26

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We're standing outside McGonagall's office after having turned in our dropout forms.

Alright. First things first, let's take care of the loose ends.

To the Room of Requirement!

So we go.

And get our grubby mitts on a diadem that used to be owned by a certain lady of the castle.

I bundle it up in a small lead box that conveniently appeared in the room and stuff it into my utility belt.

Next, the Chamber of Secrets!

So we go.

"You're here early." Myrtle says as she lazily rolls around under the heat lamp. "Are you skipping class again, Ash?"

Again?

Considering what we've been doing for the last three years. "You could say that." Hmm…oh, Little Ravenclaw Girl is here too. "Hey, Juni." Juniper. Her parents are muggle arborists, apparently.

"Hello." She says politely from her plushy bean bag chair. Given she knows this place exists, I figured it would be easier to just continue to give her visitor access.

Ok. "I have a favor to ask." I originally didn't expect this to happen, but I can totally improvise.

"What's up?" Juni asks and puts down her book.

"Tell Harry about this place in like a month or so." I say. "And give him a tour if he needs one, Myrtle." I don't let Juni past the reception room, because beyond that is the armory.

"So…why?" Myrtle narrows her ghosteyes.

"Because I won't be here to do it." I shrug. "So, y'know. Counting on you." I go deeper into the armory.

"What's that all about?" Myrtle asks Juni after we've left. The fact that we've just implied to them we're leaving forever hasn't really sunk in yet.

…

Ok, that about does everything I need to do within the castle. Everything within the chamber of secrets is basically a gift, because I have spare gear elsewhere.

Now let's get out of here.

How?

I bought a Firebolt.

We take our Firebolt and get underway, leaving our luggage behind.

On one hand: wups. On the other: it's nothing I can't live without.

…

I fly to my WarTrain (I had it stashed near the school). On top of the train is the Old Soviet Tank, secured tightly. Inside the train is Daisy, who can now take basic chains of commands like a good little rocket-propelled winged T-Rex.

Ok.

…Now let's take a moment and think about what we need to do. Which is, in retrospect, something I should have considered before leaving the safety of the school.

Oh well.

We are inside our WarTrain's War Room, which is basically just a room with some tables and chairs.

First off, while I believe that Tom's responsible for what's going on here, I don't actually have any definitive proof.

Second, finding that proof will very likely get me into open conflict with Tom.

Third, I need contingency plans for, say, if I suddenly get jumped by twenty Death Eaters. I need to have a 100% chance of escaping with everything I have, because my power is based on my equipment and losing gear is fatal.

Fourth, I need to be able to bring the fight to Tom and fucking kill him.

…To that end, I guess that means I need to leave the country again.

…well, maybe. Everything boils back to knowing exactly what Tom's doing. The more, the better. Hmm…I think I can see a way in which some of these problems will be solved.

We go to Grimmauld Place.

"The hell are you doing here, Ash?" Sirius asks, out of curiosity rather than any real worry of me being out of class. "You should be in school, lad."

"I quit school." I say shortly. "Teach me how to apparate."

Sirius glares at me. "I assume you have a good reason." Then he nods in understanding. "The muggle police, yeah?"

"Aye."

Sirius nods. "Ok."

For the next three months, we'd practice intermittently with Sirius in the art of apparating, while we're also doing other things.

…

[Back in Hogwarts, same day as dropping out, 3rd Person Camera]

…

"Ash didn't go to any of his classes today!" Hermione crows at the dinner table. "What is he doing?! This is important! Where is he?!" She scans the table with murderous intent.

"I haven't seen him at all today." Harry shrugs. "So he's off doing…whatever it is he's doing." He glances at the teacher's desk, ignoring Professor Slughorn's attempts to catch his eye, and notices a strange tension in Professor Snape's face. "Snape's pissed about something." He observes. Ash's language has rubbed off on him.

"Is he?" Ron seizes on the topic to get Hermione to stop exploding. "Whoa." He grins upon seeing Snape's face. "You reckon he's mad about the first day of his last job?"

"That's mean, Ronald." Hermione sighs, deflating now that her tension is gone. "He's in the Order, so he probably has something that's worrying him." She deflates a little further. "We all do." Harry didn't need to ask what she meant.

