Chapter 15

"That ring carried a curse of extraordinary power, to contain it is all we can hope for; I have trapped the curse in one hand for the time being but it will spread Albus" Snape tells Dumbledore.

Their is a moment of absolute silence in the room for a few seconds.

"How long" Dumbledore asks.

Snape hesitates a bit, "A year, maybe less" he says grimly.

Dumbledore gains a look of resignation. "I would like to be left alone, thank you for all your help Severus and you too Peter"

Snape and I nod to the headmaster before leaving his office. As soon as we are outside he rounds on me.

"What happened" he gives me a piercing stare.

"I don't know if the headmaster would want me share the details" I say to him.

He looks at me with a hateful gaze as if blaming me for Dumbledores condition before turning around and storming off. Since coming to Hogwarts I have hardly interacted with Snape. He and Peter hardly interacted during their student years, but their was an underlying hate between us as we were from different groups.

I don't know which god to thank, that only Voldemort knew about Peter joining the dark side, if his underling's/death eaters knew, I would never have the amount of freedom I currently have.

Things had gone the same way I had predicted. After opening the box Dumbledore had been mesmerized by the ring, it was something he had been searching for his whole life, one of the deathly hallows, the dream to meet his sister again had blinded him, without checking for any traps or curses on the ring he had touched it.

The effect was instantaneous. His body dropped to the ground and a black miasma started eating his hand.

Dumbledore had given me a portkey to his office he specifically made for this type of incident, I quickly took it out and brought him back to hogwarts.

He asked me to summon Snape, which I did. Now Dumbledore is on the clock. He has at most a year to live.

A dark smile comes to my face as I make my way to my office.

0000

"In duelling you not only have to attack but also defend, this can be done in multiple ways, you can block the spell with a shield, transfigure an object to block it or my favourite way, move out of its way" I walk around on the stage. The 4th and 5th years Infront of me. This is the second meeting of the duelling club.

"So one of the most important spells in your arsenal is the shielding charm 'Protego' ". I wave my wand and a shimmering silver shield appears Infront of me.

"This is the most basic iteration of this spell, we will learn it's advanced forms later on, so any more questions??" I ask. No one has any queries.

"Their is a list of matchups displayed on the board, each duel will have a time limit of 3 minutes. I and professor Flitwick will award points based on your performance, out of 10. I will be the referee, please prepare for your duels. Susan Bones and Blaise Zabini please come to the stage"

It was decided to have matches between the students and make a scoring mechanism, like football leagues almost. At the end of every term students could be moved to upper or lower leagues.

Susan and Blaise make their way to the center of the stage. Both of them seem confident to show their talents.

I personally believe Susan is the more skilled witch, from what have gleaned from their performances in class.

"Ready" I ask them as they take their places. Both of them nod at me.

I wave my wand and a snapping sound rings out in the small stadium.

Blaise is immediately on the attack as he sends a stunner at Susan. Susan niftly side steps it and sends a jelly leg jinx back at him. Both of them keep sending spells at each other while moving around. The match is quickly decided when Blaise trips on his own feet, falling down and getting a 'Peteificus Totalus' from Susan in the face.

From there on a lot of duels take place, the highlights being Hermione trouncing Draco and Harry surprisingly being bested be Tracy Davis.

The time all too quickly is finished and the students seem sad to leave. I along with Harry, Ron and Hermione make my way back to the castle for lunch.

"That was quite impressive spell work Hermione, I see you went through the books I gave you" I say.

"Yes, they were quite interesting, I never thought transfiguration could be used like this in a duel." She happily says.

She copied my style by raising the floor to block spells and transfiguring stones into birds to attack Malfoy. He really was out classed.

"Yeah if you face any difficulties in the books you can always ask me" I smile at her.

She nods happily.

"You also did well Harry, I didn't expect miss Davis to be that good" I try to cheer him up.

"Yeah she was really fast, both on her feet and with her spells, don't worry uncle I'll practice during the week" he says with his eyes blazing. He really seems pumped about the duelling club. He had begun to call me uncle when there was only me and his friends and I didn't stop him.

"Good, you can find me if you want to practice" I say.

"Isn't that favouritism to teach him one on one" Ron complains, he is sulking in the back since he lost to Seamus Finnegan.

"Life is not fair my young padawan, and besides you and Hermione are welcome to join us"

Hermione gets excited while Ron sulks even more, he doesn't want extra work. I really hate this kid, his laziness is worse than shown in the books, no idea how he ended up with Hermione in the books.

"You know about star wars" Hermione exclaims.

I smile at her "Yes I do, I know a lot of things, I'm really cool you know"

The kids laugh as we reach the castle.

0000

"Thank you for coming Peter" Dumbledore says.

We are in one of the secluded balconies in Hogwarts.

"No problem sir, how are you" I ask him.

"As well as can be"

"About the curse sir have you found..."

"I have done all I can my young friend, my days are numbered" he doesn't look like a dying man. It seems he's come to terms with his situation.

