Chapter 148: Preparations

1st September 1995, Hogwarts (Earth 2)

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

It was remarkably easy to fake my credentials and create an identity in this world. Luckily for me, the Sayre family existed in this universe, and was a pretty prestigious family whose founder was a Gaunt, hence a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and was also the founder of Ilvermorny, the best school of magic in North America.

They had been hunted down to extinction by allies of the Gaunt family a few centuries back. It was before the Gaunt’s fall from grace, meaning that they were still a very powerful family, both politically and economically.

Pretending to be a Sayre in this world was easy enough. I only needed the name, to be honest, not the fortune or anything like that. I could make myself rich in a few days, and no one would even notice. I wanted a name that mattered, would raise eyebrows, and would have the attention of both Riddle and Dumbledore.

I could have gone to the goblins, but it would have taken a lot of troublesome bargaining and negotiating. They would, no doubt, ask for an outrageous price, and they would have leverage over me, something I didn’t need.

Gringotts as an institution, was a bank, nothing more and nothing less. They didn’t involve themselves in the affairs of wizards, especially with family stuff. They weren’t lawyers or healers or anything. Their sole responsibility was to offer security vaults to wizards and protect them for a price. Of course, they could pay interest for the amount in the vault, but it worked as if it was a loan from the vault holder to Gringotts and they would be repaid after a certain period of time with interest.

Now, the goblin nation on the other hand, was far larger than Gringotts and there were a few places where you could ask for forgeries and pay for information. The main reason that only the truly desperate did this was because of their exorbitant prices, and the fact that the goblins weren’t guaranteed to keep this information to themselves, especially with a big name like Sayre.

To avoid any complications, I chose to do it myself. It was far more efficient than anything the Goblins could do. It only took a couple of uses of reality magic to make myself a full identity in America. Born Jasmine Evans, I was an orphan, with my father dying before I was born and a mother who was in an accident fifteen years later. I went to Ilvermorny and graduated with honors, then went to get a mastery in the Rune guild and then another one in the Charms guild. I chose to do this to avoid unwanted attention. As far as my teachers were concerned, I was a dedicated witty and eccentric prodigy, who had dedicated her life to the study of the magical arts.

I tracked down whatever remained of the Sayre family. There was basically nothing left, no rumored manor, no legendary library, no mountain of gold; it seems that the Gaunts had plundered everything. Although, I was able to find the Sayre family ring, who was pretty much a blood locked ring. It didn’t recognize me, of course, but I was able to modify it a bit and made it recognize me as the last Sayre. Blood magic was a specialty of mine, after all.

And that kids, is how to forge your identity. Even Dumbledore was easily fooled during our interview.

The only thing that was left was dealing with my monetary needs. I needed to make sure that I would be able to live comfortably in the next year or so. To do so in the mundane world, I went to a casino and went to the most powerful slot machine and manipulated it so that the next turn would be a winner. I won around half a million dollars, which I later gambled against some rich mooks on the high table. They expected an inexperienced idiot who had gotten lucky and won at the slots. I ended up winning over fifteen million dollars that day. That was enough for me. It was a productive couple of days. I put the money in the bank, the money was investigated, of course, but the casino had corroborated my story, and after a couple of compulsion spells, I had access to pretty much all of my money.

On the magical side, I didn’t feel like doing something legal and just used my cloak to enter the Lestrange Vault, stealing half the gold, and taking Hufflepuff’s cup. I didn’t empty the vault because the goblins would have noticed if the gold dipped under a certain amount, since they would downgrade the vault when that happened. Truth be told, there was no reason the goblins would care about what’s inside a vault outside of gold. Every Galleon, Sickle and Knut was enchanted by the goblins to be able to count them properly. The goblins didn’t make tabs on the vaults, or their artifacts. It was part of the deal between Gringotts and the ministry of magic. The goblins weren’t allowed to know what was inside the vaults and wouldn’t take anything out, and the wizards would let them have a monopoly over magical Britain. Let’s just say that the Goblins won their rebellion, and this was the only way that the ministry would be able to keep their face.

Anyway, since the Goblins didn’t care what was inside the vaults in terms of artifacts, they didn’t even know the number of Galleons that was inside, outside of a rough boundary that would alert them if the vault needed a lower or higher security. I stole enough from the Lestrange vault to not change its status, meaning that the Goblins should have no idea what happened. They also wouldn’t care if there is a Horcrux inside. What’s inside the vaults is not their business after all.

I took the cup because it served as insurance that I had one of Riddle’s horcruxes on hand, meaning that I could kill him at a moment’s notice. As for the gold, I didn’t put it in a vault in Gringotts. I wasn’t an imbecile. I just put it in empty pocket dimension, that I could have access to whenever I wanted.

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As for my residence, it was very easy and cheap to buy an abandoned muggle castle. It had no electricity, no running water, or anything modern, really. Not that I needed any; I had magic after all. It was conveniently built on three ley lines that I was able to use to power my wards effectively. It only took a couple of hours to turn the ruin into what I’m sure was one of the most impressive castles in Britain.

