When night finally fell, Leon was feeling anxious to start his hunt.
He had waited years to finally start getting new realms of oblivion.
A worthy hunt had always been something that he assumed would have to wait.
When he’d thought that this was just a normal world, he’d figured that he would need to go to the planes of Africa and hunt a Loin or something like that.
With the introduction into the Harry Potter universe though?
Hogwarts conveniently had a colony of apex predators that even 12-year-old Harry and Ron were able to escape from.
Though they had the help of a magical car.
Leon had his new broom to escape if things got dicey.
Not to mention a Daedric Phoenix.
Accomplishing the first task far sooner than he’d originally thought he would be able to would be immensely helpful.
The added stats would be helpful at least.
More stats would mean that he could learn faster, move heavier things, and channel more magicka through his Earthly Avatar.
And hopefully, the next Task would be something that he could complete relatively easily.
Meaning that he might snowball for at least a couple of Task.
“Gasket.” Leon called out into the darkness.
A sharp crack filled the dorm room as Gasket appeared, performing an awkward bow, “Master called us?”
“I need you to take me to the Forbidden forest.
Don’t worry, Bridperson is coming with me.
It won’t be dangerous with a phoenix watching over me.” Leon reassured the elves as their eyes widened at the request.
“Gasket is relieved to hear that you have protection Master.
But master will get caught if Gasket takes you Master.
The Hogwarts House-elves watch.” Gasket fretted, their hands clasped together and expressions pleading.
“You can’t get past them without them noticing?” Leon asked, suddenly realizing that his scouting earlier might not have been in vain.
“No Master, Gasket is only two, Hogwarts is hundreds.
Gasket is a failure.” The elves shoulders drooped and tears flooded their eyes.
“You are not a failure Gasket, you’re the best elf I could ask for.
It’s ok, I just need to think of another plan.
It’s good that you told me before we got caught.” Leon said as he stooped down and patted the emotional elf on the back, “Thank you for coming, but it seems that tonight is a bust.
Give me a moment to think of something else.”
Leon looked around his dark room with a huff.
It was a good thing that he had called Gasket first instead of just having Birdperson do the teleporting.
The fact that Hogwarts elves were monitoring magical travel in and out of Hogwarts was something that Leon should have suspected.
But now he had a problem.
And it was one that he couldn’t easily fix.
Invisibility potions from his system shop were expensive and he didn’t want to waste OP.
The Disillusionment Charm was a fifth year charm for a reason.
The required power to cast it was too high for a first year.
Leon suspected that he would be able to cast higher level spells than his age would indicate.
But he hadn’t tried yet.
There were the secret passages… But if he was going to take advantage of them he would have to actually know where they were.
The only one that he knew where it was for certain was the one under the Whomping Willow.
Going all the way to the shrieking shack and then heading into the Forbidden forest from there was possibly going to be his best bet… which he would have to do tomorrow…
The reason he had to wait right now?
There was no doubt in his mind that him calling Gasket had brought the attention of Hogwarts house elves.
He knew that they wouldn’t snitch if he just went exploring the castle.
It was kind of an unwritten rule that nighttime exploration was a right of passage in the castle.
It’s why the professors didn’t set up right in front of the common rooms to catch people sneaking out.
But actually leaving the castle?
That’s usually when people got caught.
Fred and George Weasley had attempted to sneak into the Forbidden forest dozens of times.
They got caught every time.
Leon was almost certain that Dumbledore and the professors had something similar to the Marauders Map.
But he suspected that whatever it was worked differently from the map.
If whatever it was showed everyone’s names, they would have noticed Peter Pettigrew a long time ago.
Leon’s best guess was that they had something that tracked active students only.
It might even be more specific, like only tracking students when they were doing something that could get themselves killed.
Or maybe he was just overthinking everything again and being paranoid.
Whatever the case, Leon was not about to waste the night.
There were still things that he could do inside the castle itself.
Like find the Diadem… He really needed to get his priorities figured out.
He kept jumping around from one thing to another.
“Ok, change of plan, lets go to the room of hidden things again.
Gasket, can you get us to the entrance?
Or do we need to sneak up there?” Leon asked once he made up his mind.
Birdperson was eyeing him like he was deciding whether or not to peck.
