New Year, New Books. Chapter 58

On the morning of Yule, I quickly found Jasmine. She was sitting with her two friends, Dane and Talia, eating breakfast together. I bounce over, happily sliding in opposite of them, and chirp a greeting. The two younger Hufflepuff students look mildly afraid I’m going to curse them, or something, but Jasmine grabs my hand and bounces in her seat, clearly excited I’ve come to check in on her.

“I figured you and your friends would like to come and hang out with me and my friends, while we celebrate the new year. We usually play some board games, exchange any gifts we got late, and talk about stuff we find interesting. Fashion, school bullies who we can mess with, stuff like that.” I explain, and Jasmine looks ready to explode in adorable excitement.

“Of COURSE we’ll go!” She excitedly yells, and I nod, standing up and swooping around the end of the table to come put her on my shoulders, and lead her from the hall, off to our secret meeting room.

She’s almost as tall as I am, but it’s not in any way difficult for me. As we walk, I pull off my glove, showing the slightly burnt hand, and let the other two kids see it, along with Jasmine, who gasps.

“What happened, Aub?” She gibbers, and I smile up at her.

“Accident while I was working with Dumbledore on some spell I’ve been trying to create. It creates flames similar to dragonfire. Thankfully, Dumbledore was able to help mitigate the issues with the spell, and now it’s mostly functional. Just a few more kinks to work out, and no other big mistakes. I was thinking about getting a cream to cover it. In France, they have false-skin balms, which are made to cover scars like this. They last for about a week before needing replacement. Affordable, too. Only a galleon for a months supply.” I chirp, and she nods, looking a bit mortified.

“I thought you were invincible..” She murmurs from my head, and I bark out a laugh.

“No one is invincible. I’m pretty tough, but even I’m not better than Dumbledore. I’m enough of a lady to admit when I’m losing a race. Harry Potter is also, according to Dumbledore, more apt with direct combat magics. You know Dumbledore has been training Harry in secret for the last two years, right? He has only good things to say.” I tell her, and she shifts on my shoulders, before her friend, Talia, speaks up.

“We thought that was just rumors. Sure, he has the best DADA scores in the history of the school, but that’s like you with Charms! Not too crazy to think some people are coming along to beat the old records, now that some time has passed.” She explains, and I nod slowly to show I’m considering it, then I shake my head after a moment.

“I think, really, it comes down to what you’re naturally good at, and how much time you put into it. Making people want to teach you by showing you’re dedicated is great, but as I’m sure Jasmine can tell you, it really eats at your time for the simple pleasures. Like hanging out with my little sister, and making sure she’s doing alright. I don’t think our brother will even let me check on him, at this point. I’ve been too busy, and now he feels like he doesn’t need me. So, I made sure to make time for Jasmine, here! I really hope to keep the family together if I can.” I explain, and I feel Jasmine slump into me, murmuring a bit about how Adam is just being silly. I smile sadly at her naivety.

I walk into the library where the rest of my friends had convened. Well, most of them. Fleur, Sarah, Adrian, Daphne and, to my surprise, Muirin. I slide Jasmine off my back, and she climbs into a chair, opposite Fleur, and Dane, along with Tania, follow her lead, sliding into chairs happily.

“Oh! You must be Jasmine!” Fleur greets her in French, which Jasmine smiles up at her when hearing. “You just such a cute little doll, just how Aubrey said you were. It’s so good to finally meet you!” she chirps overly happily.

“You’re just as pretty as your sister said you were!” Jasmine chirps back in French, before seeing her friends' looks of total incomprehension, so she swaps to English, seeming to not notice the subtle blush which steals across Fleur’s cheeks. “It’s so nice to meet you at last! I hope we’ll get along!”

“I’m sure we will, dear. Now, for one of my favourite English games, how do you like All Fours?” Fleur asks cheerily, to a cheer from Talia and a confused look from Dane.

The game is quickly explained, and we move on to conversation about the general goings on of our life, while we play a game of All Fours.

