Innovator; Chapter 10: The Stone of Renascence (Patreon)

Author’s Note: Hello my dear patron family. Here’s chapter ten of Innovator. Hope you like it! Do tell how it was in the comments. Also, Chapters 1-8 are on my fanfiction and ao3 profile.

(Unfortunately my beta reader is suffering from some personal problems therefore, this chapter is raw and currently undergoing beta reading, so please ignore the spelling and grammatical errors. They'll definitely be corrected soon, Thank you!)

The previous chapters have been corrected and this one will be corrected within 2-3 days. Thank you for your patience, my beta reader and I are working on the chapters.

Author Out!

“I am Talking.”

‘I am Thinking’

Spells

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You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

~Abraham Lincoln

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Innovator

-Dev Sagittarius Black

~~Chapter 10: The Stone of Renascence~~

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Harry released a tired breath as he re-entered his suite. He was thankful for the fact that he had not met any familiar faces on his way to his sanctuary. After the news he had heard he was sure that any of the familiar faces he had witnessed would have made him feel useless and helpless even more than he already was.

‘Pop’

“Master Harry Potter sir is back, how was the trip Harry Potter sir?” Dobby asked the innovator who looked at Dobby with steeled expressions, “Dobby…I will be in my worklab and no one, unless it’s one of the professors or headmaster, is allowed to enter or meet me.” He told the diminutive creature.

“And if there is someone who really wants to meet me, ask them the reason. If you think that their reason is just enough, then ask them to wait and if they are just here for chit-chat, tell them that I am busy and won’t be able to meet them anytime soon.”

The seriousness in his master’s voice made Dobby gulp. This was not how his master usually was. He was serious, yes, but not like this. “Ye-yes master. Dobby will see to it that no one disturbs master’s work. Where should Dobby keep the food? As Dobby thinks Master won’t be having food in the great hall anymore.”

Harry frowned a bit before pointing it towards his workroom, “In there.” And with that Harry moved towards his room to get changed.

He needed to report this to Dumbledore as soon as possible. The headmaster might be an old manipulative coot but he was better for the survival of the wizarding community and Harry was sure that he will need the Grand Sorcerer's help soon. ‘I will need to report to Sirius too. I can’t attend those stupid functions he had been signing me off too.’

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‘Knock Knock’

“Come in Harry.”

Harry controlled his mind, it won’t do any good to walk in with his emotions on his sleeves. Still it was really hell to control his aggression and anxiousness that he had felt ever since he learned about it. He opened the door and stepped inside, stopping momentarily when he saw his first benefactor, Lord Greengrass sitting on the opposite chair.

“Headmaster, Lord Greengrass.” Harry greeted both the senior wizards.

“Harry, I am afraid you will have to wait for a few minutes. Lord Greengrass here is just about to leave for his work.” Dumbledore smiled at him and Harry knew that the headmaster was using this as a way to escape Lord Greengrass.

“Please Headmaster. Don’t end your meeting with Lord Greengrass just because I came. I can always come back later.” Harry knew he was supposed to hurry but the news could wait for the small amusement he got as he watched Dumbledore squirm.

“Are you sure Harry?” Dumbledore asked him quite smoothly, and even though his eyes showed nothing but general curiosity Harry knew that the man was tired and looking for any way to get rid of the Greengrass head.

“Yes sir, I am very sure.” Harry smirked at the way Dumbledore was spluttering, he was about to leave the room when Lord Greengrass stopped him.

“Ah, no Harry. I am sure that Dumbledore understands the reason for my visit.” He sighed and turned to look at Dumbledore, “And I hope you will do something about it soon because I don’t want to come here again with this issue.”

Dumbledore nodded and with a simple bow, to the headmaster Lord Greengrass left the room.

“Come Harry, take a seat. Lemon drops?” The headmaster offered the boy a bowl full of lemon drops and the innovator politely declined, “This is not a casual meeting headmaster. And I think,” Harry pulled out a small vial that had a shiny silver thread slowly floating inside it, “That you’ll need to bring out your pensieve for this one.”

