Myst in DC Part 44 (Patreon)

Myst frowned as he studied the twisted wards on the Gaunt family shack, a touch annoyed that Riddle could come up with interesting and lethal defenses that worked together but was stupid enough to place the ring somewhere with a link to his past, especially considering he had to know that Dumbledore would have researched his past after he caused so much trouble.

A small part of him really wanted to track Riddle down and hand him a copy of the Evil Overlord list, if only to see if he’d actually improve. Of course he’d never actually help the psychopathic idiot considering the man had managed to screw up by the numbers and didn’t have a problem hurting innocent people. He had magic, a halfway decent work ethic by all reports, and some amount of skill at finding out secrets yet the best type of immortality he’d managed to find involved ripping his soul apart and relying on minions to bring him back if he died.

Myst could accept that there might be limits on Harry’s type of magic but that didn’t explain why Riddle hadn’t taken reasonable precautions to make sure his minions were in position to bring him back if the worst happened. All it would have taken was convincing a couple of his supporters to swear unbreakable oaths to bring him back and stashing them in another country or just making sure they were intelligent enough to keep their heads down. ‘Then again, you’re the type of moron that thinks marking your followers with easily identifiable magical brands is a good thing.’

‘Yeah, no point in trying to figure out what the lunatic was thinking.’ He pulled his attention back to the wards that covered the shack. ‘That one should burn everything to ash but only if the ring is already gone. That one should let Riddle know that someone is messing around with his wards. That one is a nasty death curse.’ He blinked as he found a ward on the door that was particularly nasty and petty.

“Explosive castration? Neat, if I hadn’t already tossed Malfoy through the cabinet, I’d be tempted to test it on him,” he muttered as he used his X-ray sunglasses to look at the Gaunt Family ring that was buried under the floorboards in a metal box with half a dozen rather lethal charms designed to kill and disable anyone that opened it who wasn’t a parselmouth. “I should probably copy some of the less lethal charms for Harry to practice with.”

Myst teleported the resurrection stone out of the ring and onto the ground five feet in front of him, half expecting the stone to curse him or a ward he’d missed to activate and cause problems despite the fact that his precog hadn’t given him any warning and he hadn’t seen any curses on the stone, just the ring. Of course, nothing of the sort happened which was a bit anticlimactic, if useful.

“So much for Tom being a master of the dark arts,” Myst muttered after studying the enchantments on the stone for a few seconds to make sure the stone wasn’t actually cursed. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed that the stone wasn’t some divine artifact or cosmic rock or relieved that a personification of Death wouldn’t come looking for it. “Either way, I’m sure Sirius and Harry will appreciate a chance to talk to James and Lily.”

He glanced at his open gacha menu he’d shoved off to the side of his HUD so that it wouldn’t distract him and bought the 2,000 mana Ring wheel then closed the empty gacha menu. He floated the enchanted stone over and stuck it in his inventory then turned his attention back to the wards on the shack, wanting to make sure he could duplicate the more useful wards.

‘Any luck with your projects?’ Sabrina asked telepathically as she worked on copying the last of Snape’s potion journals.

‘More than I was expecting,’ Myst replied as he teleported the Gaunt Family ring out of the cursed box and to the ground five feet away. ‘I dumped Fudge, Umbridge and Malfoy through the cabinet to the empty world in the Ocampa system along with most of their cronies in the ministry.’

‘Most?’ Sabrina asked as she continued copying Snape’s rather extensive potions library.

‘Some of them had young children and hadn’t actually done anything illegal or at least nothing major,’ he replied as he dispelled the withering curse on the ring. ‘Besides, without Fudge browbeating them, they’ll fall in line.’

‘Probably, I stunned Snape with a magic stun grenade and I’m looking through his potions notes, he has some interesting research.’

‘Nice. Is he an irredeemable rat?’ Myst asked.

‘Eh, not particularly. He should never have been stuck as a professor for children but that was Dumbledore’s fault. He never went on raids and just provided potions the Death Eaters could have purchased in Diagon Alley. Sure, he patched some people up after raids but he probably saved more innocent lives by passing on information to Dumbledore than he cost by saving Death Eaters. Besides, it’s not like he was the only one with healing spells.’

