152 Chapter 152: Strategic Division
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17 September 1993, Hogwarts
Harry didn't pay attention for the rest of the Divination lesson. It wasn't as if he was going to learn anything new; Trelawney kept prattling about magical sensing and its use in tea leaves reading, which was what they were going to do during their next session. Apparently, the tea itself wasn't anything special, but brewing it was.
It involved some kind of self-hypnotic trance that allowed casters to unconsciously sense the currents of magic which is used to change the leaves into different predetermined shapes. It was based on a harmless druidic ritual of some sort, that anyone with an adequate connection to the currents of the world could harness.
But just as it was easy, it was just as imprecise. The shape of the leaves only gave a hint of the future, and that's if they're even read correctly. Even then, it took some time to master the skill. Divination really was a fascinating subject.
But this wasn't the time to get distracted by useless trivia about an unreliable form of divination. He needed to think about his vision. He couldn't deny that this elective did help him make a lot of progress. Trelawney often stated that visions are often symbolic, an unconscious interpretation of the future. And that allowed him to have more control over the contents, removing the noise that could have distracted him.
Hogsmeade was definitely going to be attacked, people were probably going to be hurt, but fire was not necessarily going to be the method of attack. Fire is a way the subconscious interprets destruction. It was a shame that he couldn't get a good look at whoever was responsible.
It wasn't that he didn't pay attention, but the figure was now hidden. Whoever was responsible had noticed his vision somehow and put up a veil of his own. The thing just felt artificial, like it didn't belong. That was worrying because whoever was planning for this had to be very knowledgeable when it came to divination to spoof prophetic visions like this. This definitely raised the threat he posed.
Looking back, trying to pierce the veil was a mistake. He was definitely going to be noticed while trying to brute force the protections of an undeniably knowledgeable foe, and that would have been a very bad idea. He was lucky that the raven stopped him. He felt some kind of kinship with the creature. It felt familiar. It did communicate directly with his mind.
Was it his crest giving him a helping hand? It seemed very probable since it protected him from the maniacally laughing faces and gave him the only real information, even it was vital. It was the symbol of Samhain, he remembered seeing it in ritual books.
The conclusion was very easy to make. The attack was going to be happening on Halloween, which meant that he had a little more than a month to make preparations, which sounded like it wasn't that much. Still, he was essentially fighting an unknown enemy that may or may not have subordinates, and he knew literally nothing about their capabilities.
If only someone else could handle it. But the last Potter would look insane trying to convince anyone that an attack was going to happen on Halloween without any proof, or any sign of this mystery attacker in recent history. The only thing that might have raised their suspicions was that they still didn't know who attacked Azkaban.
They blamed the whole thing on the vampires, and thus, there was a rise in vampire hunts in Britain. Not that there were a lot of vampires in the first place after the series of hunts in the nineteenth century, which prompted any survivors to move to Europe.
Harry would be accused of fearmongering if he spread that around, and that's not mentioning the target on his back for proving to be a seer if he was correct, and the public ridicule if he wasn't.
As usual, he needed to handle it himself. He didn't really like that, but he did miss having a project with an active deadline. And the best way to defeat an unknown enemy is to be prepared. He already had the advantage of knowing the time and place. His only option was to set a trap of some sort.
It had to be subtle enough that no one would see coming, even a competent wizard, and powerful enough to work, as well as not affect the residents of Hogsmeade.
And wasn't that a tall order? He already had a few plans in mind, but he would need some help.
Two hours later, he walked back to the Slytherin table in the Great Hall and sat next to his friends, "We have a situation."
Daphne straightened and looked like she wanted to say something but refrained herself. She just muttered something under her breath, but he couldn't hear it. Was she angry at him or something? He would talk to her later.
Tracy was the one who answered with a groan, "Is it about Longbottom following you around? You said that he was harmless and that you would handle it on your own."
Yes, he had complained to his friends about Neville constantly looking at him from a distance. If he wasn't sure that the boy was straight, he would have assumed that he had a crush on the last Potter. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. It wasn't hard to figure it out since it was as obvious as it was disturbing.
The boy who lived was using his image of Harry as his pillar of support. He was a hair-trigger away from losing it and Harry didn't want to be the one pulling that trigger. The boy was an extrovert by nature and was abandoned by everyone in school. It made Harry uncomfortable, but as long as the Longbottom scion didn't actively bother him, he would bear with the discomfort since he did play a part in the boy's isolation.
Harry shook his head, "No, we have a Riddle situation…"
They all stiffened. Daphne's glare turned into a frown. Blaise started to pay attention to the conversation, losing his disinterested look, and Tracy paled.
"We can't talk about it here," she said, "Let's go to the room."
Harry nodded and quickly grabbed enough food for his lunch and the four of them walked to the seventh floor. After entering the Room of Requirements, Daphne gave him a grave look, "What's going on, Harry?"
He took a big breath and responded, "Hogsmeade is going to be attacked on Halloween. I don't know who will be responsible or why they're doing this, only that a lot of people are going to be hurt."
"And how do you know that?" Blaise asked.
"I had a vision."
Tracy snorted hysterically, "Are you sure that it wasn't just a dream?"
"Yes. I've been having this vision for months. It was kinda blurry at first, but they got a lot clearer in the divination classroom."
Daphne spoke up this time, "We can't tell anyone about this."
"Well, duh," Blaise mocked, "They'll think we're insane. But I don't see what we could do about it. We don't even know who is going to attack or their capabilities."
"Yes, but we know when and where the attack will happen and that gives up options. I had a couple of ideas that could help."
