Chapter 65.5- Doom Days

A few seconds of drifting in and out of consciousness was all I needed to remember where I was, and what I should have been doing instead. I opened my eyes to find myself on a floating stretcher. The one that carried duelists off when they were too injured to do it on their own. Oh hell no. I twisted my body, rolled off the stretcher and just about managed to land on my feet. I hadn’t been taken far. Still in the hallway leading to the medbay.

“Mr Potter” One of the mediwitches said, I just shook my head at her and began to make my way to my box. The tournament was over, and so that meant Julian would be making his move to betray the Flamels right about now. I was being used as a mercenary, I knew. An attack dog. The Flamels did not want to lower themselves to what I would probably have to do today, and so they sent me instead.

It grated at my pride to some extent— to be used as a tool such. But the pay was enough to soothe that. Three vials of the elixir of life. Flamel said each one would give an extra century of life if taken at the right time. They probably saw it as just giving me a few extra centuries to live which didn’t matter to them in the long run because they would have an eternity. If only they knew my plan was far from so humble. The Philosopher’s Stone might be the only way to make the true elixir of life, but I had a strong feeling that I could reverse engineer something comparable if given enough time and samples to work with. I just had to be judicious with my use.

I reached the box, near struggling to stand. The first thing I did was head towards the pepper-up potions. I looked at the two of them, nodded and then chuffed them down one after the other. I felt warmth spread through my body, lighting up my senses and making me tingle from everywhere.

It felt like I could run a marathon. But the high was fake, I knew. Energy gotten from a pepper-up potion ran out about twice as far as its regular counterpart. A rate that worsened exponentially when one consumed more than one. At two potions, the rate was about four times as fast. More than that, and it just wasn’t worth it to take. I reached into my pocket, feeling for the hidden compartment and then I whispered in paseltongue— ‘take me to the river’. I tried not to think too much about the significance of Nicholas being able to get my dueling robes, enchant a hidden pocket into them that the anti-cheating measures in the tournament hadn’t even come close to finding, and then somehow have the password in parseltongue.

The pocket deepened and I reached out, taking out an ornate gold compass. I looked at the gold suspiciously, knowing it could be alchemically created, while I devoted the rest of my attention to the compass.

On its dial was an inscription— “I will lead you where you wish to go. Simply speak the location.”

“Take me to Julian Russo” I said, and the compass whirled about before stopping, pointing South. Okay, I could work with this.