We played that for two hours, making sure to ask our resident 1st years about how school was going. Though her friends excitedly babbled about class and the hard work, I noticed Jasmine’s responses were more subdued. She was clearly, like I had, finding the curriculum on offer a bit slow for her tastes. I made a mental note to give her some extra work on the side. Some runes and arithmancy would keep her busy - and she had always been good with numbers and letters. This should be a fun project for her.

Honestly, I think she’ll make a good enchantress when she gets to be a bit older. She designs really interesting ideas and explains how they would work, and if she had the runes and arithmetic knowledge to back it up, her ideas would be pretty popular, I think.

Who wouldn’t want a pen which can do all of your writing for you, in various styles and in what appears to be your hand? Easy way to spoof homework, at least, and write reports when you have a broken hand, but not look sterile or boring like a dicta quill. Honestly, the idea is good, because I know a number of places that don’t allow dicta-quills, but do allow for other enchanted writing implements - since everything has to be written in your handwriting.

This both would be in your handwriting and not a dicta-quill. Of course, there are spells for this, but they are not widely known, and are on the more complex end to cast. Your average witch or wizard probably doesn’t know or have the ability to cast it a bunch of times to fill out paperwork. This would be a workaround which, in theory, would last for 5 years if properly cared for, like any other quill.

A good idea for a product which fills a niche which is not filled yet.

And that was one of the more tame ideas. I have no idea if restaurants would want her magical ice-making machine, which was much more complex and could make different flavors, colors and types of ice. I imagine bars and pubs would want it for their drinks, at least. Most places have a few different types of drinks, but maybe even some of the nicer restaurants could use it. High end equipment like that also makes a lot of money.

So yea, I’ll get her started. I should have guessed she would be bored by the simplistic nature of the core Hogwarts stuff, seeing as I’d been giving her primers when I’d been home… which actually covers a lot of the groundwork the classes don’t teach directly, but is stuff that indirectly understanding is a large part of the work.

Oh well, it didn’t hurt her. She’s top in her year in every subject. A real genius, that one.

Hopefully Adam isn’t too pressured for not being in the top 5 like his sisters are. I didn’t have time to give him the same comprehensive primer, since he hadn’t hung around me as much after my 1st year, and, really, I didn’t have a good enough grasp of the subject matter to give it at the time.

Even then, he was always the one who struggles most with book learning between us three. He was best with people, though. Everyone had seemed to love him growing up. I was a bit too ‘mature’ I think, and Jasmine enjoyed over-explaining things. Adam was polite, concise and quiet.

The ‘perfect child’ as it were.

I let out a quiet sigh as we’re moving from the library to a side room to do what we call ‘show and tell’. Which usually means ‘Aubrey plays music and everyone else tries to show off and impress each other’.

This will be toned down, of course, so it’s 1st year appropriate. This means flashy but generally useless magic, funny stories and, of course, me playing violin the whole time.

It’s a good few hours later that we adjourn to a late lunch, all much happier for the time together.

After lunch, I decide, I’ll slip off with Fleur for the promised walk around the lake and alone time. A quick, cute little thing for us to get our recent boy and girl troubles off our chest.

And just maybe, I’ll be able to get her to agree to a date. I’ll be sure to ask. She seems open, with how I’ve been prodding subtly these last few days…

I poke my head into Dumbledores office after my dinner is complete, I have a bit of a skip in my step with the confirmation of a date with Fleur on the horizon.

My reason for visiting Dumbledore? To sort out the books, and see if any of them need to be put away due to being corrupting or otherwise evil. I’m not in the business of losing any sense of self because a book taught me some magic. Thanks.