Come next morning, McGonagall makes it known to the Gryffindor house that Ash has withdrawn from Hogwarts, to general surprise but no real worry. The discussion, what little there existed of it, blooms at the breakfast table.

"I didn't figure him for the bookwormy type." Ron grins on the news. "Expected him to never return, actually." That earned him a smack on the head from Hermione.

Students leaving Hogwarts after receiving their OWLs isn't an unusual thing. NEWTs are required almost exclusively for ministry jobs, and so the students who take it are a markedly smaller body. Most magic world jobs tend to be apprenticeships.

"But why a day into school?" Hermione wonders. "That's unusual, right?"

"It's unusual, but not unheard of." A passing ghost chips in. "Some students change their mind at the last minute, or else have parents who don't…agree, too often."

"Well, that sucks." Harry sighs. "Remind me to kick his ass the next time we see him." He smirks. "He deserves at least that much for leaving without even a note."

"Hear hear." Ron raises his cup. "To the Human Apocalypse."

The rest of the people sitting nearby halfheartedly follow suit.

At the Ravenclaw table, Luna gives a downcast-looking Juni a cheery pat on her back.

…

[Three Months Later, 1st Person Camera]

…

Training complete! Kinda, sorta.

Using food as energy beyond eating it is actually a little more difficult than expected, largely because I have the mindset that the food is readily available and thus spend it much more liberally than I do with the car batteries, which I used to use more or less only as a finisher action.

So, had to both learn about the habit and learn to get rid of it.

Anyways.

Apparating?

Apparating. I figure that Apparating would be extremely important in combat, and so I've made it my mission for the past three months to learn it like it was the back of my hand. It is the closest thing a mage can get to playing god. Let's say…uh…take a piece of paper. Draw two dots on the two ends of the papers. How do you get the closest distance possible between the two dots? You leave 2D behind, take the paper, and fold it so the two dots are close together.

Apparating is the same logic. The mage in question temporarily creates an access to a higher plane of existence and draws a path between themselves and their target destination, with the size of the access dependent on the amount of power needed to make that access.

Note: We're making a lot of assumptions here.

Yeah. Like many things in the wizarding world, apparating is a branch of very poorly explained magic. The general gist of things is there, though.

So it took me around a month to learn to apparate under Sirius and Lupin (mostly Lupin)'s tutelage, and another two to properly figure out how to make use of this teleportation during combat situations.

With enough magic power I can create a consistent 'connection' between myself and a…free-flowing tube that I can target within visible range. In a nutshell, I can now Blink, up to thirty feet, with no loud CRACK to give myself away (the action of creating a tube creates the sound).

For the record: after I proposed this idea, it was Lupin who figured out how best to modify Apparating to do this thing, and Sirius was the first person to pull it off after three days of experiments (with Lupin on-scene to fix any splinching). Since this was the first spell that could just straight-up kill me if I fucked it up, I figured I'd do myself a favor by getting some professional supervision.

Either way, Sirius and Lupin both now know how to Blink. The mana cost is still prohibitively high, so both of them are now equipped with a Satchel of Holding designed to convert food to AME. Sirius is partial to having candy.

"You are now the most delicious werewolf." Sirius had said to Lupin upon the latter wearing the satchel.

The icing on the cake? I can apply the Blink effect to other objects. The accuracy of the targeting suffers (in that the object is less likely to reach where I want it to in one piece) but that's honestly not a concern. It takes a lot of energy, but while active I get a seriously strong offense/defense modifier.

To wit: offensively, I can Blink markers into(ish) a target up to fifty(ish) feet away, and then Switch the markers with, say, a grenade with its pin pulled.

I stole a few boxes of these things from an American base. Had the quartermaster mark it down as expended during training, or whatever excuse he considered most appropriate. The Imperius Curse is the best at stuff like this.

Anyhoo, defensively: I can Blink shields into a spell's path of flight to provide what is basically a perfect defense. If I had the accuracy to Blink the spell away entirely I would, but I don't, so meh.

Note that all of the above modifications from standard are prohibitively expensive on mana, which is why we, y'know, have the habit of just chewing through our auxiliary power.

So with that handled…

We go into Phase one of the plan: destroying Horcruxes.

After asking around, we managed to find the burned-down husk of what used to be the Riddle household. There was, predictably, nothing there.