Dumbledore’s cheerful demeanour immediately fell and he gave a small hum as he flicked the elder wand and opened the pensieve cabinet. Harry watched as the large pensieve came out from inside the wall cabinet, its runes shining as the gaseous liquid floated inside it.

“Come Harry.” Dumbledore moved towards the magical device, and emptied the small vial that was given to him by Harry. “After you.” He said to the boy who denied, “No sir, I think this time you should be the only one to go inside. The message is for you, not me.”

Dumbledore frowned at that but gave a single nod and with a deep breath dived inside the pensieve.

-*-*-*-*-*-

Dumbledore looked around the large chamber that he had been sent into. It was still the same, just like the last time when he had visited the chamber all those years ago.

The same black walls, the same haunted appearance, the bones lying around. Honestly, he is still glad that he wasn’t called to join the guild and instead all he had to do was visit the guild. That was also only because he had to register his name and magical signature as the master of one of the beacons of Death’s powers.

“Welcome to the guild again, Albus.”

Dumbledore immediately turned towards the voice and stiffened, ‘The enlightened one…’ There she was again, the master of the Guild and one of the most powerful mages alive. No one knew how old she was or when she joined the guild. Only that she has been here for a long time and every member in the guild calls her ‘The Enlightened one’.

Not so surprisingly, she looked the same as she did in the fifties when he had visited the guild for the first time.

Surprisingly enough, she was sitting on the black throne that was embedded with various jewels. And her eyes were zeroed in on his own self. It was as if she knew just where he would be standing when she sent this memory.

“I have not sent my memory for fun purposes, child, the world is in need of young Anubis’ services now. Because if not for him, the entire world would go down the hell hole and none of you would survive.” She said, her black eyes glinting as she rubbed her bald head that was full of various symbols in red and black.

“You might be wondering why I sent this memory to you.” She gave a feral grin, “That’s because, I have a task for you. But before that, I would like you to come with me.” And with that she got up and left the chamber, the entire scene shifting with her.

Dumbledore noticed that this time they were in a room with a huge black ball with green spots swirling in the centre of the room, smoky tendrils moving around it as it slowly floated in the exact centre of the room. Rotating from west to east.

‘The world chamber’ Dumbledore thought as the enlightened one moved towards the rotating ball of darkness. “I am assuming you know what this is?” She asked him again and this time turned to look straight at him again. This was as if she knew where he would be, even though this memory was made some time ago.

“Yes, this is one of the three eternal spheres that show our world to us. There is a simple thing that one needs to know before studying the sphere.” The enlightened one said and turned to the sphere as she placed her hands around it, not on it. Making sure to never touch the sphere.

“This is not only a replica of our mother earth, this is the exact same replica of mother earth and her domains.” The woman said and smiled as she watched the sphere rotate with a small amount of insanity seeping in her eyes.

Dumbledore frowned at that, he knew that the woman wouldn't say anything useless. Her words were carefully constructed bridges between deep meanings and mortal understanding. Still he couldn’t get the meaning of the sentence behind her words, ‘the exact replica of mother earth…’

“Don’t worry about the meaning behind my words child.” She said, looking at him with a small smile, “You’ll understand them soon enough.” And with that she gently moved away from the rotating sphere, “Watch the sphere Albus and compare it with what little knowledge the mortal mind has about the planet we live in.”

And Dumbledore did. The headmaster followed her words to the tee as he looked at the sphere and tried to imagine their home planet beside the ball. Same shape, same size, same rotation…Slowly the image started to fit the one that was spinning in front of him.

Dumbledore’s eyes widened a bit as the realisation hit him, ‘The ‘exact’ replica of mother earth….’ And this realisation made his mind explode with a multitude of thoughts.

This sphere, this ball of darkness…it wasn’t called The Eternal Sphere for nothing. The sphere wasn’t the earth’s replica…it was earth herself. In all of its glory and grandeur. Which meant that anything that happened anywhere on the planet would directly be shown here.

But why was it black and green and why were the green spots not looking like the continents? Instead they all looked far away from each other.