“Gasket can do!”
Leon reached out and took their hand.
Then the familiar yanked through a pinhole sensation washed over him and he found himself stumbling in front of the tapestry show trolls in ballerina outfits clubbing a wizard.
Gasket shuffled in his awkward four-legged gait back and forth three times before the doorway appeared and they both hopped in, closing the door behind them.
This time Leon instructed Gasket to search exclusively for the Diadem of Ravenclaw.
He had honestly forgotten about all the stuff that Gasket had already collected for him, he really needed to go over it all in Coldharbour.
Speaking of, he reached into Coldharbour, pulled out his Bound Broom and hopped on.
There would be no random wandering this time.
He was going to do a grid pattern search while Gasket hopped around.
And low and behold, after only two hours of scanning the Room of Hidden things.
He found the Diadem.
It wasn’t even all that far away from the entrance, it was just behind a mountain of stuff.
A thousand years of accumulated tables, chairs, bags and contraband.
Leon wasted no time grabbing the Diadem, pulling it into Coldharbour and leaving in the throne room.
“Gasket!” Leon called out.
“Yes Master?” Gasket asked as he popped up beside Leon.
“I found the Diadem, take me to where we found the Vivarium.” Leon ordered.
“Right away Master!” Gasket said as he grabbed Leons hand and snapped his fingers.
A moment later Leon found himself in the large stone room with the magic circle and the armchair with the spare Nimbus 2000 leaned up against it.
“Thank you Gasket.” Leon said as he collected himself then went and sat in the armchair, “Now that that’s finished, I want you to collect stuff here in the Room of Hidden things.
Any books, magical bags, or cursed objects that you can find and safely move, bring them into this chamber and I will collect them later.
Right now, I’m going to close my eyes for a little while.”
Leon didn’t wait for Gasket’s reply.
He simply moved his mind into his Coldharbour Avatar and looked down at the Diadem on the floor of the throne room.
To the mundane senses, the Diadem was just a particularly pretty piece of ornamentation that a noble lady might have worn in ancient times.
It was engraved with a quote, “Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.”.
But on the metaphysical side, the Diadem was very odd.
Leon could see the original magic woven into the Diadem.
Elegant swirling fractals that changed constantly.
Layered on top of the original magic was a series of thick malevolent chains holding a Black Soul that looked identical to Morty-1’s.
The soul and chains that held it were intertwined with the physical materials of the Diadem to the point that it reminded Leon of his Bound Broom.
It was very close to being a Bound item in Elder Scrolls terms.
But it wasn’t.
Though it was quite the extraordinary discovery in Leon’s opinion.
Horcruxes seemed to be almost an intermediary point between Binding a soul into an object and a Lich’s Phylactery.
And it was solidly inferior to both crafts.
Horcruxes were closer to a poor man’s Phylactery than anything else.
No respawn mechanism tied into them made them vastly inferior as a means of immortality.
The functions that they did have were defensive.
Even though it looked like Tom Riddle was reviving in the second-year movie and book, the horcrux was just draining lifeforce as a defensive mechanism.
It would never have resulted in a revived Tom Riddle.
Morty-1 had explained Horcruxes to Leon already.
And Leon understood exactly why every dark wizard wasn’t running around with them.
What’s a little murder in exchange for immortality?
But that is not the full truth of these things.
Just knowing that Morty-1 had deliberately done what he had done to make five of them almost made his stomach churn.
It wasn’t just murder.
In Leon’s opinion, murder was a lesser crime than many other atrocities that mankind had inflicted upon one another.
At least murder tended to be final and could be quick.
But that might just be his opinion.
The murder was the least of the vile deeds needed to create a Horcrux.
There was a reason why the person who invented them was given the moniker The Foul.
But right now, the important thing was destroying this one while hopefully preserving the Diadem and its original magic.
But no matter how he looked at it Leon didn’t see a way to preserve the diadem at all.
The chains were bound into its physical structure in such a way that any damage to the chains would be inflicted onto the Diadem in equal measure and it went both ways.
Morty-1 had said that there was no way to remove his soul fragment from it without him fulfilling the conditions to release it.
That being Morty-1 feeling genuine guilt for committing murder, among other things, included in the act of creating the Horcrux.
