Chapter 38 : After battle log

[Author note : I know that people don't read these little paragraphs... Mostly, at least. Maybe sometimes, every 20 or so chapters, someone does, just for kicks... I wonder if any will read this :)

Anyways, as you know : Search for Cathbel on Patréon... yada yada yada ! I mean, if you like my story, would like to read more or just feel like smacking me in the head with a stack of cash ! Just kidding. Anyways, read on, boys and girls !]

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I don't really where to start… So much happened during the battle ! After the adrenaline wore out of my systems, I was expecting to feel… I don't know. Afraid. Exhausted. Shocked. Something ! I do feel something… Disgust.

Instead of feeling bad for killing someone, no matter how much the someone in question deserved to be put down, I don't feel shame, regret or anything beyond the disgust of… The feeling of killing someone. First it show how truly fragile we meat-bag we are… A simple blade to the torso, and that's that ! Okay, my blade is nothing simple, but the result would have been the same with a knife or sword… Though, maybe I'd stab myself.

Anyways, the worst of it was actually how it felt to kill the man. My blade puncturing him almost effortlessly, feeling the impact in my forearm, hearing the sound and smelling the charred flesh… I'm still left gagging when I think about it two days after the battle. Oh-ho~ ! And now I'm shivering. Why did I have to imagine myself in Greyback's place ?

The mind works really mysteriously… It almost makes me want to study up on it. The magical world has its mind arts and the no-majs has psychology and other mental-related fields of study. Maybe I'll start to buy a few books to read about it before bed since I can't exactly invest myself in studying it intensely at the moment. Though, it might still bring me some insights for my 'Matrix' and 'Cortical stacks' projects. I mostly focused on the mind arts, programming and neurology for those, after all…

Oh ! Something that surprised me… Harry called me through the earpiece I gave Hermione all those years ago. What ? Only a couple of years ? Yeah, well, it feels a lot more to me ! Now… Where was I ? Yeah ! Harry, the Boy-Who-Vanquished, himself, contacted me ! Apparently, what I said struck a chord in him. He joked saying he doubted he'd have to face an alien invasion but he still wanted to train with someone who had experience dealing with criminals… He doesn't know that I actually don't have all that much experience myself, since it's Mel who took the Silver Lad mantle for a while. I almost sent her to him… In the end, I decided against it.

I know Wizardkind likes to tout its own horn a lot, so the Deathly Hallows probably aren't made by Death, herself… Though if they were, it would mean that they were vastly underutilized. Besides, who knows if having all three artifacts and being recognized as their owner would give them some synergistic effects ! I'm getting excited just thinking of what those things could do… And then, I think that it was made by Death, so… In the hands of a man raised early on in the idea that killing was wrong. And now, I'm getting depressed !

I don't know if it's because of the battle or something but I've noticed my emotions are all over the place, these days. I'm hoping it won't last, 'cause this emotional rollercoaster is pretty tiring.

Anyway, Harry called and indeed, the moron couldn't find THE rock in the forest. Yeah, trying to find a particular rock there might be a bit of a challenge. I suppose it was the reason why he actually left it there. He was surely thinking this thing that caused so much grief throughout History would remain lost forever… The problem he didn't consider was if someone could actually search for it through its peculiar energy signature. Since all of the artifacts share the same, it was easy for me to make a device to search for it. Granted it wouldn't work long distance but I hadn't worked all that much on it.

Not that he would use them. Apparently, the kid still didn't consider himself to have earned them… Or perhaps he didn't want to use them for another reason. He had always seen the Elder wand in Dumbledore's hands, a person he considered like some kind of family friend or perhaps even family… And considering how the wand changed hands continuously ever since its creation, its bloody and murderous History… I can understand his reluctance somewhat.

The thing is… None of them ever possessed all relics ! Much less became recognized by them. He alone was their master ! And I'm guessing that, whatever curse or bad karma those relics bore wouldn't affect him. For instance, the stone… It turned people crazy. The first possessor of the stone, Cadmus Peverell, was driven mad by the vision of his long-lost love the stone afforded him. The spirit was uncomfortable among the living : she suffered and as time went on and he couldn't let go of her image, nor could he bear to put her in so much pain, the man took his own life. Then, over the years, it ended up belong to the Gaunt family, descendants of Slytherin, and Tom Riddle's Wizarding ancestry. Given that they too, were all mad, understandably so since they'd been procreating between siblings for centuries, perhaps, the stone had a hand in that too… After all, even during the middle-ages marrying and/or having children with siblings was not really done. So, why would they even do it ? Preserving the purity of the line could only be one reason… And not a really good one, unless you were already a little crazy.

