Chapter 10.3- Doom Days

But did it even matter why? Part of me said yes. Another said no. Either way, Skeeter would pay. And she would pay heavily. I retreated from the hall towards the stairs and once there, adorned myself with my cloak the second I was sure no one was looking. Sound muffling charms and scent masking ones flew my wand in quick succession as I covered myself in my standard cocktail of anti-detection means. I made the journey to the room in no time at all, and once there, the books I needed revealed themselves to me.

I had been waiting for the end of the first task to pursue any of this. We’d been told in no uncertain terms that the next task we would be dealing with would be coming on the day of the Yule Ball so that meant I had over a month to plan what I needed. A ritual. Not an especially complicated one by any means. Just a simple one to unlock the fullness of a wizard’s potential. It used to be commonplace among the pureblooded until the ministry crackdowns on all forms of ritualistic magic became too much to bother with and the benefits of the ritual began to be doubted. After all, there was not much of a gap between those purebloods who carried out the rituals and their peers who did not. Of course, they never considered the simple fact that a wizard’s potential was innate so it would obviously yield differing benefits for different wizards.

Also, the texts Tom Riddle read that contained the arguments against the ritual itself seemed to fail to consider the true nature of the ritual. It unlocked potential, but did not automatically fulfill it. Each wizard still had their work cut out for them to reach the fulness of their potential. Even if their theoretical limit was made available to them, they still had to work for it. Another benefit of the ritual was that it made it easier to achieve one’s potential. Things like power and endurance and skill grew faster after the ritual. At least, that was Riddle’s experience with the ritual.

He’d only been able to complete it as of his sixteenth birthday and even then the benefits were immense. As a Wizard’s magical maturity came in line with their seventeenth birthday, the ritual could not be attempted after then. Obviously, the younger the wizard was when the ritual was attempted, the greater the benefit. Up to a point, at least. Attempting rituals on ten year olds would not create an army of child soldiers like Riddle had once daydreamed of. Herpo the Foul had been the one to find out this small tidbit of magical trivial. How did he find out, you might ask? Well, I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but accounts from the period tell of children who would suddenly explode with no warning. Massive, magical explosions.

Tom Riddle had searched both the Library and the Room for Herpo’s own accounts from the period to figure out what had happened, but had been disappointed to only find third party retellings. Of course, that was for the best for everyone involved not named Riddle. I had no doubts that Voldemort would have found a way to weaponise that knowledge.

I stared down at the list I’d been copying as I thought to myself. Most of the ingredients were common enough. They could serve several purposes beyond rituals. Of course, I made sure to rewrite the list again and this time interspace the ingredients I needed with several that I did not. It ended up forming a list of about 30 ingredients even if I only needed to purchase 12 for the ritual. The 13th was something I had in abundant supply. The reason for 30? Even if Tom Riddle’s version of the ritual replaced some ingredients for what he thought would work better, it would still cause more than a few red flags to be seen purchasing those ingredients. Even if I exclusively shopped at Knockturne, word of my purchases would reach the DMLE one way or another, so I was buying so much to muddy the waters of any prospective investigation.

After all, if someone sussed out that someone was buying ingredients for a potential unlock ritual then their list of suspects would narrow to those below the age of 17. It wouldn’t be ridiculous for Dumbledore to be placed in the know, with something like that on the docket. And after that show yesterday, I had no doubts I would be very high on his list of suspects and making an enemy of the old man right now would be so stupid it would be worthy of a Darwin Award.