And Morty-1 simply could not feel genuine guilt over such a thing, that’s not how his mind worked, it was why he had been able to create his Horcruxes to begin with.
It was actually impressive that the evil looking chains were holding the soul from every possible direction that Leon could possibly pull at it from.
In Coldharbour he was not limited to three dimensions.
Especially when it came to metaphysical stuff like soul manipulation.
The soul was genuinely trapped in the Diadem.
Leon sighed as he came to the conclusion that he could do nothing to truly preserve the Diadem.
He could ensure that the physical vessel remained undamaged.
But at the metaphysical level, the items’ ‘spirit’ was going to be damaged whether he liked it or not.
The magic that Rowena Ravenclaw herself had presumably imbued the artifact with would be destroyed.
It would end up as nothing more than a circlet of silver with a witty inscription on it.
After a long moment of silent regret.
Leon took hold of the Diadem, both physically and metaphysically.
The Horcrux tried to fight back.
But it was measly wizards’ soul versus a god in his own domain.
The resistance was pitiful and futile as Leon gave the soul a sharp yank.
And the chains snapped with a hideous shriek.
Looking at the soul fragment in his hand, Leon frowned.
It didn’t look like a shard or a fragment.
It looked like a complete soul.
Maybe souls regenerated?
He already knew that souls could recover from seemingly any level of damage if given enough time.
But he didn’t any context for splitting off a segment of a soul and placing it in a container.
That really wasn’t a thing in the Elder Scrolls universe in the same context as a Horcrux.
A Phylactery for a Lich bound the entire soul.
Enchantments utilized souls in their entirety to perpetually power an enchantment.
Fragments of souls could be used to curse the main soul.
But Horcrux was unique to this world.
Without further contemplation, Leon chucked the soul into the Waters of Oblivion to hopefully become Morty-2.
Having two iterations of Voldemort working tirelessly to further his goals would bring Leon one step closer to establishing a council of Evil Mortys’.
With soul undergoing its transformation, Leon reached out and took the Diadem in his hands.
It looked fine physically.
He had held it together against the physical damage that was inflicted upon it when the magical chains holding Morty-2s soul snapped.
But he couldn’t stop the metaphysical damage that had been wrought.
The original magic was mostly gone.
Only a few of the ever-changing fractals were still there, woven into the materials, though dull and barely worth noting and fading fast.
It wouldn’t be long before they were gone completely.
Saddened by the fact that this artifact that was said to grant wisdom to the wearer was now no more than a pretty paperweight.
Leon placed it on the armrest of the throne.
Someday, he would set up a proper museum where he would showcase artifacts that he collected.
But for right now, he actually had a few things to do that he had forgotten about.
All the bags and boxes that Gasket had retrieved for him during their first jaunt into the room of hidden things remained unsorted.
He didn’t know what they contained or what their functions were.
Now was the perfect time to check them out.
Maybe there would be some goodies that were useful.
Most of the bags and boxes were enchanted to keep anyone but their owners from accessing their contents.
But the contents were mostly useless as far as Leon was concerned.
He found an awful lot of Love Potions.
A few nasty smelling potions that Leon suspected were Polyjuice Potions.
And a lot of poisons and cursed objects.
The enchanted containers were mostly just small storage spaces, but a few of the trunks were downright enormous.
The big ones were mostly useless though.
They had some useful things, like cauldrons, alembics, and lots of books that he would need to sort through… though he was probably just going to dump the book sorting on one of the Mortys.
Speaking of Mortys.
Leon noticed that Morty-2 had emerged from the Waters of Oblivion, flopping like a fish as Morty-1 stood nearby laughing at his former self.
Morty-2 was identical to Morty-1.
Though he was completely naked at the moment and struggling to even stand in his new body.
The Diadem soul shard having never had the experience of inhabiting multiple new bodies was going through the same adaptation period as all the other new Dremora.
Leon emerged from the palace and approached Morty-1 and 2, “I see you are having fun playing with yourself Morty-1.”
“My Lord…” Morty-1 spun around to look at Leon.
“My Lord?” Morty-2 said, awkwardly kneeling, “How may I serve you?”
“First, get used to your new body.” Leon said gesturing at Morty-2s unstable wobbling bow, “Then have Morty-1 show you where my wand collection is.