The whole ordeal isn’t long, and comes down to us summoning the books out, and rapidly passing them through a little ring, which apparently scans them. Dumbledore keeps the backdated Hogwarts books, but promises to let me read them, and he also keeps a few journals from prominent figures in Hogwarts history which had been in the ‘junk section’. Other than those things, out of the 26,388 volumes in the collection, we had just under 1000 ‘corruptive’ books. 957 to be exact, and 1355 books which were Hogwarts back-texts. Most of them were revisions to the same book, such as ‘the Standard Book of Spells’. Still, with both of us doing this, it didn’t take a few days like you may expect. It was merely an hour or two of concerted effort, because of the hilarity of mass animation charms. The books would fly through the ring, glow red or blue, and fly off to their respective stack. After Dumbledore got through the ‘Schoolbooks chest’ he helped me with the rest. If anyone were to walk in, they would be liable to be slapped in the face by a flying book, with how it was flowing around our heads at breakneck speeds.

Thankfully, part of the magic of preserving the books not only kept them in tact, but also sealed them closed, so there were no flapping covers or belts dangling from sudden movement. It was all neat and tidy. If not speedy.

The charms, Dumbledore told me, were designed to propel things at 5 meters per second, but that they had to stay somewhat close to the caster, and generally, that’s just slower than spells so it was deemed a non-combat spell.

Which he seemed to disagree with, considering if you do this with 1000 caltrops in a vortex around you, well, spiky walking death I guess. But it’s not really combat, is it? Just a wave of sharp steel easily animated…

Jeeze, some of the Wizards and Witches must be really curious how flight works, when there are no fewer than 13 answers I can think of. Only two of them rely on advanced magical principles, and another relies on esoteric uses of a banishing charm, but it’s not really that important.

When you know much about magic, it’s not hard to tell how to do things.

Either way…

I glance over at my 11 chests full of books, then back to Dumbledore who seems very pleased with his one chest of books.

“The dragon parts, Albus? If I recall, I keep the bits and the gold and all of that? I plan to hide the gold where no goblin will ever catch the word I have it, if that’s the concern. Nor do I plan to use it to buy anything unless the Goblins betray the contracts and refuse to give me my gold. If they do that though, I’ll just force my way to my vaults, take all of my stuff, and go to the Dwarves on the continent for money storage. They have better rates, anyways. Along with my gold being very far from all of my potential enemies…” I grumble, and he chuckles, then reaches his hand into the nowhere I recognize as a pocket dimension and pulls out a massive 8 foot across, but 6 foot deep stone chest, which I recognize to be made of Marble.

The most magically conductive common stone.

Oh and it’s enchanted to hold obscene amounts of whatever. He tosses it - magically - to my feet, then he pulls out a second massive stone coffin-type deal and tosses it on top of the first.

“There are seven compartments. Each is sorted according to what they hold. Gold, gems, whole art objects, material to make art objects, foci, weapons and of course armor. The second is the body, of course. Hide and blood fill two compartments, muscles and meat fill another two, and all the magical bits fill the remaining compartment. It was a pleasure doing business with you. Now, to see these books destroyed…” He trails, and I suck the stone coffins into my inventory and walk away from the old man who looks like he’s going to thoroughly enjoy tearing those books apart.

Not locking them up.

Good idea for mind bending magic, certainly. Either way, it sucks to be them, I guess.

All in all, my haul contains about 22 volumes which touch on shadow magic, and I decide, as I sort the stacks into which order I should study, that those are at the top. After those are Charms, Warding and Enchantment volumes. All of these range from 600 to 1000 page volumes on various things, a good deal written by hand, and very old. Some are clearly copies of original texts, while others were certainly made en masse.

Following my basic sorting, I sort the stack of 100 tomes I want to work through into three categories. Basics, Combat and Supplemental Magic. The basics books are obviously going first, and there are five or six for each subject, which I will go through first, before I dive into the depths of the esoterica. I will read them cover to cover, and then review them mentally. On first look, I figure this will take me the rest of my time in the modern day, at least for the rest of my holidays, which is about four days. I can devote 12 hours pretty easily to the tasks, since my days are empty, except for my planned date with Fleur, which I can still devote eight hours to, if needed.

Requiring less sleep certainly aids me here.

The time in the past will be used to discuss these basics, and other things which were not in the library, with the founders. Other fundamentals which may be lost to time, like the rituals of the four seasons which I got from Salazar.

