Demons and Botched Rituals Part 30 (Patreon)

Snape glanced between Harry and Hermione, not particularly impressed by Harry's story. "Let me get this straight, you're telling me that Ronald Weasley, one of the laziest students I've had the misfortune to teach found an empowerment ritual in the library, a place he'd never willingly set foot, figured out how to draw it with no training and activated it?" he asked, wondering if they'd actually given their story a second thought because it was holier than all of the Vatican drains put together.

Harry pulled his attention away from the heavily modified ritual drawn on the floor and looked at Snape, glad that he'd teleported up to the attic and checked on things before he'd told Snape and Dumbledore, since it gave him a chance to grab the journal and erase his footprints in the dust. "No, I'm saying that Kreacher admitted to using a ritual on Ginny. As much as I hate agreeing with you, it's more likely that Ron found the ritual and accidently activated it."

Snape glanced at Hermione who was staring at the ritual painted on the floor as if she could puzzle out the meaning. 'She's either a better actor than I've given her credit for or she's never actually seen the ritual. Of course, Kreacher could have changed the ritual, which would explain her interest,' he mused, wishing he could just look at their memories. "What do you think?" he asked Albus.

Albus gestured at the ritual and erased it, removing the danger that one of the children would accidently activate it and get sent to some hell dimension or worse. "This wouldn't be the first time that house elves have intentionally misinterpreted their master's orders. I suggest taking a bit more care about what you say, even if you think no one is listening, especially if you think no one is listening."

Harry wasn't terribly surprised that Albus didn't look like he actually believed the story, even if he seemed willing to let it go. "Probably a good habit, considering invisibility cloaks and disillusionment charms."

Snape bit back the urge to say something sarcastic. "Did you learn anything useful from working in the alchemy shop?"

Hermione glanced at Harry. "What do you think?"

"You're better with the lab spell," Harry replied, not seeing a point in hiding the fact that he'd picked up some recipes, even if he wasn't going to mention his actual skill.

Hermione gestured towards an open spot on the ground and cast the spell to conjure a portable lab. "It basically serves as a portable lab for field use."

"A bit of conjuration?" Severus asked, unwilling to admit that he was a bit impressed with the casual ease that she'd cast the spell.

Albus grinned when he realized the bottles had a trigger that would cause them to vanish once they were empty after being filled. "Nice touch with the bottles."

Hermione walked over and picked one of the vials up off the table. "Glass isn't particularly cheap in the other world, this way we don't have to charge people a deposit for the potion vials which lets us undercut the shops in the city while still making a profit."

"Nothing wrong with making a profit," Albus stated, knowing that he'd funded more than one vacation by selling potions over the years.

"How much do enchanted items cost where you ended up?" Snape asked, curious about their bracers.

Harry shrugged. "It depends on the quality of the enchantment, the material the base item is made out of and where the item comes from. I don't have a decent idea of the conversion rate but you could get lunch for a couple of copper coins."

"One silver coin was one hundred copper, one gold was one hundred silver," Hermione cut in.

Harry gave Hermione a smile then focused on Snape and Dumbledore. "If you're talking about buying something an apprentice crafted, you're looking at a couple of copper to a few silver coins depending how difficult the pattern is and how much magic it costs. If you're talking about stuff that requires a master enchanter, you're looking at things that would ruin the budget of kingdoms."

"And your bracers?" Snape asked.

"No clue, the original bracers were made out of pot metal, the enchantment partially depends on the quality of the base item," Harry replied.

"How much did the enchanter charge you to make it?" Snape asked.

"Nothing, I made them, I forged them and enchanted them," Harry replied, deciding there was no point in hiding the existence of skills from Dumbledore or even Snape, mostly because he wasn't planning on staying in the wizarding world once he graduated Hogwarts and he was only planning on staying that long because Hermione wanted to graduate.

Snape frowned when he noticed that Hermione didn't look surprised by Harry's claim nor dubious of it. "How?"

"Magic," Harry replied with a shrug. "Beyond that, I'm not explaining until you get rid of your dark mark."

Snape snorted. "It's not that easy."

"I can think of two ways to get rid of it off hand, the first being to drink the curse breaking elixir, the second cutting your arm off and regrowing it," Harry suggested.

Snape snorted. "It wouldn't help, it's a curse, the second the arm dies, the curse would jump to my other arm."

"Have you tried sticking it in a lead box?" Harry asked with a slight grin.