The cave with the locket was…more interesting.

…

[The Cave]

…

The three of us (me, Sirius, and an animated supply cabinet named Rusty) arrive at the cave after a month of automated map and newspaper searchers. Caves like the one Tom used are pretty common and aren't too deep…of course, when magic gets involved things get weird. Still, we were able to pin down the location with relative accuracy to the point where we only needed to search twenty other caves before stumbling onto this one.

So how can we tell it's the right one?

The inner wall—the one that's supposed to open—looks a little bit too clean for a wall that's supposed to have been, y'know, weather-worn for all its time in the wind and water. It's too smooth compared to the stone around it.

"So how do we actually get in?" Sirius asks as we stare down the smooth stone wall.

If I'm remembering right… "Muggle tech." I take out a bag of expired blood (bought from a blood bank) and squeeze some of it onto the wall.

A large section of the rock vanishes, revealing a large cavern of faintly glowing water.

On one hand, I like that the cave isn't pitch black. On the other, it is a cave with a lake stuffed full with zombies. I'm not keen on getting anywhere near that shit. Fortunately, I have a muggle solution to a magic problem in the form of a trio of tubes from Rusty. Each tube has the size of a 12 ounce can of soda, and is stocked full with thermite.

Special Thermite. Thermite enchanted to work better underwater and to burn magical power where it meets it (again, yay AME Training).

Where'd you get the thermite?

I made a shell company (construction oriented) and just bought a few tons of the stuff. It's pretty easy to get, just not in large quantities.

"We don't go in for a while." I say as the lake begins to froth and bubble.

It takes the better part of ten minutes before the lake settles down again. The entire area now smells…weird. Like…I don't think I've ever smelled a burning human body before, but I get the feeling it wouldn't be what I'm smelling right now.

"Cripes." Sirius groans at the smell, and we both put on gas masks. Military Surplus from the same place I stole the grenades.

Let's see here…

We toss a few glowsticks into the water. The dim illumination shows a blanket of bones.

…unless the spell that makes inferi can make skeletons move, I think it's safe to say that we're ok.

Just to be sure, though.

We touch the water and hurriedly back away.

No effect.

Cool. I'm still scared, but cool.

…Unfortunately the thermite also burned away the boat (I think) because there is no rope. Fortunately we brought our own rubber dingy.

"Let me get that." Sirius waves his wand, and the rubber dingy inflates with air. Magic is just really useful for mundane tasks like this.

With the dingy ready, we…didn't bring paddles. Improvisation it is.

We stick our wand into the water and cast wind, creating an ad-hoc engine.

As long as I have forward propulsion everything is fine.

We get to the little center island with no problems.

…hm. There is a chest, and I assume it to be full with…whatever the hell its contents can be called.

We try to interact with the water.

Ooh, neat. As expected, you can't touch it with anything except the bowl, and there is a shining silver thing at the bottom of the chest. It's probably the locket, but since I've never seen it in person I can't be sure. It's like the air hardens against your hand. It's really cool, not gonna lie.

"So…we have to drink that?" Sirius makes a face and picks up the bowl.

"Fuck no." I laugh. "Get the TNT."

Rusty carries something like a hundred sticks of TNT and is honestly its primary purpose. I strap the TNT to the outside of the chest, to the inside of the chest (the lid part), and lay the rest around it. I then leave a Marker on a piece of fuse, and we take our rubber dingy out of the cave.

"What if this causes the cave to collapse?" Sirius asks as we take our WarTrain and fly to a safe distance. "I'm not digging that locket out of a cave of rocks."

"Then I'd like to see Tom revive himself from a pile of rubble." I say, and strike a match. I then Switch the match with the Marker I set earlier.

We feel the shockwave even while flying on the WarTrain.

As expected, the cave has collapsed. Boo.

We wait until the cave has stopped collapsing before heading back down for a closer look. The cave entrance has indeed been rubbled over. HA! Take that Tom—

With a wave of his wand, Sirius gets the rubble to clear away into a tunnel.

…ok, yeah, wizards can do that. Also, the rubble seems to have filled in the lake. I should have done this from the beginning, it seems. Unless that would cause the zombies to start raking away at the rubble with their claws until they make their escape when we don't notice.

