“Several of the ideas Thadin Gold Kris presented have merit. I understand some came from discussions you held. We will be inventorying all accounts of those affiliated with the Dark Lord and those that he has orphaned. The ministry has agreed that we may reclaim any goblin artifacts that are recovered in this search if we give them any dark artifacts found. The orphans will be contacted, and we will assign them new account managers to assist them in growing their wealth.”
“That is wonderful news,” Harry said, giving a tired smile, removing the bond on Toff left him exhausted. Toff was escorted out, and chairs were brought in for the rest of the discussion. Harry tried to ignore how his House ring was pulsing on his hand, trying to bolster his energy.
“The news is more tempered than wonderful. Did you discuss with Mister Potter the findings on his spell removal?” Ragnok asked Gold Kris.
“I did, Director Ragnok.”
“Mister Potter, there was one part of the spell removal that I asked to be withheld from you until our spell casters had more time to research the incident. It was discovered that your curse scar from the Dark Lord contained a soul shard, known as a Horcrux to wizards.”
“A soul shard, like part of a soul?” Harry repeated dumbly; there had been a soul in his scar.
“Yes, the Dark Lord somehow made you a Horcrux or soul container during his attack. The shard was removed during the ritual earlier this week and destroyed. However, if the Dark Lord is capable of making one, he is capable of more. We have found one other soul-infused object in our search, an heirloom of Hogwarts held in the Black vaults. It was deposited by Bellatrix Lestrange.”
“How exactly is a Horcrux used? What does it do?”
“Having a Horcrux ensures that its owner does not die a natural death.”
“How many more could he have made?”
“That is impossible to know however, wizards are fond of certain numbers. Our researchers believe it could be as many as 7 or 13. It may be less.”
“Could a soul shard interact independently? In my first year at Hogwarts, I destroyed a diary belonging to Tom Riddle, the Dark Lord. He’d made it when he was a student, and it possessed Ginny Weasley, allowing her to control the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets.”
“Was the book destroyed?”
“Yes, I stabbed it with a basilisk fang in the chamber. The body of the basilisk is still there, I believe.”
“Then you can claim disposal rights to the body if you wish. Does Dumbledore have access to the remains?”
“Not unless he can speak parseltongue. The entrance is sealed with a parseltongue password at several points, and he has not asked me to open it for him.”
“The rumors of you speaking parseltongue are true?”
“Yes, is it possible that the Horcrux lets me speak parseltongue? Dumbledore suggested that the rebound of the curse gifted me with several of Voldemort’s gifts.”
“It is more likely that it was a gift given from the blood rite binding you to the Black House as a child. Can you speak it now?”
Harry frowned in concentration for a moment before hissing, “Yes.”
“I doubt it was bleed through from the Horcrux if you can still speak parseltongue.”
“I’ll see if there is any information in the Black library.” Harry said with a sigh, “What can we do about the Horcruxes? Do we need to be looking for more?”
“We will continue to inventory the vaults, but it is more likely that these objects will be kept near the Dark Lord now that he has been resurrected. Sadly, the person with the most information about the Dark Lord right now would be Dumbledore.”
“Who seems to have no issue with withholding information for my own good.” Harry said, “Thank you for telling me the truth.”
“Lies have no place in a strategy session for war, Mister Potter. They only show that the participants do not hold each other in good faith. I will not lie to you, some of the goblin nation will be upset that I am siding with a wizard even if he is the Grey Lord of legend. It will not just be Dumbledore and the Dark Lord that you are fighting against. Few wizards are open to having their world change if it means that they lose something in the process.”
“A multi-sided war with dissenters on every side,” Harry said, fighting to show his disgust at the prospect.
“Exactly. There will always be those who dislike those currently in power. You must be prepared for attacks to come from all sides. I will have a copy of the legend made for you, Mister Potter. Is there anything else we need to discuss?”
“Not unless you know how to remove tracking charms from an invisibility cloak and wand? It seems that the Headmaster does not trust me very far and has charmed nearly every item I own.”