See if any of them a suitable for you, then you and Morty-1 can work together on the projects that he’s already assigned.”
“Yes Master!” Morty-2 exclaimed, before attempting to stand.
“My Lord, I will admit that I find this rather odd.” Morty-1 said, “My Diadem Horcrux actually making a fully independent version of myself was not something that I thought possible.
A Horcrux is supposed to be a shard, an anchor for the main soul in the material realm… It’s not supposed to be a full soul on its own.”
Leon shook his head, “Souls are some of the most complex and least understood things in the Universe.
I was surprised to find that the shard was a complete soul myself.
Especially after what you told me about their creation.”
“So… there is to be six of me?” Morty-1 asked.
Leon shrugged, “There might be seven.
When you failed to kill Harry Potter, you accidentally created another Horcrux.
That famous scar on his forehead contains a shard of your soul as well.”
“That should not be possible!” Morty-1 said in shock, “There was no ritual circle, none of the other actions necessary were fulfilled besides murder.”
“It probably had something to do with your main being unstable to begin with?
Creating five Horcruxes already may have predispositioned your soul to split off segments of itself?
The Killing Curse is a kind of soul magic as well.
So, the double murder, then the reflected spell split off a segment of your soul.
A segment that couldn’t go anywhere because it was anchored to the material realm.
It probably attached itself to the nearest available host, but without a consciousness it just sits there.
And without the ritual, it is more than likely not bound in the same way that your other Horcruxes are.” Leon shrugged, “Also, without the ritual, it may not even have any memories.
Maybe just whatever was in your short-term memory at the time?
I’m just spit balling here.”
Morty-1s eyes were narrowed in thought, “Your theories are sound… But we cannot verify them unless you take the soul fragment from the Potter boy’s head.”
“I’m fairly certain that it would kill him if took it out.
I’ve partially examined it already.
The fragment is lodged in and fused into Harry’s soul.
Not like your possession of Quirrell.” Leon explained.
Morty-1 looked troubled, and Morty-2 who was not caught up on everything looked even more confused than before, though he was focusing on learning to control his new body.
After that little detour, Leon gave them both instructions.
They were to spend at least an hour daily going through the stuff that he’d collected from the Room of Hidden things.
They needed to sort it all and organize it.
With instructions given, Leon still had plenty of time before sunup.
So, he decided that he should go and speak with the gathering of new Dremora.
And perhaps assist Morty-1 in extracting their languages.
The Nuckelavee Dremora were surprisingly content with their appearance.
They said that it made them feel like nature’s avengers.
As both a representation of nature being twisted and the power to correct the imbalance.
Leon didn’t get it, but he was glad that they weren’t suffering some sort of psychological meltdown from turning into true horrors that would make most people flee in terror.
Even Centaurs would likely take one look at them and Nope right out of there.
The Goblins turned Dremora were surprisingly happy as well.
When he mentioned that the mines of Coldharbour were eternal, deeper than they could ever mine, they practically wept with joy.
When he mentioned the giant furnaces, and forges that were waiting for smiths to light them and work their trade… The Goblins almost lost their minds.
“We have been blessed!” One Goblin turned Dremora declared while falling to its knees, “I thought I would be cast into the clouds for the things I have done.
Banished from the mines and forges… But I find myself in the heavenly mines?”
Apparently, the Goblins of the Vivarium had a religion and society that revolved around mines, forging, and labor of various types.
Their version of heaven was eternal mines filled with ores, and forges where every craft imaginable could accomplished.
Coldharbour’s dreary atmosphere and mines that could be delved forever actually matched their idea of heaven perfectly.
The only way it could get better was if they were also going to be conscripted into an army.
When Leon said that he was of course going to have them become part of his armies, the Goblin Dremora became absolutely convinced that they had all gone to heaven.
The fact that they would be making their own equipment.
Mining.
And fighting for their Lord had them all practically salivating with religious fervor.
Even the taskmaster Morty-1 who occasionally lashed out with that horrible green spell now seemed like a genuine messenger of their new god.
Leon spent the rest of the night assisting Morty-1 in taking notes on the Goblin language.
As well as piecing together a little about the Vivarium Goblins religions and political state.