…also, are you serious? The chest is still intact.

It's a little dirtier than before.

It hasn't even moved, either, which is slightly worrying.

"So…what now?" Sirius asks nervously.

"We'll try something else." I shrug. "Can you dig up the earth around the chest? I wanna take it with me."

If we can't carry just the chest, we'll carry the chest plus a little extra. No biggie.

So we do.

The chest goes into the WarTrain, where we fly it over to the States and our Secret Underground Lair.

It's a warehouse we rented in Detroit.

It was quite cheap for its size, too. Anyways, the warehouse is magically sealed to muggles (read: they fail to recognize that it's important) and has an inner layer of disguises for additional protection. Inside the Lair is an industrial-grade laser plus Food Powered Generators.

America has a real food waste problem. Fortunately I'm here to help out by using it to power weapons.

We set the chest down into the firing zone for the laser.

"Muggles are terrifying." Sirius observes as we retreat to the safe room. "Why would they build something like this?"

"Because Science is profitable." I'm not too interested in explaining lasers, largely because I only have a surface level understanding of them. "Now let's see what happens."

We fire up the laser and begin cutting into the chest.

Nothing…nothing…

Nothing…nothing…

…there it goes!

It takes a little bit, but the laser pierces the chest and steam begins hissing out of the chest.

That thing just always refills, doesn't it?

Over the course of the next two hours, we surgically split the chest in half with the cutting laser.

After we've cut down about half of the chest it stopped steaming, which I take to mean that it stopped refilling.

…and now I'm wondering if I could have achieved the same result with a fully overpowered Prismatic Beam.

Oh well!

The chest has been cracked, and we take the locket, which…as far as Sirius can identify, is just a normal locket without any kind of enchantments placed on it. No paper, either.

Verdict: "well, fuck." I mean, I knew this was a possibility but to have it confirmed is a bit of a downer.

…So what next?

As we ponder on what to do next, we put the diadem underneath the

WAIT I WANNA TRY IT

…except I'm pretty sure people would see the giant beam of light if we fired it off willy-nilly. So…what to do?

We take the diadem into the Saharas and wait until it's bright and sunny.

A free flying WarTrain is really convenient, no? Also I'm very glad this thing has internal air conditioning.

In any event, the diadem gets affixed to a pedestal Sirius magicked up and I oh god it's hot out here why did I even think about doing this

FOR SCIENCE!

We burn all our auxiliary power.

PRISMAAAATIIIIIK…

The charge energy runs rampant. Also, for bonus points, we're taking the Kamehameha pose from Dragonball while Sirius looks at us like 'what is this idiot doing?'

BEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMOOOOH GOD MY HAAAAAANDS

The resulting beam burns the shit out of our hands because our firing point is on our finger instead of at the tip of a high magical object that's at least a foot from us. Fortunately, the mass of the energy is still being sent towards the diadem in a packet that's as focused as I can get it.

MY HAAAAAAAAANDS

The prismatic beam slams into the diadem and sends it deeper into the dunes.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The prismatic beam glasses the dunes and vaporizes the diadem, plus the soul inside it. It also burns a fifteen feet hole into the ground.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Sirius sighs and heals our hands.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa fuck that hurt a lot. I should have practiced with the beam after switching into this new casting method.

Well, whatever, the diadem is completely gone now, so that's ultimately a plus.

"You're surprisingly bad at planning things out." Sirius observes with a frown and a chuckle.

"That could have certainly gone better." I agree while shaking out my hands. "I need to practice with this more."

…

So we do.

…

[Christmas]

…

I've now achieved enough control over the Beam to fire it from my finger without hurting myself. I've also expanded the amount of emitting points, to the tune of eight in total—each finger except the thumb. I can fire spells concurrently from each emitter, but the cost rises rather sharply per emitter, so it's not really useful except as an opening act.

Oh, that reminds me: I had Sirius run through some combat exercises with me to get a better read on how well I can convert food into AME while stressed. The answer is: not very.

By virtue of needing to convert outside resources into usable power, my innate magic is therefore earmarked for the conversion process. Thus, when I'm running on auxiliary power I am extremely weak to disruptions. Now, granted, once my attention is broken I'm no longer converting and therefore can fight just fine, but that is a good ten seconds of time.

