7 Git Gud

After the long trip, I crashed onto my bed, mentally crossing the checklists on what I had done. On the wizarding side of things, I got my money in order, got the books, got a weapon, even purchased an arm holster for my wand. And since my firebolt had a unique serial number, I purchased a Comet 290 in black color. I had also got myself an enchanted ring that was supposed to shield me from any methods of tracking and scrying.

Then I had gone to a muggle department store and purchased a dozen sets of colorful socks for Dobby. He seemed to love them. Then I purchased standard sets of clothes for my daily wear and a few sunglasses. To top it off, I had visited a tailor and ordered half a dozen bespoke suits of various styles and color. I would need to learn how to enchant them later. I would rather wear muggle clothes than the flowy robes that wizards preferred.

I was spent, after all the magic that I had been throwing around this day. Starting from the train till the end of the shopping trip, the constant use of illusions had tired me out. I fed Hedwig some strips of bacon and then I started eating my dinner. I needed to consume lots of food this summer due to the optimization that was done to my body. And there was no way that I would trust the Dursleys with that. So, I was paying Dobby for his services. He wanted to do it for free, but I already owed the poor fellow a lot and wouldn't budge. Finally he accepted, but the pay he demanded was very less. I couldn't convince him to take more in the end.

The next morning, I woke up feeling refreshed. I switched to the third path and connected to my spiders, wanting to know what had happened. I could sense that they were active, but I did not know where they were. The protections at the strongholds must be impressive indeed. The spiders had followed my directives and had spread around the house, waiting to piggyback on Death Eaters when they went on the Bones raid. They steered clear of Voldemort like I ordered them to, and just followed around the Death Eaters. I knew that I would not be strong enough yet to fight the giant attack that would come shortly. And I had discreetly sent a post owl to Ollivander to vacate his shop. The more trouble I could give Riddle regarding his issues with his wand, the more time I would get. No need to make my moves out in the open in a place like Diagon Alley and get questioned. My illusions weren't strong enough yet to escape security, something I learned during the visit to the shopkeeper in Knockturn.

I knew from canon that Snape's information had lead the Death Eaters to Vance, so if I intervened there preemptively, Snape's cover might most likely be blown. A spy within Voldy's ranks was indispensable at this time. When I get the necessary information, I will see how I could screw with the Death Munchers. Now it was time to prepare myself.

One by one, I took out the oversized rags that I had in my trunk. I then fished out the ones in the wardrobe as well.

As I got down, I saw that they were having breakfast in the dining room. In their eyes, I now had a set of horns, wings and a tail. Petunia shrieked and shot to the far end of the room. Vernon went pale and started muttering and praying. Dudley on the other hand, straight out fainted. I smirked and walked to the backyard and dumped the clothes there. I discreetly cast an incendio on the pile and watched it burn. Good riddance.

"Boo!" I said as I walked past them back inside. Petunia shrieked once again and ran away.

Once I was back in my room, I undid the illusion and got to my morning routine.

The next week was spent in a comfortable routine. I spent the first half of the day reading all the books I bought, and then after lunch, I would practice the spells in an abandoned house a few streets away. The second path would help me immensely in the casting and would allow me to understand my mistakes and fix them quite quickly. In just one week, I had mastered all the NEWT level spells and could cast silently as well. I also practiced wandless casting, and could now cast the levitation, summoning and banishing charms without a wand quite proficiently. Within the first few days, I learned apparition as well. It was not as silent yet as I wanted it to, but it would do.

I then spent the last few hours in the evening visiting a local gym under an illusion and then pushed myself to my limits. After dinner, I used the fifth path to repair all the wear and tear and facilitate muscle growth. Right now, the most I could maintain the fifth path was fifteen minutes per day. But that was enough for maximizing the effects from my food intake and workout routine. I had already gained a few kilos of muscle. Since I already didn't have much fat in my body, the gains were palpable. I did not want to bulk up tremendously and lose my flexibility. I was going for a lean build, and it showed.

