70 Harry Potter : Chapter 69: Aftermath II

"Portkeys cannot be sent: they must be made where they are meant to take off from, also, we've only moved to and through muggle or inhabited locations, magical districts aren't quite that easy to reach... You'd know it if you actually managed to learn how to make them."

Riddle couldn't help but tease Hagrid now that he had found a piece of magic that was for the time beyond him: "Are you offering to Apparate ahead for each of our travels?"

...

The broad, scarred shoulders of the Slytherin shook as he snorted: "Not quite."

And since he was perfectly aware of what Riddle had been doing, Hagrid's face morphed into a soft expression as he raised his wand once more: "Expecto Patronum."

The incantation was spoken as softly as a whisper, and Riddle was quick to shake off the creature of starlight that had taken shape over his left knee: with an absence of sound that made it look even more ethereal than it was, the barely 8 centimeters large spider skittered on the air as if it was solid ground, moving deceptively quickly with its deceptively strong legs.

Despite being small and monochromatic, the Patronus' hairless carapace covering the front part of the spider's body managed to perfectly convey its shiny nature, while its eight eyes remained unblinking and shining just a shade lighter than the rest of the body.

It had fangs that pointed straight down the body and do not towards each other, taking away some of its eerie looks.

With a boisterous voice, and while his eyes didn't leave his Patronus, Hagrid asked: "Did you manage it yet?"

Tom, knowing that the question had been coming, shrugged dismissively: "Given the low probability of being attacked by Lethifolds or Dementors, I chose to focus on learning how to make a Portkey."

Minerva turned with a smile on her features while the result of her work slowly levitated back on the soft sand of the beach: "And he's also worried that you'll make fun of the shape of his Patronus when he succeeds."

"Well, it's not like you two didn't think about making fun of it, am I wrong?" the spider dissolved in motes of light, the quiet cheer it brought dissipating under the sunlight while the witch and Riddle exchanged a guilty glance.

Despite the insane difference in size, a spider was hardly a glamorous animal to represent one's brightest feelings.

"Of course we didn't!" Minerva lied so brazenly, and so badly, that the other two couldn't hold back a snort: "But I can't guarantee that we'll hold back once we manage it ourselves."

"I'm more interested in those fiery hound-heads you summoned yesterday, they proved surprisingly effective, but they were unlike any cursed flame I've ever read about." Riddle commented idly while he placed the roll of parchment he had been studying on a surreptitiously conjured low table.

"I don't know if I'd call them a curse," Hagrid answered distractedly, but his eyes were already on the result of Minerva's handiwork, and his voice absent, "Merely some sort of animation applied to tongues of flame."

Where before there had been only a pile of different-sized triangles of smooth white wood, there was now only an impressive sheet of joined parts that unfolded not unlike some odd 7-petaled flower from a single piece of white wood shaped as a lid-less, trunk-sized, rectangular box.

The construct was clearly meant to be a trunk, but there was no clear line where its base ended and where its vertical panels began, nevermind the complete absence of a lid.

"Let's see if it worked out." the taller wizard spoke while the other two went over his words.

Under the guide of slow movements of his wand, the seamlessly joined panels of white woods started to fold one against the other, as if the petals of a flower were closing because of the incoming night: it was almost mesmerizing in the way the perfect, rigid geometric shapes seemed to flow counterclockwise, settling against each other until they formed a beautiful lid.

It stood atop the trunk like a flower bud, if a bit more unforgiving with its angles: instead of the promise of unfurling petals, it simply looked like the wood panels that composed the lid, the great number of pieces that couldn't have possibly managed to fold so perfectly as to stay completely within the area defined by the trunk's base, had been stuck in the box under them leaving only their edges to show.

"I'd hardly classify fire that malevolent as uncursed, Rubeus: especially given how the heads seemed to seek out the cut necks of the Hydra on their own."

Riddle's voice was the first to be heard after the fantastic display that was the result of Minerva's plans, but even on his carefully blank face it was easy to spot the almost familiar, barely restrained twinge of interest.

It was as close to showing genuine respect as Tom ever got, but for Minerva and Rubeus, that faintest raising of his eyebrows was a noteworthy success.

