Holidays and Acquiring the Stone

I had lots of days left before the holidays ended and I had to go back to Hogwarts. It meant that I had lots of time available to complete many of my plans.

Now that I had gained access to the Falken Manor and the Black Castle, I had to properly arrange my things in my three properties.

I decided that the Black castle will be my secret retreat and no one will be allowed there. The Falken Manor will be used as family accommodation when I have a family in the future and to hold parties. The London home will be the place I stay till my family is big enough to live in the Falken Manor.

Keeping this in mind, I started moving various things in the three places around. All the questionable books and potion ingredients that I had collected over the years were moved to Black Manor. There was no need for a potion lab in my London home so I cleaned out the room and made it into a guest room.

Next thing to do was looking through all the books in the Library in London home, the Falken Manor and the Black Castle and then make a list of all the books that I owned to start categorizing them. It was time consuming but with the help of my elves I was able to do it in a few days. Now that I had the proper list of books owned I started splitting the books among the three libraries.

The library in London home would contain only common books and books needed for NEWT level studies. All the questionable books in this library and Falken Manor were moved to the Black castle. Most of the rare books were also moved to the Black castle. Only the rare books of which I had an extra copy were left behind in the Falken Library. I then went through the list and properly categorized them on the paper. Next the elves were tasked with properly arranging the books according to my plan in the three libraries. The task may seem time consuming but using their elf magic my elves were able to finish the task in a single day.

Elgar had previously showed me a secret vault in the Black castle where imprtant things were stored by Grandfather. I also started storing all the important things there. I did not plan on using Gringotts for storing all my fortune. There was no advantage in storing my money in the bank vaults since there was no interest provided. With my wards I could have the same kind of protection that the Gringotts vaults provided for this vault too. I decided that the money that were currently stored in the bank vaults will be left there to keep my status high in the society but the money I make from my hunts and other things in the future will be stored in this vault. I also used the vault to safely store the Diadem Horcrux.

I put the vault and the Library under Fidelius for now since I was not completely sure that no one knew the location of the Black castle. I could not put a new Fidelius over the whole castle since casting the charm over the large area required more magical reserves than my current reserves. So for now I had to protect the vault and library separately. I made Elgar the secret keeper and told him to share the secret with the other elves.

Seeing the large areas of Forest surrounding the Black castle going unused, I decided to do something with it. After a lot of thinking, I decided to use a small part of the forest for an Acromantula nest. The forbidden forest provided me with very good specimens of Acromantula. Currently I was killing the spiders and selling the parts to make money. While this produced a lot of income for me, the webs of the Acromantula had the most demand and were sold for a high prise in the market. They were used to make the costly Acromantula robes. If I follow my current path, I will not get more webs after I have exterminated all the spiders in the Forbidden Forest.

Since I had a lot of land, I could spare some for an Acromantula nest. First I had to prepare a safe enclosure for them from which they can never escape from. So the rest of the holidays was spent converting a small part of the forest about a tenth into an enclosure for Acromantula. Due to the presence of a ley line under the island, I easily created wards that would stop the Acromantula from leaving the enclosure and also wards to stop others from entering it.

By the end of the holidays, the enclosure was prepared for the Acromantula. Now all I needed to do was transport some young and healthy Acromantula here from the Forbidden forest and they will give me steady amount of webs to sell every year.

While I was busy with making the Acromantula enclosure, the elves were busy with another thing I had asked them to do. I had asked them to go to No.12 Grimmauld place bring me the Locket horcrux without alerting Kreacher. It will be very easy for them since they were Black elves and Kreacher was older and weaker than them. He also had lost most of his sanity due to the constant exposure to the Horcrux. I decided to use this method instead of asking Kreacher directly due to the fact that Kreacher had another master and he would be forced to spill everything when asked by him. I also asked them to remove all the Dark books and Black family items from the place and add them to my collection. They were safer in my hands. I will not allow Dumbledore and Molly Weasley to destroy them.

The elves completed their task without any problems. I added the books to my library and stored the Slytherin Locket in the secret vault. I was not in a rush to destroy the Horcrux.

Soon the holidays were over and I was back at Hogwarts.

Now it was time to acquire the Philosopher stone. I was sure that Dumbledore had moved the mirror to the 3rd floor corridor. After finding a safe time to tackle the obstacle course, I decided to face the obstacle course. I had to be careful to not get caught during my adventure.

Reaching the the third floor corridor and the door leading to the chamber containing the obstacle course, I saw that there were wards placed on the door to alert Dumbledore when a student enters the room. I bypassed the wards very easily without alerting Dumbledore. The three headed dog, Fluffy behind the door did not look dangerous at all. It just looked at me like any other dog waiting for me to act. I conjured a flute and charmed it to play. Fluffy became drowsy on hearing the music and soon fell asleep. Tackling the next obstacle, devil snare was a piece of cake. Then to get the old key I transformed into a falcon and caught it using by beaks. Again it too was easy. I did not dare using the broom provided as it might be cursed. The chess set was the easiest as I just flew over it bypassing the test completely. For trolls, I made myself invisible, hid my scent and slowly crossed the two trolls present there. The riddle was too easy but to not leave any traces, I just protected myself using spells and passed through the door without using the potions provided. Along the way there were many detection wards which I bypassed easily.

I now reached a brightly lit room occupied only by a large mirror, the Mirror of Erised in the centre. I walked towards the mirror bypassing various types of wards that were placed in the room by Dumbledore. I then stood in front of the mirror. I was curious to see what my inner desire was. I don't know the reason, whether it was my superior occlumency, or that I had no deep desires, or that I was truly happy with just being born in a fantasy world, the mirror showed only my reflection just like any other ordinary mirror. I just shrugged the matter off and did not think too deeply into it.

After studying the mirror and its enchantments, I found that the stone was not stored in the mirror. It was stored away somewhere else and would be summoned when certain conditions were met. The mirror was enchanted to give the stone only to Harry when he stands in front of it. The thing about the stone going to the person who wants to save it and not use it was just a made up story sprouted by Dumbledore to appease Harry and praise him. So now I couldn't get the stone in the way that Harry got it.

I had to use my mage sight to track the connection that was present between the mirror and the stone and follow it. The connection led me to a small corner in the hall which was protected by many strong wards. After breaking the wards carefully in a way that did not alert Dumbledore, I found the red colour philosopher stone in the corner. I studied the stone and found that the stone was the real deal and not a fake. Foolish decision by the Flamels to entrust their master piece in the hands of Dumbledore. It seems like they had gone senile due to their old age and it was time for them to move on.

I then exchanged the real stone with a convincing fake made up of a similar material which had the same aura. The fake was enough to fool anyone till they decided to experiment. The real stone had some tracking spells on them which I transferred to the fake. Next I replaced the all wards that were protecting the real stone and confirmed that the enchantment in the mirror would work properly.

Return journey was simple. I just flew back as a falcon while making sure that everything was left in the same way as it was before I entered and I left no traces. I called Sherry and told her to double check whether I left any traces. After she came back and assured me, I gave her the stone and told her to store it in my secret vault.

I really want to see Dumbledore's reaction when he finds out the stone was a fake.