"I still have two arms, you little shit," Snape snarled, forgetting for a second that he didn't have to be an asshole.

"I'm reasonably sure that I can fix that," Harry assured him.

"Bullshit, there's no way you can regenerate lost limbs," Snape argued.

Harry laughed. "I can prove it."

"Right, sure go ahead and prove it-" Snape cut off when Harry's stunner hit him in the chest before he could react, not used to anyone shooting spells out of their hand.

Albus sighed as Snape slumped to the floor, a look of disbelief on his face. "Was that necessary?"

"He doesn't want to be awake for this next part," Harry replied as he pulled a sword out of his inventory and hacked Snape's arm off before Dumbledore could draw his wand. He quickly reached down and tossed Snape into his inventory, freezing him in time.

Albus stared at the spot where Snape had been lying. "What did you do with Professor Snape?"

"I ate him," Harry replied sarcastically as he stuck his sword back in his inventory and picked up Snape's severed arm.

"Harry!" Hermione complained.

"Come on, it's not like he actually took that seriously, it's Snape, I'm pretty sure a dragon would spit him out," Harry replied as he dropped Snape's arm into his enchanting window and pushed the button to reverse engineer the dark mark.

"Please tell me you can actually regenerate body parts and I will still have a Defense teacher when you're done, they're hard to find," Albus complained, hoping that Harry could actually fix things and hadn't lost his mind and harmed his old friend.

"Don't worry, be happy you'll still have your Defense teacher when we're done," Harry assured him as he tossed the hand into the air and blasted it with a firebolt, causing the mark to burn and the flesh around it to rot. "That's nasty and didn't quite work as well as I would have liked."

"Do we need to talk about your willingness to attack a professor?" Albus asked, hoping that Harry had an actual plan and wasn't just being vindictive.

"No, I put up with him for five years and I didn't kill him," Harry replied as he looked through his inventory for the ingredients for a potion of regeneration.

"Snape had a difficult job, he had to appear loyal to Tom," Albus offered, knowing Snape could have taken a more professional approach.

"He could have been a professional and done his job with a couple of sarcastic comments tossed in, he didn't have to be a complete bastard and try to ruin my education or Neville's, no one should have a boggart turn into a teacher," Harry complained as he set the ingredients on the alchemy table.

"Are you done with the arm?" Albus asked, making a mental note to talk to Snape about toning things down.

"Yeah, go ahead and get rid of it," Harry replied as he turned his attention back to the runes he was hoping would let him create a crystal ball that let him track the dark marks.

Albus drew his wand and vanished Severus's severed arm, causing the dark mark to animate and fly around as if it was searching for something for a couple of seconds before exploding in a burst of black smoke that quickly dissipated.

"What type of an idiot lets a dark wizard brand them?" Harry asked, not sure what the hell the idiots had been thinking.

"Can you actually make a regeneration potion?" Albus asked as he studied the ingredients, ignoring Harry's question, none of his answers painted his friend in a good light.

"I probably could but I'd have to get lucky if I wanted a decent potion and some of the ingredients are expensive and or rare enough that I'd rather avoid making a mistake," Harry admitted as he set the last of the ingredients on the table and backed up, giving Hermione room to work.

Hermione glanced at the small jar filled with a faintly glowing blue gel. "The ghost essence?"

Harry glanced at the vial of blood he'd set on the table. "The troll blood wasn't all that cheap either."

"Troll's blood?" Albus asked, not sure why you'd want to add troll's blood to anything outside of something to boost your strength, given the side effects you had to account for.

"The trolls from the other world have the ability to regenerate from being cut apart as long as you don't burn the remains," Hermione explained as she started dicing a purple carrot into chunks. "Of course, if you're not careful you'll turn the drinker into some type of part troll abomination or create a troll in a bottle."

"Let's avoid that," Albus suggested, fairly sure Snape wouldn't want to get turned into a monster.

"Don't worry, my alchemy skill comes with the ability to identify the effects and side effects of a potion or elixir," Hermione assured him.

"That sounds useful," Albus mused.

Harry smiled at Dumbledore. "Speaking of payment for expensive ingredients, when he asks, tell him that I brewed the potion."

"Are you trying to give him a heart attack?" Hermione asked as she added the chunks of night carrot to the bubbling cauldron.

"Would you believe me if I said no?" Harry asked with a smile.

"Not when you're smiling like that," Hermione replied, not even having to look at her friend to know he was amused.