“That I doubt we could help you with. Our process to disenchant objects removes all the spells attached. Your wand and cloak would be destroyed in the process.”
“I’ll have to find another method then. I can’t damage my wand since it’s a brother wand to Voldemort’s wand. It saved me in the graveyard when he was resurrected, and I need every advantage I can get right now.”
“Have you considered having a second wand created? I will send you the names of several known wand makers who are not affiliated with Headmaster Dumbledore. It is illegal to carry a second wand without a permit from the Ministry, but that does not stop many wizards from carrying two.”
“Thank you. I would appreciate that.”
“I will contact you for further meetings, Mister Potter, once I have more information.”
“Of course, Director Ragnok. Thank you for meeting with me.” Harry said, bowing quickly to the goblin.
Ragnok merely gave a grave nod before calling for the guards to open the door. Harry was shown back to Gold Kris’ office. Quickly gathering the paperwork that Harry needed to review, Gold Kris wished Harry a good afternoon, thrusting the papers at Harry. He put everything away in his bag before touching his House ring. He silently portkeyed to Grimmauld Place, taking in the changed room with a relieved smile.
“Kreacher!”
“Master needs Kreacher?” Kreacher said, popping into the room. He looked much cleaner and healthier than the last time Harry visited the house. “Kreacher has done as Master asked and cleaned. Kreacher has a list of all the things Master’s nasty friends took from the House of Black.”
“They are not my friends, Kreacher. Not anymore.” Harry snapped, taking the paper and sighing at the lengthy list. “Do you know where any of these items were taken?”
“Yes, Master. Some were sold by nasty bird club in Knockturn Alley; others were taken or given to others by nasty Headmaster.”
“Of course they were.” Harry muttered, “If you are capable of retrieving any of these items, I want them returned. I want you to inform me of where each item is and who has them before you retrieve them. You are allowed to purchase those sold in the Alley, but I need to know how much they cost before I authorize it. If anyone asks what House wishes to buy the items, you are to say House Thorburn.”
“Yes, Master. Nasty Hermy Girl has several books, as does Headmaster. The headmaster also took some of the Dog’s things. The drunken wizard took the rest to be sold in the alley.”
“Leave the Headmaster alone for now. I will retrieve those items personally. Retrieve everything else. Once you have located the sold items, tell Mathis, and he will arrange their purchase.”
“Yes, Master,” Kreacher said with a toothy sneer.
Harry quickly toured the house and listed out the small changes he wanted to work on. He let the wards guide his search in each room he entered, opening hidden warded rooms and dusty cubbies and ordering the elf to clean the revealed spaces. Useful items and books were added to his bag, but most were simply given to Kreacher to be placed about the house.
He had Kreacher fetch him any clothes in the house that were his size in a trunk and used a second truck to transport the books he wanted to study. He hunted the Black Library for hints of the goblin legend but found nothing. He found a few vague references on Horcruxes and added these volumes to his pile. The biggest surprise was the memoirs and spell books written in parseltongue that a Black ancestor had gathered and written. Harry searched the library for several hours, but in the end, exhaustion won, and he told Kreacher that he would call on him in the coming week to check on his progress.
Activating the portkey back to Potter Manor, Harry was hard-pressed not to stumble as he landed. Calling for Tea, he handed over the trunk of clothes and asked that they be cleaned, sorted, and added to his wardrobe if they were appropriate. Yawning, he made his way to his bedroom.
Tugging out his spare parchment, he quickly jotted off enough notes to the order to last the rest of the summer. In each, he asked to be left alone for the summer to grieve and that he would send another note in three days. Calling in a house elf, he explained that one note needed to be delivered by owl every three days while he wasn’t staying with the Order and that a house elf needed to watch the Dursley’s house at all times this summer and alert him immediately if anyone from the Order or another witch or wizard approached the house.
He didn’t think he could trust any of the teachers at Hogwarts with the truth. McGonagall had sworn last year to assist him in learning to become an auror but had given him no extra lessons, assistance, or books. She was his head of the house, yet beyond his meeting for his career advisement (which had been sabotaged by Umbitch.), he’d never had her assist him in any way outside of class. The rest of the teachers happily ignored him outside of the classroom, except for Snape.
