30 Chapter 30: HP 7

Carl grimaced down at his homework as he carefully worked at relearning to write. He hadn't realized it before taking the Runes class, but most of their lessons and homework was memorizing the different runes and making sure they could recreate them perfectly.

Which for Carl was a struggle, since he had never been good at art or calligraphy before. It hadn't seemed important, so he'd spent many years just "getting by" with his crappy handwriting. Now that he needed clear and flawless handwriting to be able to recreate the runes, he was struggling far more than actual 13 year olds like Hermione, Daphne, or Blaise, and playing catch up.

They all had impeccable handwriting, so they didn't have to put in all the work to overcome their bad habits. And the runes required precise proportions, angles, and curves to work properly. He could blow his hands off if he tried to charge a poorly drawn rune.

So Carl was spending a large portion of his time simply practicing his handwriting just to catch up to where everyone else seemed to already be.

"You're doing so much better now, Carl. You'll definitely get there before Christmas at this rate!" Hermione teased him from over his shoulder.

Carl snorted. "Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up." He said with a smile and a laugh in his voice so she'd know he didn't mean anything by his words. "You know I'm already suffering for my sins of not practicing calligraphy in primary, you don't have to add to my burdens." He finished with a put upon sigh.

Hermione just laughed at Carl, not bothered in the slightest by his grumbling.

Carl set his quill down, and stretched to get the kinks out. "So, is it time to go to the Halloween Feast?"

"We've got about five minutes till we have to leave." Hermione nodded.

"Why couldn't we have had the time turner last year so we could go to both the feast and the Death Day Party?" Carl lamented in an over the top manner.

"It might have been worse if then, if we'd been around those rotted foods after having just eaten. I could barely stand it on an empty stomach." Hermione declared.

Carl finished packing his bag by then. "Well, shall we be off then?" Carl offered his arm as escort.

"We shall. A night of feasting and revelry awaits!"

And with a laugh the two time travelers made their way to join their friends.

Carl finished running laps when he saw the last of the group had dropped out. The previous year Professor McWolf had a few empty classrooms combined and built into an indoor track and field that students could use for their daily exercise due to the cold and snowy climate around Hogwarts.

While many of the students this year had dropped the physical fitness schedule Professor McWolf had forced on them, Carl had encouraged his group to keep up their exercise schedule. He didn't want his friend to be lazy and weak.

"I swear, it's unfair how you aren't even sweating or breathing hard, Carl." Harry panted from where he was laying on the ground as he eyed Carl. Harry, as usual, had been the last to drop out of the run. Carl suspected it was because of his Harry Hunting years with his cousin that he was as good as he was. Carl always ran with them to encourage them to work harder and try to run longer. Most of the time it just got him cursed at.

Carl laughed in response. "What can I say, if you ever get as fit as me, you too will enjoy it."

"One of these days…" Harry mumbled.

Luna chose that moment to dance barefoot past the two young wizards. The young girl was twirling and leaping to the music only she could hear. Because she had a cassette player with headphones on, so no one could hear what she was listening to. Carl was particularly gratified at how much she liked her magic enhanced muggle music box, or walkman.

Carl had snagged many broken electronics that he practiced the reparo charm on before casting the charms to protect electronics from magic dense areas, thus saving a lot of money.

When Luna had asked Carl what he was doing when he had been charming a multitude of small muggle electronics to ensure they worked at Hogwarts so he could sell them to other students, he had taken the time to introduce muggle music to her. Luna had taken a great liking to the music the muggle world offered. With her music, Luna never simply ran the track, she danced around it. It was much more fun, she claimed.

Carl smiled after the young witch. She was very entertaining to have as a friend. Always saying unexpected things and having blunt, yet inoffensive, observations. She had a good heart.

"Well, time for a shower, then." Carl said as he stretched out a hand to pull Harry to his feet, before then chasing after Luna to let her know that exercise time was over.