Harry mock pouted. "You can't even see my face."

"I don't have to, I can hear it in your voice," Hermione replied as she swapped to dicing the next ingredient.

"Fine," Harry replied as he pulled up his Wayfinder skill. "Do you want a copy of the Alchemy skill?" he asked Albus. "Worst case, you can just ignore the magical skills and continue using your actual skill but at least it would give you a better idea of what we're talking about and prove that we're not insane."

Albus smiled as he thought about what he could learn and what he could teach, wondering if it was time to get back in the classroom now that he wasn't stuck dealing with politics. "Sounds interesting."

Harry paid the mana to teach Dumbledore Alchemy, Time Warped Alchemy, and the Suspect Substitution skill. "Read everything over and tap the accept button for lack of a better term."

Albus stared at the translucent pages floating in front of him for a couple more seconds, trying to figure out how you'd duplicate the pages then read over the descriptions, curious about the strange magic that Harry had come back with. "Can you see the floating pages?"

"No, they're basically illusions that only the person learning them can see," Harry explained as he looked through his list for other useful skills. "Do you want a skill that gives you resistance to death magic?"

"What's the catch?" Albus asked as he reached up and touched the accept button on the Alchemy skill. He smiled when he realized that he knew how to pull up a mental interface for his new skill. He flipped the switch for the strangely familiar and completely unfamiliar mental interface and looked at the floating menu, finding it surprisingly intuitive.

"The catch is it only gives you a forty percent chance to survive the magic to start with and you can only increase the skill by getting hit with death magic," Harry explained as he paid the mana to share the skill. "Of course a forty percent chance to shrug off a death curse is better than nothing."

Albus glanced over the Lesser Death Magic resistance skill and hit accept, seeing Harry's point immediately. "Do you have to use the Time Warped Alchemy skill?"

"No, there's a toggle on your Alchemy interface," Hermione replied. "Same thing with the Suspect Substitution skill."

"That's useful," Albus replied as he accepted the new skills, causing his mental interface to change, gaining two new buttons and an ingredient tab. "I'll admit it feels a bit strange to have zero skill in Alchemy when I can still remember everything I know about Alchemy."

"You get used to it," Hermione assured him. "I can brew potions without the skill, they're more like training wheels or a helping hand while you're crafting."

Harry pulled a copy of one of the Alchemy books out of his inventory and handed it to Dumbledore. "This has a couple of beginning recipes in it, the Alchemy Guild isn't as annoying as the Enchanter's Guild when it comes to secrets."

"Nice to know," Albus replied as he accepted the new skills and opened the book. He glanced over the first couple of recipes, comparing the recipes to the ones was familiar with, fairly sure some of the recipes in the book could use a couple of adjustments for better results. "Have you tried altering the recipe on some of these?"

"I haven't had a chance to practice all that much, I've been working on Enchanting. That reminds me, I need to see if I can figure out how my cloak works," Harry mused, making a mental note to check when he had a chance.

"You should probably check your wand while you're thinking about it," Hermione suggested as she finished measuring the diced roots and dropped half a pound of them into the cauldron.

"I'll grab my potion book, it has suggestions in the margins," Harry said excitedly then apparated to his room, hoping that she'd stop complaining about the book now that they had a way to identify the results and avoid any side effects.

"Suggestions in the margin?" Albus asked.

"It's a used book, they have a number of suggestions in the margin for increasing the quality of the potions or skipping some steps, it's useful, it just feels a bit dodgy," Hermione admitted as she added the powdered snail shell to the bubbling cauldron and grabbed a glass rod to stir it.

"I'll take a look," Albus offered, wanting to make sure there wasn't anything overly dangerous in the book.

"If you could avoid mentioning anything about the dodgy part, I'd appreciate it," Hermione said, trying to avoid squealing on Harry.

"I've found that my mind wanders now and then Miss Granger, what were we talking about?" Albus asked with a smile.

"Adding the dragonfly wings and stirring things counterclockwise," Hermione said as she added five wings to the potion, knowing they'd boil down and be strained out before everything was bottled.

0o0o0

Harry pushed the button to reverse engineer the enchantment on his cloak and stared in disbelief at the wall of text detailing the dozens of tracking charms the cloak had gotten tagged with over the years. He checked to make sure the cloak was actually enchanted rather than charmed then pulled the cloak back out of his enchanting window. He focused on expelling foreign magic then hit the cloak with his best finite, overpowering the hell out of the spell.