The goblins of the Vivarium seemed like they would be a hard nut to crack as far as infiltrating them with cults.
Their religious ideology and Pantheon of gods were deeply ingrained.
And the Centaurs… Leon would need to get the Hunting Grounds and the Domain of the Hunt before he could get them on board with any cults.
But a cult of The Hunt would be easy to establish among them.
After the night of working with Morty-1 to create the translation spell, Leon returned to his Earthly Avatar.
He had scouting and planning to do.
His plans for the Acromantula hunt were on hold until he could figure a way out of Hogwarts.
Opening his eyes inside of the stone chamber where the magical circle lay, Leon looked around to find a pile of stuff that Gasket had collected throughout the night.
He quickly swept everything into Coldharbour before calling Gasket to help him leave the Room of Requirements.
It was about 7 in the morning.
So, he had no fear of walking the castle now that it was after curfew.
Making his way down flights of stairs, Leon looked up at Birdperson and mentally ordered him to thoroughly inspect the grounds around the castle.
Sightlines, and a few other things.
The Whomping Willow to the shrieking shack secret tunnel was not really a good option now that he thought about it.
It was a well-known passage between Hogsmeade and Hogwarts among the staff.
That and Leon just remembered that magical plants didn’t really like him that much.
The Whomping Willow would likely react to his presence with an unusual level of aggression and violence.
Risking the entrance that could get him killed was not really his style.
The plan that he came up with was actually much simpler.
He would go to the Astronomy tower and hide there deep into the night.
Then he would fly with his Bound Broom.
There was a strong likelihood that he would get caught.
Either when trying to leave, or when trying to make his way back into the castle.
But… detention and a reprimand were an expectable price to pay for a new dimension and domain added to his portfolio.
With Birdperson scouting, Leon went to the Great Hall and settled in to read.
Most students wouldn’t be up this early on a Sunday, which meant that he’d have some time to kill before he was expected to socialize.
Which he almost reluctantly admitted to himself that he was looking forward to.
The day felt like passed by in an odd combination of fast and slow.
He was really eager to set out on his hunt and kept checking the time.
But at the same time, he, Harry and Ron ended up exploring the castle looking for secret passageways.
Leon recalled a secret hideaway from the Legacy game, the Undercroft.
He didn’t show it to the boys.
But he made a mental note to go check it out when he had the chance.
If it was as he remembered, it would be a nice place to hide away and practice magic, write essays, and possibly learn some stuff about ancient magic.
As it stood, Leon and company discovered a frog statue which would swallow you, then you’d end up spit out by an identical statue two floors up.
It was a very convenient shortcut that they would have to remember.
They also found a whole room hidden inside of a painting, completely by accident.
Ron had tripped into a painting of an empty room.
And instead of smashing into canvas and wall.
It was like he fell through an open window.
The room was a study with a fireplace, a desk, and several large armchairs that were quite comfortable.
After spending the day goofing off, with a little bit of enforced homework time.
Leon bid the guys goodbye and slipped off to hide in the astronomy tower.
But he was willing to bet that most of the teenagers and younger kids were not as committed to the operation as he currently was.
Nor did they have the assistance of a Phoenix.
With Birdperson’s help, Leon managed to not only find a good hiding spot in the rafters.
He also had a method of getting out of the castle that he could feasibly blame on Birdperson.
After all.
It wasn’t his fault that his phoenix decided to pick him up and fly out of the castle while he was exploring.
He had only just come up with this new idea when Birdperson helped him hide in the rafters, easily picking him up and landing him in a place that was normally inaccessible to anyone.
The view was also pretty good from up here, as long as he leaned out a bit to be able to see that is.
As darkness swallowed the land, and 9 O’clock bell chimed, signalling the beginning of curfew.
Birdperson gripped Leon by the wrists and Leon latched onto his legs.
Then they were off.
Maybe.
Just maybe, Leon shouldn’t have trusted Birdperson like this.
The Dremora phoenix took off into the darkness and once it was over the lake, it dived.
Leon nearly screamed in surprise as he suddenly experienced full weightlessness.
The dark lake rushing up to meet him.
Birdperson didn’t try to do any crazy last second maneuvering though.
Which Leon was thankful for because he wasn’t sure that his shoulders could handle such a thing.
