23 Chapter 20

He had been worried about leaving her with the Death Eater, but it was doubtful that the man was going to wake up anytime soon. When Harry had finally seen Miss Roemmele moving about, clearly close to waking up, he had apparated back to the Dursley house, where he had been repeatedly questioned by the adult Dursleys about why he had been late and had then been promptly locked in his cupboard for the night.

Still, he'd managed to get a Lying level out of it.

Lying, Lv-3 (40%)

This is your ability to lie to people, the higher the level the better the lie and less chance of discovery!

15% chance of success, less based on how extreme the lie is.

Besides, getting grounded was perfectly fine with him, since he had to look over his spoils of war from his fight with Carrow to look over.

The first, and probably the most interesting, was the magic stick that he had dropped when Harry had first burned him. He'd found it lying on the ground in front of the house. When Harry had reached out to touch it, he'd gasped with shock when his hand had touched an invisible hard surface that seemed to cover the wand spherically.

It didn't allow him to touch it, so Harry just used a shovel, which it seemed perfectly fine with, to scoop it and put it into his school bag and carry it into his cupboard, where he was now trying every way he could think of to get through the barrier.

Finally, after an hour of experimentation, he impatiently threw half his MP towards the surface and winced when with a spike of pain, his HP dropped by 50 and a new window popped up.

New skill created!

Runic Burnout Lv-1 (60%)

A precise sucking of magic from a ward by using it to refill one's own core. It starts causing damage to HP when magic continues to be sucked after the MP is full. A common way to get around it is to use up mana as fast as it comes in.

Harry nodded to himself as he read over the skill, noting that he'd have to careful with the next wards he encountered. They seemed to have a knack for knocking him out. Besides, this skill was by and in itself dangerous, even without any MP cost.

Putting all of that out of his mind, he used Observe on the wand.

The Riddler's Wand

This wand is made out of yew and has a phoenix feather core, a rare and powerful combination yew retains a particularly dark and fearsome reputation in the spheres of dueling and all curses. However, it is untrue to say that those who use yew wands are more likely to be attracted to the Dark Arts than another. The witch or wizard best suited to a yew wand might equally prove a fierce protector of other. This wand that is very effective when used for curses and jinxes. It owes its loyalty to both Harry and its former master. It has been used by one Tom Riddle.

50% attack when used against wizards.

100% when used by an owner it is loyal to.

He picked up the wand. Its hilt was bone and it seemed to glow when in contact with his hand. Harry held it tight as he got a good grip on the handle, before giving it a swish.

Nothing happened, so he ended up putting it back into his inventory and once again looking at his statistics.

Eyeing his STR, he frowned. It was far too little for the kind of threats that Carrow had presented. And if this fight was any indication, strength could be a weakness of wizards that Harry could exploit. So Harry opened his status and put in an extra four points raising it to 6. His use of magic in battle had also boosted his INT by 3, which he hadn't noticed earlier.

He then finally turned to his last reward from fighting Amycus, a trinket he had found in the Death eater's pockets…a small rock with some strange symbols engraved on it. The Observe on it had been interesting, so he had decided to hold onto it.

The Astral Network Portkey

The Astral Network is a collection of a number of magical creature preserves around the world that have been hidden by their innate obfuscation magic. They can only be accessed via certain portkeys that are invisible to most wizards due to a variety of mind-bending magic that their creators used to protect the creatures inside. Through the years, many have been run down by invading dark magical creations like Inferi and monsters.

Do you wish to Enter?

YES/NO

Harry pressed no. Carrow must have been using the forests to hide from the magic police. He was definitely interested in such a place if it could somewhere he could train against powerful foes and grow his skills faster, but he needed to be prepared for it.

Quickly, he put on whatever he could find that would make for the most protection, even going as far as wearing five of his baggy t-shirts. Once the Dursleys were asleep, he snuck out of the cupboard and stocked up on water, before he finally called up the window again, this time to press yes. As soon as he did that, suddenly the runes started glowing. Harry placed his hand on it, and in an instant, a whirling rainbow of light enveloped him and was whisked away from Privet Drive.

An awful ride on the Portkey later, Harry struggled to his feet, grumbling with pain, and looked around at the dark forest around him. One of the first things he noticed was the giant gaping hole in the ground a few feet away from him.

Curious, he went over to it. Looking in, he saw a set of stairs that lead deep into the Earth. Harry sighed before he started walked down into the dark dungeon.

"Did all this weird stuff happen all the time and I just didn't even notice?" Harry muttered to himself tiredly. Well, at least he hadn't gotten a headache today.

Almost as if it was reminded of its joke by Harry himself, the Universe decided to shake a small stone loose from the cave ceiling. A second later, it slammed into Harry's head, leaving him with a blinding headache.

Lots of changes this chapter. As usual, if you notice any errors, let me know where and I'll go back and fix them. As I said last chapter, I try, but I'm stll just one guy. Also, don't forget to let me know what you think of the story so far.

I'll be putting up the old version of the story as a stacked up complete fic soon so that you all can compare the chapters and see what all I've changed up. I will take it down after the rewrite is complete though. Check my profile for that one.

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