Harry potter : Forgotten Lord

As much as he loved the freedom and uninterrupted time to delve into his many projects Christmas break offered, it was nice to have his friends around him once again. He would never openly admit it, but they had grown on him, and he had actually missed them over the Christmas break. Of course, the first thing Padma had asked him upon her return to the school was the purpose of the book he had given her on meditation techniques.

He had brushed it aside with a simple, 'I'll explain later,' rather than have a lengthy question and answer session in the Great Hall about the mind arts, while the whole school could potentially hear... it would not be an advantage if everyone knew it after all. Although he did fully intend to require all future Potter/Blacks and high level managers in his various businesses to learn the discipline as it would prove a boon to them throughout their lives.

Inevitably, they ending up playing a game of chess using his new medieval style chess set he had received from her for a Christmas gift, which was quickly becoming a cherished object for several reasons. First, it was from Padma and was also the first present he had ever received in his life; it also served as a constant reminder that he had bested the 3rd floor and had taken the enchanted magical mirror for himself.

Life had pretty much fallen back into a normal routine after that. Tonks had given him a present in the end, like he had predicted. It was another book, much to his own amusement, 'Will I always be getting books?' he mentally asked himself, wondering if it was because he was a Ravenclaw? So therefore everyone assumed that he was a bookworm? Nevertheless the book actually was rather interesting and frankly an excellent addition to his reading material, so he couldn't fault her a bit. The book was on basic hexes, and jinxes.

Thinking back to his Christmas adventure during his nightly reflection, the traps around the mirror seemed to have been designed primarily as a test, the only measure of challenge being the wards, but even those were easily overcome. After all, he had successfully found a means to bypass them after only spending a few days and nights going through the wards and runes section of the library.

Unsurprisingly, he was unable to identify most of the runes present in the wards, in fact he only recognised a few of them, such as the commonly used power runes in this part of the world. But the rest he couldn't identify at all, simply due to the school not teaching that language of rune script, thus references weren't available in the library. Only Celtic, Egyptian and some Nordic runes were taught in the school.

If he got the chance, he would look up all the runes he carefully recorded on his notepad during his little adventure and hopefully someday be able to not only understand them, but use them himself. That said, there were at least six different Celtic rune scripts based on the different areas of Europe and the relevant time period that they were created in.

Obviously, most of them were extremely similar with just a few minor differences, like most oral languages derived from the same dominant culture. Any other rune scripts weren't learnt until seventh year, or had to be learned entirely independently, since Hogwarts' primary focus was on northern European derived runes, with Egyptian being the only exception.

It was commonly believed they were the first magical civilization to use them for warding and were the ancestral script to most Middle Eastern rune designs. It also helped that the goblins wanted cursebreakers and warders knowledgeable in Egyptian runes, for their own business ventures in Egypt. Any cursebreaker or runemaster of sufficient skill quickly realized that knowing more runic languages was better.

Some runic languages were, for reasons unknown, much better suited to accomplish certain functions. The best ward and rune masters were able to mix and match at will, to create dynamic, efficient, and difficult to break rune schemes, even though that would often result in explosive results for anyone else.

The night had also allowed him to acquire an obviously ancient and powerful enchanted mirror. It could prove to be a valuable and useful tool in many ways. If he developed his skills in legilimency enough to the point that he could see into a person's mind whilst they stood in front of it, he could find out a person's greatest and most secret desires. If he could do this without them seeing the image themselves, or even being aware of what was actually happening, even better.

Armed with that intimate knowledge he could work towards helping them achieve their goals and thereby earning their absolute loyalty. If one desire was met, he could just repeat the cycle. There was always something new to want and desire. The inverse was also true, he would know exactly what to deny them or work against if he wanted to... He would know both the ultimate carrot and stick for that specific person to motivate or hold over them.

He could see it in his mind's eye, a person flooing into his immaculate manor home, a seemingly beautiful decorative mirror on the wall opposite the fireplace, carefully modified to avoid anyone recognizing it...maybe wards to prevent anyone sensing the magical emanations or to actually see what the mirror created in response to their revealed desires...the position opposite the floo would practically force the person to look into it.

'Maybe a minor compulsion to force them to look as well? Perhaps instead of legillimency the output could be recorded somehow and reviewed later?' So many plans...

Howeverone thing he did notice when everyone returned was that one Hermione Granger was eyeing him warily, and appeared to be reading the same books he had been reviewing before Christmas break; it made him wonder whether she realized that a possible life debt might be owed to him or Neville.

It was possible after all; he doubted that she was looking at magical debts just for the sake of intellectual curiosity, not with the way she was eying him now. Most likely Penny had discreetly warned her about the possibility.

He wondered how that would play out; he would have to think it over in more detail, but he would wait and see what happened for now. Nevertheless he couldn't help but notice that Hermione was ideally placed to keep an eye on the boy-who-lived. He still decided to wait and see how it all played out, after all, there was no guarantee that their friendship would last.

Besides he had other, more pressing issues to worry about. The first was his upcoming exams at the end of the school year. The second was dealing with the nosy potion master. Susan's aunt's reply had basically said, in short, that he would need overwhelming evidence if he wanted to get to a court hearing, much less a conviction.

Simply put, it was all too easy to get buried in the political system and for any chance of success it would need the backing of another major political powerbroker with enough respect and influence to take up the cause themselves. That wasn't going to happen any time soon in his current situation.

That meant that he had to do everything possible to strengthen his own mental defences and avoid the greasy-haired bastard as much as possible. He also needed to get himself set up for the summer, since he didn't have his own home yet; sure, he could rent a room in the alley, but that would raise questions and draw unwanted attention.

The easiest solution would be to instruct Bloodmoon to find a suitable location. Hopefully somewhere in the countryside, nice and quiet, out of the way, where he could get on with his summer without being disturbed too much.

He could also visit his friends to keep himself busy. He was sure he could visit Padma often, and possibly Daphne and Tracy too, maybe even Penny as well in the muggle world.

...

( Ravenclaw Common Room )

"Hey Padma, did you ever get around to having a talk with your sister?" Harry asked, referring back to how Padma had felt her sister was ignoring her the pervious term in favour of her new friends.

"We talked a lot, but it was so different Harry. Before there were only minor differences, but now it's totally different. Both of us have totally different friends. Parvati is even more interested in fashion than she was before, whilst I've grown more mature as my parents would say, with how I'm focussed on my studies... It's unnerving to be honest," she replied carefully.

"Yeah, I can only imagine that it would be," he agreed. "To live so closely, but to have such different lives and perspectives about the same events," he voiced. Thinking over everything Padma had said, he decided to try to help his friend as much as he could, even if it caused him some discomfort in the short-term.

"Maybe in charms from now on you should sit with Pav and her friends, or ask her to sit with us and take turns. I'm sure our head of house would see no issue with it," he offered.

"You can always sit next her too; I can always help you after class if need be," he said, remembering how the lions often treated her like an outsider. Maybe that action would help them bridge that gap?

"Ok. I will have to talk to her about it to see if she's ok with it. Will you be fine without me?" She asked, referring to how he often used her as a shield to keep away their more annoying classmates, who only wanted to leach off his hard work and ability.

...

Hey guys I really need some power stones to Elevate the ranking :)

...

if you want to read ahead of the public release you can join my p atreon :

 p atreon.com/loveran