Ethan locked eyes with Atlas, appearing deep in thought as he pondered his next words. "Do you know how or when he will return?"
"No, how should we know about that? It's not like Voldemort sent us an owl with his plans," Atlas replied with a touch of sarcasm, but his expression remained serious.
Ethan nodded, "When do you want to start your training?" he inquired, showing a genuine interest in joining their cause.
"We already did. Every day after our regular lessons and after our homework is done. Unless we need something from the library, we always meet here. The room can be quite versatile if one asks in the right way," Atlas explained, hinting at the magical capabilities of the Room of Requirement.
"Okay, I'm in if I can bring Amy and Leona," Ethan declared,
"Sure, we wanted to ask them anyway," Atlas responded, glad Ethan was so easy to convince. Still, curiosity got the better of him, and he couldn't resist asking, "Just out of curiosity, how good are they compared to you?"
A small grin tugged at Ethan's lips, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "They are probably as good as you. Our last sparring was a few months ago, and the people in our class aren't really a challenge for them, so I’m not exactly sure."
Ethan's smile didn't quite reach his eyes, and he followed up with more probing questions. "How did you find out about Voldemort's return, and who do you suspect might be on his side?"
When Ethan asked this, he stared at him as if to analyze every movement he made. Atlas felt cold sweat flow down his neck, and he was a bit nervous. If Ethan was on Voldemort's site and he just spilled all their secrets, it would drastically decrease his chances of succeeding. That is, if Ethan didn’t decide that he wanted to silence him here. He had already proven that it would be easy for him to do. Luckily, Ethan knew that Leona knew about their meeting, which would probably prevent this worst-case scenario, but Atlas was still a bit on edge.
In an effort to calm his racing thoughts, Atlas reminded himself that Ethan had already agreed to help them and wouldn't resort to drastic measures to silence him. "I... I mean, a friend warned us that Voldemort is openly recruiting followers from the old families again. Though not explicitly named, we deduced it and our observations of the behaviors of Ron's family and Dumbledore's circumstances confirmed these deductions. The pressure on Dumbledore from the school governors seems to suggest that the Malfoys are already working for Voldemort again. Additionally, some students might be under the influence of their families and involved in Voldemort's plans. So, we must be cautious and not speak openly about it, especially in front of Slytherins; otherwise, we might become targets before we're fully prepared."
To Atlas's surprise, Ethan appeared somewhat guilty while listening to the explanation. It puzzled Atlas, but he sensed it wasn't because Ethan was plotting anything sinister. It felt more like genuine guilt and embarrassment.
Confused, Atlas probed further, "Is everything okay?"
Ethan hesitated for a moment before responding, "Yes, yes, it's nothing important. So Voldemort is back and actively recruiting followers, or so you claim. But have you seen him or any concrete evidence of his return?"
"I understand your skepticism, but you'll have to trust me on this. We haven't seen him directly, but the signs point strongly in that direction. And honestly, you have nothing to lose by preparing with us. In the worst case, you'll have some extra training partners and the chance to study ahead," Atlas assured him.
Ethan seemed to ponder for a moment before finally speaking, "Alright, it might sound a bit foolish, but I trust you. I also have some thoughts of my own to add to your hypothesis. I believe Quirrell might be on Voldemort's side or at least attempting to sway students towards his ideology. So, it's best to err on the side of caution and consider Quirrell as if he were a follower of Voldemort. He's not ordinary if he can do such things under Dumbledore's watchful eye, so we need to be extra careful."
Atlas realized that Ethan didn’t want to reveal that he had knowledge about the movies, but still wanted to help. That he told him about Quirrell was certainly interesting, but he didn’t want to conclude too quickly if Ethan was on his site. Barty Crouch Jr. also helped Harry for a whole year just to send him into a trap, and he couldn’t exclude that Ethan was doing the same. “That is interesting, and confirms one of my hypotheses." I already guessed that either Professor Ward or Quirrell were Voldemort's followers. As the headmaster invited Professor Ward, Quirrell was the more likely option, but it's good to know that it's indeed Quirrell. The question is, why is he really here? Is he spying on Dumbledore or Harry? Is he just here to recruit some followers? What do you think?”
Ethan looked a bit surprised. He probably thought it was a great revelation, but Atlas' reaction shocked him a bit. Just when he wanted to answer, Atlas interrupted him.
“Wait, I have an idea, or at least I just noticed something that I haven’t taken into consideration before. If Quirrell is working for Voldemort, then whatever mission he has should be accomplished within this year, as the position of the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor is known to be cursed. So I guess spying is not the reason, or he would want him in a more permanent position where he can slowly build up some trust. Planting the seeds of his ideology would also have more long-term benefits, and I don’t think he would send someone so capable for that if a simple lunatic could also fulfill that job. So do you have an idea what he could accomplish within the next few months that is so important that Voldemort sent him here?
Ethan pondered the question and responded hesitantly, “If it’s not spying or recruiting, then maybe he wants to kill Harry or needs something in Hogwarts he can't get anywhere else. Something that is important to him in some way. Maybe something he needs for a full recovery or something like that.”