He was not sure how he felt about Snape. Yes, he spent every class treating Harry like dirt, but he treated everyone not in Slytherin the same. For all his spewed vitriol in class, he still had saved Harry’s life several times over the years at Hogwarts. The man was a contradiction in every layer Harry unfolded.
Over and over again, it was left to the students to step up and save the school from danger while the teachers either stood by idly or completely ignored the potential disasters building. Dumbledore let dangerous beasts and people into the school, endangering the students over and over again, and yet he was never questioned or punished. Heck, continuing to employ Snape after he spent every lesson mis-grading and abusing every house would never have happened somewhere else. A muggle school would have sent both men packing within a semester.
The Magical world seemed to have utterly no system of checks and balances for those who made their way into power. Corruption was rampant in the British magical government, and the population as a whole seemed perfectly comfortable with sitting on their asses while their world imploded. Money and magical power seemed to rule the magical community.
Harry glanced over the instructions for the purging potions a final time with a sigh. It looked like he was going to be rather miserable this weekend. The potions required that he take one every hour for twelve hours before taking the remaining vials every six hours for a full twenty-four hours. He probably was going to be living in the bathroom, he thought with another sigh.
Calling in a house elf, he explained the schedule and asked that he be given the potions as needed so that even if he was asleep, he’d get the potions on time. Harry changed into his pajamas and downed the first dose before settling on his bed with a book. It was not long before he was bolting his way to the bath.
Two days later, he had never been so glad to be allowed to sleep in his life. The purging potions did their work and removed the last remnants of any foreign potions from his system. He felt utterly wrung out and spent, but his mind felt clearer than he could remember in years, and the nagging headache that he’d learned to ignore over the years was gone completely.
He spent most of the time he was not in the bathroom using his mother’s books and organizing the information in his mind. He worked his way through almost all of the books already pre-filled and would need to start creating his own tomes to learn from. Tomorrow, he would start his summer lessons with his new tutors arriving later in the week. He had appointments to hire two of the ones suggested by the goblins, one for dueling and one for private healing lessons this week. If the week went well, he might continue the lessons once a week through the rest of the summer.
Changing into a pair of pajamas, he drank a large glass of water before climbing into bed. He spent an hour or so organizing his memories and using another of his mother’s books, this time on charms, before finally letting himself sleep.
The next morning, Harry forced himself out of bed once his alarm went off. Once he was showered and dressed, he gathered what he needed for his studies that morning, a house-elf called Perry took everything to the potions room. After a quick breakfast with his grandparents, he called Mathis in for an update on the properties.
“Good morning, Master Harry,” Mathis said, giving his master a deep bow.
“Morning, Mathis. I wanted to check in with you and see how the properties and farms are doing. Have there been any problems?”
“Work is progressing steadily, Master Harry. Every farm has started production. The repairs have been started on the docks and warehouses. The properties damaged during the war are being repaired as well. Since you asked that we use the stores as much as possible, each property is being cleaned, repaired, and outfitted with furniture from stores as appropriate. I have placed a folder on your desk of what still needs to be repaired or purchased and what work is beyond the abilities of the elves.”
“Wonderful. Please let the elves know that they are doing an amazing job.” Harry said with a grin, at this rate, they might even be able to push up the timeline on a few of his projects.
“I will, Master Harry. Also, we have several dozen elves that would like to bind with our House. When would the Master like to meet them?”
“Have them come tomorrow morning after breakfast,” Harry said, mentally running through his schedule.
“Very good, Master. Is there anything else you require?”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Have you ever heard anything of the Grey Lord or Change Bringer, Mathis?” Harry asked carefully; he still wasn’t sure he wanted yet another prophesy or title added to his name.
“There is an ancient legend that many races tell of the Change Bringer, Master Harry,” Mathis replied, watching his master with a frown.
“Do wizards not have the same legend? I wasn’t able to find anything about it in the Black library last night.”