“Yes child, this is the model of Earth that is linked with mother nature herself. Now you might be wondering why am I telling and showing you all this, right?” She carefully started collecting the tendrils of black smoke that were writhing around the planet.

“The three spheres, each have a different purpose and a different name. This one shows us the balance between the land of living and the land of the dead and helps us in protecting the balance so that neither the dead breach the border nor the living enters the land of all ends.” She said and swirled the collected smoke in her palm.

“But recently, someone successfully breached the borders and re-entered the land of the living when he should have remained dead and passed onto the next adventure.” The guildmaster turned to look at him, her smile gone and in its place was an angry glare that forced Dumbldore to take a step back even though he knew it was a memory and not real.

“Your wayward disciple, Tom Marvolo Riddle has successfully re-entered the land of the living.” For a few moments Dumbledore’s brain stopped working. Its activity died down and it was as if this was all a really bad nightmare that would end soon. At Least he wished that it would end soon.

“Wh-What?!” Dumbledore gasped out loud as he finally registered the words….”Voldemort…he’s back?”

The enlightened one gave a hum of acknowledgement as she snapped her fingers and Dumbledore watched the smoke that she had collected rise out of her palm and turn to form a smoky screen.

There Dumbledore and the Guildmaster watched as Bellatrix LeStrange worked through the ritual. He watched as Lucius Malfoy’s left hand was chopped and dropped in the cauldron. His eyes widened in shock when the crazy woman took the disfigured baby in her arms from none other than Draco Malfoy’s hands, the poor boy was shivering with fright.

‘Is this why Lucius took his son out of Hogwarts on the same day when the Dragons were released? He said that Narcissa was worried about her son and therefore wanted him with her for at least one week…at that time I had assumed that it was nothing more than a mother’s love for her child but…this? Lucius took Draco out of Hogwarts to witness this?’ Dumbledore didn’t know if he should pity the younger Malfoy more or be angry at the elder one.

Finally Dumbledore witnessed the grotesque form of Voldemort that rose from the cauldron and took shape in front of his eyes. Tom Riddle was indeed back. And this…was not good news, not at all.

“When a soul breaches the border and re-enters the land of the living, they leave a small tear in the border that protects both the realms. The tear is small right now but it’ll soon grow large as the time passes and once the tear is large enough for one entire soul to pass through it….the entire throng of the cursed dead spirits will re-enter the forbidden world.”

Dumbledore looked at the woman completely dumbfounded, not knowing what to say. His thought process had stopped and now all he could do was imagine the utter chaos that the cursed spirits would do if they ever managed to breach the border successfully. The world would cry tears of blood and fire.

“I don’t think Tom Riddle knows or understands the consequences of his actions.” She said as she snapped her fingers again and the smoke screen disappeared. “There are spirits that are far more powerful than you or him. People and creatures who have the powers to bend the base of all creations, cursed for an eternity to bear the pain and atone for their crimes in the realm of the dead.”

She gave a small sigh as she turned to look at the old man who was still trying to digest the information that was given to him, “The dead must stay dead, Albus. That’s the way the circle of life works and one simply doesn’t break the circle for their personal benefits or the dead will bring down the entire creation to its knees.”

The enlightened one then came and stood right in front of the only wizard, her glare penetrating through his skull even though she was a memory, “I have summoned Anubis today and he’ll likely be here in two days. He is the only one who could stop the creation from tearing apart. Though right now, my little warrior is weak, he has the will and the strength but he does not have the necessary power. He is not suited for such a task at the moment.”

Dumbledore knew what was about to come, “He needs your help Albus.” There it was, “You will have to help my little warrior to become who he should be, to become who he must. It is time for you to pay the price for the help that the spirit of death has been giving you all these years.”

The master of the Guild looked at his right arm, the place where he kept the Elder wand and smiled as if she knew exactly where the wand was, “It is time…for the first hallow to change its allegiances once more.”

-*-*-*-*-

Dumbledore stepped out of the pensieve, his head going through his thoughts a mile a minute. There were a million things going on and a billion results if anything shifted from the exact current base of operations.

The enlightened one had given him two tasks right now. And he, for all his genius brain power, could not fault her for either of them or find anything that could serve as a better alternative than the options she gave.