Either way, with some free time on my hands, I decided to read up on the legislation in magical Britain and find out about the political climate. I had to know what I was getting involved in, after all. The situation was pretty fragile and Riddle’s resurrection complicated things. Dumbledore’s leadership, even after Voldemort’s fall was lackluster as he didn’t want to press the population. He was right to not do this, since half the Wizengamot would have ended up in Azkaban if he did. Refusing Riddle wasn’t an option for most people, families had been threatened, even tortured in some cases. It was how Riddle had gotten control of the grey faction after all.

If every marked Death Eater was arrested, then half the magical shops in Britain would have closed, half the ministry would be gone, and the economy would collapse. Riddle had positioned himself brilliantly, making sure that his followers were indispensable to the welfare of magical Britain. Truth be told, he had pretty much won in 1980, and it was only his obsession with Trelawney’s prophecy that made him foolishly attack Harry Potter and get himself blown up.

Anyway, after Voldemort’s fall, Fudge ended up elected later since he’s a relatively reasonable person, who had no problem taking bribes and was flexible enough to grant the so called ‘noble families’ more power and more money. He was elected because he was useless and ineffective, something everyone involved appreciated after Barty Crouch Senior’s reign of terror as the director of the DMLE.

Unfortunately, the power had gone to his head, and it was obvious that the Wizengamot had noticed and will probably not elect him during the elections due next year. His smear campaign on a teenager of all things, was proof that he was taking things too far. Targeting Dumbledore of all people in a political battle was more than idiotic. He was fighting someone who was in the political scene for almost half a century and was personally responsible with the ban of countless spells and even the study of certain magical fields in Britain.

Speaking of Dumbledore, he had sent me a letter after our interview with rules of conduct and so on. Curiously, he didn’t send a copy of the curriculum. I ended up going to the ministry and requested the OWL and NEWT exams for the last twenty years in Defense Against the Dark Arts to figure out what I needed to focus on for them to at least pass their exams. I was then able to theorize how the curriculum was supposed to be taught in each year. Griselda Marchbanks, the head of the education department in the ministry, was very impressed by my initiative. Apparently, no one had done it before, even when Dumbledore hadn’t sent them a curriculum either.

Anyway, the headmaster had provided me with a ticket to the Hogwarts express. Like hell was I going to sit around for hours doing nothing on a train filled with teenagers. I just apparated to Hogsmeade and just put on my cloak and walked to the castle.

The castle itself was technically alive, but she was muted, in a way. Not by some sort of magic, it’s just that I compared her to my Hogwarts which was a genuinely sentient and a conscious being. This one was alive, and obviously cared about the students. I could feel the excitement in its walls at the arrival of the students. But she wasn’t as present, as alive as my Hogwarts. She definitely didn’t have a soul.

Before doing anything else, I walked up to the seventh floor and entered the room of requirements. It was impressive, for a mortal witch with no help. Rowena Ravenclaw was still a genius in this time. It lacked the flexibility and power that I added to it and was far more limited, but it was still very impressive. Still, I walked to the room of lost things and followed the stench of corrupted soul magic. It barely took a minute to find the diadem. I examined it, trying to find any kind of magic outside of the Horcrux. Unfortunately, the soul shard had absorbed whatever magic the artifact previously held to power itself. Funnily enough, the Defense Curse was anchored to the diadem. It was powered by the leaking life force of the soul shard. It was a very crude modification of an ancient Egyptian ritual that had used the full phylactery of a servant of the deceased, to power the protections around their tombs. It was an honor to guard their king’s treasures to the afterlife or something.

I didn’t particularly like this tradition, but they insisted on it, especially the servants. Still, using a Horcrux of all things to power a curse was beyond idiotic. Since its leak of life force was far more substantial, a Horcrux of that size would barely hold enough life force to sustain itself for a century, adding in the fact that it was powering something, it would barely last half that. Which means that in a couple of decades, the Horcrux would be destroyed by itself.

It was one of the main reasons as to why making Horcruxes was a stupid idea and even stupider to make more than one. A fractured soul is going to leak life force and the maximum time a Horcrux could survive without dying was around three or four centuries. The exact amount wasn’t enough because no one died from a natural death while having a Horcrux. They usually went crazy when separating their very self and were hunted down.

Which meant that at most, you would live for three centuries before you became killable once more, that is even if you make yourself a philosopher’s stone to make sure that your body doesn’t die as well. Now Riddle, in his madness, made seven of them, which means that his life force is divided between seven fragments, each one leaking life force. He had at most, two decades to live before every Horcrux was destroyed by itself and dying a slow but painful death where he wouldn’t even have the luxury of an afterlife. Making Horcruxes doesn’t look good, does it. I can’t believe people actually make them without studying soul magic properly.

Anyway, I destroy the diadem, ignoring the high pitched scream of the soul shard dying. I’m not going to let an artifact curse me, after all. Afterwards, I chose to walk around, explore the castle for a bit before realizing that I was late for the feast. I immediately walk towards the great hall and open the large doors with a bang. Everyone stopped eating and looked at me, Professors and students alike. Dumbledore had raised his eyebrows and McGonagall looked furious, “Professor Sayre, you’re late!”

I suppress a grin. I always wanted to do this, “I’m sorry I’m late. I was planning on coming early, I swear, but then I got lost on the road of life on my way here, as one does, but after I found my way back, a black cat crossed my path, so I had to take the long way round. And then I met this little old lady who needed help carrying groceries, so I had to help her.”

I look at her with a proud look on my face, doing my best to not burst into laughter. That was awesome.