Christmas rolled around before Carl knew it. As usual he chose to stay at Hogwarts over the holiday.

From what Hermione had told him of Muggle Studies and Divination, Carl was glad he didn't join Hermione in the extra classes. After several weeks of the useless classes, she somewhat regretted taking the extra classes, but was still determined to finish the year up, just to prove she could handle the load if for no other reason.

He had his own studies and projects that took up his time while he accompanied Hermione in their time turning. But with the Time Room setup, Hermione was handling the stress of the extra classes just fine, and she was determined to last the year, just to prove she could, even though she had concluded the extra classes were a waste of her time.

Carl enjoyed his time at the CoMC class under Professor Hagrid. Because of the humbling of Malfoy in their first year, the first lesson with the Hippogriffs had gone very well. No one insulted the prideful Buckbeak, no one got hurt, and so Professor Hagrid was not attacked by Lucius (who had no more magic, take that death eaters!) and so Professor Hagrid never lost his confidence in his lessons.

After the first lessons of Hippogriffs, they had moved on to more moderate animals to take care of, but nothing so boring as Flobberworms.

While taking care of the different magical creatures, Carl found that there was a lot of cross over with the skills he'd learned in the Farmville world while handling the animals. While he didn't have the same basic knowledge and instincts about magical creatures that he did for mundane beasties, there was a lot of crossover traits, since many of the magical creatures seemed to have mundane analogs.

Hippogriffs for example combined the traits of both horses and eagles. They were a herd animal, but at the same time they had the pride and independence of the avians they partially were.

As a result, Carl was able to easily interact with most of the creatures and had a general idea of what each creature likely needed and how they would act, based on their base types.

With the opportunities provided by the Care of Magical Creatures class, Carl was able to bring many magical animals into his farms so they could be scanned and produce the different magical animals of the Harry Potter world.

Carl was doing much better in Ancient Runes now that he had vastly improved his handwriting. They were now practicing the spells with their wands to carve runes into wood blocks. After the New Year, they would move on to using the spells to carve runes into metal.

Once Professor Babbling determined they were good enough at the basics of carving runes, they would move on to setting up basic rune spell clusters. They would only learn how to charge their basic rune clusters at the end of the year.

Arithmancy was an interesting class for Carl, because it was an actual maths class for the most part. A lot of it was memorizing different theorems, equations, and charts, and working out the solutions for multiple variables.

While Carl had taken many maths classes in his past worlds, he wasn't very advanced in the field. But even as a layperson he could see many of the differences. Besides the basics of addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication, there wasn't that much similarity to the science based mathematics he was used to.

For example, the muggle science maths were used to describe the physical world. They were used in many engineering fields to figure out the proper dimensions, supports, and foundations needed to have muggle technology work properly.

But what muggles did with science, like knowing the dimensions and material properties needed to have a house be sturdy enough, wizards accomplished through applications of magic. They didn't really pay that much attention to the physical dimensions and properties of things, so much as how they interacted with magic.

As a result of wizardkind not really needing to pay attention to basic physics, Arithmancy had more to do with how magic interacted with the world, different materials, and itself, than it had to do with describing the physical world that muggle maths was focused on.

The more Carl studied Arithmancy, the more he realized where the Wizarding World could get their attitude towards the muggles. The great thinkers and innovators of the wizarding world all focus on magic and its applications, instead of science. As a result, educated witches and wizards know a great deal of how magic works and interacts the world around it, but very little about basic physics or science.

Take away magic, and wizards were clueless about how muggles accomplish what they do. It's like an audience member watching a stage magician doing their prestidigitation routine. The audience member knows there must be some explanation for how the magician can do what they do, but are at a complete loss on how it's done.

With that insight about Arithmancy, Carl was intrigued at the possibilities available by possibly merging an understanding of muggle science with magical "science", or Arithmancy. What could Technomancy accomplish if the knowledge of magic was combined with science and technology?

