Professor Quirrell was carted out of the Great Hall by Madam Pomfrey.
And chatter resumed as people wondered what had happened to the professor.
Dumbledore looked like his usual sparkly eyed self and Snape was busy glaring at The-Boy-Lived between bites of whatever it was that he was eating.
The rest of the Professors seemed to be gossiping amongst themselves like nothing had happened.
Which meant, in Leon’s mind, that somehow none of them had been aware of Professor Quirrell’s condition.
Dumbledore’s completely unconcerned demeanor revealing the fact that he hadn’t suspected Quirrell of harboring the Dark Lord at all.
The feast continued for another 20ish minutes before Dumbledore suddenly stood up.
He didn’t say anything, but just the fact that he was standing caused the Great Hall’s chatter to die down until silence was all that remained.
“Just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered.
I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.” Dumbledore said, rattling off the basic spiel the Leon had heard a million times before throughout all the fanfics he’d ever read and the books and the movies themselves.
Dumbledore, after giving everyone the usual spiel about the forbidden forest being forbidden, the list of things that were banned that could be found by Filch’s office, and a pointed look at the Weasley Twins, issued his warning about the third floor corridor “And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”
With that, the students were dismissed to their dormitories.
Leon followed the seventh year prefect, Gabriel Truman, she introduced herself as, who was assigned to guide the first years to the dorm.
Leon followed directly behind her, along with a gaggle of first year girls in tow.
He didn’t know why he had ended up in front, but it had seemed to happen naturally as they made their way out of the Great Hall.
They descended down past the kitchens to a storage looking area with a stack of large wooden barrels.
“Listen up, everyone,” Gabriel said with a clap, tapping her fingers against one of the barrels in a distinct, rhythmic pattern.
“To enter, you must tap the barrel two from the bottom.
In the middle of the second row.
Tap to the rhythm of ‘Helga Hufflepuff.’ Get it wrong, or tap the wrong barrel, and you’ll get thoroughly drenched in vinegar.”
She finished the rhythmic tapping and one of the big barrels swung open, revealing what was definitely not a hobbit hole.
And she gestured for everyone to get in.
Leon found himself pushed to the front, the first of the first years to enter the dorm.
Walking through the round tunnel that was slightly sloped upward, he soon found himself stepping out of the tunnel into a large circular room.
A sprawling circular haven filled with plush armchairs, tables, and couches.
Massive circular windows set at eye level showed the moonlit castle grounds, the walls were draped in vibrant yellow-black banners with the badger symbol boldly on display.
On one side of the room was a large hearth with a fire crackling away, and nearly every available shelf, windowsill, or mantle was overflowing with potted plants of all sorts.
It was a warm and welcoming environment that Leon was glad to have chosen.
He could easily envision himself falling asleep reading a book in one of those plush armchairs.
Soon enough, Leon and the crowd of girls were all gathered in the common room.
“Alright, we have a tradition of helping out our First Years with finding their classrooms.
Luckily for everyone, school started on Friday this year.
So you have two full days to figure everything out before Classes start on Monday.
But we are not throwing you to the wolves.
Tomorrow morning we will be posting the schedule, and a Prefect will be waiting to show you all around after breakfast.” Gabriel said once she’d gotten everyone quieted down, “Leon, the boy’s side of the dorm is over that way.” I trust you to get yourself settled in.
Girls, follow me!”
And like that, Leon was left alone, save for the few students who were lingering around the common room.
Leon shrugged and headed to the indicated doorway for the boy’s dorm.
It was basically a ghost town on the boy’s side.
From what Leon had seen earlier, there were only like, 30 males total in Hufflepuff at the moment.
And the majority of them were seventh year students.
From what he had seen in the Great Hall, Leon guessed that the student total student body at Hogwarts presently was 90% female.
If the ratios didn’t go up next year, that number would increase dramatically seeing as the vast majority of male students seemed to be sixth and seventh years.
Two years from now, if the ratio remained the same as it had been this year, the male population of the school would more than likely only make up 1% of the total student body.
Those numbers did not bode well for the wizarding population of Britian.
Leon shrugged off his little math problem and found a vacant dorm room, claiming it as his own for now.
He went in and laid down, closed his eyes and transferred his consciousness into his Coldharbour Avatar.