That was what Atlas wanted to hear. The reason he played the whole game of pretending to not know anything and only deducing information. With that, he could reasonably argue that he knew about the stone, or at least something that helped Voldemort recover, and could lure Ethan there when the time came without sounding too suspicious, as it was Ethan’s idea in the first place.He only hoped that Voldemort valued his Horcrux more than his alliance with Ethan, if it even existed. He also hoped that Voldemort could actually defeat Ethan, as Atlas was unable to estimate how powerful they really were.
After Ethan suggested Quirrell needed to get something for Voldemort to recover, it was easy to pretend to deduce that it probably was something that was protected by Fluffy. Atlas also noticed that Ethan also looked as if he lost a huge burden after his deduction, and Atlas wasn’t sure if it was because Ethan didn’t need to pretend anymore to not know about it or if he was relieved that he managed to lure Atlas, and with Atlas probably also Harry, into his trap.
The distrust was mainly based on the fact that he couldn’t explain how Voldemort changed so much if Ethan didn’t intervene, so unless he discovered the reason for that, he would continue to doubt Ethan even though he had to admit that Ethan acted like a nice person, and if he only had to judge his actions, he wouldn’t even think that there was a possibility that Ethan would ally with Voldemort.
They left the room together after Atlas asked him to keep quiet about Quirrell for now as he didn’t want the others to act strange.
Ethan had left to talk with Leona and Amy while Atlas began to write another letter for Voldemort.
This one was much more straightforward, as he simply said that if he wanted his Horcrux back, he needed to kill Ethan Brown, the second-year Ravenclaw, until the end of the year. To rile up Voldemort a bit, he also said that he would pull some strings and present Harry and Ethan on a silver platter the day he wanted to steal the stone. He then innocently asked if the plan was still to send Dumbledore away and steal the stone after midnight, and if he could take that as the signal to send Harry and Ethan. He also told him that his knowledge about souls was quite lacking and that he might be willing to trade after he had accomplished his second task. He teased him a bit by implying that his method didn’t give him true immortality and that he could offer him a better version.
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He thought about it for a long time, but if there was one thing that could convince Voldemort to kill Ethan, it was a promise of a more complete immortality. The fact that he let him know that he knew he wanted to send Dumbledore away while he stole the stone was just to increase the mystery about himself as well as give him time to prepare for Ethan's death. Not because he didn’t want Voldemort to just kill Ethan in the great hall at breakfast, but because he still hadn’t found a secure way to save Hermione. Even if he risked making Hermione his horcrux, it had to be done carefully and at the right time, as he was sure that Hogwarts had some enchantments that informed the headmaster and maybe even the teachers if someone died. And this way, he was sure his task wouldn’t stop Voldemort from his plan to get the stone, as that could lead to much more unpredictability.
The next day, Atlas decided to slip away before breakfast to send the letter. Shortly after arriving in the great hall, he noticed Quirrell's lack of expression upon receiving it. Even the cold smile that Atlas thought he saw might have been his imagination playing tricks on him.
After their regular lessons, Ethan, Leona, and Amy met him in front of the room. Harry and the rest had already entered but as Atlas hadn’t told Ethan how to enter their specific room, he had to wait for them.
“I think we shouldn’t have switched to your suitcase, Ethan. Did you know the room could create something like that?” said Leona and jumped on a large, comfortable sofa.
Ethan replied, "The suitcase is still more convenient, but I have to admit that maybe we haven’t fully explored the room's potential."
“Suitcase? What kind of suitcase?” asked Atlas curiously. He had already wondered why the three of them hadn’t used the room so much this year, as he would have noticed it on the map if they had.
“Most of the time I used the room as a glass house to grow a few plants. But I realized that if I wanted to create a giant magical garden that I could also use in the future, then a suitcase with an expanded space would be the best choice. It's easy to transport, and if one uses a bit of money, they can be quite extensive. I can recommend you an enchanter in Hogsmeade; it's much cheaper than in Diagon Alley, and they usually also deliver faster. The only real drawback is that you need to buy furniture yourself instead of letting the room create it. But I guess if you want a medium-sized bag, the size of the library, you should be able to get one for six to seven hundred galleons. If you are fine with a small one with only around twenty square meters, I can also help you as long as you have a suitable case. I stumbled upon the spell for it a few weeks ago.”
“I don’t have six hundred galleons, I don’t even have a hundred. How do you have so much money? But yes, I would definitely take you up on your offer. I think the suitcase I used to come here should work.” Said Atlas, quite surprised to only learn about these things now. Naturally, Harry, Ron, and the others that heard it naturally wanted one as well, and Ethan was immediately surrounded by them. Even Leona and Amy were surprised that he knew how to make them.
Ethan offered to do the enchantments if they brought him the suitcases to the room under the condition that they wouldn’t spread it any further, as he didn’t want to have to do it for everyone in Hogwarts and that it could potentially mean some trouble for him if it became public.