I assume Rowena and Haelga will have more information on these, seeing as they teach a lot of the younger classes on the basics, or oversee what is taught. Securing my foundation with all of the knowledge I can will help me have no blind spots going into more advanced applications.

My free time will be in working with them on my shadow magic, as I can. This is because they will likely have no one who knows any shadow magic, and getting their unbiased and completely objective opinions on how to use this magic, and the dangers they can see from it which I may miss, due to my extensive interactions with it in my last life, and the biased works I’ve read in this life, will be useful. There’s something to be said about how people from different times see different types of magic and how they work.

Of course, I have to, first, survive, and hopefully win, the fourth task. Which is just a ‘who can live the longest, or make the best life, in the woods.’

Considering I could make a fort, make said fort basically undetectable and wondrous in a week of effort, and get a very good food supply in short order is an increase in confidence. I’ll make a dummy fort which is more in line for what I ‘should be able to do’ so the others focus on that fort, primarillay.

The other two will work to bring me down.

All of this in my mind, I go to sleep, the 100 volumes of choice in my inventory, while the rest of the books remain in the Room of Requirement, copying themselves so I can give them to Dumbledore, and hopefully get the Hogwarts books from him.

When I wake up in the past, to find myself almost naked, save for a basic cotton shirt (which is probably Godrics, considering it goes to my knees) and my underwear, with nothing else, except my wand, I sigh.

Task on, I guess.

I flicker quickly deep into the forest, and then raise four walls, stone, around me with a short chant. Then I make a roof on my 20x20x40 structure, and then get to warding.

My warding takes an hour, but is the best I can do short of a Fidelius in terms of hiding a building.

Then I step out of the fort I made, and walk a mile away, as though I woke up there, and build a large tree fort, using similar magic, but the tree fort is a 10x10x7 building, with a simple bed, cooking pit (charmed to be unable to burn) and I summon a few small  forest critters, kill them and render them before setting them to cook over the fire. I then toss on some protection wards I shamelessly stole from the 7th year dorms I’d been tearing the wards off of all year long, and then “climb onto” and “Hop along” the trees for a distance, before casting a proximity alarm, and then flicker back to my real base.

I spend the rest of the daylight making the fort as cool as I can, adding in a full thermal bath on the ground floor, before making a second floor which is a library / study room, and setting up the top level with a super nice bedchamber and living space, including modern amenities, like a working bathroom. I then hunt, kill and skin a bear using only archery and basic knives, before cooking it with a few simple spells, and settle in to study for the last six hours of my time in the past.

Then my proximity alarm for my phony base goes off, and I feel 2 people enter the circle. I shadow jump over, around 50 feet behind and cloaked in as many stealth spells as I can manage, then follow them. Leaving no trace magically, scented, or footprint-wise. I don’t even make any noise. Gavril in Stigandr are stalking up to the tree-house, and are dismayed to find it empty, but are happy to destroy it.

Things become interesting when Gavril leaves the house first, and I watch a dark look overtake his countenance.

“Only one winner, stupid boy.” He rumbles, before casting a spell I don’t recognize, but I do recognize the intent behind it.

This is a lethal spell!

Then the tree, and house, explode. Violently. So much so, that I’m surprised Gavril is not hit by the blast, but I can be certain that Stigandr is very, very dead. I blink then gape as Gavril disappears on the spot like a ghost into the night. I follow the trail they left back to a well hidden, via physical means, shelter. Clearly of Stigandr’s make. I rifle through his stuff, and quickly find a journal, a set of schoolbooks, and a letter, along with a set of clothes which appear to have been stitched with magic today, heating over a fire next to a freshly made bed roll.

Not a bad setup.

I grab everything I can, to be sure I missed nothing, and pop back to my place to read over the contents of these finds.

The letter is the only surprise, and is the last thing I look at. It is written in Elder Futhark, which I can read, but am surprised to see used so casually, considering there are other written tongues I know they use in his community, to keep the knowledge out of people who use the language for its magical significance.

