1 Prologue - Attic Workspace

The air was stuffy and foul as it diffused the light pouring in from outside. Windows tinted brown and cracked couldn't even open to air out the room. Noise from below showed this to be a lively house, yet not one resident knew of someone living in their attic.

The uninviting resident was a young boy no more than nine years old. He was ladling the bubbling contents of the cauldron into measuring cups, then into vials. All the vials were sealed and the fire below the cauldron extinguished. He put a light behind every vial to check the potions coloration. Every vial stopper was then marked with a color, denoting its quality.

"Kreacher!" The boy called out, yet not immediately expecting, the decrepit house elf to appear. It defied expectations. The gangly old elf that looked more dead than alive, and more wrinkles than skin, appeared next to the boy. It spoke with a gravelly voice and a harsh undertone.

"What does the Mudblood want?" Despite working with the child for years now, it hated him. If he hadn't promised to find a way to destroy the locket horcrux, this elf not only wouldn't have agreed to help him, it likely would have told the last of the Black family about him. Specifically his intent to use the elf to acquire access to their library. It didn't, and with that he had access to much needed knowledge, resources, and connections.

"These vials are the completed quota for the month, send them to Patti's Potioneer Practitioners." This was a business that sells amateur made potions for cheap. The boy only made exchanges with them through Kreacher, so as to not expose his age. He was also not going to expose that he was using multiple high quality potion sets from the Noble and most Ancient Black's family storage. They allowed him to make a month's quota in only a week, with most of his potions being high quality. Some were even 'perfect' quality.

"Take the payment and buy everything on this shopping list. Then bring me the change." He, muggle born, wasn't someone who should be exposed to the magical world yet, so he had been doing everything through this sour looking elf. The shopping list included items for more potion making as well as ingredients and items for other magical subjects like alchemy, runes, etc.

"Once your back, you can return these books to your noble family's library. Are you sure these are the last of them?" He had been reading, studying, and copying all of the books in the Black library into his Grimoire. It had taken over three years, and it was saddening to know it has come to an end. Without a wand he was limited in what he could practice and learn, but he took to the theories of magic like a fish to water.

With confirmation from the smoldering elf, it didn't like giving him access to things above his station, he gave it some good news. "Once your done with all of that, and finshed making my healthy dinner, we'll destroy the locket tonight. Now hurry along."

Once upon a time, the boy had tried being polite and respectful to the grouchy creature, that backfired. House elves have a strict sense of inferiority, by treating it like an equal, he only lowered his own standing in its eyes. A mistake he would not make again.

The room was cleared and the magical instruments for potion making were replaced. He had long since found a way to safely destroy the soul of the dark lord, but what he really wanted, were the magics from the locket, and a filtered/purified soul. The locket was an artifact from one of the country's most famous wizards, not an item to throw away easily. And souls were extremely hard to acquire, for many reasons.

After a hearty meal made from a, as usual, begrudgingly annoyed house elf. The boy had the locket thrown into a fish tank. There a silver jellyfish, no bigger than the palm of the boy's hand, latched itself onto the artifact. It spent three hours attached to the locket, and grew almost four times its initial size.

Once the jellyfish disengaged, he had Kreacher float the item to a runic circle on the left side of the workbench. There were three runic circles. The far right had metal sticks and rounded pieces of glass. While the center had a rolled up scroll that pointed to both other circles. With everything in place, he lit the scroll on fire.

Runes flared to life, as grounded metal and sands that filled the runic engravings caught fire. The room quickly began to smoke, but the elf cleared that up with a wave. Snakes of light, darkness, gold, and emerald slithered from the locket, through the burning scroll, and into the pieces of metal and glass.

When the lights died down, the runes faded to cracks in the wood, and the scroll was not but ashes, the boy offered a metal hammer to the elf. No words were spoken.

Again and again the hammer was brought down.

The ugly elf was made to look all the worse as snot and tears rolled down its face in joy. He didn't stop when the locket broke, nor when the smaller remains shattered, he just kept going. The boy finally had to put a stop to the therapeutic session, as this was someone else's house after all.

"Enough Kreacher! I'm sure by now you've awoken all the muggles in the area. Put them to sleep or make them forget so they don't come investigating. After your done, these are the locations of two more Horcruxs. If you are to avenge your late master, we'll need to destroy them and more. Don't come back here until tomorrow morning."

The, for once, smiling elf left. He was always efficient with his work if nothing else. The boy wasn't worried about their working relationship ending with this. That elf needed vengeance, and he was happy to help him with it.

He then went to the sticks of metal and rounded glass, covering them up with a specialized covering, he wasn't done with these yet, but he needed the other two artifacts. Next he went to the jellyfish. He had two tanks, one big jellyfish in the big tank, and seven small jellyfish in the other.

He took out a metal book, his Grimoire. He had learned the ways of crafting artifacts and Grimoires, the old ways at least. He sliced open his hand, blood dripping on the cover, blood red runes lighting up. He dropped the book into the tank and watched the big gluttonous jellyfish try to eat its soul. The hunter became the prey, as the filtered soul of the jellyfish was ripped out of its body.

The boy then closed his eyes and focused, black shadows danced across his skin, slowly extended upwards and arced into the Grimoire. After a few moments he cut off the connection. The book sealed itself shut.

It would take some time to compile, but he knew he had succeeded, he could feel it, his very first summon had been born, and was learning from all the knowledge he'd stored. He still had two years until Hogwarts began, more than enough time to prepare for the Dark Lord's arrival. But he could get stronger and weaken the genocidal maniac in the mean time.

After all, this world was really only big enough for one dark lord.