The old headmaster saw his student still sitting in one of the visitor chairs, his hand in a blur as he wrote something on a piece of parchment. “Harry?” He asked the boy who looked up, “Oh, you are back, professor. I am assuming you know about the fact then?”

Albus nodded and took his seat, he looked at his hand that was still shivering and he knew that it would take some time before he could finally get his nerves under control, “I don’t know if she told you everything or not, therefore I won’t be able to tell you what she told me. I am assuming she gave you some work to do?”

“Yes professor,” Harry said and stood up from the chair, “I have to leave on an excursion soon. I have been told that I will be accompanying you somewhere?”

Dumbledore tried to collect his thoughts as he imagined the damage one idiot’s action has already done and the extent it will do. He knew he was not suitable enough and that his time as the frontline fighter had gone long ago. Ergo, the only thing he could do now, was to protect and prepare the younger generation for a war that might wipe the world.

“Yes Harry, You will be accompanying me on this journey, I was still doubtful about the location but now I am sure we’ll find it there.” The chief warlock told him, “We will be leaving within fifteen minutes. Wear something comfortable but with protective enchantments so that it could protect you from the harm and danger.”

Harry gave a solemn nod and left the office. The guildmaster had told him that Voldemort is back and the prophecy regarding Voldemort and Alandale is now active. Right now, snake-face might be recruiting to reach the grand army numbers he once had.

And all Harry was doing was to go on blind missions that might kill or grievously injure one of the two members that were going on this mission. Harry knew that Dumbledore and The guildmaster were hiding something because she had expressly told him not to view the memory and only to let Dumbledore be the only watcher.

‘She did say that she’ll tell me when I visit her again on the twenty-first’ Harry thought as he turned the corner towards his suite.

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Ashley looked at her reflection and gave herself a proud smirk. She was proud of the fact that she was a champion and was representing her school. She was also proud of the fact that she had done really well in the task and she was also proud of the fact that her image as the Dueling Champion and the Triwizard Champion had ensured her name in golden letters in world history.

Still, there was one thing that was missing her ‘ideal’ world dream; A person who could rival her level of arrogance and back it with his work. Someone who had both the wits to charm anyone and the tongue to humiliate them within a moment's notice. And there was indeed someone who could do it.

Ashley peppered her face with another light dusting of the foundation glow that perfectly blended with her skin tone, ‘Harry Potter.’ The only person who she could say was actually made for her. Unfortunately her prime competitor, Angelique,  was after the young man too. Which made this challenge even sweeter when she’d win it in the end.

Harry Potter was an enigma. Something that Ashley fully intended to solve one day, the boy had killed the fiercest dragon in existence single handedly just five days ago and then had gone to some sort of tour of his own.

But according to the elf that had told her about his absence, the Potter heir was supposed to come back to Hogwarts today. She knew that Harry Potter along with the majority of the three schools were still uninformed about the special event that was to take place on Yule this year.

Which meant that she could easily use her knowledge to ask the Potter heir before Angelique or other girls could. Ergo cementing her place by his side and removing the confusion that other girls might have regarding a possible relationship with said Innovator.

Ashley smirked at herself before giving her reflection a seductive wink,’Tonight, I’ll visit him in his quarters, it’s time he learns something better than just book knowledge.’

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Dumbledore sighed when Severus finally left his office. The day was slowly seeping him off his strength. Unfortunately, he knew that this was nothing and that there are many more tiring things to do. The aged headmaster looked at the wand that was placed on his office table.

The eighteen inch long beaded wand. The death-stick or the First hallow of Death. The wand had a long history written in blood. Legends said that each of the hollows had a unique ability of hiding themselves from the world and then resurface when it was time for another event that would change the reality of the world.

The wand of Destiny was no different than its fellow beacons of eldritch powers.

Dumbledore grabbed the wand and again felt the surge of power that rejuvenated each and every fibre of his hundred and fifteen year old physical self. He knew that he had to train himself for years to finally control the power that this wand held and not let it overwhelm his mind so much that he lost control and destroyed every beautiful thing that his eyes fell upon.

