Literally everyone in the castle was aware that he could create fairly solid enchantments for all manner of things. The best example of this was the playmaker rings that more than a few people were dying to get their hands on. To be fair though Malfoy still goes around making an ass of himself by bragging about his own ring that was all shiny and pretty to look at. Nick had to screen the people coming for commissions as more than a few were clearly trying to rip him off.-
Like a first year Slytherin student actually thought that Nick was stupid enough not to realize why he wanted a solid gold ring with an enchantment to get away with sleeping in class for cheap. The student tried to argue that Nick shouldn't be charging for materials at which point Nick kicked him out. Unless someone provided the material themselves he was definitely going to charge for them or else it comes out of his pocket. Despite the few trouble makers he did get quite the eclectic and varied set of orders. From waterbreathing , to flight the list was extensive and made Nick's friends wonder why someone would even want some of them like the person who wanted a ring that purred like a cat when stroked.-
That wasn't a joke as a first year Hufflepuff girl wanted exactly that for some reason. Nick split the commissions into three categories based on a few factors such as difficulty , material cost , research time , and how willing he was to do it. The categories basically just decided the order he did them in with the easy and near effortless ones coming first followed by the moderate difficulty and research involved ones and finally the pains in the ass time sinks.-
After he had crafted his realm ring nick was surprised to find out that his soul had fully resonated with his body and mind perfecting his channeling of spiritual energy. This meant that he no longer glowed when he enchanted something though the glow from the rings and floating words during the process was still there. This was a huge boon to Nick as it meant he could now crank out even more rings a day since he wasn't wasting as much energy during each session. Meanwhile his friends were each improving by leaps and bounds in each of their chosen fields with his help.-
Ron finally crafted his first wand that was functional using a piece of unicorn hair that Nick let him have as his first core material. Ron bragged to literally everyone who would listen to him for a week after that. Nick on the other hand was still studying the staff in his realm as he was constantly improving his veritology knowledge thanks to what he was getting. See the staff was made in a far more advanced version of the subject that used hard to deduce methods. The core of the staff was from an extinct creature as well that was worth studying by itself.-
Hermione and Daphne were both quickly becoming fluent in elder futhark as they rarely made any mistakes anymore when they wrote out sentences. Harry and Luna showed the greatest improvement however as when they dueled now the only advantage Harry had over Luna was his much larger mana pool. Nick still won whenever he dueled against them but he worked up a sweat so long as he didn't use any vicious moves to end the matches early. Tracy on the other hand was stuck in what may as well be crafting limbo as Nick told her to create something from scratch without copying something else.-
All decent craftsmen need to learn how to think of designs and patterns for what they make which was a lot harder than one would think. Tracy wasn't the most imaginative person so struggled to come up with something from the top of her head. Still other than that she had already memorized the list of metals Nick had given her as well as their properties. While he worked on his list of commissions Nick also published his study on the merfolk community living in the black lake.-
It didn't make too much of an impact on the wizarding community at large but it was mentioned in a few small research newspapers and a tiny spot in the daily prophet. As promised Dumbledore got a copy of it for himself while the Hogwarts library also got a copy. Nick may seem carefree during this time but he was watching for any sign of Voldemort making a move. He knew the man wouldn't be able to sit still for very long and was bound to do something to advance his agenda.
Nick was correct too as Voldemort was indeed planning a big move from his current place of residence , the Riddle manor. His new servant was less than optimal in terms of power and influence but one of those could be easily fixed with his guidance. In fact that was what he had been doing this entire time , conducting various dark rituals to enhance the average talent of the servant to an acceptable level. Foul things that granted great power at terrible cost that had reduced the servant to something not human much like himself.-
"Go now and bring me everyone related to the boy's past , I refuse to believe that he merely appeared out of nowhere." the cold voice of the dark lord spoke from a lounge chair. The cloaked servant bowed and left while the dark lord stroked his pet Nagini with a stern expression. Voldemort had secretly investigated Nick in depth without doing anything to draw attention to himself but was concerned to learn that no one seemed to have any clue at all where the boy came from. The earliest piece of information that could be found was the boy walking out of an alley covered in serious injuries with amnesia.-
Upon investigating the alley in question all Voldemort discovered was that there was a almost completely faded trace of magic that sadly collapsed when he tried to capture it. Unknown to him however his failure and investigation were noticed by a certain group that had been watching all traces of Nick's background for a certain reason. "Should we tell the elder of this development?" a man hidden in a shadow asked a small glowing orb seriously. To normal ears a hissing sound came from the orb in response.-
In truth it was a female voice speaking in parseltongue "No we shall continue to observe the boys activities and past locations for now. Should that person continue poking where they have no right we will inform the elder before making our next move." the voice spoke from the orb before the orb stopped glowing. "I wonder what fortuitous event it was that you met here that has changed you so much , little nephew?" the man muttered before doing as he had been told and watching the traces Nick had left behind. Fate shifted in the background as many thing unfolded in the shadows of the world with but a single focal point.-
Meanwhile Nick woke up on the first of December slightly uncomfortable as the cold had rapidly overtaken the school in the past week. Nazgul had grown larger over the past month and was now the size of a large dog breed such as a Tibetan mastiff. As a result she had gone from adorable to slightly intimidating as her muscles developed and grew along side her. Unfortunately for Nick this meant that he simply didn't have enough room on his current bed to accommodate her. Needless to say she was not happy about it at all.-
Nick also couldn't take her with him into classes anymore as she simply couldn't fit comfortably due to all the desks that were close together. Instead she was allowed to wonder the castle freely which had developed in an odd manner as she was best friends with a young unicorn from the forest now. It came as quite the shock to Nick to say the least when he sought her out only to see her running around with the creature near Hagrid's hut. In an interesting development today was actually the first day that the new DADA teacher was introduced.-
Getting dressed Nick left the dorm room casually and sighed in relief when he got into the common room as the roaring fireplace was spreading plenty of warmth. He let Nazgul out of the realm where she sleeps now and settled down on the chair nearest the fire as he pulled out the fourth year textbook of spells to study them. He had already fully read the book before but was making sure that he didn't miss anything important when he skimmed through it. He found one or two small things that were a missing from his understanding but otherwise he found that he was well set.-
That merely took him about thirty minutes since he was skimming through the book again and so moved on to the topic of one of his commissions , flight. Contrary to how it may seem there were in fact several different ways to fly as a wizard besides on a broom. The problem came in the form of how obscure the magic involved was to the point that Nick had only found two tomes on it in the entire library , "ancient section" and all.