My insight from divine blessings into written words and their meaning helps the bits I am sure I’d otherwise not know his meaning on.

“Hawthorne.

If you are reading this, I am dead. This is not very good, for you see, there was a portent by our sages, often called seers in your culture. There would be a betrayer in this tournament, seeking to destroy the others.

Everyone is convinced this is Hogwarts, but I can tell from your demeanor this is not the case. You are too open and kind to be a great betrayer, or you are the most excellent actress alive. I have reason to believe that it is, in fact, Durmstrang. As such, I decided to work with Gavril, in an attempt to get confirmation. He is rather dull, and does not suspect I am spying, but his acting is rather poor, and I have heard him mutter about ‘the plan’ namy times. As such, it seems likely to me that his people are the ones of which we are warned.

My people don’t believe this, as we have historically had good relations with Durmstrang.

Should my thought be true, and my school and all the students are killed, then this paper will turn into a map where we hid our library, outside of our school.

Do not teach younglings magic where something important may burn down. This is wisdom, and so we keep it separate, and only our senior students are allowed access to the books. Until then, only professors or their helpers - usually our senior students - are the only way for anyone to get a book.

Should this not come to pass, then this will be a safety plan which never needs to come to pass, for which I am thankful.

Good luck, you deserve the win over the betrayer Gavril.

Stigandr the Twice Blessed.

I shoot a short prayer to Thor - his preferred god from what I saw at the ball - and feel a sort of ‘presence’ notice me, then move on as I conclude the short prayer, asking his soul be allowed into Valhalla.

Then I begin planning.

Gavril wants to play with explosions and death? I can make it look like he died to a random animal attack in his sleep.

This will take a couple of days, but I can certainly do it…

I’ll actually just not sleep on time, and do the setup now. Finding a bear, will thankfully, not be hard. Getting it to like me, also proves not hard.

Tomorrow, I’ll find Gavril’s spot and send the bear in after making it the stealthiest bear ever, along with removing all the protections he has up.

If he thinks he can hide from the ultimate divine tracking spell, though, he’s a dumbass. So he’s going to die to a bear tomorrow. What a shame he was a cowardly, traitorous idiot who is almost certain to get found out when his fresh corpse is sent out by the safety magic we all have tied to us. ‘If in mortal peril, teleport out’ with the trigger of ‘takes severe damage’.

Getting Stigandr giblets could not have been pleasant. Getting a throatless Gavril who owned the magical signature of the thing which killed Stigandr will not go over well, I think. Especially when there was no signature on his dead body.

Just a missing throat.

Such a shame, if this were to… foil some kind of plan…

The following day in present is immersed in reading and working on magic. Most of that is brushing up the bases for what I’m going to be learning with meditation and resolving which pieces of conflicting information are true in what I’ve read, based on my experience.

Magic operates differently for every person, after all. Slight tweaks in my mental notes are made, and I revise the magic I can use to get a large animal to do my bidding, then revise the magics which hide my enchantments of it from showing up in magical scans.

With Shadow Magic, the hiding things part of it is insanely easy. You can’t detect shadow magic, and if I weave that into my normal charms, not only will it subtly enhance all stealth and melee enhancing magics, but it will make it all untraceable. You could magically scan the bear after watching me cast all kinds of things on it, and you’d get that this is a baby blue bear naturally, and the glowing purple eyes with dripping venom is all natural, no magic whatsoever, no sir.

The animal charming spells are impressively simple. Arithmetically it’s basically binary code. Super easy to formulate and use, but also generally costly in casting. Thankfully the first part - which you cast before you find your mark, is a general ‘animals won’t harm you’ spell. 10 minutes to get a loyal bear servant?

Easiest choice of my life.

So I wake up in the past, again and cast the general animal spell, to keep them from attacking me, then, I feel with the shadows all around me. It takes all of five minutes to find the bear I made friends with, using meat and basic charming spells. So I go back, and complete my temporary domination of it, and enhancement of its power. Within the hour, I have one VERY enhanced bear. Then I spend thirty minutes tracking down Gavril’s base.