“It is not a wizarding legend that I’m aware of, but some may know of the tale. May I ask why you are asking, Master Harry?” Mathis asked, bracing himself to be cut off or punished for offending his master with questions. Master Harry was still new, and he’d yet to see him angered, even if the Potters had generally punished with a light hand over the years.
“The goblins asked me to break the bond of a house-elf called Toff to his former masters yesterday. They said if I could, then I was the Grey Lord and matched the legends of the Change Bringer.” Harry said, shivering as he remembered the hatred and pain the bonds had radiated.
“And did you break the elf’s bonds?” Mathis asked carefully as his master paced before him.
“Yes, I stripped him of all the bonds that were harming him.” Harry agreed with a nod.
“Our legend speaks of a child who will be the bond breaker, the one who will free the enslaved with a touch.”
“I need to know more about the legend, Mathis. And I might need to try breaking another bond. I need to know if the other person attached to the bond feels anything in response.” Harry said with a sigh, scrubbing a hand through his hair in frustration, he needed to understand this new power if he was going to use it.
“I will ask, Master Harry, but few house elves wish to have their bonds broken. Few know, but house elves get our magic from the bonds holding us to a House and its family.”
“So I hurt Toff by severing his bonds?” Harry demanded, coming to a stop and watching Mathis intently.
“No, Master Harry.” Mathis quickly reassured him, “The bonds can become painful if the House no longer wishes to keep the elf. Toff will need to re-bond with a new House soon but will not suffer for losing the bonds to his old house.”
“Would his old House know that he was unbound?”
“It is hard to say. A House with many elves might not notice the loss until they try to call that particular elf. If he was the only house elf or one of a few, they might have known immediately by feeling the loss of the bond.”
“If I cut the bonds I have that are dark, the other person bound would feel it?” Harry asked with a frown.
“Yes, Master Harry. They might not know what it was, but they would feel the change in their magic.”
“I will have to find someone to test it on before I break my bonds. I don’t want to alert Dumbledore or the order that I’m able to do so.”
“I will ask our elders if we may tell you of the legends, Master Harry. It may take some time to get a response.”
“That is fine, Mathis. I’m just trying to understand what these legends seem to expect of me. Everyone seems to suddenly have expectations of what I will be doing with my life. Dumbledore was perfectly willing to use and abuse me, all in the name of the greater good, so that I might fulfill his prophecy someday. I don’t know if I could deal with more groups doing the same.”
“The Potter elves will support you in your endeavors, Master Harry. To us, you will always be our Master first.”
“Thank you, Mathis. Your expectations are the only ones I truly hope to live up to.” Harry said, kneeling and pulling the surprised elf into a quick hug. Harry took a moment to get himself back together before releasing Mathis and straightening up. “Did the elves start working on sorting the mail?”
“Yes, Master Harry. We needed to move things to a larger room than originally expected, however.” Mathis said discretely, unwrinkling his master’s clothes with a gesture.
“Why don’t you show me? Then we can start reviewing everything, and I can write up several form letters we can use to respond.”
“We set up tables for sorting in the Great Hall. This way, Master Harry.”
Harry was shown into a massive ballroom that had large piles of mail set along one wall with tables set along the other. The bags of mail filled most of the space, in some places reaching the ceiling. He froze, taking in the massive piles, gaping.
“There can’t be that much!”
“The Boy Who Lived has received many letters and gifts over the years, Master Harry. Some of the mail is even from the morning after your parent’s death.”
“I was an infant. How exactly did they expect me to reply?” Harry asked, exasperated with the wizarding world.
“I would assume they thought your guardians would reply however, since most of the mail was diverted, it simply went into storage until the wards were removed.” Harry looked over the massive piles of mail with dismay but forced himself to analyze the situation.
“Ok. Let’s start simple." he said, heaving a small sigh, “Sort everything by the year it was sent. Official letters from the Ministry or ones my lawyers need to address immediately, deliver those to the study. I’ll go through and answer anything from the last five years, so please move those to a separate room to be dealt with.” Harry said grimacing, “The rest of the mail can wait for a reply. All packages need to be sorted and opened. Write down who sent what and when so that I can send a response. Keep one of every object and put the rest in labeled bags or rooms for now. I will go through everything and decide what is to be kept or donated to those who might need it. I’ll work on mail during the weekends. Otherwise, I doubt I’d get much done.”
