Chapter 74: Archmage

Going back to Hogwarts after my adventure with Tonks I realized that maybe things will change, I mean, I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back to kissing. Not that I demand more from eleven-year-old girls, but I'm sure things could change for better or worse.

I took my time going back to my room and when I did, I was surprised to find Gemma sitting on my bed as if waiting impatiently. She saw me and pointed her wand at me, but she didn't attack directly.

"I knew it was all an act, you're just a despicable manipulator" Gemma said when she saw me.

"So you're not here because you were worried about me?" I asked sarcastically.

"I came to check if you had finally received your retribution and we would all get rid of you, but as I thought, it was all a fraud... lying to all of us to get your way, going out at night as nothing happened, I wonder what will say the teachers when they find out"

She was about to attack when my spell came out before hers, knocking her unconscious, which seemed weird to me because last time she showed more skill using silent spells.

She had been able to enter my room because, since I had left, I did not place the protections that I used to use. I looked at her for a moment, but this time I didn't feel like revenge, I was happy with what I did with Tonks so I just dragged her out my door, spanked her, and went back to doing what I had to do.

I headed out of the castle into the Forbidden Forest, but instead of going to the merchant, I headed for another one of the symbols on my minimap. After walking for a while and passing a wall of fog, I could see how in front of me there was an ancient tower, not completely symmetrical, with moss on the sides and a cone roof. It wasn't the most aesthetic and looked like a medieval fantasy wizard's tower.

It didn't seem very tall or big, only three floors at most and about 10 meters in diameter, but that had nothing to do with its interior. When I walked through the door, I realized that not only was the interior different, but I also appeared in front of a stairway going up, not a door. When I saw the stairs I went down and I appeared in front of the entrance door, and when I went back in I appeared in front of the stairs as if I had entered climbing up it... strange.

Looking inside, I realized how big the circular room was, at least twice what it looked like on the outside. In front of the stairs where I entered there were more stairs to go up to higher floors, I guess, since I don't know if from what I saw, things work like that.

The bricks in the walls, unlike the exterior ones which look very old and worn, looked almost new. In the room, there were several strange tables or strange devices separated from each other, and in one of the places where a large cauldron was found, there was an old man with a long beard like Dumbledore's but bald, who was stirring its contents.

"Hello there?"

The old man, who despite being somewhat stooped did not show any physical or mental deficiency due to his old age, nodded, giving me the same feeling as the merchant. When I noticed it, I realized that it was the same, I needed Luna to understand it and I decided to wait until tomorrow to talk to him.

It's not that I don't want to try it out right now, but unlike the merchant with whom I received a description of what the skill did, with this 'Archmage' I received no hint. A lot of the gadgets here looked like machines from a mad scientist's lab and I didn't want to mess it up just out of impatience, so I'll wait for Luna.

"See you tomorrow" I said to the old man.

I walked out of the tower, down the ladder to appear in front of the door… it gets more confused the more I do it. I headed to the castle to go back to my room and create a clone to carry on the night's work while I slept.

When I got to my bedroom, I noticed that Gemma was no longer there, neither outside nor inside my room, so I simply put up the necessary protections to rest peacefully afterward.

...

The next day I got up and went to breakfast, when I entered the large dining room I was greeted by the concerned looks of several girls who were waiting for me. All of them were very scared by what happened yesterday, they did not stop asking me if I was okay and what happened.

I couldn't give them many details and this made them angry. It was kind of funny for the others to see how the red-haired boy was sitting at the table being scolded by a group of at least ten girls.

Even though they 'forgave' me for scaring them they didn't leave, they all stayed to eat at the Gryffindor table with me. Later, everything was relatively normal, I sent a clone home to look for Luna and the real me wandered around the castle.

On my journey through the castle, I found myself cornered in a secluded spot by someone unexpected. Pansy, who hadn't even come close to me lately, 'ambushed' me.

"Pansy...so long, I thought you forgot about me..."

"Shut up Weas... just don't bother and take" She, annoyed, extended her hand and handed me a black leather cover book.

"What is this?"

"Your Christmas present…" she said, somewhat distressed that her father forced her to do this.

"This...?" I said looking at the book she handed me, it seemed valuable despite being a bit old and when I looked more closely I realized that this was a black magic book.

"We don't owe each other anything anymore..."

"Pansy... Is this a way to make up for the wand I gave you?"

"What else if not?!"

"And you didn't think that what I want is not a valuable gift but you?" I approached her, seeing that no one was looking, and I put her in kabedon position.

"I can't stand you, I don't want any more of this shit, fuck you…" She tried to walk away but I grabbed her arm.

"What about our deal?"

"Tell everyone if you want, I don't care anymore, I can't go on with this…" She tried to free herself from my grasp, but I didn't let her.

"...it's fine, but I'll only leave you alone if you can answer me a question"

"... Really?" she asked surprised. She was prepared for everyone to find out and die of humiliation, but she didn't expect to have a chance to escape the deal...although she also thought that it could be another Weasley trick like the previous ones...but she didn't have anything anymore what to lose

"I release you from our bargain, but on two conditions..."

"Now you order two! I knew you would try to trick me again" Angrily she broke free of my hold.

"Listen first to what I'm going to ask you..."

"Okay... What do you want now? I'll never be free from you anyway, you already broke me..." She said with surrender as she remembered all the moments we kissed, for her, they were marks she couldn't erase from her body.

"What I wanted is for you to honestly answer a question..."

"And what else?"

"That after today you are my friend..."

"I can never be your friend...! You did so many things to me" She covered her body as if she had been sullied.

"We just kissed" I looked at her indifferently.

"It was enough for me... I can never forget this..."

"Fine, but at least we can try, I don't want when I go to talk to Tracey, Daphne, or Millicent you keep running away. Don't you think that affects your friends too?"

"..."

"Let's just pretend it didn't happen, we won't be friends, but we won't hate each other in front of each other...okay?"

"I'll try...what's your question?"

"Yesterday when I was poisoned..."

"Were you poisoned...?!" She seemed surprised, she didn't think it was possible that something like that could be done at Hogwarts.

"That doesn't matter, now answer with total sincerity, if you lie to me, what I did to you before won't be compared to what I will do to you... Did you worry about me?"

"Of course not..." She denied.

"Sincerely!"

"..." I looked at her.

"..." She looked at me.

"A little..."

"Why?"

"...because even though I hate you and if I have wanted you to die horribly...still... I don't want to see anyone die" she looked away as she whispered.

"Fine, thank you... Our deal is over" I released her and tried to continue on my way.

"Wait, why did you ask that?"

"Maybe just curious...let's just say that now I know you're not a heartless monster, just a girl who got into a fight with me over...well, childish things" I laughed a little...

...

At the Lovegood house, Luna was waiting for me on the patio since I had sent her a message, it was something sudden, so my sister wasn't with her. I arrived a couple of minutes later than agreed and I found her there and she, seeing me, jumped to hang on me.

"Where we go?" She asked me.

"To see someone similar to the merchant" I explained, making her eyes sparkle with curiosity "We'll be back in a while Xenophilius" I shouted to Xenophilus who was watching us from the window, and greeted us.

I carried Luna the entire trip on me, either around my neck or mounted on my back. We arrived at the tower, which amazed her and she was excited to enter, which when she did she was surprised as I was the first time and she asked me to repeat it.

After a few times of entering the stairs and going down the door, we continue on towards the Archmage. Luna looked at the old man as he looked at us, I don't know if it's because of the configuration, but he kept stirring the cauldron.

"Lona, do you understand him?"

"Yes, he is like Merk"

Merk?..."

"The other time we talked, we discussed his name and agreed that if he needed a name, he would be called Merk Chang."

"Oh... I like those puns... well, he would be the Archmage so I guess we'd call him 'Ark Mesh'. Putting that aside, can you translate?"

"Yes"

"Okay. Hi, I'm Red"

"Welcome to my tower, blood mage" Luna said, feigning a hoarse old man's voice that almost made me laugh.

"What can I do here?"

"I offer a range of different services"

"Can you explain them to me?"

"Follow me..." He said, even though he didn't move and just stood by the side of the cauldron.

"Here I can make potions for you at a price if you bring me the recipes, the potions will always have good quality at least and there are chances of higher quality than that, although the chance decreases the higher quality you get. If you don't supply the ingredients you will be charged an additional price which will be higher than if you get the ingredients by yourself, the special ingredients can only be paid that way if you have presented them before or sold them to the 'merchant' in the past..."

"Do you have any relationship with the merchant?"

"In some aspects, we can become similar... because we work in the same world, we made an agreement. The first potion is free, as are its ingredients"

The archmage moved on to the next target, which was a table with several mechanical arms carrying a variety of magnifying glasses of varying sizes and thicknesses.

"This is the identification table, here you can identify objects or creatures to get a detailed description or understanding of them. The price varies according to the rarity or power of the identified, the first identification is free"

He moved towards a wooden chair with ropes to tie arms and legs that also had mechanical arms, only these instead of having magnifying glasses had several syringes or tubes, all giving a terrifying sensation.

"In this chair, you can add bloodlines... or remove them, but it is not recommended for those that are very entrenched. Although bloodlines can be added, that does not mean that it is without problems. It only does that job, if the fusion of bloodlines ends up killing you or making you worse, it's not my fault. The first addition and first extraction are free"

I was surprised, but a little scared by what he said. If this was a safe merge, I'd be messing with bloodlines until I drop, but if it just merges bloodlines without even warning of the consequences, then it's highly impractical. What would happen if you want to mix with the bloodline of a dragon and instead of becoming a dragonborn you get cancer, it would be a stupid way to die.

He continued to another table where there were some inscriptions and magic circles, as well as a few items.

"This is the enchantment table, you can bring items with different characteristics and extract them. Extracted characteristics can be added to other items, plus, a minor version will be stored on the table that you can use to enchant other items. If an item has all or up to a certain number of enchantments removed, depending on the item, it will be destroyed. Both the extraction and the enchantment have a price, but the first extraction of each type is free."

The archmage moved to another table filled with books and scrolls, along with a magically moving quill writing on them.

"Translation desk, I don't think I need to explain it, just like the others, the first one is free" Said the old man before returning to the cauldron "Those are all the services that I have now, in the future there may be more. In addition to that, sometimes I can get to sell special items"

That was the last thing he said, it seemed like he wasn't the talkative type because after that explanation, most of his answers were a few words that he didn't bother to look at us to speak.

I kept thinking about all this, it was great, but now most of them were not useful to me. I didn't have any really useful potion recipes, but I thought I'd get the recipe from felix felicis... The bloodline one was risky to try lightly... The translation one wasn't either... I didn't want to spend my money on the identification one free chance with something stupid, since I didn't know how much it would cost me next time... so there was only the enchantment table left.

I approached it and thought about what to put. I tried placing a twig that Luna gave me but nothing happened, then tried with a leftover cookie with [strength +1], and when I placed it the cookie disappeared and tens of centimeters above the table a small point of red light floated, which above it had the words [Strength +1 (Consumable)]. When I asked the archmage he told me that whatever was consumable would stay that way, so if I added [Strength +1 (Consumable)] to a stone, for it to work, I would have to eat, ingest, or otherwise spend that stone.

I selected the reject option, and the point of light returned to the table, transforming back into the cookie. I asked and he said that each enchantment removed for free would only be spent once I attached it to another item, if I didn't, it would cost nothing, which relieved me.

Then I tried to place my wand on the table and it also turned into three points of light, only the colors were different from the previous one. At those points appeared the signs that read [Nonverbal Magic Enhancement(Minor)], [Indomitable Loyalty(Minor)], and [General Magic Utilization Enhancement(Minor)].

I was a bit surprised but not that much, I also tried Luna's wand and it had [Natural Magic Enhancement(Minor+)], [Stable Magic (Minor)] and [Dark Magic Penalty(Minor)].

I handed her wand back to Luna and kept thinking. 'If I put together a wand of each type and disenchanted them and then put all those enchantments into one wand...would I get a mega-wand?' The idea did not leave my mind and I considered it a lot, but to do it I had to visit the merchant to buy many wands and I did not have much money at the moment, so I decided to wait, but the time will come when I will get my mega-wand... I wonder if it surpassed the Elder Wand... What enchantments does the Elder Wand have?

Luna and I went out since we didn't have much to do with her and as promised, I played with her for a while. Ginny might be upset, but I already promised them I'd be here this Saturday, so I don't think there's much of a problem.

...

On the night of the same day, I was in my room when someone suddenly entered, seriously, I must put more protections. It was Gemma looking upset... I think.

"Weasley..."

"Gem..."

"This time you won't escape! Everyone will know that you lied, that you attacked me and left me lying on the floor" She yelled at me, but luckily I had already left Silencing Charms in the room. I was getting tired of casting them every time, I didn't think they would come in handy so quickly.

"Gemma... I don't know if you're stupid or masochistic, but you always say what you're going to do instead of doing it directly, now I have to make you shut up" Was what I said before making my wand appear and attack her.

We had a little battle where I saw that she cast several spells but they didn't have the killing intent that they had the first time, it seemed more like a practice duel. I gained the advantage with my [Blood Manipulation] attack which, acting at the same time as my spells, didn't let her defend against all types of attacks in time.

I ended up with her on the ground again and my foot on her stomach.

"Gemma... You don't learn, right? I forgave you before because I was happy, but now I'm not happy enough and I want to do bad things to you"

"I will never bow down to you, no matter how many times I lose"

"Said who bowed down more than once... this time I want something more permanent, we'll make a deal where you keep your mouth shut from here on out. It doesn't matter if you come to fight me, but I don't want any more threats."

"Why do you think I would accept?"

"You did it last time"

"This one will be different..."

And in the end, it was no different, she gave up, but it lasted longer than the last time. It was a bit of torture here and a bit of pleasure there. She ended up accepting and we made a [blood pact]. From now on she could come to retaliate against me, but if she did something to her, she would no longer try to blame me for it, likewise, every time she lost the other she could demand something.

"Well... tonight I won't be able to do what I like the most, but I think you can help me a little..." I looked at her while with my hands I took off the upper part of her clothes.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" She screamed in fear. She didn't expect this, she thought it would be something like the above, but now she was afraid of being raped here.

"I collect my share, you lost"

"I don't agree with this" she tried to refuse, but her body didn't respond.

"You signed... well, not literally, but you accepted the pact with me, you can't resist"

"But I don't want to…" she began to cry, now she regretted coming.

"Shut up" I said, slapping one of her breasts with a bit of [Ecstasy] from what little blood magic I had left.

After that, she became even more scared and fell silent, partly to contain her moan. I lay down on the floor with her and hugged her, placing my mouth on her nipple, sucking and nibbling on it.

'Maybe if I have unfinished business' I thought.

I went on like this for a while as I applied some [Pain] or [Ecstasy] with my mouth as I recovered some of my blood magic that had been emptied by making the pact.

After a while I let her go and she with a lost look got dressed and left my room. Gemma walked slowly, hugging herself with her arms, covering her body with a pale face. She didn't expect it to end like this, she could still feel the saliva and the bite on her nipples, she was in some kind of shock, and worst of all, she couldn't tell anyone because of the magic of the pact.

She received much more than she bargained for by coming here.

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I consult here the Tonks oath so that she no longer makes penises. It's not going to be the Unbreakable Oath because it seems too much to risk his life, but since we have the [Blood Pact] which is more versatile, we'll use it instead.

What I am asking you is, what would be the consequence established in the pact if Tonks broke it (That is not to die because we would be in the same situation, nor to lose her magic forever, to remain in a vegetative state or similar). I will choose, or the most requested, or, the one that seems funniest or most convenient.