It’s well made, very cleverly disguised. So I change that. I take down all the wards, and put up false shells which hold the alarms for if the wards are taken down, and mime a positive response for if he checks if his basic wards are still up.

Considering he’s only around a fifth year Slytherin in temporary area wards makes me want to laugh. Silly boy can’t hope that’ll be good enough to hold me.

Well, not if he actually has a brain.

I mentally command my bear to strike when he is asleep that night, and then go about the edge of the woods, feeling, with my shadows, where the judges sit, watching. I cast an overpowered hearing enhancement charm, which I modify with a limiter for only human speech, which means the excess mana makes the hearing enhancement go wild.

I focus hard, and realize I can hear a Herbology lesson in the Greenhouses, a caretaker in the owlery on the edge of the grounds, and, of course, the judges, watching our task with rapt attention from their table. They are currently, obviously focused on Gavril, based on the conversation.

“Is active right now. She either has wards hiding her from us, letting us only see Gavril, which is not unlikely, or she’s stripped the spell off, which is less likely, seeing as she didn’t trigger the ‘loss of all magic clause’ for breaking the rules, which removing the charm would do. Frankly, she’s one of the best enchantresses and warders I’ve ever seen. Having the ability to avoid scrying isn’t that out of the realm of possibility.” Salazar comments, and I grin.

Yes, scrying me would be very hard, I guess. You can, of course. You just need to get past the shadow magic, and putting enough force into the spell to do that would make it very noticeable to me, unless you decided to do a scrying ritual, which they are either disinclined or unable to do.

Probably the latter. Pluto is not in a good position for them to scry me, considering it kinda helps me not be noticed. I leisurely stretch and lay back, noting Rowena actually staring at my location. I can barely tell, considering her head is barely visible from my point of view.

Eyes of a hawk, that one. She doesn’t tell them I’m on the edge of the forest though, and so the conversation goes.

Advir lets out an explosive grunt. “If I’d not confirmed she was, in fact, under 20 winters, I would accuse you of sneaking in a fully trained magi for this event. Clearly, you haven’t, but it is practically impossible one is this good at such an age. Her mana already out tips almost all of our mana pools, and if she continues at her pace, her maturity will leave her with a well so deep that even Godric and Rowena may well end up dwarfed by her.” He says offhand, before irritatedly tapping his fingers on the table. “And while I agree, after Stigandr came back a smoking mess of dead meat, by some trick no doubt, and us watching these two complete the task is the only way to ensure they don’t die, it wearies on me. I would rather be teaching my pupils. Clearly we need to add a course on detecting lies and treachery, since none of us can confirm for certain who cast the spell.” He expositis, and Karl agrees with a grunt.

“Must have been your girl. Gavril doesn’t know such magic, nor does the magical signature indicate it was him. It is good, though, that Ursprungliga has left this castle. Now there is space properly, at least. Sharing bunks is not common in my school, and I was getting many complaints. I do wish it had happened in more agreeable terms, though.” He explains, and I squint.

That’s a lie. He’s super lying. But if the Scandinavian school has gone home, and his school is still here with our students, then he is in prime position to strike. France had gone home long ago, except to judge the tasks, which their headmistress shows up for the day prior to taks, and leaves the following day.

This, of course, means that if I were Durmstrang, planning on destroying the magical schools except for my own to plunder all their secrets, I would be killing either of those schools, preferably both, then descending on Hogwarts with my horde. Durmstrang is in the Balkans, which has an extremely large wizarding population in this age, due in no small part to the fact it’s a lot of land, central and eastern Europe, and it’s also before the witch hunts, so the magical enclaves are still thriving.

If given time, they’ll have plenty of ability to prepare amply.

So I am glad to not give them time.

Destroy the others, indeed. Your children's children will have an idea of a magical school, perhaps, but I will make the current and next generation so scared of the idea that I doubt you’ll get one for a long time, Eastern Europe.

Do not wrong me or mine.