“I’ll have the elves get started. We should have the official documents in the study within the hour.”
“Also include anything from Dumbledore, the order, or a classmate of mine at Hogwarts. I’ll get you a list of names. I’ll need to see anything from them as soon as it arrives.”
“Very good, Master Harry. Will you be working on your study this morning?”
“No, I will be in the potions lab if anyone needs me.”
Harry spent the rest of the morning brewing. He may have the knowledge of hundreds of potions and their recipes in his head now, but he had to master the skills needed to accomplish them. He started several cauldrons brewing and practiced chopping and grinding ingredients until he was able to consistently get the same measurements. He focused mainly on healing potions and antidotes that he might need in the coming school year. It never hurt to be prepared.
When an elf came and informed him that lunch was ready, he put his remaining potions in stasis to continue working on the next day. Taking a quick shower and changing clothes, Harry made his way down to the small dining room for lunch. He was happy to see his Grandparents waiting in a nearby portrait as he took his seat.
“How are your studies going, Harry?”
“Very well, Grandmother. Between my mother’s books and Occlumency, I should be well ahead of most of my year by the time I start back.” Harry said, starting to eat breakfast.
“Wonderful news. That will give you more time to work on other projects and to brush up on your knowledge of the wizarding world and government. It will stand you well when you take over the House seats in the Wizengamot.”
“Do the seats lend that much power?”
“It is more that they lend influence. Without assistance from others in the Wizengamot, you would not get a bill to pass even with the four seats the Potters and Blacks have at their disposal.”
They discussed the various bills and laws that Charlus had helped or hindered while he held the House seats while Harry ate. He wouldn’t be able to take his seats until his seventeenth birthday, but he could start learning about the process and trying to gain allies for the years to come. Many of the families’ business partners would also support them in the Wizengamot. Even if he did manage to get ahead of his year mates at Hogwarts, he would still have plenty to keep him busy.
“Master Harry, two letters arrived for you,” Wink said, popping in and handing them off to Harry. “The letter from the Weasley child was spelled with several trackers and emotion manipulator spells that the wards disabled.”
“Wonderful,” Harry muttered, taking the mail. “The question is, does he know about the spells and money they took from my vault? Have my friends been paid to spy on me since first year, or is it just his parents?”
The letter from Hermione was her standard note full of tidbits from vacations with her family and advice to finish his homework and try not to annoy his relatives. Considering the fact that he was still breathing annoyed the Dursleys, it was a lost cause from the start, which she should have known after five years of friendship.
Ron’s letter was his usual whining drivel. He complained about his brothers, his family, Hermione, homework, and the lack of time to practice quidditch. Neither of his supposed friends bothered to ask how he was doing or if he was coping with Sirius’ death. Hermione at least hinted that she was headed to Ron’s house and that he might be joining them after his birthday.
Harry’s first instinct was to send the order a letter saying that he wanted to be left alone this summer and would see everyone at Hogwarts. However, at the same time, he was tempted to go just so that he could see in person just how much they were hiding from him. Considering how hard the adults worked to keep their children in the dark about the order, he might not be able to get that much information either way. He would have to consider his options.
After lunch, he went to his study, and Charlus helped him draft several form letters he could use in response to his mail. His goblin mailbox was already full of notes from his lawyers needing clarification and/or decisions made on how he wanted to proceed. He read through everything and stacked several long responses back into the box.
He was surprised at the large stack of mail from various lawyers and various governments from other countries that had been culled from the old mail. The government officials all wanted to speak with him, and several had sent multiple requests over the years. Harry set these aside to be dealt with once he could ensure Dumbledore would not be alerted if he responded.
Most of the other letters were from lawyers dealing with wills that had left items or properties to the Boy Who Lived. Harry wrapped these up with a letter asking his lawyers to investigate and set it in the mailbox; the other letters had already disappeared. He worked steadily until dinner and through it, eating a quick sandwich when a tray was popped in by Tea.