It was just too bad he never worked hard to get himself degrees in the sciences in his previous worlds, so he was still a layman in those fields.

"Another subject of study to add to the list." Carl decided he would spend a few years in university after graduating from Hogwarts so he could start getting the basics down. This world didn't have very advanced tech, but at least he could build himself a foundation of scientific knowledge for the future. He was bound to get a high tech world in one of these jumps. Carl decided that each summer he would test out for his accreditation in the muggle world.

"Are you sure you want to turn in the time turner?" Carl asked Hermione as they stood outside the door to Professor McGonagall's office at the end of the year. They had just finished the last of their end of year tests when Hermione had announced that she would be turning in the time turner and dropping Divination and Muggle Studies next year.

"I thought about it for a while. It's been a great year, actually." Hermione smiled warmly at Carl while thinking of all the time they spent together. "I really like our time room, and it was great. But the amount of effort put into making sure everything went smoothly was just not worth it to study those two subjects." Hermione put special emphasis on the subjects that she had grown to hate over the year for their uselessness.

Carl could tell Hermione had a bit of ire pent up over those professors and their ridiculous ways and outdated or useless information, so he didn't argue with her decision.

"If it was important subjects, like Alchemy maybe, I might make a different decision. But for Divination and Muggle Studies, no thank you. It's not worth putting up with the poor professors and abysmal subject matter." Hermione snorted in disgust.

Carl chuckled at her expressions of disgust. "Okay, as long as you're sure. We at least still have the clubhouse for the WDS. I'll wait out here while you beard the dragonkitty in her den." Carl smirked. He knew it somewhat still urked Hermione when he made fun of a professor that she liked, but she had long gotten used to his habits.

After waiting for a good quarter hour, Hermione emerged from Professor McGonagall's office, looking like she had dropped a great weight from her shoulders. Carl pushed off the wall he'd been leaning against and fell into step with her as they headed to the Great Hall for dinner.

"So, now that you'll have less classes to worry about next year, what do you think about getting the WDS to join us for a project? A group project of accomplishing the animagus transformation?" Carl proposed as they walked.

"Oooh, that's advanced Transfiguration. It sounds interesting. We'll need to visit the library before leaving for the summer, though, so we can gather the necessary study material."

"What if we had a talk with Professor Black? He and Harry's dad accomplished it by their fifth year. What do you say we try for it by the end of our fourth year?" Carl interrupted Hermione from starting to drift off into planning while jumping over a trick step on the stairs they were climbing down. He had already found many informative books in the Room of Requirement, but it would be good to get the perspective from someone who had already accomplished the transformation. And Sirius wouldn't rat them out, like the stricter McGonagall might.

"Hmm, do you think he would have documented how they did it so young? Usually wizards and witches don't study the Animagus transformation until they are working towards their masteries." Hermione speculated as they arrived outside the great hall. "Maybe they found some short cuts to make it easier for them."

"Well, even if he doesn't have any advice, I've found a couple books I'm sure will help us along." Carl tempted the book loving girl. He enjoyed the enthusiasm that lit up her face as she turned to him. "And I'm sure you're smart enough to come up with a plan for us to accomplish it."

"Well, don't be stingy, Mr. Edwards. Let's see it!" Hermione demanded.

With a laugh, Carl pulled the book he had stowed in his bag out and handed it to her. He guided her to a seat while she immediately started reading the new book.

"Hello all. We've got a group project we want to get started on next year." Carl greeted the usual crowd at their table while indicating 'we' was Hermione and him. "We can meet in the clubhouse after dinner to discuss it when we're a little less public." Carl indicated the full hall with lots of listening ears to show that they should take the conversation to a more private location.

"A group project? That might be fun." Hannah stated.

"Count me in." Neville added quickly, betraying the fact that he had a bit of a crush on Hannah and anything she was up for, so was he. The rest of the group indicated they were in with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

The food appeared on the table at that time, so everyone put conversations on hold while bellies were being filled.