‘In other words, call teaching at Hogwarts and having to deal with the students time served and don’t worry about it. I managed to find Voldemort’s ring, I’m just trying to figure how to upgrade the pull on the rest of his soul so that I don’t have to collect the rest of the horcruxes.’

Sabrina snickered as she finished copying the last journal. ‘Have you tried upgrading the percent of his soul trapped by the ring?’

‘Huh,’ Myst replied as he glanced over the various labels and numbers his upgrade menu was showing him until he saw the number for the percent of Voldemort’s soul that was contained in the ring. ‘Sixteen.’ He pushed magic into the ring until the number jumped up to seventeen percent. ‘That might actually work. If nothing else, it should be interesting to see what happens.’

‘Cool. Do we still want to tweak a dark mark and kill all of the Death Eaters?’ Sabrina asked, looking forward to wrapping things up so that she could chat with Harry and Hermione a bit before they jumped worlds.

‘No. Malfoy knew of at least a dozen Death Eaters that basically got recruited at wand point.’

‘That doesn’t change the fact that they probably killed people.’

‘You’re right it doesn’t and they probably weren’t all that nice to start with if the Death Eaters thought they were recruitable, but killing everyone that Riddle might have marked without checking if they’re guilty? I’d rather not spend the rest of my life wondering if I killed someone that didn’t deserve it, because I didn’t want to spend a couple of hours sorting things out.’

‘Fair enough. If we’re not killing them, what are we going to do with them considering the Ministry is unlikely to do more than give most of them a slap on the wrist?’ Sabrina asked, curious what he was planning.

‘I was thinking about tossing them through a cabinet to one of the empty Star Trek worlds with their wands and enough food to last for a couple of months. They can sink or swim on their own skills and talents,’ Myst replied as he continued upgrading the percent of Riddle’s soul the ring contained. ‘They wish for a world without muggles so let’s monkey paw that for them.’

‘Not to mention it will give Q something to play with,’ Sabrina replied with amusement.

‘He can thank me later,’ Myst replied, curious what type of society the dark wizards would create without any ‘inferiors’ to boss around or blame for their mistakes.

‘In that case, I’ll leave a copy of the other Snape’s research and skedaddle,’ Sabrina replied as she pulled a muggle notepad and a pen out of her inventory and started writing in a remarkably good copy of Snape’s own handwriting, “I’d forgotten how much of an ass I was back then, here are some of my notes to make sure you can get laid, Severus Snape. P.S. I also took care of our dark mark.”

‘Sounds good,’ Myst replied and dropped the connection as he reached up and grabbed the magical ring from his gacha wheel. He glanced at the enchantment on the ring. “Absorbs harmful magic to power a short lived stasis charm, the more powerful the attack, the longer you’ll be in stasis? That might be useful for catastrophic explosions or death curses,” he mused as he went back to work upgrading the amount of Riddle’s soul that was trapped in the ring.

Sabrina snickered as she created a copy of the other Snape’s research journals and set them on the coffee table with the note ‘explaining’ everything. She glanced at Snape who was sprawled on the couch. ‘Best of luck with your research.’ She focused on Hermione Granger and teleported.

Hermione barely hesitated before lunging for her wand on her nightstand, sending several of her school books crashing to the floor in her haste to grab her wand.

Sabrina teleported Hermione’s wand to her hand before she could grab it and get in trouble for using magic. “Come with me if you want to live,” she said in her ‘best’ Terminator impression.

“Who are you?!” Hermione demanded as she nervously stared at the strange blue haired girl that she didn’t recognize, the only thing keeping her from freaking out more was that she doubted any of the Death Eaters would ever use that particular line with a bad, if recognizable accent.

“Oh right, I’m Sabrina, I’m helping Harry and Snuffles,” Sabrina explained as she glanced at Hermione’s shorts and white tank top, a touch sad that she hadn’t caught the other girl in her underwear.

“Where is he?” Hermione asked, wondering if something had happened to Harry.

“Harry’s with Sirius, at 12 Grimmauld Place, located in the Borough of Islington, London,” Sabrina replied, amused as the magic protecting the location washed over her and fractured when it hit her various magical protections.

