Chapter 232: The Stony Path

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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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23 July 1994, Black Manor

Harry woke up feeling far better than he had for months. It was borderline miraculous to not feel the constant pain with every breath. With a grin, he summoned his glasses wandlessly and relished the lack of strain on his magic circles. He felt better than ever, and he practically skipped down to breakfast.

Something must have shown on his face, because Arcturus, who was having tea at the time, raised an eyebrow and commented, "Well, you certainly chipper. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought you got laid yesterday…"

Harry snorted in amusement, "Trust me, I'll never entertain sneaking a girl here, especially with the kind of wards put here. I don't want her to turn inside out in the middle of the night, or just lose her mind. Even then, I'm sure you would keep spying on her, thinking she's some kind of spy or something, which is frankly creepy."

"Brat," the Black Patriarch exclaimed, "When you're my age, you'll realize just how idiotic teenagers tend to be when a girl is involved."

"Fine," he responded while rolling his eyes, "But that doesn't excuse being a creep about it."

"You're changing the subject. Why are you in such a good mood?"

"My magic doesn't burn anymore… I found a way to fix it."

That seemed to stomp the older wizard, and Harry felt his song become a mixture of elation and worry. It was an odd combination, but it wasn't hard to realize that the man thought that it was too good to be true, "That's great news, how did you do it?"

"A very old artefact that belonged to my family. I've been having visions about it for over a month and tracked it down to an old village in the countryside, where it was in the ruins of a dead magical family. It was pretty cursed, but I was able to remove them."

"Let me get this straight, you broke into the home of a dead magical family… How did you even get past the wards without waking up half the ministry from the backlash?"

Harry simply shrugged, "I used my cloak. People who have mastered it could use it to become truly invisible in the very sense of the word. I just walked past the wards as if they weren't there."

"I remember Charlus' cloak and it definitely didn't do that…"

"You never saw him use his magic crest the way I do either, doesn't mean that it's impossible."

The older man took a deep sigh. He was probably used to Harry's antics and weird usage of magic. While Arcturus was very knowledgeable when it came to magic, it did occur to Harry that the way he could restructure and analyse magic was unique. He hadn't read about anyone that could do what he did. Even Tom Riddle, a magical prodigy, didn't have command over his magic the way he did. Of course, the Champions of Light and Dark didn't count in that measurement.

Arcturus looked resigned when he asked, "And whose family home did you desecrate? I'm only asking in case someone actually notices what you've done."

"The Gaunts. As far as I know, the last one died decades ago."

"You mean the Gaunts, the last descendants of Slytherin, the family of Tom Riddle's mother."

Harry nodded unconcerned, "Yes, exactly."

"Did you steal one of the family treasures of Voldemort?"

"Well, he was desecrating it with what he was doing to it, and it's not like he was using it, you know being a wraith and everything."

Arcturus paled slightly, "It was one of his Horcruxes, right? Like the old Locket that Regulus died for."

"Don't worry, I had a Basilisk fang with me to take care of the nasty piece of soul. I even hid my magical presence, making it resemble Mad-eye's."

"Pitting Voldemort against Dumbledore, who he already considers to be his mortal enemy… You know your ability to warp your magical signature alone would have made you one of the biggest security risks in the country. People can hide their presence after years of practice, but forging it requires a lot of effort and preparation. The fact that you can do it on the fly… Well, let's just say that assassins would give their firstborn for this ability alone."

Harry smiled slightly, "I don't think anyone other than me could do it."

He was right, of course. Harry's method was honestly a small application of his Arcane Hearing. The ability to analyse magic and replicate it was unfair, and he had done it as a first year after just a few months of magical education. As far as he could tell, the best way to do any of this was to build some kind of monitoring artefact that would scan someone's magical signature for a while and replicate it while being powered by a neutral power source. After that, they could store the signature in a wand, which they could use to cast a limited number of spells until the power ran out. If they knew how to hide their own signature, then it would successfully harm someone.

That was way too much effort for something Harry figured out in seconds during his first year in Hogwarts.

The Black Patriarch looked slightly amused, "Well, that's a relief. Now, show me what you consider to be worth the danger of being hunted down by Voldemort of all people."

Harry simply raised his hand and showed him the ring. It didn't really look any special, just some golden band and with a black stone. He didn't want the older man to have a closer look since the man would recognize the symbol of the Deathly Hallows carved on the stone. After all, this was a man who fought Grindelwald, who had once used this as his coat of arms.

It wasn't the fact that he didn't trust Arcturus with the ring's true nature, but Harry instinctively knew that the man would wish to summon his wife and that this would do more harm than good. It was odd, this ability to judge if someone could handle the ring or not… He would need to explore it further.