Carl easily landed from Rover flash teleporting him. Looking around, he saw that as usual Rover did a good job of transporting him to a location where no one was watching him. He reached up and scratched Rover on one of the spots he liked.

"Thanks for the lift, boy. You got any plans at the moment?" Carl asked his familiar. He received a mental impression of a series of Hot Springs that Rover liked to play in. Carl chuckled at his adventurous Canine turned Phoenix. "Nice. Enjoy yourself. I'll do most of my travel on the Knight Bus to avoid unwanted attention as usual. But if I need a lift or find some good foods to share, I'll call." Carl promised.

With an enthusiastic trill of agreement, Rover lifted off from Carl's shoulder before flaming away. Carl turned his attention to his summer abode, the orphanage.

He could have easily chosen to simply crash at one of his hotels that followed him from world to world instead of spending his summers at the orphanage, but chose not to for a number of reasons. The biggest reason was that it would take one more room off the market from making him money during the peak tourist season. And while he normally wouldn't care about the cost of one room, he had a loan to pay off. The sooner he finished paying off the Goblins, the sooner he could get his increased income back.

The other reason was that it simply didn't matter where he "slept". After his time in the SAO virtual world when he'd been grinding levels, gear, and farming materials, he'd gotten used to using meditation as a substitution for sleep. Only occasionally would he actually sleep at night. Most of his night time when not meditating was spent in his Warehouse studying books from his magical library he'd gotten from the Room of Requirement, or training his spell casting and combat skills.

The shadows were starting to get long on the ground as he entered the front door of the orphanage. He heard the sounds of food being prepared, so he made his way to the kitchen.

"Hi Miss Edith." Carl greeted as he moved to wash his hands. "Anything you need help with here?"

"Carl! Welcome back! Peel the potatoes, would you?" Miss Edith asked as she pointed at the spuds on the table. "So, how was school?" She asked as she worked at preparing the food while Carl started peeling.

"Oh, fine. Maths was easy. One of my teachers got after me for my abysmal handwriting, so I had to practice that at the beginning. And there were a number of pets the groundskeeper kept around that we interacted with." Carl said, mindful of eavesdropping kids in the area. He knew she knew what he was talking about, so that was good enough.

"Sounds like fun." Miss Edith laughed. "You would not believe the hassle we had getting Tammy to eat her vegetables. She got it in her head that it would make her ugly when she grew up. I had to ask around to see who had been telling tales, and it turns out…" The nice orphanage matron started telling Carl some stories of what some of the kids had gotten up to over the year.

Carl enjoyed the time he spent there with Miss Edith. She was someone who was entirely comfortable with who she was and what her purpose in life was. It was very enjoyable and comforting to hear her ramble on about life at the orphanage. Miss Edith was another reason he didn't try too hard to find alternate accommodations.

He just soaked in the atmosphere as he enjoyed the evening. He could easily find worse places to be while growing up yet again.

With all of his extra time at night, and having studied ahead on Ancient Runes and Arithmancy throughout the past year, Carl began studying ward making and ward breaking.

The four subjects of wards, counter wards, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes were inextricably linked. The best and most efficient method of disarming or depowering wards was through counter wards. Simply firing spells off at a ward with a wand was a good way to get killed, since in most cases the wards are set on a hair trigger that reacts to active spell casting.

Wards and counter wards were built by using Ancient Runes to create spell matrices on a ward stone. Arithmancy was used to calculate everything about the wards and how ambient magic flows through and powers the wards stones, as well as being used to calculate what counter wards need to be used to break down the wards.

Carl's study of wards and counter wards started first with memorization. He started learning all the basic rune clusters needed to be carved onto a ward stone to create a ward. Then he would carve a ward stone, and set it up. When he finally, after several tries, got a stable ward set up, he would move on to the next step.