“If you’re working for Sirius, why steal my wand?” Hermione asked.

“Because you could get in trouble if you used it in a muggle area and I’d rather avoid any official paperwork.”

Hermione forced herself to relax and smile at the stranger. “In that case, can I have my wand back?”

Sabrina skimmed Hermione’s mind and laughed. “Yeah, no, you’re planning on stunning me the second you get the chance.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Hermione asked, seeing no point in lying since it was obvious she sucked at it.

“Probably, on that note, I’ll let Harry or Sirius explain things.” Sabrina snickered as she focused on Harry with her clairvoyance ability and teleported with Hermione to the drawing room where Harry was working on cleaning spells. 

Hermione ignored the familiar room after a quick glance and focused on Harry or at least the person that looked like Harry. Her gaze jumped to the strange black glove on his left arm that reminded her a bit of an old Nintendo power glove. “What’s with the glove and how do I know you’re Harry?”

Harry pulled his attention off Hermione when he realized that he hadn’t heard her question because he’d been too busy staring at how much skin was revealed by her muggle clothing. ‘Damn, she needs to dress muggle more often.’ He smiled as he forced himself to look at her face. “Sorry, I missed that.”

“How do I know you’re Harry and why are you wearing the glove?” Hermione asked, half suspecting a fake Harry.

“Let’s see, something no one else would know,” Harry mused, trying to think of something that no one else knew that wouldn’t get them in too much trouble if it got revealed.

Sabrina handed Hermione her wand. “Here, the wards will keep the ministry from noticing any magic use, which means you’re free to practice while you’re here.”

Hermione glanced at her wand then at the other girl’s face, surprised that she’d actually given her wand back. “What’s the trick?”

Sabrina her hands up. “No trick, I just didn’t want you to get in trouble with the Ministry.”

“Back in second year, you’re the one that brewed the polyjuice potion that Ron and I used to sneak into...” Harry trailed off.

“The Slytherin dorm,” Hermione finished for him. “Next time, send a letter first.”

“I would have, but no one was answering so I figured my letters were being diverted or intercepted,” Harry said, still a bit annoyed that she hadn’t responded all summer. He could understand Ron being an idiot, but he’d expected more from Hermione.

“Sorry,” Hermione said, feeling stupid that she hadn’t at least let him know there were problems with security after he kept sending letters.

Harry snorted. “You could have just written that in a letter or told the headmaster to tell me himself.”

Hermione sighed. “I’ll admit that I should have let you know that Dumbledore had asked me not to send you anything for security reasons after I realized he hadn’t told you. So, what’s with the glove and who is your friend?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

“The glove basically gives me some video game like powers,” Harry said, fairly sure she wouldn’t believe him until he proved it or someone backed his story up.

“What type of abilities?” Hermione asked, fairly sure he was either mistaken or making a joke.

“In addition to being able to see Health and Mana bars for anything I look at, I can open a book and instantly learn the contents of the entire book,” Harry explained, doing his best to keep from laughing at the look of disbelief on her face.

Hermione stared at Harry as she realized that he was actually serious. “Where did you get the glove?” she asked as calmly as she could, wondering if there was a second one available.

“Myst got it from his gacha ability,” Sabrina explained as Dawn and Sirius walked into the drawing room with a stack of books floating in front of Sirius.

“Gacha ability?” she asked confused.

“Magical slot machine, don’t ask,” Sabrina replied. 

“We’re abusing the fact that Harry can read entire books just by opening them,” Sirius said cheerfully as he floated the stack of books to the table, having heard them talking as he came down the stairs with another girl who was dressed for a muggle beach and not a mansion owned by the Black family. 

“That doesn’t explain who Myst is or who Sabrina and her are,” Hermione complained as she studied the athletic black haired stranger that was wearing a thin white tank top and blue bikini bottoms that the shirt only mostly covered. ‘It’s like they stepped out of a magazine. At least Ron isn’t here, it’d be worse than dealing with Fleur.’

“Right, I’m Dawn Troi,” Dawn explained as she walked over and sat down on the armrest of the couch. “We’ve been basically bouncing around the multiverse, trying to get home for the last couple of weeks.”