After this discussion, the reiteration of why they were training and what they were doing until now was skipped as Hermione sent Harry, Ron, and Neville to study different versions of the Diffindo charm. It was interesting to see that Neville was the most competent of the three, and Atlas attributed it to the fact that Neville started learning a bit early with Hermione and that he had been investing far more effort than Harry and Ron had until they started these training sessions. It was evident that Neville's hard work had paid off, and he had grown more confident, no longer silently accepting Ron's belittling remarks.
Meanwhile, Atlas explained that they usually rotated between studying, sparring, or training with the woodpuppets and Occlumency training.
Ethan looked bewildered as he heard about occlumency and was a bit hesitant to learn it until Atlas explained the method of training it. Atlas could understand Ethan’s relief when he heard that it wasn’t necessary for someone to invade his mind to train occlumency, but he still thought it was a bit strange that he didn’t seem to know that before. It caused Atlas to almost use legilimency on Ethan but he still thought it might be a trap or that whatever boon Ethan had would prevent it anyway.
Accepting that he shouldn’t risk invading Ethan's mind, he began to teach them. Just through Ethan's presens, the training results that day were far better than the days before, and Atlas regretted a bit that he didn’t ask him sooner.
The following days were filled with the most productive training sessions they had ever had. Despite the buff he gave them and the suitcases he enchanted for each of them, he also taught them a few spells he had studied on his own.
The abilities he showed exceeded what Atlas had expected him to be capable of. It was as if he had already studied all the spells one would learn at Hogwarts in the regular curriculum and then some that wouldn't be regularly taught. And, compared to the typical bookworm, he knew how to apply this knowledge. Ethan was also the only one that was able to easily deal with the woodpuppets, so to make it more challenging for him, he asked Leona, Amy, Hermione, and Atlas to battle him at the same time.
Their greatest accomplishment was that they were able to make him move to dodge a charged Orbis spell. Even the sneak attack Atlas used by hiding a transfigured bird in the arena beforehand was deflected just as it was about to hit him in the back.
Atlas began to believe that Ethan had some kind of future sight or permanent protection as well, as even with his learning buff, this wasn’t explainable.
It led Atlas to the desperate thought that maybe he wouldn’t be able to play an active role in the end fight unless he managed to really surprise Ethan or poison him beforehand. These thoughts led Atlas to research different potions that could either enhance his own abilities, like the strength potion, or potions that can be used to poison or even directly kill Ethan, like the Draught of Living Death, which puts the victim to sleep indefinitely, or the Death Potion, which, as the name implies, directly kills the target upon contact. Atlas even stole the book of the Half-Blood Prince in the hope that Snape had written down something useful, but despite a few curses that would be able to severely hurt someone or instructions that made brewing a potion easier, he didn’t find anything worthwhile in it.
In the end, he decided that he would give Voldemort’s tomes another try, even though the descriptions were inhumane. There he found a large plethora of spells that could easily kill someone. Some spells could skin someone alive, some could make the hearth explode, and others would heat up your innards till your body melts into some bony soup. But none of these spells had the shield penetration effect that the killing spell had.
The problem with the killing spell was that it required an extreme amount of practice and familiarity with killing to cast it nonverbally, even by Voldemort’s standards, and the verbal version was most often too obvious, and the target could dodge or counter it. With Ethan's reaction speed, the spell was practically useless in a direct fight. So the most viable plan was to fire the spell at Ethan's back when he was fighting Quirrel or Voldemort and thought the spell wasn’t aimed at him.
In between normal lessons and the scheduled training, Atlas had a few meet-ups with Professor Scamander that could only be described as useless but entertaining. Newt was quite easygoing and didn’t always want to do some weird experiment. Most of the time he simply showed him the animals he took care of, which was in a way a welcome change of pace compared to everything else he was doing. Especially being surrounded by fluffy mooncalfs was a therapeutic experience for him.
He was also able to enter the famed suitcase of Newt, as he kept his animals there. The size of that suitcase was a magical marvel to Atlas, as the one he got from Ethan could barely be used as a small laboratory. From what Ethan told him, he guessed that the suitcase was worth tens of thousands, even if one excluded the enchantments to create different kinds of bioms. So it wouldn’t be an understatement if one were to say that the suitcase was as expensive as an average house in London.
The friendly attitude of Newt and his eagerness to show him interesting things didn’t mean that they did nothing. They still tried to experiment with the spirits of trees, and Atlas even tried to apply what he learned from Voldemort’s tomes and wanted to possess a tree, but in the end he wasn’t able to create more than the initial connection that Atlas would describe as a small tunnel to communicate with the spirits. So the experiments didn’t have any noteworthy results.
As another week went by, Atlas was getting a bit nervous. In the original story, Voldemort attempted to steal the stone after the exams, which were only two months away, but he hadn’t made any significant progress in either finding out if Ethan was allied with Voldemort, which could significantly affect his plan, or how to surely save Hermione.
His nervousness transformed into panic when Hermione told him she noticed his attempt of using legilimency in Defence against the Dark Arts when he hadn’t done anything.