He carved a series of counter ward stones that would simply analyze the wards they were focused on and create an Arithmancy reading on parchment. He would then analyze the Arithmancy and come up with a counter rune cluster scheme. After carving the counter wards, he would place them and power them up and watch as the magic did its job.

Even though he learned the theory perfectly from books, it still required him to practice what he learned to be able to turn it into practical knowledge. But luckily for Carl, with his perks, learning and memorizing abilities, and affinity to magic from his perks, he learned faster than most wizards or witches did.

By the end of summer Carl was prepared to at least attempt to read the ward scheme that Slytherin left on his vault. He planned to give it a go on September first, the evening after the feast.

Carl found himself feeling antsy while sitting through the sorting ceremony, feast, and announcements. The whole evening felt like it was taking so long. When Carl realized he was letting the anticipation get to him, he quickly employed his Occlumency to calm his mind and stay in the moment.

He also decided that in the future he would just do his burglary a few days before big events like the start of school if his anticipation almost got out of hand and ruined his enjoyment of rare events. Either that or he would have to step up his use of Occlumency to keep himself even keeled.

When Carl was sure everyone was down for the night, he had Rover flame him to the Chamber of Secrets. He made his way to Slytherin's vault through the mouth of the ugly statue. He pulled out his counter ward Arithmancy recording wards, and placed them carefully around the vault.

Once everything was in place, he activated his recording setup so he could get an idea of what he was working with. He watched as the power filled the stones, then it reached out a filament of magic to the vault's protection. Carl sensed when the vault took active notice of his ward stones attempt to read it.

His eyes widening in alarm as he felt the gathering energy, Carl yelled for Rover to get them out of there while cutting off his link to his ward stones. Rover flashed to Carl, then flashed them outside to the black lake.

After waiting for 15 minutes and petting Rover to calm himself down, Carl had Rover flash them back to the Chamber of Secrets. He made his way back inside to where the vault was once more. When he saw the charred and burnt spots where he had placed the ward stones, Carl shook his head in disappointment.

"Well, Rover. Looks like this is going to be a bigger, more complicated task than expected." Rover simply chirped in amusement. Carl made his way back to the main chamber and had Rover flash him back to his room.

Carl settled down into his Occlumency meditation to calm and recenter himself before resuming his normal schedule of training and studying.

The next evening found Carl and his ever growing group of friends ensconced in their clubroom that they had transformed for their use. While the Room of Requirement was amazing, he didn't really want it to become public knowledge. So aside from the one time they used it for a ritual room to remove the horcrux from Harry's scar, his group hadn't used it again.

Instead they had converted a couple of empty classrooms into their study hall / clubroom. That evening they all sat around on bean bag chairs as they started their work on finding their animagus forms.

The books he'd found describing how to become an animagus had three different methods. They all ended with the result of becoming an animagus, but they had wildly different quality of results.

The first method was to brew a potion that would send the user into a trance that would reveal their animagus form, and force their first transformation.

The second method was a small ritual that basically did the same thing as the potion.

The last method was a series of magical meditations and exercises to do until the witch or wizard discovered their inner animal. Then they worked another series of exercises culminating in mastering their animal form.

The biggest difference between the three methods was how powerful and comfortable the wizard or witch would be in their animal form. The potion would had a practically 100% chance of their animal form being a normal animal. The ritual was much more complicated, and would reward them with a more magically powerful animal. And going the route of doing the exercises and meditation would have the most magical and powerful animal form possible for the individual.

The potion method caused a sudden change that the wizard's magic struggled to catch up with. The new animagus and their magic were unused to their new form, so they and their magic had a hard time adapting to and moving around in their new form. They would be clumsy for quite some time in their new form until they relearned how to walk, fly, or swim.

The ritual was the middle ground between quickness in becoming an animagus and adapting their form to their magic. The animal forms were also a bit more likely to have a more powerful form if found through the ritual. Since the ritual used the wizard's magic and made the transformation through a fundamental change that greatly utilized their magic, their animagus form would be more magical and powerful than if they simply took the potion.