However for Harry it worked differently ! It allowed him to travel to the Other Side, albeit briefly. I have my theory but… What I believe it does is to actually allow Harry or any Master of Death, to use their astral body to travel. Perhaps, it was a combination of the stone and the cloak, or perhaps it was just another function of the stone. In any case, I'm positive that these relics have other functions that nobody could use before the Boy-Who-Lived and only through training, could he truly be considered a Master of Death.

Unfortunately, the young man was exactly keen on using them. The Death Stick was left in the Room of Hidden things of Hogwaarts, and the stone… I don't know what he did with it since he wouldn't tell me. He only keeps the cloak because it belonged to his father and had been in his family forever…

And so, during our few training sessions, Harry just used his old wand and the cloak to spar with me. He is… actually pretty good. Fantastic shot, great perception abilities (which is weird since he needs glasses to see). However, it wasn't in fighting that his talent truly lied… It was in surviving. Whether it was a consequence of his upbringing or his school years in Hogwarts, a place he perceived as his home but almost caused his death at least once a year, Harry was a consummate survivor. Dirty or clever tricks came by relatively easy to him…

That's actually why I lent him survivor guidebooks and told him that perhaps he should try and live off the wild to further his training. No idea if he'll listen though. He did raise a good point : what use would that be against criminals ? And after a while, I had told him that often times, criminals would live off the grid. They could be using underground contacts to lay low in safe houses, but they could also just disappear into the wilderness. If that happened, knowing how and where to procure resources would give him an advantage to tracking them. Plus, tracking in itself was a skill that would come in handy and that's not exactly something you can train in society.

Enough about Harry ! As excited I am to see him become one of the DC universe's hero, I still have a lot of other projects, a lot of fighting to prepare for. I think that, for a while at least, I will focus on my company in order to make money and invest part of it into my personal projects.

One of the things I had in mind was to finally bring the Wizarding world into the digital era… Or at least, an equivalent I can create with my knowledge, capabilities and resources. Wizards never bothered to send satellites into space 'cause they had no reason doing so, so… it would be difficult for me to create a global network like the Internet. And yet, that's precisely what I wanted to do.

I wasn't completely hopeless about that, however… Even if they were no Wizarding satellites around the Earth, there was still something that basically covered the whole world, or rather ran through it : ley-lines. The techno-mancy behind my M-phones already relied on it to relay the signal across the world. Now it was just a matter of effort and time to create a network and more importantly services that would push witches and wizards into using it…

I have a few ideas, of course, but… First things first. Establish a global network, then worry over how to use it and more importantly, having the Wizarding society adopt it. Goblins already are more or less set with my DTs (Data-Terminals), but they were all rather basic. So, the hardware too, is something I need to work on. Thankfully, I can use the No-maj's as inspiration. Unlike mine, their computers are more advanced. For now. I didn't really need to develop them beyond administrative, calculations and accounting functions until now… Except for my own, of course. Can't exactly use it for the masses however as it's something I designed specifically for me. I might still use a few things from it, though…

Another money making projects my good friends from across the Atlantic have pointed out are… brooms. Or rather, means of transportations 'cause, if motorbikes are dangerous, imagine brooms ! It's really crazy that they are the only legal means of travels in the UK if we exclude Apparition and the Floo network. Another proof that money has a profound impact on a country and its developments. If it weren't for the investments and donations given to the Ministry, the broom manufacturers wouldn't have kept their monopoly for so long… Flying carpet would be better to transport a great number of people, and with a bit of ingenuity, also better to keep off the radars and out of the sights of the No-Majs. After all, even with a disillusioned rider, the broom was still visible and a flying stick could still be spotted. However, a carpet enchanted with an invisibility charm, or simply woven in camo patterns mimicking the sky would be much more difficult to notice.

Anyways… As I said earlier, since there already are a number of companies, it would be difficult for me to make my mark. However, there still was a certain population the other companies didn't bother with. And as I see it, this particular corner of the market can be lucrative : the people unable to use Wizarding magic. Squibs, goblins, even centaurs, hags, vampires and who knows how many other races considered 'magical' but not really a part of Wizarding society.

And unlike wands that were forbidden to use for goblins, centaurs… etc… There was no such law on magical transportation like brooms ! There were just not designed for them, not to mention the fact that they weren't shops where most of those races lived. I'll have to work on that… Maybe use the goblins as intermediary… Damn, they'll suck the profit more effectively than vampires drain blood ! I'll have to spend a long time in negotiations with them. No, no, no ! That's a waste of my time. Besides that's one of the reason why I hired an assistant ! Jasmine'll take care of that.

As for me… I still have to finish my apprenticeship with the God of Smiths. Eighth metal… The bane of my existence… But I need to master how to forge it if I wish to survive in this world. And then, Nth metal… And who knows ? Perhaps, one day, I'll even be able to forge X metal ? Ha ha ha ! That'd be awesome !