He only wished that Harry would be able to control the corrupting powers of the wand better than him and would be able to gain the wands' mastery sooner than Dumbledore did because the boy had much more important and tougher challenges ahead.

“I feel it’s time to finally leave.” Dumbledore whispered to himself and with that he picked up his wand before leaving the office. It was not the time to think about consequences, he had some searching to do and two tasks to perform. He just can’t let his thoughts control him anymore.

The headmaster saw that the boy was waiting for him in the entrance hall. His back leaned on the stone wall as he seemed to be deep in thoughts of his own. It was quite understandable, the boy had just been told that the person he had been working to defeat for the past five months now, is back and will attack the wizarding world the moment he gets his sufficient strength.

“Shall we leave Mr Potter?” Dumbledore called out, formally breaking the said boy off of his thoughts.

“Yes headmaster.” Harry said, and together two of the strongest wizards in Hogwarts started moving towards the school grounds, completely ignoring the students who were looking at the unlikely pair of mages going out together.

Moving out of the Hogwarts protection area, Dumbledore lent his arm towards Harry who raised an eyebrow.

“The location that I will be taking you, is a place which you haven’t visited before.” Dumbledore told him, “Therefore it will be prudent of us to take you with side-along apparition. Don’t worry I have enough practice that I won’t splinch you.” The old man smiled.

Harry ignored the old man’s attempt at humour, right now he was not in any mood to laugh anyways. So, instead he held the headmaster’s arm and took a deep breath to compose himself.

“One should never forget to smile Mr Potter,” The headmaster said, “For one never knows when it might be the last time.” And with that, the duo were whisked off with a small ‘pop’ sound.

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‘Pop’

Two men, one tall with a long white beard and another short with the most piercing green eyes that had ever been seen suddenly came into existence. The shorter of the two stumbled a bit, as if trying to get his bearings.

“What’s this place, professor?” Harry asked as he looked around, trying to familiarise himself with his surroundings.

They were standing in a patch of land that had huge numbers of wild plants growing at an uncontrolled rate. A few metres from them was a dilapidated shack that was half-hidden amongst a tangle of trunks. It seemed to him a very strange location to choose for a house or to leave the trees growing nearby, blocking all light and the view of the valley below.

Harry wondered whether it was still inhabited; its walls were mossy and so many tiles had fallen off the roof that the rafters were visible in places. Nettles grew all around it, their tips reaching the windows, which were tiny and thick with grime.

“That,” Dumbledore began as he stepped out of the patch of wild plants and into the small clearing beside it, “is the ancestral home of one of the most notoriously dark families that ever set its foot on British soil: The Gaunts.”

For a second Harry doubted that anyone could even assume ‘that’ as an ancestral home but then the name ‘Gaunt’ stopped him. He had read about that family, one of the earliest families said to be descended from Salazar Slytherin and the only English family other than the Blacks that could speak to Snakes.

But there were two things that stood out more than others; The Gaunt Madness, something that the entire family suffered from before dying and another lesser known fact that Tom Marvolo Riddle or as he wanted to be known, Lord Voldemort was half Gaunt.

“So, this is his ancestral home.” Harry said, his tone more of a declaration than of a query.

“Kind of, yes.” Dumbledore confirmed and flicked his wand, throwing a powerful stunner at the dilapidated shack.

Harry was about to stop the old man but then his eyes widened when all of a sudden, a thick blue shield materialised absorbing the beam of pure magic before disappearing as soon as it came.

“What was that?” Harry asked the elder wizard who just muttered something under his breath.

“Tom has left this home for more than five decades Harry, still the locals have not destroyed the building. It’s not because they didn’t want to. It’s more like Tom’s protective enchantments have stopped anyone, even the Ministry, from coming near the shack.”

Harry wasn’t going to lie, he was astounded by the sheer power that Riddle’s magical skills showed. To not come to a place for five whole decades and still have the enchantments strong enough to repel muggle and magical force alike is nothing short of an accomplishment.