The marauders were a perfect example of the potion and ritual methods to attain the animagus form. Sirius Black and James Potter made use of the ritual. Instead of a simple dog, Sirius' form was that of a Grim, a magical dog. James Potter's form of a stag was more than a simple deer, it was a slightly magical version that could have been described as a lord of the forest. Pettigrew, on the other hand, had chosen to use the potion and ended up with a form of a common rat.

The final method of becoming an animagus would take a lot more time, but it would find the most appropriate magical version of their animal. When they finally finished all the meditations and exercises, they and their magic would be completely adapted to their animal forms, and their form would be a powerful animal version.

Needless to say, Carl chose to use the third method. There was no way he was settling for less than the best animal form he could attain. The rest of the group also chose to use the third method.

In another time, Harry or Neville may have settled for being less ambitious, or settled for mediocrity, feeling they wanted to be normal or from lack of confidence. But things were different in this world. Very early in their first year the bullying influence of Snape and the Purebloods disappeared as if by magic. So the two possible chosen children were allowed to simply focus on friends and school. And with their friend's influence, they sought to be the best wizards they could be.

Carl was proud of his friends for their decision to join him in the tougher but more rewarding endeavor. The group decided they would dedicate at least two nights a week on their animagus pursuit. If anyone wanted to put in more work, they were more than welcome, but the two nights a week would be dedicated to their exercises to become animagus.

"All I'm saying is that we don't have to let the tournament stop us from enjoying Quidditch for an entire year." Carl heard Harry saying a week after the start of term as he, Hermione, and Luna joined the rest of the group at the Hufflepuff table. Carl saw that Harry was talking with Cedric Diggory and several other Hufflepuff Quidditch players.

"Yeah, but how do we get the professors to sign off on it? You know they are just going to tell us no." While Cedric was looking interested, one of the other Hufflepuffs just complained.

"Why should we even ask them? We're just playing "pickup" games, and if it so happens to be one House's team against another, why, what a coincidence!" Harry argued back. "Hermione, back me up on this! Is there any rules whatsoever against having pickup games on our time off?"

Put on the spot, Hermione froze for a second, before drudging through her memory. "No, nothing in the rules. But there are some rules about needing professor oversight for official house games."

"There, you see! It will be the unofficial house cup. Nothing official about it. And we can even make it fun for everyone. Maybe instead of just house teams, anyone who wants to can field a team and be in the running. That would ensure there are more games than one every month and a half."

There were mutters among the crowd as everyone seemed to be warming up to the idea.

"Hermione, Luna, you two don't seem to be into quidditch, right?" Carl turned to the two girls next to him while ignoring the organization of the quidditch nuts. Even Malfoy had wandered over with some Slytherins to get in on the quidditch games.

Carl had been quite surprised just how different Malfoy was from the books by this point in time. He had started out just as arrogant and willing to throw his weight around as he was in the books. But after his death eater father had been taken out with the ritual that ended Voldemort, his mother had apparently taken a stricter role with him and straightened him out.

Apparently being well versed in the culture and politics of the wizarding world let Narcissa Malfoy realize that they couldn't continue to push their weight around when all the support her husband had enjoyed had just disappeared into the wind.

So Carl was surprised to find that if Malfoy was "reformed" early enough in life before he became set in his ways, he could actually employ his cunning and intelligent side. Which didn't mean he trusted Malfoy one bit, but he was at least tolerable now.

Carl let his momentary amusement at Draco's transformation fade as he focused on his Ravenclaw girls' response.

"You know I don't like to fly. I'm even less interested in being attacked by cannon balls while flying." Hermione said with a scowl, remembering the one time that Harry had convinced the group to participate in a pick-up game.

"I'm with Hermione on the subject of the sport." Luna said as she kept most of her attention on her food. "My interests lie elsewhere."