I lazily drift about the edge of the forest, making sure to stay out of eyeshot - even losing Rowena - while listening to their idle chatter. Quickly the hours pass, late morning is soon early nighttime, and I am only a pound of roasted rabbit and a stack of wild greens lighter from my supplies, which are already plentiful enough to last me the rest of the month.

Living in a forest so akin to those the Elves are native to is unfair. I could build a town, move people in, and feed them for a year in the time I have for this task.

I quietly check upon Gavril, and note he has gone to bed early.

To strike me dead in the night, I suppose.

I send in my bear, and position at the edge of the forest, eyes fixed where he should come, and Godric, along with Advir watching the scrying ball, having a friendly swapping of stories as they watch the champion sleep.

With a gasp, and a rush of motion towards the forest, followed by a flash of light from behind them, I know I’ve won. Godric's mutter, heard only with my still enhanced hearing confirms it.

“No magical signature on this boy. Just a corpse, killed by a bear in his sleep. Fool boy forgot to put up his wards.” He says the last bit louder, and I grin, cutting all wards and magic around Gavril’s hut, and then smother the area in shadow magic so the magical traces are gone, before flickering to the edge of the wood. By the time I arrive, Godric and Haelga are wrapping the body, and I land in front of them.

“Suppose I won? Wish it could have been more honorably accomplished.” I grunt quietly, casting a faux sorrowful look to the body. “Slain while asleep by some animal. A shame, really. I was hoping to duel him, some day.” I conclude, and Godric nods. I feel a burning in my pocket, and pull out a shining piece of paper. I glare at it, as a map appears upon the surface, and a short note.

“We’re all dead. Ensure our killers do not keep our knowledge. - S”

I glance, at that, to the castle, and see Karl walking out, a dagger in one hand, dripping in blood, and wand in the other. No less the five dark rogues behind him. Shortly, as though melting in from horizon, scores of wizards rush to the castle, between us and the castle, and I slink back.

Godric and Haelga draw their wands, and Godric gives Karl a long, intense look, before swatting a deadly spell out of the air, and sectioning off three of the would-be killers, while Haelga engages the other two.

Karl seems to have missed me, or thinks I have fled, as he moves to engage Godric. I sneer, appearing from his sauntering shadow, and cleave his head from his neck in one insanely easy blow. I blink as the corpse drops, having expected some from of magical defense, considering he was expecting going to battle with a blade versus the greatest swordsman on the planet in this time. Then I shrug and begin my decimation of the enemy forces.

The wraith of death coming from your shadow and ripping you in half is a quick way to die, and has the benefit of making all of your friends panic.

It is a very short battle, and in the end, five score and perhaps a dozen more lay dead, only three of which are Hogwarts students. I roll my eyes at the ill conceived attack which could have gone much worse, and peruse my quests as I walk over to a blood covered - but unhurt - Godric and a spotless Haelga, who is literally standing a field of blood, with no traces of the foes which assailed her.

At least Godrics foes have a body. Her enemies are smears on the ground. ‘Least dangerous founder’ my foot. I quickly debrief with them, and then ask for a month to see if I can find any survivors of the attack by Durmstrang elsewhere - and return the remains of Advir to Scandinavia.

I get approval, and then, after finding Cateline is still alive, I go to sleep.

When I wake up, I check the quests of the past, to see if I have any updates. I damn well should.

Quest Update -

The Precursor

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Objectives -

Enter the Precursor tournament to the Triwizard Tournament. (Succeeded)

Complete the Final Task (Succeeded)

Survive your year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bonus Objectives -

Win the Tournament (Succeeded)

Slay Maldrax (Succeeded)

Save Isabeau (Failed)

Gain the Blessing of a Phoenix (Succeeded)

Hunt - and kill - the most dangerous thing possible. (Failed)

Win the First Task (Succeeded)

Win the Second Task in an unexpected way (Succeeded)

Don’t use magic on your opponent in the second task (Failed)

Win the Second Task (Succeeded)

Put on a beautiful performance for the Third Task (Succeeded)

