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51.03% Harry Potter: Ero World / Chapter 74: Wards and Suspicion! Part-1

Chapter 74: Wards and Suspicion! Part-1

{Slytherin Common room, Hogwarts}

{7th Sep 1991}

{3rd Person POV}

Rigel sat comfortably in one of the sofa chairs, he held the potions book in his hands even though his attention was focused on everyone around him. Before going back yesterday Narcissa had confirmed that the diary should be with someone from Slytherin.

'I haven't sensed anything abnormal about anyone till now... at least anything related to mana. I should focus on their behaviors a lot more and see if anyone shows any sign of deteriorating mental health.' Rigel thought. His current plan relied too much on luck and was thus unreliable.

Would he be able to catalog the physical signs shown by 40+ Slytherin students? He wasn't sure. Aside from that he was also focusing on a more concrete plan. Daphne was sitting beside him, working on her potions homework. 

Speaking of the first potions class, while Snape had taunted and tried to humiliate Harry a lot harsher than canon, he had ignored Rigel's presence. Maybe it was to maintain his biased personality or he had realized that his father wasn't Sirius Black.

"Hey Daphne, can you help me out with something?" Rigel asked he made sure to keep his voice low. 

Dahpone gave him a curious look, the way he deliberately kept his voice down caused her to scoot closer, "What?"

"I don't know much about magic so I have a question. Do you know any way I can apply some trigger wards to my door, in case someone opens it without my permission?" Rigel asked.

"Trigger Wards?" Daphne asked confused, "you don't need to do anything, all Hogwart rooms are already secure with quite a lot of wards, plus with your password being in parseltongue I'm sure no one ever will be able to go into your room without your permission."

"Just humor me," Rigel gave her a pleading look. Realizing that this just might be a chance for her to get a little bit closer to the womanizing heir, Daphne nodded. She scooted closer to Rigel, their shoulders touching lightly as she started explaining wards to him.

"Trigger wards is a part of different types of Alert Wards. Wards could most easily be described as blankets of mana that surround a place or an object to which they are anchored. When a foreign magical signature, one that it doesn't recognize interacts with it, it can either cause a silent alert, a warning, or trigger another ward that could be offensive and defensive..." She trailed off, not wanting to overwhelm Rigel with information.

"...So if you want to learn a Trigger ward, you need to know at least an offensive ward that it could trigger, though it should not be so complicated as a simple sound-expulsion ward would do." Daphne finished telling him some basic information about the wards. She looked at Rigel who was giving her his full attention so she continued.

"In addition before you start to learn more wards, you need to know where you can even place or anchor wards. The most common way to anchor a ward is through a wardstone. These are naturally occurring materials that could stabilize a ward for centuries by converting ambient mana to power up a ward. Though if you want to use a ward inside Hogwarts it might be a little difficult." Daphne admitted.

"Difficult why? Will the castle's wards interface with an individual ward?" Rigel asked.

"Well yes and no." Daphne responded she struggled a little bit before she sighed and explained, "...don't tell anyone I told you this, but each wall inside the castle is etched in multiple different runes. Even without the ward stone that you might need to set up a long-term ward, runes needed to be etched on surfaces to enclose and define the area where the wards would take effect..."

"...and it is difficult to etch more runes without interfering with the Hogwarts wards," Rigel whispered and Daphne nodded. Rigel wondered for a moment how the castle walls still stood if it was that easy to mess with Hogwarts wards, but he kept that question for later, right now he needed to know if Myrtle's bathroom had enough space to etch extra wards in there.

"And I need to pick up on runes even before beginning on different ward schemes?" Rigel questioned getting a nod from Daphne. He looked at the blond in appreciation as he smiled at her.

"...Thanks Daph, I need to go to the library quickly. I'll catch you in a bit alright!" Rigel exclaimed as he shut down his potions book and threw it into his inventory. 

Daphne watched as Rigel Black walked away, even if she had heard rumors of his ongoing sexual relationship with Evelyn Rowle she couldn't help but appreciate his thirst for knowledge and his keen mind. She wanted to go with him but he was quite forceful in doing most things alone so she decided to not pursue and irritate him. 

Her attempts to search through the Hogwarts Library for a cure were fruitless and slowly she realized that the Black Family and their accursed library might be the only answer to her quest. 

'Why did he have to think with his dick,' Daphne thought frustrated but since there was still some time before the Core Expansion Ritual on Halloween, she still had some time...

...

Rigel walked through the hallways and quickly arrived at the second-floor girls' lavatory, he found a lack of paintings in the area quite relieving... And from the gloomy atmosphere, he could tell that not many people walked through these halls. A couple of magical signatures were working on maintaining the area as the house elves went about their duties though Rigel could sense their magical signature disappear as he got closer to them.

House elves were peculiar creatures, they liked to work and didn't like being seen, at least the Hogwarts ones. He had noticed this phenomena happening a lot in the past week so it didn't stick out in his mind. As he arrived at the girl's toilet he peered through the open door. His senses immediately found the abnormality in the room.

The entrance to the chamber of secrets was practically glowing as he stared at the mirror and sink in the middle of the room. The wards that surround the sink had a different, more menacing glow as they only protected the entrance. Given that Dumbledore had failed to go through the entrance, he was going to bet that he wouldn't be able to force through those wards either. 