After that was done, I would spend some time every day with the sixth path, fortifying my mental defenses for when I was using the other paths. Once the Dursleys went to sleep, I spent some time using Hirudo to initiate the main ability of the sixth path and perform complete and partial possessions on Vernon. I avoided using it on Petunia and Dudley because any interference with their blood might collapse the blood protections. No need to risk that yet. A safe house was a safe house after all.

I tried tapping into my connection with Hedwig while I possessed Vernon, but alas, I still couldn't do complete possessions on two targets at a time. On the other hand, I could hold on possessions for a little longer by the end of the week. As for the partial possessions, I was able to place commands and directives in his mind which would active later with just a pulse of magic from my part. It was less taxing on me, but required better control. I realized that the more proficient I became with the mind arts, the easier it became.

I did not yet use Hirudo's ability on him, or I wouldn't have been able to use episkey to close the cuts. Don't want him bleeding out and dying on me. That would pull undue attention towards me. But I used my illusions to give all of them nightmares every night. The sight of their sleep deprived selves in the morning often warmed my heart.

This kind of growth would have been impossible in one week if it weren't for the second, fifth and the sixth paths. Despite this growth, I was not sure how I would perform in actual combat. Training in a safe environment and fighting under pressure are totally different beasts. I guess I just had to wait for my first fight.

I had gone to the tailor once for the first fitting needed for the bespoke suits. He told me that he would call me for a few more fittings the next couple of weeks before he would be done. I truly wished that the magical world would pay more heed to muggle fashion. I added enchanting to my growing list of things to learn. A little extra protection and comfort was always welcome.

After reading the books about the magical world and the laws, I understood something about this world. I did not know if it was specific to this reality or if it was something common throughout the multiverse. After Grindelwald's war, the ministry stripped many of his supporters of their wealth and power. Most of the affected parties were purebloods. Many muggleborns and half-bloods in turn benefited due to the power vacuum. This in turn angered a lot of the bigots, who thought that the ministry was alienating them, instead of accepting the fact that it was their own beliefs which caused the issue. Voldemort made good use of this unrest and recruited them all under the guise of blood purity.

Once Voldemort vanished, the ministry wasn't too keen on taking stringent measures, in fears of causing another issue like what happened previously. The just arrested the Death Eaters they caught and put an end to the war. All this in turn stopped true change from happening in Britain and just caused the magical world to stagnate. And now, come wartime, the unaffected Death Eaters just resurfaced without any trouble. I hoped that the administration after this war learns from their mistakes and makes better reforms.

All was not well, unfortunately. I could feel my spiders dying off one by one during the course of the week. I tapped into the third path and found that apparently, Nagini had decided to hunt down the spiders. In response, my spiders now spent all their time in the ceilings. But by the time they had come to that decision, their numbers had depleted by a lot. The ones in Crabbe and Goyle's place were thriving, but those places were not a priority for me. I wondered why Nagini was specifically going after the spiders.

Was the magic in them causing them to be appetizing or did she find out their true nature? There was no way a snake as large as her would go after such small spiders. After long thought, I decided it was the former because if she thought they were spies, she would have told Voldemort about them and the spiders would have been exterminated by now. I hoped that she would not tell him about the tasty little spiders anyway. I would need to find other viable methods for information gathering. For the Malfoy manor at least. For other places, the spiders would do. Sadly, I couldn't perform a long distance possession on them like I could do on Hedwig. I wondered if I would be capable of it if I improved more. As it were, there were too many things that I had to improve, and not enough time.

Due to this issue tough, I was steadily losing a source of information. I didn't interfere with the giant attack and the destroyed bridge as planned. And I read in the papers that Ollivander got nabbed. Couldn't blame him for ignoring an anonymous letter, but to think that he did not even have some escape measures just in case was irritating.