"Truly interesting pieces of magic defy a clear-cut definition... and who are you to call those wolves malevolent? What is order to the spider is chaos for the fly: fire can be almost anything, and that it's used as the base for all Charms is hardly a coincidence.

Flames devour wood and give heat, smoke, and ashes. My spell brought together the focus of a hunting wolf, its hunger, with the nature of the fire."

Rubeus shrugged as he moved in a circle around the large trunk that Minerva had planned: "I'll polish the outside first then, are we sure? There is no doing over once I'm done."

"I can hardly figure out something better in the few days we have." Minerva's lips thinned minutely in annoyance.

"If your brew can do what you promised, then yes, stick to the plan. So we'll be done within the day."

While Rubeus nodded and took some of his freakishly long strides towards one of two large cauldrons that he had left to rest on the foreshore, Minerva turned her attention towards the still bedridden Tom, who was looking at the sea from under the shade of the small transfigured pavilion that kept him from the heavy glare of the sun.

Her curiosity still not satisfied, she rose a challenging eyebrow while crossing her arms: "What about your cutting ribbon Tom? It'd hardly felt benign."

"A rather bland curse meant specifically for magically resistant creatures." he shrugged, "It'd hardly work against a dragon, but a Hydra's true strength is in its regenerative power, not its resilience."

"I notice that you didn't hesitate in classifying it as a curse." her tone turned sterner, her gut pushing her towards censuring his choice.

Tom simply smirked at her instinctive reaction: "That'd be because I've learned it from a tome that defined it so: it operates a bit leveraging hunger, a bit with the swiftness of the wind, that's what gives the ribbon its speed."

Minerva's brow creased with worry, and her lips thinned a bit further: "Do you study curses often?"

Riddle's expression didn't change, but his dark eyes seemed to shine with amusement as he glanced toward the sea for an instant before assuming a more serious tone: "Magic is magic Minerva, didn't we build the Rùnda with the exact purpose of studying what we wanted to?"

McGonagall's shoulders stiffened minutely, uncomfortable with the topic even if she felt that, given the proven usefulness of the curse, maybe her blanket ignorance on all things dark that weren't part of the Hogwarts Syllabus wasn't the best long-term strategy.

She had hardly been able to wound the Hydra with her current skillset, had she? It was remarkable how Hagrid had appeared able to immediately direct her towards the role in which she'd be most effective. Most effective, or less of a hindrance?

"I haven't found notes either from you or Hagrid about curses."

"They're hardly a topic worth taking notes about." Riddle replied quietly, "You didn't find my notes on the Lumos Charm either, did you?"

"The animated flames of Rubeus seemed a complex piece of magic." she spoke with her frown deepening. Could it be that it was Hagrid the one holding back from sharing his more interesting notes? It hardly made sense, when the Rùnda had been his idea in the first place, besides, her tallest friend hardly seemed the type.

"I hardly think that Hagrid learned that piece of magic from a book." Riddle read her shifting expression with impressive ease, and his observation was given with the intent of leading her towards a very specific conclusion.

"You are trying to say that he crafted that spell on his own?" her eyebrows climbed on her forehead, "But it wouldn't explain why there's nothing about that in his notes in the Rùnda!"

"Which makes me think that he only figured it out in the heat of the moment." Riddle tilted his head as he observed Rubeus not bothering with a levitation charm and instead merely lifting the decidedly too heavy cauldron full of potion from the foreshore.

Only to drag it back with his shoulders tense enough that they looked like a drumskin.

"Wait until Yule before confronting him, he's likely to add those notes to the Rùnda by then."

And there it was: hidden under the placid facade that Riddle always kept on when he wasn't trying to be deliberately charming, there was a flicker of something unnamed.

He himself would have refused to recognize it as anything beyond idle curiosity, but it was unsettling how time and time again, Hagrid managed to achieve the unthinkable.

"I wonder what else he'll come up with the next time that his life is in danger."

...

Hey guys I really need you to throw some power stones, since it's like a fresh start for the fanfic and to keep the story going.

=========================

if you want to read ahead of the public release, you can join my p atreon :

p atreon.com/Darkness013