บท 11: Forbidden Forest
Once again, Edward was sat in Dumbledore's office, looking bored as Dumbledore stared at him in bewilderment.
"I need you to be honest with me her Edward. Did you truly take down a fully grown mountain troll all alone."
"Yes."
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and looked to the ceiling as if looking to the Gods for answers.
"I guess I have no choice then," Dumbledore resolved as he reached beneath his desk.
After searching for a little bit, Dumbledore revealed a crystal ball, as big as a head, with a cloudy mist floating inside of it.
"You see this Edward? This is something that your ancestor, Saint Edward, created almost a millennium ago. Only three exist in the world, including this one."
To understand, we need to go back a bit.
***
Scotland, Highlands, Hogwarts, 1027
"What is this?" a voice boomed, echoing through the empty stone corridors.
The owner of the voice was a stocky, grey haired man, who wore a scarlet tunic with golden leaf patterns beneath a bright red cloak. He was talking to a brown haired man with mystical purple, who was holding out a crystal ball.
Three other grey haired people stood around the man, each staring at the crystal ball with curiosity.
Two were women: a thin, pale lady with hair black as night, who wore a blue robe that reached the floor. The other woman was rather plump and wore a bright yellow robe with a black garment draped across her left side. Usually, this woman was rather upbeat, but today, she had a downcast expression.
Next to them was the final of the three, a man wearing a greenish grey robe with a dark grey overcoat. His eyes were cold, his nose upturned and a long grey beard hung just below his eternal scowl.
These were the 4 founders of Hogwarts.
"I called it an Evaluator, it quantifies your magic strength as well as your affinity with a branch of magic," the purple eyed man responded.
(Strength of magic is the same as Intelligence.)
"Just place your hand on the ball."
The bulky man placed a hand on the ball.
Inside of the ball, the mist swirled around and started to change colour with eventually one side turning bronze and the other red as the golden number '427' floated above the mist.
"So what does it mean?"
Edward began to explain.
Red was a talent for Charms, yellow for healing spells, blue for item crafting, black for dark magic (Hexes, Jinxes and Curses), silver for Transfiguration, green for potions, bronze for flying and white meant you were a Muggle.
He also explained magical strength and how it correlated to the amount of magic but there was no ratio (e.g 1:1 means 500 Intelligence is 500 MP, it's not like that but Intelligence still affects MP).
"Why are you giving this to us?" Hufflepuff asked, frowning.
She already had a grudge towards Edward, being Welsh.
"Because it is needed here. I will also give two to my family, in hopes that they will give one of them to a good cause."
The founders still had their suspicions but decided against voicing them. There was only one thing left to ask.
"What's your magic strength?"
Edward just smiled, deciding not to tell them of 10,000 Intelligence stat.
***
"Of the other two Evaluators, one belongs to the International Confederation of Wizards and the other to the Lyore family."
"Now, generally, these are only used to measure extremely strong wizards by the ICW, but I've decided to make an exception for you. Don't tell anyone," Dumbledore gave him a kind smile as he joked.
Placing his hands on the crystal ball, Edward watched as the mist turned every single colour possible before the golden numbers emerged.
"552! Merlin's beard! That's higher than...well... Merlin!" Dumbledore cried.
Clearly, Edward had hidden some of his power: if Dumbledore had seen the real number then he probably would've had a heart attack.
"You must never tell anyone of this! Promise me! If you're power was to be known, many dangerous people would try to sway or harm you.
"No matter how powerful you are, your still just a child right now and these dark wizards will have a lot more experience and know spells crueller than your worse nightmares, so don't go looking for trouble!"
After much convincing, Dumbledore allowed Edward to leave as he worried about the future and how much chaos Edward would bring to it.
Contrary to Dumbledore, Edward was sauntering back to the common room just thinking about how he was going to mess with Voldemort in a few months.
***
The school year passed by quickly as Edward lazed around, occasionally reading a book or messing around with his own magic.
During this time, Harry had played his famous Quidditch match - Edward decided not to go on the team since it would be best not to steal Harry's thunder (yet).
Harry had also seen the Mirror of Erised for the first time. Intrigued, Edward followed him, wandering what his own desire was, now that he had basically everything. However, he was disappointed when the mirror showed nothing.
"Why doesn't it show anything? Do I really have no desires?"
[No. The mirror just isn't powerful enough to search your mind and find them.]
Edward watched as Dumbledore had his little moment with Harry, but was shocked when he found that he could see Dumbledore's desire in the mirror.
In the reflection, Dumbledore had his arm around a very handsome, black haired boy, wearing a Slytherin robe with a smile on his face.
That boy was the most infamous wizard of all time.
Seeing this, Edward felt sorry for Dumbledore and truly realised how good-natured he was. Sure, he had made a lot of mistakes, but he did the wrong things for the right reasons.
Other than that, the gang - including Edward, who tagged along - had made their discovery about Nicholas Flamel, and got into trouble for trying to smuggle a dragon out of the castle.
Today, they were getting their punishment.
***
Darkness engulfed the forest, concealing the beasts inside. A howl scared the wits out of Malfoy.
"Be careful or you'll drop the light," Edward chided.
Malfoy looked like he had swallowed shit. He wanted to retort, but the person in front of him had a more powerful family so his Daddy's reputation couldn't help him.
"Just wait till my Father hears about this. Making us walk through these dangerous woods, what kind of school is this?"
Malfoy had decided to take his anger out on the school instead.
They walked in silence for a bit with only narrow moonlight to guide them, until Draco stopped in his tracks.
"What, what is it?" Harry asked.
He looked forward and immediately gripped his scar in agony.
In front of them, a dead unicorn lay, silver liquid dripping from its throat. Feeding on that liquid was a cloaked figure that emanated a terrifying aura. The figure stood up and began to approach them, every step looked almost as if he was floating.
As he closed in, the whole forest seemed to get colder and the winds began to howl louder and louder, it's vicious frost biting the boys' faces.
Immediately, Malfoy turned tail and legged it, but Harry couldn't move for his scar furiously burned his forehead.
He slowly backed away, but fell over a branch and fell backwards. His heart in his mouth, he watched as the figure got closer and closer and his scar burned more and more.
"Confringo!"
A short burst of flames slammed into the unsuspecting figure knocking him flying into a tree.
At this moment, a centaur burst out from the trees and charged towards the figure. Wounded, the figure fled before the centaur could catch it.
The centaur trotted towards the two boys, cursing under his breath that he couldn't catch the figure. He looked down at Harry.
"Mr Potter. You must leave..."
The centaur warned Harry of the dangers of the forest and told him who had killed the unicorn.
"And you, Edward Lyore. I can see your ancestor's power flows through your veins, but this place is not safe. Voldemort will return, and now you have only made yourself a target. Keep safe."
Edward nodded and thanked the centaur as if he was listening to anything he was saying. He appreciated the concern, but Voldemort's ass was still getting kicked.
Just then, Hagrid and the others arrived.
"Firenze," Hagrid greeted.
Firenze left after warning Harry and Edward a final time, and all of them headed back to the castle.
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