He dropped the cloak back in his enchanting window and hit the reverse engineering button, smiling when it came up clean of tracking charms. "That should make sneaking around easier," he mused as he put his cloak in his inventory and put his wand in his enchanting window.

He pushed the button to reverse engineer his wand and frowned at the results. "Channels magic…" he trailed off when he noticed the second part of the basic enchantment. "Twenty percent boost against Tom Riddle? That explains some of the weird results."

He put his wand in his inventory, wanting to make sure it was somewhere safe. "I can see where you're standing, show yourself," he ordered, not particularly happy with Kreacher spying on him.

Kreacher snapped his fingers and appeared. "What does Bad Master want?"

"Is there anything I can help you with so you'll actually behave like a reasonable person that doesn't involve freeing you so you can sell me out to Death Eaters?" Harry asked, assuming the house elf would tell him to go to hell.

Kreacher opened his mouth to tell the half blood to go hang himself before he remembered that he'd actually come back after using the ancient Black Family ritual and might be powerful enough to help complete Regulus' last orders which meant the command was actually valid. "Help me destroy a locket, Kreacher failed Master Regulus."

"What does the locket do?" Harry asked, wondering if it was a trick.

"Kreacher doesn't know," Kreacher admitted. "Master Regulus stole it from Voldemort and commanded Kreacher to destroy it, Kreacher tried but Kreacher was unable to destroy it. If you can destroy it, Kreacher can die happy."

"Show me the locket…" Harry trailed off as he found himself in the dining room with Kreacher, reminding him that house elves were terrifying and that he needed better defenses. "Where is it?"

Kreacher opened one of the drawers and pulled the locket out and tossed it to Harry.

Harry caught the silver locket with a levitation charm and dropped it in his enchanting window, not wanting to touch it in case it was cursed like the necklace that had nearly killed Katie. He hit the button to reverse engineer the locket and stared at the results in surprise.

"One enchantment for storing and projecting memories like a pensieve, one exceptional durability enchantment, and a dark curse for binding a soul…" he trailed off as he pulled up the description for the curse and realized that Voldemort was basically a fragmented soul and that the ritual damaged the user's emotional stability.

'Did he know the risks and just not care? Did growing up in the orphanage fuck him up that badly?' he mused as he walked over and grabbed a bowl from the cabinet. "I have an idea that might destroy the locket or at least break the curse on it, do you want me to set things up so you can do it or do you want me to destroy it?"

"Kreacher wants to complete his task," Kreacher said, hoping that the boy could actually help.

Harry walked over to the table and pulled one of the chairs out then set the bowl on the chair so Kreacher could reach. He pulled his copy of the Holy Grail out of his inventory and filled the bowl with grape juice, knowing the liquid had a 'negative' effect on curses. He put the chalice back in his inventory then pulled the locket out of his enchanting window and tossed it to Kreacher. "Drop the locket in the bowl."

Kreacher looked at Harry then walked over and dropped the locket in the purple liquid, more than a little surprised when the liquid started to bubble and he heard unholy screaming coming from the locket. He watched the liquid until it stopped bubbling. "Did Kreacher complete his mission?"

"Let's give it a minute," Harry replied as he watched the liquid, not sure how long it would take to destroy the curse.

0o0o0

"Find me the person that killed Severus!" Voldemort snapped as he drew his wand and pointed it at Lucius Malfoy, ready to curse him to inspire the rest of his minions to do better.

"I'll find out!" Lucius Malfoy blurted, trying to avoid getting cursed and used as an object lesson in his own home.

"Cruc-" Voldemort stopped in the middle of his spell when he felt his soul ignite for a brief second before oblivion claimed him.

Bellatrix stared in disbelief as her master turned to ash before her eyes. "What?!"

Lucius summoned his wand to his hand wandlessly and blasted Bellatrix in the back with a stunner, dropping her unconscious. He turned to look at Macnair. "Kill the Lestrange brothers, if he's actually dead, I want him to stay that way."

"What happens if he comes back again?" Macnair asked, knowing Lucius had enough money to get them out of the mess Voldemort left them in and more than happy to watch the Lestrange brothers die, mostly because it would be funny.

"We saw him die, he'd kill us first, he can't have witnesses," Lucius stated, wanting to make sure he got rid of any of the lunatics that were loyal enough to bring him back before he found someone that he could bribe to get his family out of the mess that Voldemort had pulled them into.