“Multiverse?” Hermione asked as she looked at Sirius, realizing that he looked decades younger. ‘At least he’s taking care of himself.’ She glanced at Harry who was carefully opening the books then closing them and stacking them in a new stack.

“I’m just helping Harry take advantage of the glove. Basically, from what I understand, there are a bunch of different dimensions that you can reach with the right type of magic,” Sirius explained.

Hermione turned to look at Sabrina. “So we could meet versions of ourselves or go to a world where Voldemort was never born?”

“In theory, sure. We’re still sort of working on targeting specific worlds,” Sabrina admitted.

“You mentioned a gacha ability, what exactly does that entail?” Hermione asked, curious about the unfamiliar term.

“Myst has the ability to spend magic to create, copy, or collect random magical items from the various worlds he’s been to, it creates a spinning prize wheel and drops the loot after he’s spent an appropriate amount of mana,” Sabrina explained.

“That sounds useful and potentially dangerous,” Hermione said, thinking about some of the cursed items she’d read about.

“It helps that he’s a precog. His ability created the glove and realized that someone else would get more use out of it, which is why he opened a portal to your world,” Sabrina explained.

Harry glanced down at his glove then looked at Hermione. “Being able to instantly learn everything I read and drastically improve my skills just by casting a couple of spells is fantastic.”

“What’s the downside?” Hermione asked.

“I’m stuck with the glove until I can feed it enough magic that it finishes repairing itself, not really a big deal all things considered,” Harry said, with a shrug.

“And you can’t just learn things the normal way?” Hermione demanded, forgetting for a second that she really wanted a copy.

“In case you’ve forgotten, I have a deranged evil wizard after me with at least fifty more years of experience than I have and no one was even trying to teach me to defend myself,” Harry snapped, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice and failing.

“I’m sure…” Hermione trailed off, not sure why Dumbledore hadn’t arranged to give Harry extra training or made sure Harry’s aunt and uncle behaved like civilized people. “Fine, I can see why you’d use it. Is it safe?” she asked as she glanced between Sabrina and Sirius.

“So far as we can tell, yes,” Sabrina replied as she turned and looked at Harry’s glove. “Myst has the ability to look at magical items and figure out exactly what they can do.”

“That’s useful.” Hermione glanced at Harry’s glove. “Not to sound like my friend’s overprotective mother but if the glove is so amazing, why would your friend give it up?” she asked, because she could understand Harry’s point of view and admit to more than a smidge of jealousy.

Sabrina shook her head. “He’s not really giving anything up. Using the glove to boost your physical and mental abilities takes a certain amount of training, which Myst doesn’t need to bother with considering he can increase his abilities directly with magic. The only really useful ability the glove would give him is the ability to instantly scan books and the drastic increase to his ability to improve skills, but he should be able to copy that to something else when he gets a chance to examine the glove.”

“In other words, there’s no reason not to give it to Harry,” Hermione mused, feeling a lot better about the glove. “Where did he find a spell to boost intelligence and how long does it last?” she asked, thinking it might be worth casting before they took their OWLS, as long as the side effects weren’t too horrible.

“It’s not a spell, it’s one of his magical abilities and it’s permanent,” Dawn offered.

“Are you sure he’s not a god or maybe a genie?” Hermione asked, trying to figure out what she could offer to convince Myst to increase her intelligence and possibly her magic as well.

“Not that I know of,” Sabrina replied with amusement. “But yeah, Myst shouldn’t have a problem giving everyone a couple of upgrades and some magical items before we jump worlds.”

“Thank you, I would really appreciate it,” Hermione said excitedly, practically vibrating in place as she bounced up and down, completely unaware how Harry’s head was bobbing up in down in unison with her.

Sabrina grinned. “We’re actually friends with your alternates back home, they’d be annoyed if we didn’t give you the deluxe package.”

“What’s my alternate like?” Hermione asked, relieved that she didn’t have to beg or sell her soul for upgrades.

“Cute, intelligent, fun loving and a bit a bookworm, so much the same,” Sabrina replied then worked on sharing some of the more PG stories while they waited for Myst to get back, not wanting to shock the two, though she might have to leave them a video tape of their alternates going at it if they hadn’t figured things out before they left.