"Since none of us are going to be participating in the tournament, what would you say to us taking advantage of the event to open up concessions? We could cook or bake some nice treats and sell them to the crowds to make some pocket change. Might as well do it for the Tri-wizard events too."

"That might be fun. I like to eat tasty and exotic things." Luna dreamily smiled. "One summer while we were hunting for Crumple Horned Snorkacks in Sweden we had a Lingonberry Ice Cream that was simply divine."

"Luna, are there any food recipes that can only be made by witches? Cause I would love to learn about them." Hermione also seemed interested in participating for the opportunities to learn.

Carl smiled at his two Ravenclaw friends as they seemed to forget all about his original question in their conversation about international and wizarding world food. He knew they would eventually circle back around to his original question about concessions, and in the meantime, he had a conversation about food to participate in.

A half moon shone down on the sleeping town of Little Hangleton, casting shadows on shadows at night. On the outskirts of town was an overgrown plot of land that was all but buried in the brush and trees, except for the area immediately around a solitary run down shack.

Carl was crouched at the edge of the clearing, looking over the scene carefully with all his senses. He didn't see anything unusual, but his magical senses were going wild.

"Well, looks like this is it. Finally tracked down where you hid your ring, Riddle." Carl muttered to himself. While he knew the property was somewhere around the town of Little Hangleton, that was still a lot of area to find when it had been in a wizard family for centuries and not on the muggle registrars.

He started moving around the edge of the clearing, dropping his ward reading stones in the correct positions. Carl was understandably wary of the defenses set up around the place. They had done in Dumbledore in the canon story, so he wasn't about to let his guard down.

When he'd finally deployed his ward stones, Carl activated their ward and curse reading function, and waited by his recording station for the results. It only took about half an hours time to finish reading and recording everything he would need.

Looking over the parchment, he looked at the map generated and took note of all the nasty curses and defenses that Riddle had placed around his ring horcrux. Looking over the Arithmancy, he decided he would crunch the numbers and come back in several days to finish the job.

Carl backed off from the property before calling Rover to transport him back to Hogwarts. He loved having a Phoenix familiar. Sure he could use the sling rings he'd built with his memories from the Sorcerer Supreme to travel around, but he enjoyed making use of each particular world's resources and abilities unless there was an emergency. And in the Harry Potter world, Phoenix travel was high class.

Once back in his room Carl started working out the Arithmancy on the readings he had taken. He sighed as he had to do the math by hand on reams of notebook paper. He really needed to pick up some computer programming skills so he could write some Arithmancy programs to make it so much quicker. Maybe one day even have the devices that measure spells and wards to channel the input directly into a program.

"One more thing to add to the study list." Carl muttered. "And despite how long the wizards and witches have been working on it, I'm wondering if their Arithmancy is completely accurate, or if it needs improvement."

Carl didn't finish up his calculations by the time he had to get ready for class, so he packed it all away to finish up later in the evening.

A week later in the middle of the night Carl returned to the Gaunt shack where Riddle's mother grew up poor and where Riddle had hidden one of his horcrux. Since the ring included the Resurrection stone, Carl was determined to obtain it.

He was still debating with himself if he should try to unite the three Hollows to become the "Master of Death". He wasn't sure what would happen, if he would simply get a power boost, if only those with Peverell blood would be able to unite them, of if nothing would happen.

The biggest sticking point was that he would have to take the cloak away from Harry to unite the three. Eventually Carl had decided that his idle speculation about what would happen wasn't enough reason for him to be a traitor to his friend. He wasn't that power hungry, especially when every ten years he would gain more powers in a new world. Betraying his friends and himself like that just wasn't worth it.

But after a few years of watching Dumbledore in the aftermath of all the Death Eaters falling into comas and losing their magic, Carl had decided that he wouldn't leave the ring horcrux sitting around for the old man to get himself cursed to death.