Meanwhile, Dumbledore flicked his wand again and sent a purple beam of light this time, unfortunately just like last time, the shield came and absorbed the spell before disappearing.

“It seems,” The headmaster said, “That we will have to wait here for some time so that I can work on this protective enchantment first.” And with that he began his work while Harry decided to quietly observe him.

It took Dumbledore about thirty-five minutes to crack the basic rune circuit that was powering the shield. After he was done, they saw the shield come into existence once more before flickering a bit and vanishing.

Dumbedore again sent a small stunner and both the mages watched with satisfaction as the spell traversed the area between the wand and the shack without being absorbed by the shield. Though shockingly enough, the spell didn’t hit the shack at all because a snake jumped out of the bushes when the spell was a few metres away from the door and took the spell head-on.

“Snakes.” Harry muttered.

“Yes, the Gaunts took pride in their abilities in the field of parselmagic. Therefore I had assumed that they might have used it to command a group of snakes that would protect their shack from anyone that wasn’t pure of blood or muggles in general.” Dumbledore told him before taking a step forwards towards the shack.

“Be careful Harry, these Snakes are probably venomous in nature.” Dumbledore said as he stunned another snake that was hissing, “I will not be able to protect you from every single one of them.”

Just then five glowing beams of red passed Dumbledore’s side and hit five different snakes, immediately stunning the slithering reptiles that were waiting to attack the wizards.

“Speak for yourself, professor.” Harry said and joined Dumbledore as the duo started moving towards the shack, stunning as many snakes as they could, protecting themselves while guarding the other one when needed.

They reached the front of the Gaunt shack, and Harry winced at the pitiable condition of the building. He looked at the dead snake skin that was hanging on the front door.

Dumbledore flicked his wand at the door, “Inspicere.” The elder wand’s tip glowed a vibrant shade of red, screaming about the dangerous hexes that might be sewed in the door to protect it from invaders.

“Why was Riddle protecting this dilapidated building with such ferociousness?” Harry asked the older wizard.

“I had always assumed that Tom was a person who valued worldly possessions more than anything and that he might’ve used artefacts of greater magical integrity as his sources to reach immortality.” Dumbledore answered, “To hide such artefacts, he might’ve used places that were of great attachment to him, no matter the emotions behind such attachments be Happiness, Sadness or Anger.”

“Therefore, I had assumed that he might’ve used his maternal home as another place to hide one such artefact.” The chief warlock added as he raised his wand once more, “And with the number of enchantments around this place, I can safely say that I was right.”

The two mages then started working on removing the numerous hexes that were placed on the door. Not so surprisingly, the hexes weren’t that dangerous. It could be assumed that they were placed by a sixteen year old boy who didn’t know much about hexing and wasn’t as knowledgeable as the dark lord he currently was.

Still, the amount of hexes were tiring. If a group of hundred muggles had somehow breached the compulsion charms and breached the first boundary successfully, then only 5-10 might’ve been able to successfully enter the shack and that too after suffering a lot of curses and body altering hexes.

The door was opened and the two men observed the insides of the shack. And it was then a wave of compulsion hit both of them, telling them to leave the place immediately. The two ignored it as they knew it was likely another protective enchantment that Riddle had used to safeguard his container.

The house seemed worse on the inside than it was on the outside. The walls were mossy with black marks on them and paint peeling off in the corners. There were a few items in the room that looked like they had seen better days centuries ago.

Worst of all was the floor that was completely rotten. The floor-boards were soiled and were littered with dead animal bones as well as excreta. Both Dumbledore and Harry immediately activated their Bubblehead charm to protect their smell buds from being bombarded with the putrid smell.

But just as the two were about to step inside the shack, the hairs on the back of the neck rose and they immediately took a step back as their senses were bombarded with a feeling of imminent danger.

“You felt it too Harry?” Dumbledore asked the boy who gave a single nod in response.

“I think that the threshold is also cursed, sir.” The innovator said, “We will have to remove the curse first.”

Dumbledore hummed before flicking his wand towards the broken roof of the shack, “You are able to discern a threat purely based on your magical sensation at such a young age is nothing short of astonishing Harry.” The wand tip glowed blue and he pointed it towards the floor next, “But you must still learn how to distinguish the level of threat.” And this time the tip glowed a vibrant shade of red.