Tidying up the desk, he gathered his form letters and headed to the mail room. He might as well see how things were going and start sorting what he could from the more recent mail. The piles, if anything, seemed to have grown while shelves lined one wall full of one of every item that had been unwrapped. The gifts seemed to lean toward children’s toys and books while a massive stack of candy and sweets teetered on a table.
“How can we help you, Master Harry?” One of the elves asked when he approached the table they were working on.
“Have the toys and sweets been checked for spells and potions?”
“Yes, Master Harry. Those that were tainted or bespelled are being stored in a separate room so they cannot be mixed.”
“I want a list of what was sent, how it was tampered with, and who sent it,” Harry said with a sigh. He doubted most would have a name attached to the gift, but the stupidity of the wizarding public kept surprising him.
“Does the wizarding world have orphanages?” he asked, glancing over the stacks of bags in the back of the room.
“No, Master Harry. Those is a muggle thing.”
“What happens when a child is orphaned in the magical world then if there are no orphanages?”
“The baby is sent to live with distant cousins or given to a magical family and blood adopted into that House.”
“So I could have been adopted into another family if Dumbledore had not interfered.” Harry murmured with a huff before forcing himself to set it aside to analyze later, “Send all the toys and food that can pass for muggles to the Orphanages in Britain and Scotland. I’ll decide what to do with the rest later. Where is the Hogwarts’ mail?”
“We set the letters you asked to see on that table, Master Harry.” The elf said, gesturing to a table to one side.
“Thank you.”
Harry took in the bags of mail stacked on the table with a sigh. Piling the bags to one side, he started sorting the bag that had helpfully been marked “First Year.” He was surprised by the amount of mail that was simply holiday cards from his year-mates or cards wishing him a happy birthday. Why had Dumbledore blocked such innocent letters? Did he need to have complete control over who spoke to the Boy Who Lived?
The more he learned about the Headmaster, the more ridiculous the lengths he’d gone to control his pawn seemed. What harm would it have caused for Harry to get cards or mail for his other classmates? Why was he so determined to keep him isolated and underpowered? Was he hoping that Harry would never look beyond the Weasleys for knowledge of the wizarding world? That he would never start researching things without Hermione’s help?
He was surprised to find letters from Luna and Neville that they had sent over the summer. Neither had ever said anything about them sending him mail or even missing a response. He would have to correct that. Most of the cards and holiday wishes could be ignored for now. He would respond to any he got this Christmas, but he would need a way to receive the cards without Dumbledore noticing. He couldn’t just suddenly go home to the Dursleys for Christmas when he never had before.
Most of the mail got tossed into a pile and incinerated with a quick flick of his wand. If his classmates had not noticed that he never responded after five years, then they would not be expecting a response from this year. A lot of it was hate mail or love letters, depending on where popular opinion was at the time. He did set aside any that were from Luna or Neville to keep, but most of the mail was destroyed once he glanced through it.
The last bag was unlabeled, and the first letter he grabbed left him blinking. It was a legal document offering a betrothal contract to an upper-year Slytherin that he vaguely remembered as having graduated last year. Tugging out another, he saw it was the same. There had to be over a hundred betrothal contracts in the sack.
With a groan, Harry banged his head on the table. Stuffing the letters back into the sack, he wrote out a quick letter asking the lawyers to advise him on how to write a polite refusal to the documents. He had one of his elves take the entire thing to the bank for his lawyers to pick up with a note explaining to Gold Kris what was going on.
The next bag was full of business offers and packages of samples from people hoping he would sponsor or endorse the items. Harry skimmed through several before setting up another form letter he could use to reject the offers. People seemed to think that The Boy Who Lived could boost sales in anything. He would forward everything to Blacktooth so he could investigate if they were using his endorsement without approval as well. It looked like he was going to be either keeping his lawyers extremely busy or needing to hire more soon if he kept discovering things at this rate.
