Chapter 40: Aww Shucks! Shack?
We were on a roll, and combining extremely competent parents with foreknowledge of a resourceful son made the mission, quite a breeze.
But it pays to be paranoid, and careful. And when you are targeting the literal souls of an alive Dark Lord, it pays to be paranoid of your own shadow.
So, we had decided to be hasty, and rush for the Shack, as it would be difficult to not attract the attention of Tom, when he sees someone is targeting him.
We wanted to act quickly, but I also had the Lynchpin of this entire game in mind. Sybil Trelawney could be the Fate's weapon against my meddling, and she could very well topple the board, while I am closing in on a checkmate.
So I had asked my father to keep track of her, using a contracted professional, and to hire them to inform us, when she chose to apply for the position to teach Divination at Hogwarts.
That wasn't the strangest request, I ever made of him, but when I made it with an uncharacteristic game face, he simply nodded, and got to it. That was at least two weeks ago.
I wasn't worried about anything, until she comes for an interview at Hogsmeade. And so, I asked my father to interview for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, and offer to split it with his wife.
That seemed an odd request, but given that they could handle their work well, and impart quality education to the students, he decided to apply for the post, all the same.
While I was thinking about a few moves we would have to make ahead, we had reached the Gaunt Shack, which was warded to all hells. There were unnatural number of wards in place, and setting it all on fiendfyre would possibly have been easier than dismantling them all.
On my insistence, father was wearing an enchanted Dragon-hide glove, which would protect him, and I had severely warned him against the mental effect of a Horcrux.
It seemed that apparently this was a tiring task, as my mother and father in conjunction, took more than three hours to bring down the wards, and seeing them work before, I have to say, this place must have been impossible to trespass with any skills, not topping the charts.
We reached a simple box, which had a ring, and immediately we levitated it inside the jade box, before it's compulsion took effect.
We still had a scant few hours to spend, but we were all spent.
We took a hotel room in the muggle side, slept until it was time to return, and activated the portkey, to find our past selves, about to turn the key.
We had rested for a while, but we had a few things to discuss, as I knew they had questions for me, as well as an unofficial After Action Report to discuss. We talked about my carelessness to head first and react later, my lack of awareness of magical traps, how helpless I was in front of basic wards, and how I was being a burden without my wand.
We discussed on a few points, where my parents collectively agreed that their skillset had rusted, and it showed in the field today, as despite being wandless, ours was a theoretically MECE Unit: Mutually Exhaustive Cumulatively Exclusive Unit.
I was the Archiver, or the source of intel and information, the Merchant with my high load carrying capacity and ability to hide our tools and accessories, if the situation demands. I was also the Assassin and the Archer, with my assassin skills, and long range attacks.
Mom was the Warrior and Berserker, with high offensive and destructive capabilities, and a general damage dealer.
Father was the Tank, the Mage and the Thief, with his high skillset, and ability to make a tactical decision in a split second, with huge levels of useful spells and abilities to form a cohesive unit.
But the two had noticed, that they were slow in the field, depended heavily on the intel I collected to operate efficiently, and if I didn't know what to do in a scant few situations, it would have been troublesome and could have resulted in severe debilitating injury or far worse.
They had promised each other to brush up, and get back in shape, to keep up with my growth. And that reminded me, to ask for a report from the person tagging Trelawney.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone