Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Author Note:I'm finally back. Sorry for the long pause, but studying is still my main job. For those that forgot where we left, Hermione told Atlas that Quirrel probed her mind in class.

Author note end.

The news that Quirrel was using legilimency on Hermione made Atlas a bit paranoid. His first thought was that Ethan had definitely betrayed them, but then he realized that it was illogical to use legilimency on Hermione if that was the case, as Voldemort would know then that Hermione had some proficiency in occlumency. The other scenario was even worse. If Quirrel really routinely checked on the students with legilimency, then he would know that he knew about him, as he had told Hermione about him before she learned occlumency. He grinded his teeth as he realized that he had been careless and that maybe his feelings for Hermione could become the reason he failed his mission.

To test this hypothesis, he told Harry, Ron, and Neville that he would probe their minds once in a while during the lessons, and they should tell him how often he did each lesson. While it wouldn't tell him if Quirrel did it earlier, it would tell him if Hermione was, for some reason, a real target or if it was just a random check.

As he couldn't get an immediate answer to that question, he decided it was better to proceed with his plan with the assumption that Quirrell knew nothing. He had asked Ethan to help him research what Voldemort could possibly use to regain his full strength. Ethan even asked the others for help without telling them about Quirrell. Atlas realized that he and Ethan had slipped up a bit, as they both didn't even question that Voldemort wasn't at his full strength. That realization struck him as Ethan had to improvise an explanation for why they thought that Voldemort hadn't fully recovered yet. Atlas just hoped his slip-up didn't give Ethan a reason to believe he was a transmigrator too and knew about the books and movies as well.

Instead of researching with the others, Atlas used the time to find a solution to save Hermione, so he began to read Voldemort's books about rituals while the others were blindly searching for anything that could possibly be used to strengthen or heal someone.

The book was quite interesting for Atlas, as it explained a few things he thought were strange. He always asked himself why Voldemort didn't use the ritual he used after the tri-wizard tournament to revive earlier. In the beginning, he wanted to use the philosopher's stone to return, so he wouldn't have placed any importance on Harry's blood. The book answered that question for him. What he always lacked was the blood of an enemy. Normally, one would think that it would be easy to just catch an auror to fulfill that condition, but it wasn't so easy. Voldemort's power and arrogance made him think that he was better than everyone, and most people didn't even qualify to be seen as humans, much less as enemies on an equal footing with himself, and that is exactly what he would need for the ritual. The blood of an enemy he considered a real threat to himself. Before he failed to get the stone, he just thought that Harry was just lucky that his mother protected him but didn't really consider him to be equal to him, but after Harry defeated Quirrell, that changed. Before that, his only option would have been to get Dumbledore's blood, which was impossible in his weakened state.

He also learned much more about rituals in general, and some things might even be useful for him. Sure, Voldemort experimented with the most cruel rituals one could imagine, but the true nature of rituals became even more apparent through that. Rituals were, in most cases, linked to a sacrifice or an exchange. To gain something from a ritual, one needs to give something in exchange. The sacrifice could be anything, from a strand of hair to a human sacrifice. The most confusing thing about that was how much one could gain from different things. A human sacrifice, for example, didn't always have the same value. If it was someone with whom the person doing the ritual had a special connection, then it would be far more valuable than just a random person. The things one could gain were equally diverse. They ranged from a good harvest to a swift recovery from a common illness and, as we can see from Voldemort's example, even a new physical body. Voldemort had also used a ritual that exchanged his appearance for more magical power. He also sacrificed hundreds of people for the same purpose. Atlas speculated that he even exchanged a few of his core emotions to increase his potential. Drinking the blood of a unicorn could also be considered a ritual. It weren't really the properties of the blood that made people recover or that the blood could be extracted from a dead unicorn easily. The blood needed to be consumed from a dying unicorn, or it wouldn't work. The curse that came with drinking the blood of a unicorn was also related to that. The curse would amplify all the guilt one would feel to a level where it became tormenting. Resisting that feeling would put you back into the state you were in before drinking the unicorn blood, step by step. So unless you didn't find another permanent cure in the meantime, you were bound to die if you didn't kill yourself before that. It was probably the reason why Quirrell tried to resist Voldemort and had to be punished by Voldemort until he did it again.

Sadly, the book had no rituals that had anything to do with souls. Or, to be more accurate, the rituals, like the creation of a horcux, were in the tome he had already read and simply weren't labeled as rituals. The rituals that were still useful for him all required animal sacrifices or parts of his own body. He was careful with the latter, as things that were sacrificed were almost impossible to heal. So if he sacrificed his liver and kidneys to increase the overall abilities of his body, including his magic power, by the percentage of body he had sacrificed, he had to be sure that it was the last fight, or he would die within a few hours. He didn't think that the sacrifice would transfer to a body in another universe, as there were ways to heal them, which meant that the damage wasn't done to the soul. The animal sacrifices were much less potent and could mostly be used to recover from tiredness or increase the harvest.

While he was studying the rituals, Ethan looked at him strangely and asked him what he was reading. Atlas was a bit unsure if it was only out of curiosity, as he was sure that no one was able to glimpse at the book's content while he was reading it, but just to be sure, he told a half truth. He told Ethan that it was a book about rituals that he had found in the forbidden library.

Ethan didn't question how he got a book from there and just commented that it probably was something quite dark if it was from there before he showed the rest of the group that he found a page that described the philosopher's stone.

The whole thing was a bit strange, but he didn't know how Ethan could know about the book.

In the next week, the others found a few other possibilities that were much less potent than the stone but could theoretically really help. Ethan had spent the week trying to get Harry to connect the dots between the package he retrieved from Gringotts with Hagrid and the philosopher's stone, but without Harry's obsession that Snape was evil and the lack of a heist attempt at Gringotts, made it difficult for Ethan. It was almost comical to see it from an outside perspective. In the end, Ethan had quite blandly voiced the possibility of a Death Eater in Hogwarts and that Dumbledore would quite possibly do his best to keep everything that had a possibility to heal him away from Voldemort, and that Hogwarts was even more secure than Gringotts until Harry had an "enlightenment."

His observation of Quirrell that week gave him different results than he expected. He had noticed that Quirrel was getting paler and looking a bit ill. Which was a bad sign for him. It would mean that Quirrel's body was barely able to host Voldemort any longer and that he would need unicorn blood soon to survive till the end of the year. The problem was that this was happening earlier than in the books. Atlas speculated that Voldemort's extensive use of his strength was taking a larger toll on Quirrell than it normally would have.

The problem with Quirrell's declining health was that he would probably act sooner than planned, which gave him even less time to find a solution for Hermione and to prepare for Ethan. The following days were quite hasty, and he prepared various potions in his suitcase laboratory for the day they would follow Quirrell through Dumbledore's trials. He even risked taking a broom from the room of hidden things after checking multiple times that they were not cursed. But despite all the progress he made, he was still at a dead end regarding Hermione. With each passing day, he was beginning to lose a bit of hope, and he realized that he was distancing himself from Hermione. They still spent most of their time together, as they had all their lessons together, practiced together, and ate together, but he avoided spending time with her alone, as he felt that it might hurt him even more if he failed. It robbed him his sleep, but by now he almost didn't know how it felt to not have a massive sleep deficit.

The only good thing about the situation was that his frustration about his own incompetence and his hatred for Voldemort and Ethan had helped him learn the killing curse incredibly fast. It still took him a few tries to cast the spell on some spiders he caught in the dungeons, but when he thought about not being able to save Hermione because Voldemort thought it was a good idea to kill his host by overusing his powers, rage fuelled his spellcasting, and he cast the spell over and over until every single insect he caught was dead.

After these experiments with the spell, he realized the dangers of dark arts. The picture he used to cast the spells became etched into his mind more and more. It was as if, with each cast, his rage and frustration only increased. After experiencing it himself, he could understand why Bellatrix Lestrange was so crazy. It also made him wonder how Voldemort managed to stay as "calm" as he was. He hadn't found anything about this state of mind in the tomes about the dark arts, but maybe dark wizards didn't see it as a demerit.

His change in attitude didn't go unnoticed, as Hermione tried to ask him about it in the rare moments they were alone. He naturally lied to her to avoid the topic, but that made him even more miserable.

He tried to avoid thinking about it by further preparing to enter the trapdoor. Besides brewing potions that could help him, he prepared a few poisons. If Ethan were to get hurt, he could even offer him a "healing potion" to kill him or give him a strength potion. He also prepared the potions he thought Snape supplied for his quiz to get through the flames at the end. It was extremely convenient for Atlas that Ethan even supplied the ingredients for these potions. He had shown Atlas his greenhouse suitcase, which was incredible. Rows and rows of magical plants. For Ethan, money really grew on trees.

As Ethan saved him a lot of money and time by supplying him with all the ingredients, he also had time to prepare a few things against the troll in case Quirrell wouldn't defeat him. Defeating a troll was actually quite simple if one managed to prepare for it. One just needed to throw a few puffapods at him, and he wouldn't stop sneezing. He would also have problems breathing. While the troll was preoccupied, one would be able to use the Orbris spell to pull him into the ground and then kill him by decapitating him or using a fire spell on him. He also looked up lock-picking spells like Alohomora and a few more advanced versions in case Harry failed to catch the flying key.

When he studied the spell to transfigure chess pieces to function like wizard chess pieces, Percy came to him and said that Professor McGonagall wanted to see him, Hermione, Neville, Harry, and Ron.

He was shocked. That couldn't be anything else besides their detention. He just hoped that McGonagall had found something else for them to do. After taking a moment to pull himself together, he helped Percy contact the others. While doing so, he realized something. As Voldemort had changed so much and many more people would enter the forbidden forest, it was unlikely to happen like in the original story, and Voldemort could even attempt to kill them all if they interrupted him from drinking unicorn blood.

That would not only disrupt his plan, but they would also have a real chance to die there. On their way to Professor McGonagall's office, he subconsciously grabbed Hermione's hand. Hermione seemed to sense his worry as she stepped closer to him and whispered in his ear that he shouldn't worry and that Professor McGonagall would surely be reasonable with what they had to do for their detention.

Atlas sighed in relief when he saw Professor Snape and Professor Scamander in McGonagall's office too.

"Good evening, Professors. Here are the students you have requested." said Percy, with a tone that sounded to Atlas as if he wanted to get prised for it.

"Thank you, Mr. Weasley. You can go." answered Professor Mcgonagall.

As Percy left, Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were delivered to them by the Slytherin prefect.

"Good now that we are all here." started Professor McGonagall but was interrupted by someone entering again.

"I apologize for being late, Professor McGonagall. I had a run-in with Professor Dumbledore on my way here, and he helped me... fix a few things." said Hagrid with the biggest grin Atlas had ever seen.

Professor McGonagall looked a bit perplexed by Hagrid's antics but then continued with her speech.

"Now that really everyone is here, we can finally start. You all have broken the rules of our school, and we have FINALLY found an appropriate punishment." said Professor McGonagall while staring Hermione down, as she could see that she wanted to interrupt her when she said that they all had broken the school rules. "In Hogwarts, detention means making yourself useful to the school. Hagrid here has found a dead unicorn in the forbidden forest and found traces that a second one got hurt. You all were elected to help him find the wounded unicorn. As Professor Snape here had voiced his concerns about the dangers of that, we decided that he and Professor Scamander would go with you into the forest."

The relief Atlas had felt moments before vanished instantly. The only positive thing was that apparently Snape had the wisdom to argue that first-year students shouldn't enter the forbidden forest alone with a half-giant incapable of casting magic.

"Professor Scamander will form a group with Mr. Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Weasley, and Professor Snape will form a group with Hagrid, Mr. Potter, Graf, Longbottom, and Mrs. Granger. And let me give you one last warning. The forest is dangerous, no matter how prepared you think you are, so I expect that you follow your professor's every command inside the forest or get expelled from the school." Professor McGonagall finished with a tone that made it clear that she wasn't joking.

Harry became pale just by imagining that Snape held his future in his hand, while the others were just cursing their bad luck for not getting their preferred professor.

Atlas, on the other hand, was a bit confused by this. It wasn't like they were randomly put into groups. The groups were planned beforehand, and it was really questionable to put Harry under Snape while also letting someone else watch over the Slytherins.

Post chapter note:

I used the description of the rituals to fill a few gaps in the original story. It's not really canon (which I normally dislike) but I thought a few things, like why didn't Voldemort resurrect himself by killing a random dude, can be explained by it. I hope it wasn't too confusing.