Instead, after a short dive, the Phoenix started changing angles until they were smoothly flying about a dozen feet above the Black Lake.
Birdperson took a curious route, not heading directly for the forest.
Instead flying towards the general direction of the train station before setting Leon down on a ledge under the bridge that held the train tracks.
Leon understood and was thankful.
The flight had only lasted fifteen or twenty minutes.
But his shoulders were not happy about dangling like that.
He pulled his Bound Broom out of Coldharbour and mounted it.
Taking off into the air with Birdperson at his side.
One thing that Leon hadn’t really noticed when he tested the broom out in Coldharbour was how loud it was.
It made a distinctive bassy humming noise that was rather ominous.
And the faster that he flew, the louder that noise became.
“Not ideal for a stealth operation are you.” Leon commented as he maintained about a quarter speed to keep the noise down to a low hum.
The broom bucked slightly in response, and Leon felt the Dremora soul within radiate a feeling of ‘heavy stealth means no witnesses left to talk’.
“Fair enough.” Leon muttered.
The route that they took was extremely long.
Three hours of flying very far out and around to approach the Forbidden Forest from the opposite side from Hogwarts.
Leon wasn’t trying to take any chances.
They skimmed over the forest canopy looking for the telltale ‘feeler’ threads that Acromantula tended to spread.
Hair thin lines of silk that were extremely hard to spot, even when one knew what they were looking for.
It was almost 3:30 am by the time Leon caught the glint of those filaments of silk in the treetops.
He spent a good thirty minutes circling to find the edge of the territory that had those feeler threads.
Once he reached the edge, both he and Birdperson descended below the canopy.
“The real hunt starts now.” Leon said as he drew his wand in his right hand and primed a [Thunderbolt] spell in his left.
Acromantula were surprisingly stealthy for creatures that had leg spans in the tens of feet.
But his preparations were paying dividends right now.
The giant spiders used a combination of cover and their natural dark carapace to conceal themselves.
And Leon was extremely familiar with their tactics at this point.
He soon spotted an ideal ambush spot.
A place that a young adult to adult Acromantula would hide.
He couldn’t distinguish the giant spider through his mundane senses.
But on the Metaphysical side he could just barely make out the giant spider laying in wait.
It was actually impressive how well the spider was concealed even on the metaphysical side.
The Acromantula’s magic somehow naturally blended into the surrounding magics in a way that was incredibly hard to spot.
Leon had underestimated how hard it would be to spot while in his Earthly Avatar.
In Coldharbour, no matter how good their concealment they couldn’t hide from his senses.
Here, with his limited capacities, Leon could only barely make out the difference around the spider’s abdomen.
Leon was just about to launch his primed [Thunderbolt] spell when he caught a tiny flicker of movement.
He didn’t freeze, but shifted ever so slightly, and noticed that he had missed a few spiders… maybe a little more than a few.
There was quite a few of them silently encircling him.
All of a much smaller variety than the adult he had spotted first.
Ranging from the size of a rat to the size of a small dog.
With Birdperson waiting in the wings, Leon wasn’t all that concerned with getting surrounded.
But he needed to make this quick.
Kill the adult, grab its corpse, and get the hell out of dodge.
Leon took a steadying breath and unleashed his primed [Thunderbolt].
Blinding light flashed.
Accompanied by the distinct crack of a lightning strike.
“Gah!” Leon flailed for a moment.
“Fekin flashbanged myself!
Birdperson help!”
Leon blinked as he tried to get rid of the searing arc of light that was now burned into his retinas.
Fortunately, Acromantula were significantly more sensitive to bright flashes of light than humans were.
The spiders that had been circling him were literally screaming and curled up.
Thrashing their legs.
The adult Acromantula that had just taken a lightning bolt directly to its face didn’t make a peep.
It’s legs curled up underneath its body and Leon felt its Soul get yanked into Coldharbour.
He didn’t allow it to go into the mess of other souls to get lost, he mentally directed the soul into the Waters of Oblivion while rushing forward to haul its body into Coldharbour.
Meanwhile, Birdperson was quite busy frying spiders that were in middle of recovering from the brilliant flash.
The largest among them fled the moment that they recovered.
A few of the cat and rat sized ones followed the fleeing ones.