“Because it’s not the threshold that’s cursed,” Dumbledore sighed and looked at Harry, “It’s the entire floor of the house.”

After another ten minutes, Dumbledore finally found the curse that was applied on the floor. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t something that could have been done by a sixteen year old Tom Riddle, therefore he assumed that this was the work of the curse on the object that was holding the horcrux and that somehow the curse had encompassed the entirety of the floor-board in its range.

After this, it was only a matter of time when the location of the curse was found. Harry used his mage sight that activating any of his Rune of Potentia gave. His pupils turned silver and the green was pushed to the circumference.

The mage sight was a power consuming ability that could not be gained. It was something that the magic user was born with. Still, one should have a bigger than average magical core to activate it, much less use it for more than 2 minutes. This is where Harry's Rune of Potentia came into effect.

The location of the cursed object was easy enough to find as it had the maximum amount of degeneration around it. Harry confirmed it once again with the help of his mage sight. The entirety of the floor was covered in a dark mist, but the mist around the two floor-boards in the farther right corner had dark grey almost black mist.

Dumbledore nodded and told the boy to step back. He pointed his wand at the two floor-boards, “Bombarda!”

The muddy orange beam of light flew from the death-stick and hit the centre of the floor-boards accurately. Harry watched as with a loud boom, the two floorboards were destroyed along with a sizable chunk of the mossy corner wall.

Amidst the dust and rotten debris, the two mages noticed a black box sitting right under the point where Dumbledore’s curse had hit the floorboards. The wave of compulsion charm strengthened and both the mages applied their occulomency shields to protect their minds.

Harry had to crinkle his eyes because his mage sight showed that the black wasn’t just painted black. But the object inside it was so evil that it had a pitch-black hue around it with black tendrils made of pure magic leaping on and off from the box.

“Wingardium Leviosa.” Harry muttered and felt his magic grab the cursed vessel from afar. He knew better than to use the Summoning charm when dealing with objects that could rot anything they touch.

Harry brought the box out of the shack and placed it on the ground. He saw a small area around the box immediately turned dry and got a few cracks. The boy still wondered what the cursed object might be that Voldemort used to house his soul, he knew that Dumbledore would tell him soon.

Dumbledore pulled out a brown leather bag from his pocket. The bag had many runes engraved on it, which led Harry to believe that the bag was one of the container bags used by curse breakers when they find a heavily cursed object and have to transport it.

The innovator immediately released a deep breath when Dumbledore closed the strap of the bag ultimately sealing the container and the cursed energy inside it. The pressure on his mind and magic that he had been ignoring all this time ended abruptly. His magic finally stopped lashing out and his mental shields relaxed as the threat ended.

“What do we do now, professor?” Harry asked the headmaster as he looked up from the bag, only to find the death-stick pointed right in his face.

“Headmaster?” He asked, looking into Dumbledore’s twinkling sapphires.

But it wasn’t the twinkling sapphires of the happy old headmaster that greeted him. It was the cold hard eyes of the old warlock who was feared around the world for his immense prowess in magic, the person who had gone toe-to-toe with and ultimately defeated one of the most powerful dark lords in history that stared back.

“Prepare, Harry Potter.” Dumbledore announced, his voice grave with an undertone of anger, “Because I am challenging you….to a battle.”

‘......What the FUCK?!!’

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Ending Note: There you have it fellas, chapter Ten of Innovator, hope you liked it.

Liked it? Loved it? Needs some changes? Please, do tell.
Next chapter's release date: October 29th, 2023.

I am waiting for all your comments. Constructive criticism is appreciated.

Those who have joined my discord server, please tell one of the mods or me about it in the server to get the patrons role, I am most active in my server so you can freely ask anything there.
Link: https://discord.gg/Gcbcv4dxGx
Name: Dev Black's Empire

But you’ll have to tell me or one of the mods within the server, that you are my patron and tell your patron account name.

Thank you for reading and comments.
With regards,

Dev Black