwarts' source. But practically everything's been looted, someone already rummaged here. They even tore a living portrait from the wall with the meat. They only didn't take Salazar's own laboratory notes. Apparently considered them unnecessary, as there were probably already ready and tested recipes for rituals and charms."
"Wait, you said 'lair with an egg'?" I was surprised.
"Yes, the basilisk was female. Males have a bright red crest on their heads."
"I see, and this someone greedy is actually an idiot. Because often the path to some invention is much more important than the invention itself. Did you scan everything?"
"Yes, now I'm translating into a language you can understand. Salazar wrote in a Celtic dialect of Old English with many specific terms and archaic words. So now I'm going through Hogwarts' library for accurate translation."
"Thank you, Hal, what would I do without you?" I replied. "Is it safe here?"
"Yes, I already checked everything. Apparently the main protection was the basilisk, or someone already broke everything before us. Just the one who took everything out." — I didn't think to condemn that thief. I was essentially doing the same thing now.
"Then I'll look around."
The laboratory and living quarters presented a sad sight. Empty shelves, walls, I also saw a place where the upper piece of stone had been torn out. Nothing valuable or interesting was found.
Another room was most likely a menagerie, as there were many rusted cages there. A couple of storerooms were just piles of long-rotted and dried organics. So it was even unclear whether food or ingredients had been stored there.
The most interesting was the ritual hall, which even without restoration was in quite good condition. Most likely, somewhere beneath it was Hogwarts' heart, as the main channel passed very close. The feeling was like standing next to a high-voltage transformer. You sort of understand you shouldn't get shocked, but it's still scary.
It was here I decided to conduct the form-binding ritual. But first it was necessary to find this mysterious core.
***
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Thank you for the help with the power stones!!!