Fudge got sacked and Scrimgeour took over the position way earlier than I thought. Apparently Amelia Bones did not even contest for the position because she wanted to put all her attention on her department. A wise decision. A tough head of the DMLE would go a long way in this war. If she died, Thicknesse would take her spot and would essentially be an imperiused stooge. It was too much pressure for my first self-imposed mission.

On a happier note though, Hirudo was proving to be incredible. Since it was residing inside my blood, I could form a better connection to it, especially when I was in the sixth path. And since it was the default path, I almost always maintained a stellar connection with my blade. When I tried practicing on dummies, Hirudo would often change trajectory, as if teaching me the correct way of using it. And when I voluntarily replicated the action, I understood that the knife was indeed teaching me better ways of handling it. Since it was not my dominant hand, it was a bit hard to learn, but the connection with the blade helped tremendously.

I was not yet good at throwing it accurately. But I suppose I should not overuse knife throws in a fight because of the blood cost associated with summoning it. That is the main reason why I trained the wandless summoning charm so much. The scroll belonging to Hirudo's old master was a treasure trove. From the scroll, I learnt how Hirduo can imbibe things just like the normal goblin blades, but it was unique in the manner that the owner of Hirudo can chose when the imbibed material would be active and when it would not be. Just like how I had control over the cursed cuts made by the blade.

That was great to learn because I can now dip it in basilisk venom without worrying about one-shotting people who I needed to possess. I would also need to learn more fighting styles with the knife and not only rely on it to teach me how to fight.

A few nights into the second week, the remaining spiders started sending me a pulsation of agitation. I recognized it as the signal and immediately switched to third path for confirmation. The Bones and the Vance raid would begin in a few minutes. Damn, I had already used the fifth path today for healing myself. Well, at least I would be going into the fight without any physical hindrances. But this was a major divergence from canon. Due to his public failure in the ministry, Voldemort is apparently moving against both his targets at the same time, trying to make a statement. I knew that even if I informed the order, Dumbledore would not move to save Emmeline Vance unless it was too late. Snape's cover was at stake. And I did not know if I wanted to trust the ministry with this, some mole might find out and relay to Voldemort that they had a leak. At least a physical intervention at the Bones residence might seem plausible because Amelia had both the connections and the resources to hire extra protection. I grit my teeth and decided to focus solely on the Bones raid then. Failing one of his raids would spoil his statement nonetheless, I could take solace with that.

I dismissed the summons that went to the Vance raid. No need to make a mistake during apparating and arriving at the wrong spot .Then I quickly called Dobby and rummaged into my trunk. I picked out the outfit and looked at it. We did not want any wizard to connect me to what I was going to do, so I picked a few sets urban camouflage combat pants and hoodies. I quickly suited up and then put on a black balaclava, gloves and ski goggles. I pulled the hood over my head for good measure. I could now even switch between paths openly and not worry about anyone recognizing my eye. I then layered an illusion over my wand, making it look pitch black and smooth. That was different enough that nobody would recognize it as my wand.

Initially, I was just going to put on an illusion on myself and dive into combat, but the experience in Knockturn alley deterred me from solely depending on my illusions. They were not infallible… yet. An added bonus to this was that I did not need to even think about maintaining the illusion while I was busy fighting. Although, if the mask got damaged, then I would have to resort to an illusion as a backup. The illusion on the wand was small enough that it was negligible. And it was not like they were going to pay too much attention to the wand and identify me in the middle of the fight. I was covering my bases nonetheless.

Within two minutes of getting the signal, I was ready to move out. I had asked Dobby to stay far away as standby and not put himself in risk. He was easily recognizable by people who were familiar with Malfoy. I tapped the location of the spiders and lo, they were now out in the open. I gripped the Comet tightly as Hedwig perched on my shoulder. I then cast an illusion and changed her color to match that of the night sky. I also tied the artillery pouch I had prepared for this to the broom's handle. Ready for action, I apparated two kilometers up in the air from the exact location of the spiders.

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