Harry still hasn't tried to summon the shades of any dead people. Only relishing using magic without any pain once more. He would explore this later, in the privacy of his room. Before Arcturus would have asked him to get a closer look, Harry spoke up, "It sort of acts like a buffer for my soul. My condition was the sheer fact that I have essentially channelled my magic for decades and my soul remembers that. However, my body did not learn that volume of magic on its own, hence the pain. The ring acts more like a regulator to the magic my soul outputs, making me able to use the maximum magic my body can channel without ripping itself apart. Quite a nifty little artefact, to say the least. It probably has a lot more uses, but Voldemort just decided to use it to house a piece of his soul. Fucking idiot."

Yes, the stone had many uses outside resurrection. Even since Harry had woken up, he felt different. His Arcane Hearing picked up things that were deeper than usual. For example, while he could get an estimation of Arcturus' mood from his magic, now he could listen to his very nature. It was hard to put into words because it was like his song had a core of some sort, with a very complex melody. It was sad, it was aggressive, it was kind, yet ruthless… He instinctively knew that it was more than just his magic.

Still, whatever that meant, Harry was not prepared to rush into things. He had ideas, of course, but he didn't know enough for sure. For now, he would just enjoy having full control over his magic once more.

He had accomplished much the day before. The fact that he had destroyed one of Voldemort's Horcruxes was just icing on the cake. It was ironic that despite Neville Longbottom being his prophesized equal, Harry had done more to kill the madman than he ever could. Tom Riddle's Diary, the Diadem of Ravenclaw, the Locket of Salazar Slytherin, and the Peverell Ring, that's four of the Horcruxes destroyed by him. As far as he could tell, only the Cup of Helga Hufflepuff, Nagini, and Neville's scar remained.

Harry would have tried asking Arcturus to get the cup, but it would have been a fruitless endeavour. The Horcrux was in the Lestrange vault, not the Black one, and the vault was inactive until someone with the Lestrange family crest showed up in Gringotts to reclaim it, or after a century when the Goblins would take possession of the vault.

The Black Patriarch had no way to access the vault. Harry had subtly asked him about the Lestrange fortune, and the man admitted to having tried to repossess the vault, but the ministry was resolute in not antagonizing Gringotts since the Goblins were going to gain a veritable mountain of gold in a century.

Harry had honestly no idea if Nagini was even a Horcrux, but he would kill the snake on sight anyway. And that's not mentioning the giant elephant in the room, in the form of Neville Longbottom's scar. Still, it wasn't his problem and Harry had done more than enough to put the odds in Neville's favour. The rest was entirely on the boy who lived.

Harry had so lost himself in thought that he didn't notice Arcturus continue speaking, "Sorry, can you repeat what you just said? I was distracted."

The Black Patriarch grinned, "I was just talking about the Quidditch Cup Tickets I got. I'm planning on meeting a few friends of mine there. I thought you would be interested if anything."

"Quidditch isn't really my thing."

"Come on, this is the event of a lifetime, and you will see the efforts of your hard work with the Firebolts being around everywhere. That's not to mention that my friends are looking forward to meeting you. This might be a good opportunity to make a few connections outside the country."

Harry didn't answer. He had no plans of making any new business ventures anytime soon. He had rebuilt the Potter fortune in a little over a year of work. Still, this was a good opportunity for him to meet people from outside the country, see how they use magic, and how their education is different.

As for the Quidditch cup attack, Harry didn't know if it would still happen. The past year alone had proven just how different this world was from the one in the stories. For one thing, Dumbledore was removed from Hogwarts, Grindelwald had escaped Nurmengard, Azkaban was destroyed, and Lucius Malfoy was dead.

That's not to mention the fact that Harry knew that his friends were probably going to come anyway. In case an attack did occur, being there to help them could only be an advantage.

He nodded towards his guardian, "Fine. But if I get bored with stories of how amazing the 'good old days' were, I'll blame you."

A snickering Harry dodged the hex Arcturus sent his way and returned back to his room. He was planning on experimenting with his portals but couldn't help but admire the new ring on his hand.

Harry grabbed the stone in his hand, tempted to summon a shade, just to wonder if it worked. He looked back and tried to think of someone he would want to speak to. It was surprisingly hard…

Harry didn't really know anyone dead he would want to speak to. It was a sobering realization of how lucky he was. The only person he could think of was Hermione, but even then, he wouldn't know what to say, and the girl was technically not dead so that didn't matter.

He had no plans of speaking to Sirius Black or his father. He didn't think they would have anything of value to tell him. Now, his mother on the other hand… He was curious about what the hell she could have done that made Lupin and Sirius obsessed with her so much. He was also curious about the fire of Godric's Hollow.

Having decided on who to summon, he took out the stone from the wand and turned it three times, thinking of Lily Potter. Yet, he was only met with a silent room. Harry's eyes grew wider and his skin grew paler with every second a shade didn't materialize itself.

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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.