HPSU Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Tommy’s Point of View

I made my way through one of the many secret entrances I left in Hogwarts. As ‘safe’ as the place is from apparitions, there were many workarounds and the school had several secret entrances. You could apparate into Hogwarts with a house elf, but that was no longer the case after I did so to secure an item I needed and Dumbledore caught me sneaking around. Now you could only apparate out with them.

I had two hidden vanishing cabinets that wouldn’t even appear in the room of requirement if someone was searching for them to destroy and even a fireplace linked to a floo network in a basement hidden inside the forbidden forest. I could have just gone to Hogsmeade and taken one of the few passageways I knew that were linked, or swung around through the forbidden forest but Dumbledore had been constantly updating the wards after the break-in where he caught me.

It was safer just to teleport in with a cabinet and use the invisibility cloak to get where I needed to be then leave with the help of a house elf. The reason I didn’t use the invisibility cloak when Dumbledore caught me was because he wasn’t even supposed to be in the building but his ‘wizards instincts’ had alerted him to a ‘common thief’. I wasn’t stealing anything, I was just there to pick something up that I left behind when I finished my time at Hogwarts.

Either way, I teleported in and made my way up from the deepest part of the dungeons to the room where I was going to meet Harry and his new friends to help them with their rituals. Rituals were yet another thing Dumbledore had removed from the curriculum. He was allowed to use them to strengthen his magical power but out of fear he ruined generations of wizards to weaken any upcoming dark lords.

Both he and Voldemort crippled themselves by overdoing it with rituals. I found that three was a good amount to do without any extreme side effects like the two of them had. The visible deformity that Voldemort had paled to the sickening tastes Dumbledore gained by using phoenix blood, feathers, tears, and ashes as ritual mediums. He had hollow, brittle bones, was more scatterbrained, and gained the urge to eat bugs from overpulling on phoenix ingredients while Voldemort had done too many using snake magical beasts giving him his ugly visage.

Heading into the room, I eavesdropped on them all waiting for me already. Harry, Draco, and Dudley had already gone through one ritual. Neville and Pansy were also here by my request to help them grow stronger. The final four were the little redheaded boy and a smooth-haired little girl who were most likely Harry’s friends, Crabbe and Goyle.

I listened to them as they all looked slightly wary of the situation. Well, Harry and Draco were more alert than wary and Dudley was the only one sitting down distracted with drawing something with no indication that the dungeon bothered him at all. The little girl beside Harry had part of his robe clutched in her hand as she asked, most likely not for the first time. “Are you sure your uncle is going to show up and help us do these rituals?”

I couldn’t help but pop out as she asked. “Who knows? This could be a plot by little Harry to get closer to you.” Harry took in a breath before muttering a single word. “Uncle.” I put my hands up before I pretended to back up. “Alright, just teasing you.” I pulled out a briefcase and it popped open revealing dozens of magical creature ingredients to complete the rituals. I asked the three about their choices again. “So you three sure about your magical creature choices?”

Harry and Draco nodded their heads in affirmation before Dudley asked. “What did I pick again?” I went over what they picked as I prepared them for the rituals. “Harry chose willingly given unicorn blood. It will boost his regenerating ability even more than the troll blood he already took and make him more resistant to curses and dark arts. Draco picked the ground horns and tail of the Hungarian Horntail. It’ll give him increased fire affinity making it easier to cast fire magic and will make him more fire resistant.”

I pretended to flip through my papers like I didn’t know what his choice was. “And you picked Demiguise first because you thought the sixth sense would be cool and it would make invisibility spells easier. Then you changed your mind and wanted Niffler for the spacial pouch, Zouwu for the resilience and it would let you teleport easier… Then you settled on giant blood because it would make you stronger and taller.”

With a smile, he remembered. “Oh yeah! Why can’t I do more than one?” I held my nose as I told him again. “Because it could cause deformities or other problems if we rush. It’s only safe to do two or three without starting to get side effects from doing them.” I set them up for their rituals as I prepared the others for their first time.

“Now, it’s possible to pick other magical creatures for your first ritual, but I didn’t bring any so you’ll have to wait for next year if you do decide against troll blood but I would recommend troll blood as your first ritual. It increases your strength and size, you recover from injuries quicker, makes you slightly more magic resistant, and reduces the side effects of other rituals in the future.”

All of them agreed with my choice. Troll blood was the ritual I was most comfortable with and the one I had improved upon the most. There were some magical creatures I didn’t have rituals for like dementors or phoenixes, phoenix rituals were a Dumbledore family exclusive, and the cost to figure out my own would have been astronomically expensive to do.

I had done the troll blood ritual hundreds if not thousands of times already. Most of the muggle enforcers I employed had that ritual applied to them and even the house elves I employed it was worth it. It made them bigger, stronger, and had longer life spans which meant they could work for me longer. The cost of the ritual would pay for itself in years and they’d always remember the man who made them stronger.

The troll blood ritual was also cheap, only requiring flobberworm mucus and powdered nettles to complete. The process was much easier than many other rituals too with a paste being made from the ingredients and smeared on the back of the person. Harry had to imbibe water for two weeks before this ritual to purify his body. Draco needed to dose himself in a bucket of dragon urine or his skin would get third and fourth-degree burns and Dudley didn’t need to do anything because the giant blood ritual was just as easy.

I was happy with their choices, the first one had to be troll blood but now that they’ve grown enough to know what they want they all chose differently than I thought they would. Well… Draco has always been a dragon fanatic but the other two were pure guesses on what they’d choose. 

The troll blood ritual also had another side effect. The person who has undergone the ritual will age to maturity slightly faster than normal. The blood would take an entire year to settle down with the effects being the strongest right after the ritual to the point some had even regrown lost body parts. It would settle on just about halving the time it took for an injury to heal.