'Thankfully I don't need to, and since Slytherin was adamant about hiding his secret hideout it gives me enough leeway to work through with my plan...' Rigel thought as he grinned, his eyes traced the aged stone walls as the 'glowing' runes revealed a crack in the otherwise flawless integration of wards.

A splash alerted him that he wasn't alone and as he turned around to come face to face with a rather infamous ghost, he couldn't help but wonder how he was going to persuade her to be on his side.

...

---------------------------------

AN - Some knowledge about wards and a meeting with a ghost!

P.S - 40 + Chapters on P.atreon!


Chapter 75: Wards and Suspicion! Part-2

{Headmasters office, Hogwarts}

{7th Sep 1991}

{3rd Person POV}

Dumbledore sat on his chair as he looked through his mail. The official correspondents while important weren't as time-sensitive as his ongoing research into Riddle's background and his worries about where Harry would live after the year was over. While Harry was sent away to the muggle world away from the danger of retaliation from the remaining cohort of death eaters, his coming back into the wizarding world presented Dumbledore with a new problem.

Lily's protection had been used up, at least the wards were now useless even if the lingering aura that protects Harry's magic remained. That last bit of information still brought relief to the old wizard as he knew that Harry would remain relatively safe for at least 7 more years.

'7 years and the war would start again...' Dumbledore mused, he had worked through Riddle's background in the past 17 years. Going through his actions and any trail he left behind in the history of the Wizarding world with a fine-toothed comb, the facts that were presented in front of him were scattered like breadcrumbs. 

He was missing something he just knew, something important but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't quite put his finger on it. His musings were disturbed by the arrival of his house elf. Dumbledore's thoughts immediately jumped to a conclusion as a sense of alarm went through him.

'So soon?'

"Blinky has something to report to Master Dumbledore," the house elf with green eyes bobbed excitedly as finally after days of loitering around that god-forsaken corridor he had found something interesting.

"Who was it?" Dumbledore asked, even though he knew the answer before the elf even began to speak in broken English.

"Binky saw it, it was Rigel Black, the Slytherin student who could talk to snakes like the Dark Lord..." Blinky shivered, the elf thought back to the times when he had to do terrible things a couple of decades ago.

"Thank you, Blinky..." Albus gave the old elf a kind smile hoping to relieve some of his tension. The elf nodded and listened as Albus gave further instructions, "...would you be so kind as to keep an eye out at the gates and tell me when he leaves?"

"Blinky understands..." the elf popped away. 

Albus Dumbledore sank into his seat as he contemplated what was happening. He didn't like jumping to conclusions, but the Chamber of Secrets and mooning Myrtyl was a reminder of one of his colossal failures. How lost in his own arrogance, he wasn't able to stop Riddle from making the foolish mistake, something which had managed further to push the future Dark Lord over the edge.

Killing someone, even if done accidentally leaves a mark, even if it is just psychological, Ablus was sure that the glimpse of raw emotion he saw from the crack in Riddle's Occlumency shields that the incident left behind caused Riddle to be lost in the allure of the Dark Arts.

'...And now his descendent walks the same path.' Albus thought. Finding the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets wasn't hard for him. Although it was carefully hidden, his access to the wards of the castle made it easier to narrow down the places where the entrance could be.

Coupled with the fact that an almost insane amount of wards were placed on those sinks, and that Myrtle Warren had met her demise in that very same bathroom, made it easy to guess where the entrance was. It could be a massive diversion but was highly unlikely, the extensive wards made the entrance impenetrable even to the Elder Wand in his hand.

...

Albus put his gloomy thoughts aside and thought about the latest Parselmouth to walk through Hogwarts. His story had an almost eerie similarity to Riddle's, both of them grew up in an orphanage before coming to Hogwarts. The teachers praised their almost instinctual grasp on the fundamentals of magic and almost prodigal-level wandwork.

The ease with which they both mingled through society, while Riddle had a more charming personality. Rigel was more focused on girls and sex. The last point made it difficult for Dumbledore to categorize the two together. Even from the first day in Hogwarts, Riddle displayed a level of ambition that was borderline obsessive. While Rigel seems content to focus on magic and indulging in carnal desires, not unlike most muggle-borns.

In comparison Rigel had different plans, instead of trying to conquer wizarding Britain he seemed more laidback, as he thoroughly enjoyed the company of a certain witch. While the Rowle family was one of the darkest out there, according to Snape he was friends with Daphne, Tracy, and Blaize as well.

But as bizarre as his actions may be, the fact that he was a Parselmouth had Dumbledore on edge, and the fact that a Basilisk was still alive somewhere in the castle caused Dumbledore to lose his composure. 

Plans swirled in his mind and the thought of using the Chamber of Secrets to lure Voldemort occurred in his mind for a moment. A Basilisk was one of the more exquisite creatures and for a moment he couldn't help but think about the qualities of the venom.

Dumbledore swiftly pulled out his wand and swirled it around, although he was quite knowledgeable about potions it was better to seek out the council of experts. The idea stuck to his mind and the more he thought about it the better it seemed.

A moment later a dark-haired man walked through the doors, a scowl was permanently etched on his face as he spoke in a slow drawl, "Yes, Headmaster?"

"Tell me, Severus..." Dumbledore spoke, his voice although aged, Snape detected a hint of excitement in it.

"How strong is a Basilisk's venom?"

...

-----------------------------------------

AN - What plan is Dumbledore cooking now?

P.S- 40+ advanced chapters on P.atreon!


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