Don’t take any damage in the Third Task (Succeeded)

Win the Third Task (Succeeded)

Discover what they 4th task will be before it happens (Succeeded)

Win the Tournament before anyone else scores a point. (Succeeded)

Earn Stigandr’s Trust (Succeeded)

Kill Gavril (Succeeded)

Save Stigandr (Failed)

Ensure no one knows you killed another competitor (Succeeded)

Win the 5th Task (Succeeded)

Win the 6th Task (Succeeded)

Win the 7th Task (Succeeded)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Secret Objectives -

Discover the Treachery of Durmstrang (Succeeded)

Stop the Treachery before it can kill Advir (Failed)

Kill Karl (Succeeded)

Win the ‘The First Battle of Durmstrang’ (Succeeded)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reward -

11,900 xp

Title - “Champion”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bonus Reward -

Perk - “Precursor”

+Poison Immunity (granted)

+ Perk “Savior of the Damned”(lost)

+Perk (Granted)

+Perk “Monster to Monsters” (lost)

+3,000xp

+Title ‘Unorthodox’

+Perk ‘Queen of the Skies’ (lost)

+Perk ‘The Scouter Says…’

+Title ‘Ice Queen’

+Perk ‘Impossible Acrobatics’

+Title ‘Unbeatable Demon Queen’

+Perk ‘Focus’

+Perk & Title ‘The Catalyst’ & ‘The Undefeated’

+ Map to the Library

+50,000 xp

+Title Upgrade - Shadow Dragon

+500,000 xp

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Secret Rewards

+250,000xp

+Hogwarts Secret Unlocked

+8 Political Visibility (990AD)

Levels are getting insanely hard to gain. That’s almost a million XP - which I was awarded when I claimed the awards I have unlocked - and I gained four total levels.

I get that the ‘way to gain levels’ at this point isn’t so much ‘go around beating things up’ because clearly I’m experienced and skilled, but it’s to make sure the world knows I’m a foremost expert on something. I’m pretty sure that’s where a LOT of XP sits. I can’t imagine how much XP Dumbledore would need to gain via killing things to exceed level 130 like he clearly has since I STILL can’t observe his stats. He just hasn’t fought that many major battles. I think he fought in something like 15 actual pitched battles in World War Two, and he fought in maybe thirty or so major combats in other recorded histories. Even if I tack on 100 more battles of extreme difficulty, spaced so he gets the most benefit and unlocks the next level, it feels like the ‘power’ comes from people knowing you’re super great.

I got a lot more XP for killing Karl and Gavril than I got for being a champion of a school and winning tasks. This is likely because these are ‘legendary deeds’ which spread my name and legend.

Speaking of names and legends, I need to do something about the press. I should probably write an article about how my life is going, and how I’m working on a book.

It will literally be of my life, but I will write it fictionally and rename the spells, so I can be viewed as some great author, with a fantastic imagination. I will also blur all of the things which are dangerous and write the protagonist condemning them.

Soul magic being carefully studied to defeat necromancers will not be viewed favorably. Destroying it like a gallant hero will be much better received, and will give me something to talk about - the books I write - instead of my actual combat abilities, training and general knowledge of magic.

I’ll also work on low-level magical thesis works based on my knowledge, but I’ll have Flitwick post them under a pseudonym for me.

No need to be connected to them at all. I can discuss the ‘theories’ which I find ‘fascinating’ then too, and when I use them, people will know I just do cutting edge research and that’s why.

Not like I invented them or anything. Certainly not. I’m a book-bound basic Ravenclaw! I have no imagination and no ability to deal with things I have not read a library about.

Public weakness will soften me, too. Even feigned weakness will leave me more appealing to the general public than a sports star for a sport which is less favored than flying hoop-ball, which I will admit a persistent fondness for.

Generally, I think this is a good plan. I should probably try to get ready for interviews by looking into what they’ll ask, based on what they have asked others in past interviews. Being famous… what a hassle. At least it’s one I have the skill to handle.