21 The heist

The question of how I'd deal with Voldemort was one I'd been pondering for a long time, or at least ever since I realised that it was the only way I could go to another world, and through days and nights of spent thinking I had come up with many ways to do so. Many of those ways were safe, many more were very quick and some didn't need me to do more than just talk to a single adult.

The only problem, of course, was the fact that I wouldn't get any rewards for my next world from the omnipotent version of me if I followed any of my 'safer' plans. For some of them, I was sure, I wouldn't even get to go to the next world.

Really, I had to give the omnipotent me some credit. He was using my own thought processes against me masterfully.

I knew the mental list of tasks he gave me contained tasks that would make my life harder, and yet I was still trying to accomplish them because of a mixture of greed and insurance for the future. So yeah, most of my options to deal with Voldemort were not allowed to me due to my massive brain and it's need to plan for the future…

But all jokes aside, due to needing to accomplish various things, I could only really do one thing. Jack Voldemort's shit.

Every plan he had, every scheme or nefarious project, I was going to suborn to my advantage. Not only would this probably give me the highest level of contribution for defeating Voldemort, but it'd also push back his resurrection until I was, ideally, able to curb stomp the psychopath.

There were, of course, other reasons as well, but that was those were the main one's that motivated my current state of carrying a self-playing lyre to the forbidden corridor. Yeah, apparently it was a false alarm and Voldemort was in fact not trying to steal the philosophers stone.

Now, in my defence I didn't really remember canon exactly, but I did remember that Voldemort tried to steal the stone on the same day Dumbledore had left the school so I wasn't that wrong…

… but regardless of the validity of my response, I still decided to go through with the impromptu heist after coming to a startling realization. Maybe, just maybe, it'd be better to steal the stone when I wouldn't have to go through an adult wizard, who would freely torture me, when I don't have literal plot armour. Maybe.

Which again brings me to my current state of pushing a, rather heavy, lyre into the door I just unlocked with a simple unlocking charm. Once that was done, I simply taped the lyre with my wand and quickly closed the door. Five minutes later and I popped my head into the room to confirm that fluffy the giant three headed dog was asleep, which he wasn't.

But once the big dog did fall asleep I quietly sneaked up to the trap door he was guarding and lit my wand with a lighting charm. Yet before I jumped down into the hole, I couldn't help but stop to look at the sleeping dog, before shaking my head.

While there were a couple of things that I could get by turning the Cerberus into essence, I had already gotten the better versions from the dragon egg and the other traits I could get… weren't really worth the hassle.

Having made my decision, I got on with jumping down the hole, landing on the ball of cloth I brought with me, into the room covered in the devils snare. The second I recovered from the fall I began to wave my lit wand around, making the encroaching vines back off right away, and quickly made my way into the next room full of winged keys.

"Accio," of course the first thing I tried was to use the summoning charm on the keys, already knowing that the unlocking charm wouldn't work on the door, and when that predictably failed I opened the large bedsheet I brought with me, "wingardium leviosa."

Slowly I levitated the sheet to the roof of the room, making sure none of the keys were above it, and once it was flat against the high roof and no keys were above it, I swung my wand down sharply. With a woosh of air the cloth rushed down, catching a large amount of keys as it did, and once it was flat against the ground I quickly grabbed the corners and bunched it together.

Unfortunately a few keys were able to escape the cloth before I turned it into an impromptu sack, but there was nothing to be done about that, and began the arduous process of pulling the wings off individual keys and trying to open the door with them.

---- Some Time Later ----

"Wait," I pause in shock as the key actually, "yes, yes! Finally!"

I didn't really know how long it had been, but what I did know was that it had taken me two more sweeps with the bed sheet to finally find the correctly key. Frankly, I had been considering just leaving because it was taking too long.

But it seems I wouldn't have to as I, after picking up my things, walked through the now open door and onto the giant chess game that I'd have to beat to get through. Thankfully, I'd brought just the thing. A book of chess strategies. Specifically, a book of chess strategies from the greatest wizarding chess players that contains an interactive illustration of a chessboard at the back. An illustration that'll use every strategy in the book against the player.

See, I knew I sucked at chess so I had the brilliant plan of getting the twins to buy me the book I currently had, using the money I salvaged from the room of requirements lost and found section, after I had found out about these 'interactive chess books'. My plan, essentially, boiled down to pitting the book against the room.

I would pick to play the same side as the room, white in this case, in the book and I'd play the same move. Then I myself would play the same moves that the book plays and, since the book has the backing of several hundred grandmaster level strategies it would win, then I would simply go through the room to the next 'defence'.

Which is exactly how it went, after I took the empty place of the king and opened the book.

---- A few minutes later ----

I didn't expect there to be a troll in the next room… which honestly didn't change much.

After all this troll wasn't any more resistant to my magical implosion grenades, which I'd brought with me. The only thing it really managed to do was disgust me as I did not bring the ECA and had to roll the meatball that the troll had become into the next room, even if I cast the cleaning charm at and around it beforehand. There I had rolled it into the fire that blocked the way and let it instantly burn to ashes to get rid of the evidence, before casting a lot more cleaning charms on myself.

Once I was finally clean enough I finally moved onto the actual defence part of the room, the multicoloured and multi-sized bottles of liquids as well as the riddle…

… which I only really read to confirm that the smallest bottle, which I'd immediately grabbed, was indeed the one filled with the correct potion that'd let me go through the flames blocking my path. Once I confirmed that, yes, it was indeed the correct potion I immediately took a sip and, once the chill in my stomach from the potion settled, crossed through the now cold flames and into the next room.

The room I entered was exactly the same as the one I remembered watching in the movies. Large and circular with no windows, cast in a warm light by the flames surrounding the edges and with the mirror of Erised smack dab in the middle of it. It was with a bounce in my step that I walked up to the mirror, my mood at an all time high at the relative ease with which I bypassed the defences, and looked into it.

Then my mood immediately plummeted as I took a moment to comprehend what I was seeing.

Even when my reflection put the philosophers stone into my pocket my mood didn't improve. It didn't improve when I pulled it out and examined it's semi-translucent burgundy surface. Nor when I made my way back through the rooms or when I finally made it back to the room of requirement and put the stone into a lockbox. Really my mood didn't improve in any way when I woke up the next day either.

It was only when I began to do further testing on my physique and the stone that I began to feel better.