Daphne gave him a pleading look, "Please don't tell me you're going to fight a mystery enemy again."
He shook his head, "I'm not stupid, Daph. My idea of fighting an unknown enemy is to not even be on the battlefield."
"So, traps?" Blaise asked with an incredulous look on his face.
At Harry's confused look, Tracy sniggered, "Harry, no offence, but you're one of the smartest people I know. You strategized a way to hurt Dumbledore politically for the first time in decades. You fought and defeated the Heir of Slytherin, a younger version of the Dark Lord, who also had a Basilisk and a fucking divine beast on his side. You're learning magic at a pace that's so ludicrous that the professors would have strokes if you knew just how advanced you are. Hell, you're currently creating an entire field of magic with your space manipulation thing you have going on. And now, that you have another enemy to fight, your only plan so far is to set up traps? Isn't that a little simple? It's something that the Weasley Twins would come up with…"
Daphne interjected, "And how would trap protect the town in any way? They can be activated by normal civilians running around."
Harry gave them a dry look, "Of course, I'm not planning on using normal traps… And just for your information, putting a curse on an object is technically a trap, and believe me, the countless dead curse breakers would disagree with your disregard for traps. As for how I won't target the Hogsmeade residents, have you ever heard the tale of the Goblet Gambit?"
They shook his head and he continued, "The story is long, but I'll try to make it brief. A princess was kidnapped by a cunning nobleman. A heroic rogue who desired to rescue the princess tracked them down. He knew that the nobleman had an inflated ego and a love for mind games. After he cornered them, they agreed to settle their differences in a battle of wits, where the stakes were life and death. The rogue proposed a puzzle, a chess match with only a single move. There were too many goblets, one of which contained a poison, and another was harmless, something that only the rogue knew. He offered the nobleman to choose which cup to drink while he would drink the other at the same time. The nobleman attempted to decipher which goblet held the poison by analyzing the reactions of the rogue. And finally, he made a choice, and drank one of the cups, the rogue drinking the others at the same time."
"What happened?" Daphne asked.
"Well, the nobleman died, of course. Both cups were poisoned, but the rogue had chosen a poison that he was resistant to. The entire game was rigged from the beginning. It was never a puzzle, but a scheme. The nobleman was arrogant, prideful, and so many things. But his biggest mistake wasn't any of this, it was that he accepted to play a game in the first place. In this battle of wits, the battlefield belonged to the rogue. He expected a fair fight, he got the exact opposite of that."
They all stayed silent for a moment digesting the story, until Daphne exclaimed, "So, you're planning on marking the attackers' magic somehow and targeting them?" Daphne asked.
"Close, but no, that wouldn't work. I was thinking about marking the magic of the residents of Hogsmeade and on the day of the attack, making the trap only affect the unmarked people, which would be the attackers."
"And how are you going to mark the magic of an entire town?"
Harry responded, "I was thinking about a proximity ward or something. As in putting an enchanted object near the most common structures that would make them and put in something that would act like borders. If they stay more than twelve hours there, then they're probably residents and are marked as so, which would make up most of the people in Hogsmeade. And since our traps don't have to be harmful, like a sleeping potion or a petrification charm, only visitors, which would include the attackers would be affected."
"So, like a fog of sleeping potion that only affects people who don't have a certain mark on their magic? I could theoretically create a plant with my crest that would be able to turn a potion into a gaseous form, but we would need a lot of doses for the fog to be large enough to affect an entire town. It'll be tricky, but I think if I explore my crest, there might be something I could do," Daphne asked.
"No, a simple bubble-head charm would protect the attackers from any harmful gas. But the fog idea isn't bad. What about an obscuring fog that wouldn't let people see properly and saturate the air in magic which would spoof any detection charms and let whatever trap we lay work without any issues? Do you think you could do that, Daph?" the last Potter asked.
"Sure. I can set up a few plants around the village and it would work. But the potion you described is a little specific, and I've never heard about anything like it."
She had a point. He hadn't learnt about a potion with the effects he described. Theoretically speaking, it could be made. Peruvian instant darkness powder, if diluted, would drench an area in darkness. And adding in a few magically dense ingredients and stabilizers that he would saturate in concealment charms; the gas should be able to spoof magical senses and detection charms. Even a proficient sensor could be hexed in the back, and they wouldn't know about it before it's too late.
"I'll handle the potion, but Blaise, I need you to get me as much Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder as you can."
"You got it," the dark-skinned boy responded.
"The main trap will be a ward, specifically, an unpowered ward which would petrify anyone without a specific mark on their magic. I'll personally design the rune, and we'll connect it to a magically saturated gem to power it remotely. Daph, I want you to design a plant that would hold an enchantment in the long term, and blend into the surroundings. The enchantment would add the mark to anyone near it, but you don't have to worry about that, I'll be the one designing it. The issue is that we'll need a lot of them, and we'll plant hundreds all over Hogsmeade. We'll also sneak out after I design the ward to carve the runes using your roots, surrounding all of Hogsmeade.
"Tracy, I want you to give me as many ways to surveil Hogsmeade from the castle, so we know when to activate the traps. Blaise, your responsibility is to smuggle any material we need, like the Peruvian powder, whatever materials Daphne needs for her plants, and whatever Tracy needs for her task. I'll handle the gold, so just get it done. I also need you to get me something from Borgin and Burkes, an artefact called the Hand of Glory. I'm going to see if I could replicate the enchantment on it so that we can see through the fog I'm planning to make. Does anyone here have any questions?"
They all shook their heads and Harry nodded, "Great, let's get to work. And if you have any new ideas, let me know."
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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.