With a yawn, he gathered up the letters from Neville and Luna before heading to his rooms. He needed to get cleaned up, do his Occlumency training, and set up the next set of books that he wanted to learn using his mother’s meditation books, mostly on the wizarding traditions and laws he should have been learning as he grew up. First things first, he wrote out a quick reply to Neville and Luna, apologizing for missing their other letters and asking how their summers were going. Harry quickly wrote out a list of what he wanted to work on the next day before he started getting ready for bed, tomorrow looked to be another long day.
*****
Harry slotted the last handful of memories into place in his mental safe house with a tired sigh. The cluttered shelves from the beginning were changed into a massive twisting labyrinth of shelves and pedestals that was more museum than a storage shed or library. There were sections of books and small library seating nooks scattered throughout for what he’d read and learned during his life, but most of his memories weren’t book-worthy.
The remaining memories were strange, grey, faded, misty things. Catching one, Harry frowned, watching the faint memory of casting spells he did not know. He could feel his magic surging wildly in his chest as he forced the memory into a book and set it into a new line of shelves that slid into place with a grinding groan of stone.
Catching another, he remembered reading esoteric, magical books and watching rituals performed on nights in places he’d never been. These weren’t his memories. Did Tom Riddle give him more than just parseltongue?
It took hours to sort through the random bits of knowledge and memories from Tom Riddle. It added a great deal of ritual knowledge to that small section in his mindscape.
Mostly, it was book knowledge and rituals that the Dark Lord observed. There was little emotion or thought attached to the memories. Instead, it was like watching a fuzzy movie of someone else’s life. Riddle studied magic as a whole instead of separating it into light and dark as most people seemed to.
Harry agreed with Riddle’s approach and hated that he was coming to understand the frustration the young Slytherin must have felt when coming to Hogwarts and learning only the ministry-sanitized version of his magical heritage and only light or ‘harmless’ magics being taught. While there were horrible uses for many dark spells, there were just as many light spells that used blood and torture if you looked deep enough into history.
The rest of the world filtered out both sides of magic for dangerous leanings but still taught what the British Ministry considered too dark without having Dark Lords rise or attempts to kill everyone in sight by those driven mad by dark magics. In sanitizing history, they removed the safeguards as well as the lessons on how to use certain magics safely.
He planned to keep studying all areas of magic even if it wasn’t strictly approved by the Ministry or Hogwarts. There was too much to learn, and every element of magic was fascinating and useful in its own way. He refused to limit himself to what was taught at Hogwarts, and he needed to know enough to keep himself and his people safe. That wasn’t going to be part of the curriculum while the Headmaster was in charge, given his chosen Defense Masters and the rampant bullying that was allowed in the halls.
Hogwarts was behind both international standards and local scores if you look at how the standards had declined since his parents were attending lessons. Even then, dozens of classes were cut and deemed unnecessary that Harry would kill to have been allowed to take each year. The general education and available schools were no longer available.
Outside of general education, the wizarding world used to offer specialized schools of learning as well. Such schools include the Academy of Broom Flying, Charm School, Euro-Glyph School of Extraordinary Languages, Merge School of Under-Water Spellage, The Naaszcademy of Magizoology, and the Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts. All had been closed long before Harry was born.
Even the standard internships and apprenticeships weren’t available outside of those offered by the Ministry, St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, or the Department of Mysteries. There used to be classes and introductions into Household Management, Dance, Magical Art and Painting, Crafting Magic, Weapons Study, Magical Blacksmithing, Tailoring and Leather Craft, Basic and Intermediate Healing, Alchemy, Advanced Broom Flying, Spell Creation, Languages, and many more.
Now, you had to find personal tutors or travel to other countries and schools to learn what many countries considered basic knowledge for a magical student. Anyone graduating in Britain and wishing to move out of the country had to seek additional testing and schooling to pass the international tests that were required outside of Britain. He added the additional source material to his study planner with a grimace. He’d be hard-pressed to finish everything in time for his Newts, but he was determined to blow the exams out of the water so no one had any excuse to try and keep him at Hogwarts once he applied for his emancipation. Nothing would stop his bid for freedom, not Dumbledoor, not Voldemort, not anyone.