"We on the other hand have a very important task to accomplish" he takes out a silk handkerchief from a pocket in his purple robes, opening it up to show me the gaunt ring inside.

He hands me the handkerchief, which I carefully hold.

He then waves his wand and a long sword with a shimmering golden hilt adorned with rubies appears in front of us.

I catch it with my free hand. The sword of Godric Gryffindor.

"Would you do the honours" he asks me, I nod at him and place ring on the ground without touching it.

Without any fanfare I raise the sword laced with basilisk venom and strike the ring. A ghastly scream erupts from the ring and a nose less face appears Infront of us before fading into the air.

Dumbledore has a bright smile on his face as I pick up the destroyed horcrux and hand it to him.

"Thank you for all the help Peter"

"Any time Professor" I smile at him.

"Now the cup and the snake are left, we can't do anything about the snake for now, you leave the cup to me, I'll take care of it" He says resolutely.

I nod at him and we start walking together back into the castle.

"I have placed some of the order around hogsmeade, there have been some suspicious people around there as I previously told you, I would like you to patrol the village at least once a week, try to stay hidden as well as you can" he orders me.

I'm not exactly happy to be taking orders from him but for now I'll do as he says, he doesn't have long to live anyways.

"Ok sir"

0000

All the teaching staff in Hogwarts is sitting in the teachers lounge which is seldom used. Once every month all the teachers in Hogwarts along with the Headmaster meet to review the progress of students or deal with any issues. So here I am among some of the strongest wizards in Britain, listening to each teacher recap their month.

Soon the meeting finishes and Dumbledore bids us to leave.

"Hello Peter, we haven't had a chance to talk since you came here" Aurora Sinistra smiles at me as she starts walking along side me.

"Yeah we have been busy since the start of the year, things will only get more hectic once the Triwizard tournament starts." I say with a friendly smile.

"Yes, so what do you think about going to hogsmeade for drinks before we get even more busy." She gives me a flirtatious smile.

She is tall, with dark hair, eyes, and skin. Wearing olive-coloured robes and a pointed hat, she looks nice.

"Is the Astronomy professor asking me out on a date" I ask her with a sly smile.

"Maybe she is"

"How does next Sunday sound"

"Perfect, wear something nice" her fingers trail my arm as she leaves with that comment.

Nice, score Peter.

0000

"There are no homeworks for you to check today, so I am going to let you guys go free for today"

The five Ravenclaw girls in front of me cheer, thank me profusely and start heading out of my office.

"Except for you Miss Silver" I say.

Elara Silver pauses and all of them turn back to look at me. She is the leader of this small group of girls, so the others wait around.

"Why sir?" she looks at me with a confused expression.

"I heard from a few of your fellow Ravenclaws how you have started gossiping and complaining about Miss Lovegood again. I heard you confronted her in the common room. Some say if it wasn't for other students you might have attacked her" I look at her seriously.

She looks like a deer caught in headlights. Panic setting in her face as she looks around the other girls for help.

"Sir I... It was a..." She stutters.

"The rest of you please leave" I say firmly.

The rest of the girls almost run out of the room leaving her alone. I wanted to get one of them alone for some time but the opportunity never presented itself.

Now Elara by confronting Luna has shot herself in the foot.

"Please sit down" I motion her to the seat Infront of me.

She sits on the chair. I get up and walk around the table.

"Professor Flitwick was furious when he heard about the incident" I say to her.

"It wasn't like that I just...." She starts.

"You will speak when asked" my voice cuts through the room. She goes quite her panic rising.

"I heard you got quite a lashing form your parents the last time around, you have any idea how it would look if this gets out, Professor Flitwick was ready to write to your parents, to ask them to collect you, 'Hogwarts is no place for this kind of behaviour', they were his exact words" I come to stand behind her.

"But I stopped him I asked him to let me deal with it" I say.

She looks back at me with tearful eyes, hope coming back to her.

"Now your fate is in my hands" I say to her with a smile.

"I'll do anything sir just don't tell my parents" she pleads.

"Anything you say" I put my hand on her shoulder and look straight in her eyes. The smile on my face right now is no doubt downright creepy.

Her eyes widen like saucers, she has a look of absolute fury on her face, she opens her mouth to no doubt shout at me.

"Think carefully before you answer, you know what I can do if you don't co-operate" my hand slides down to her arms, brushing her breasts, she jerks as if shocked by a current. She's a smart girl, she's knows what I'm asking of her, what's at stake.

Slowly tears starts forming in her eyes, as I keep rubbing her shoulders.

Finally after a few minutes of stewing in her thoughts she nods. Normally she would never have agreed to my demands but I rubbed a potion on my hand, whose pheromones are tinkering with her mind. I digested the antidote before the girls came here so I'm fine.

Coupled with her getting in trouble and a teacher blackmailing her, she is not in the perfect state of mind to be making sound decisions.

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