But the majority of the rat sized Acromantula babies were not intelligent enough to know that they should flee.
And Birdperson made sure that they would never learn that lesson with spikes of condensed crimson flames.
Leon struggled mightily to get the Acromantula corpse to transition into Coldharbour.
It was surprisingly heavy.
But by getting some leverage and really putting his back into it, Leon managed to force it through, into the throne room of the palace.
With that done, Leon whipped around to see Birdperson finishing off a few little Actromantula that were to stupid to be afraid.
Leon pulled out his Bound Broom once more and mounted it, “Birdperson!
Time to get out of here!” he called out as he kicked off the ground.
That was when he felt a sharp pain in his calf.
The smallest Acromantula that Leon had ever seen was latched onto the side of his pantleg and driving its fangs into him.
With almost no effort at all, Leon kicked the spider into Coldharbour where it could die alone and cold.
But that vengeance didn’t do anything for the venom that was now eating at his leg.
“Fuck, Fuck, Fuckity Fuck!” Leon shouted as he burst up out of the trees and into the clear sky above the forest.
Acromantula venom was incredibly painful.
He could take care of the problem pretty quickly.
But he needed to find a place to set down first so that he could drip a few Phoenix tears on the wound.
Luckily it had been a tiny one and it didn’t have that much venom to deliver.
Its fangs had barely pierced his skin through his pants.
But it hurt like nothing he’d experienced.
Not only that, but the magic in his leg was reacting violently with the venom and exacerbating the pain.
He flew until he found a large clearing where a herd of Thestrals were milling about and landed.
Stowing his Broom before pulling out a vial of phoenix tears and struggling to roll up his pantleg to access the wound.
Rolling up the pantleg revealed a small double puncture wound that was black and oozing already.
For how small the bite was it looked pretty gruesome.
Leon poured the Phoenix tears over the wounds and gasped as the pain spiked for several long moments as the venom warred with the healing tears.
Leon shook as his flesh started closing.
The pain eased.
His magic stopped behaving erratically in his leg.
And finally the tiny puncture marks disappeared as if they had never been there.
Leon sighed, “Damn… I’m really not badass material huh?
Didn’t Harry get bit by one of the big ones in that maze and even fought with the resurrected voldy while still suffering the venom?”
After confirming that his leg was now fine, Leon stood up, about to head back to Hogwarts but froze.
The herd of Thestrals had him completely surrounded.
They didn’t appear agitated or aggressive.
If anything, they were eyeing Leon like they were curious.
Thestrals could be dangerous if provoked.
But in general, they were incredibly gentle creatures for an obligate carnivore species.
Though they were attracted to the scent of blood.
Leon wasn’t sure if these Thestrals were part of the Hogwarts herd, or just natives to the Forbidden Forest.
But he wasn’t about to do anything to push their buttons.
He mentally reviewed the stuff that he had in Coldharbour and found a few plates of chicken drumsticks that he had forgotten about.
They were kind of old… but Coldharbour was freezing cold so they should still be good.
He pulled out the plate and started chucking the drumsticks into the air.
The Thestrals were delighted with the snacks.
But seemed intent on following him around even when he left the plate on the ground and walked away.
Leon wasn’t sure why they were following him.
But he couldn’t have them following him all the way back to the castle, so he adjusted his Aura output to its unsuppressed state.
Hoping that it would ward the creatures away.
The effect was exactly opposite of his intentions.
The Thestrals immediately surrounded him and started nuzzling against Leon like he was made of catnip.
They nearly knocked him over in their enthusiasm.
“Okay okay!
I’ll give you all some attention.
But then I’ve got to get back to school before anyone notices that I’m missing.” Leon said as he started rubbing the creatures behind their odd little ears.
It was only after Leon had individually given each of the Thestrals some good ear scritches that they finally calmed down and let him leave in peace.
He could swear that the creatures looked smug as he took off on his broom.
Their skeletal bodies swaggering like they were the kings of the world.
Leon shook his head in wonder as he reigned in his Aura to its suppressed state once more.
“Apparently Thestrals like me.” Leon commented to Birdperson as they took a more direct route back towards the bridge.
Birdperson sent Leon a feeling of “Understatement” as they flew.