And I've learned with Lestrange, ten seconds is an eternity when you don't have initiative.

…

So, Christmas. Since it's Christmas, the Canonical Main Cast is vacationing in Grimmauld Place. Something about being on-site if something were to happen.

And things are happening, mind you: every weekend there's a "Midday Sacrifice" as the news has taken to calling it. It's still mostly focused in the London areas, though there are signs that the violence is starting to spread to the outlying towns. If I didn't know better, I'd say that Tom's targeting the seat of England's muggle government in order to prove a point, rather than doing the way more efficient way of hitting all of Great Britain willy-nilly for maximum terror points.

…I've also been observing the muggle police, especially during Sundays, and I can say for certain now that they're under some form of mind control.

Getting attacked once wasn't proof enough?

Science demands repetition.

So…the million-dollar question is: what now?

We're not going to the Christmas party?

I never liked parties, and now that I have godlike powers at my fingertips I'm certainly not about to start.

Instead, we're in our WarTrain, planning out how best to drag Riddle out of his hidey hole.

Yeah. At this point, we've destroyed the book and the diadem. The locket, the cup (probably) and Nagini are all with Riddle, or else hidden away in some other fashion. Given Tom's belief that he is the strongest mage in the world, the odds are higher that he's keeping them close to himself to protect them…though I don't know if he still believes in that fantasy.

There's still the issue of Harry being the Horcrux, but I get the feeling that he would accept his death if we told him that he was one and then magically kill him. Alternatively we can just let Riddle loose, but…as we've seen already, it only takes one piece of the soul and a very enthusiastic helper to revive a form of Riddle that is still able to use the underlying enchantments that Voldemort Prime set into the place.

…alternatively, I can take over.

Wait what

Well, I mean, think about it. When Tom goes, there will be a power vacuum that the ministry can't fill. Dumbledore won't fill it, by virtue of…him trying it before, I imagine. The ministry will eventually do the job, but I seriously, seriously doubt they would unravel Tom's fifty years of hard work.

To be fair, I don't think I'd be able to unravel Tom's fifty years of work either, but at the very least I'll be able to create a contrasting network that would be able to fuck over Tom the moment he comes back again.

…Then again, Twitter might just do the job later. I dunno. Either way, it's a thing I can do.

…So how do I draw Tom out into a fight on my terms?

Hmm.

…oh, I have an idea. I'll need to clear it with the Ministry first just in case, but I have an idea.

…

[3rd Person Camera, London, New Years Day]

…

Harry was a bit confused at exactly what he was looking at. A lot of people were confused as to exactly what they were looking at. Nevertheless, they knew that it would be nothing good.

"I can imagine exactly one person who would do something like this." Hermione groans into her mittens.

"I am sure that we are of the same mind, Hermione." Fred says. He and George take off their woolen caps and put them to their chests as a salute into the blue sky. "God bless him."

Molly was far less appreciative. "He's going to get himself killed!" She says in shock. "Sirius, talk some sense into him!"

"I tried." Sirius lies. "He just would not listen."

"What do you think will happen now, Harry?" Ron asks. "I mean, this is basically a challenge."

Harry stares at the little civilian plane circling over London. Being towed by the plane was a massive banner emblazoned with glittering text that alternately read VOLDEMORT IS A CUNT and TOM RIDDLE IS A DICKLESS MOTHER FUCKER. The text seemed to jump out at him even from the distance, which was in itself rather impressive, if Sirius could say so himself. "I think Ash has thought this through." He says slowly. "I hope he has thought it through."

To muggles, it's just a standard banner for a landscaping company.

…

[Elsewhere]

…

Tom Riddle was seething.

Despite everything that he's done, his Death Eaters, his most loyal allies, were laughing at him behind his back. And it all had to do with that message being sent through that muggle airplane over London.

He crushes the letter he received earlier with a demonic look on his face. The deliverer of the letter, one Professor Severus Snape, looks on impassively.

"Sir?" Avery queries him.

"He'll pay in blood for his ego." Voldemort growls. "To have the gall to challenge me to a duel?!" He rises to his feet. "A muggle who doesn't know his place deserves to have his flesh stripped from his bones." He dons his robe. "We move, Death Eaters."

.

.

.

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