While Carl didn't like a lot of the decisions that Dumbledore had been making, he still kinda liked the old man in some ways. There was no way he would trust Dumbledore with his secrets or to make decisions for him, but he felt the old man at least tried to do what was right. And now that Snape wasn't around to whisper lies in his ear, it seemed the old man had been getting better. Or at least, making less poor decisions.

So ultimately Carl didn't want the old man to find the cursed ring and die from putting it on. Let the old man enjoy the rest of his natural life.

Carl returned his attention back to the curses and wards that Riddle had placed to protect his horcrux. Carl placed the first set of counter ward stones down. Taking everything down without it exploding in his face was like taking down a jenga tower. He had to start in the right place, and continue taking away blocks from the top as he dismantled the tower. Only the blocks of this jenga tower were all kinds of different shapes, which made it trickier to balance.

The first set of ward stones set down diverted certain alarms placed. Those alarms would have noticed if there was anything overt done to the wards placed by Riddle, and would have kicked things into a higher alert sensitivity or sprung several traps immediately.

Once the alerts were diverted, Carl began the next set of dismantle wards. First he took down the flesh rotting gas that would be breathed in if someone simply walked in. Then some acid pools left around the area for intruders to step in. A few earth snake golems that resided underground just waiting for the unwary to step on them were deactivated.

There were pathways through the traps that seemed safe and clear, but that had confuddling-the-senses fields that would lead the overconfident straight into the traps. A few more rotting curses like what Riddle had put on his horcrux was placed on fake gold strewn around the area for someone to pick up, and in their greed damn them.

Illusions to confuzzle the senses of the intruder into believing they had overcome the traps only to unwarily stumble into the next death trap were then dispersed into the wind.

By the time Carl got to the actual shack, even he was sweating a little bit despite his increased physique. He had to concentrate on several different things at once to keep from setting any of the traps off. Most curse breaking teams were just that, teams. While he was trying to accomplish everything himself.

This would at least be good practice for him. Even though he tried to ignore what he knew about the wards and scenarios he set for himself to practice with, it just never measured up to the real thing. The way Riddle thought was very different from the way Carl thought, so running into the various things Riddle created was very different from what he would make.

And using Riddle to up his game would hopefully get Carl closer to cracking the defenses on Slytherin's vault. After spending so much time on preparations to crack Slytherin's vault, if Carl included time spent in classes learning the subject matter, he was so ready for the payday.

Carl looked inside the shack from the outside, impressed despite himself. Riddle had managed to get an amazingly dense number of curses to play nice with each other inside. He felt like he should be taking notes, figuratively speaking. He already had his Arithmancy notes. Now he needed to take notes on how to be a right evil bastard.

Putting thoughts about admiring evil geniuses aside, Carl started clearing the traps from inside the shack.

It took him a good hour to tease all the puzzle pieces out, to disarm the traps one at a time, and sometimes two or three at a time, until the inside of the shack was finally clear. Carl only had one word for it: Intense.

But he was finally looking at a small lock box that contained what he had gone through all that effort for. Standing several feet away, he levitated the lid open, and allowed the compulsion to wear the ring to batter against his occlumency shields.

It was a good tactic for Riddle to use. The intruder wouldn't know what was in the box, and a subtle and clever compulsion charm for one last curse just when they thought they had their prize and had let down their guard would work on most people. Carl, on the other hand, had Dumbledore's mistake to act as a warning for him. So he stood back further than normal with even more increased wariness.

A few waves of his wand and the compulsion and rotting curse were gone. Carl cast several more diagnostic spells to ensure he had got the last of it. When everything came up clean, he closed the lockbox once more and made his way outside, collecting the large number of ward stones he had employed to dismantle the defenses and traps left by Riddle.

No sense leaving his personally made tools behind when they would save him time in future endeavors.

Carl smiled to himself as he rode the Rover express back to his dorm room. It was a good night's work.