There he turned his attention to the two new Dremora that he had gained today.
Peter Pettigrew stood there looking like his ratty self.
A hideous man with a penchant for betrayal and cowardice.
Beside Pettigrew stood a towering Voldemort turned true Dremora.
Leon was surprised that that shard of his soul ended up manifesting as full Valkynaz Dremora.
He was a towering seven and a half feet tall, with a crown of sharp, jagged horns jutting out of his skull.
His skin pitch-black with eyes glowing a pale blue.
And he was completely naked.
“Go find some clothes to wear Morty-One.
We will figure out what to do with you after I give Pettigrew his orders.” Leon said, waving his hand in dismissal.
Leon then proceeded to lay out his plan for Pettigrew.
It only took a minute, and by the time he was done.
Morty-one had already returned.
Dressed in a robe that he had apparently transfigured himself.
Using his actual wand.
Pettigrew had somehow had Voldy’s Wand on him when Leon captured him.
Morty-one, fortunately, had retained his ability to do HP world magic even without a physical body.
Which went against a lot of what Leon had read in Magical Theory but matched his own observations the HP world magic.
With Pettigrew’s orders given, Leon dismissed him to wander around Coldharbour till the next day.
He would release him in his rat form when he had a moment to himself back in the Earthly Plane.
Leon turned to his newest minion, he had questions.
“Ok Morty-1.
First off, why did you attempt to read my mind?
And what happened when you did?
I know you didn’t have more than a moment before I captured you, but your wraith was acting like it was having a psychotic break I transformed you.
I need answers.”
“Yes Master.
Encountering your mind as a mortal was like encountering an eldritch being attempting force 4th, 5th, or even 6th dimensional concepts into a mind only capable of understanding 3-dimensional concepts.
It induced an extreme fear and psychotic break.
My memories of the event are clear.
But cannot fully explain why I was experiencing the state I was in master.
I deeply apologize for this failure.” Morty-1 knelt to the ground and looked at Leon in supplication.
Leon waved the concern off.
“So how do I protect other mortals from having that extreme of a reaction?
You are far from the only skilled Legilimens out there.
Occlumency?”
“Occlumency would not work,” Morty-1 said with a sharp shake of his head.
“Occlumency is essentially the magical equivalent of Muggle method acting.
It is not a structural magical discipline.
It relies entirely on mental theater.
While it is highly effective at masking a human mind, defending oneself against Obliviators, Confundus Charms and tricking skilled Legilimens, your consciousness operates on fundamentally different cosmic principles.
The problem remains identical even if you mastered Occlumncy, any false front of thoughts that you could manually create would still carry the same eldritch structure as your actual mind.
If a mortal skims the surface, they will still suffer a catastrophic aneurysm, psychotic break, or any number of things.
A light brush likely would not result in what happened to me as a mortal, I dove in as quickly and forcefully as I could, taking the full brunt of attempting to parse your active thought processes.
Someone just touching the surface will know that something is wrong, but they won’t be actively experiencing alien thought structures.”
“As for ensuring others never encounter this problem…
I am not aware of such magic.
A continuous, active defense of the mind is simply not a discipline that exists as far as I am aware.
Witches and wizards only turn to Occlumency when they anticipate memory alteration or targeted mental manipulation.” He gestured vaguely with his hand.
“Furthermore, if a wizard needs to guard a specific secret, they rely on unbreakable oath magic.
An oath can permanently lock a memory away.
It ensures the caster can never reveal certain thoughts under duress or through magical compulsion.
It is a highly effective security measure for mortals.
But none of that will help you.
The problem isn’t a single secret memory.
It is the literal makeup of your consciousness.
The kind of magic you require has simply never been developed.
Or, if it was, it was invented by some ancient recluse who took the secret to their grave.
Again, I apologize Master, for failing to provide you with an adequate answer.”
Leon shrugged.
He had already guessed most of that.
If a superior method to shield the mind from foreign influences existed in Harry Potter lore, it would have been the premier choice over the utter sham that was Occlumency.
Seriously, how was it that with an entire world of magic at their fingertips, wizards and witches genuinely believed the apex of mental defense was to hold a permanent lie at the front of their thoughts?
They were literally just letting a mind reader sift through a curated slideshow of fake memories instead of physically stopping the intrusion outright.
Sure, Occlumency had its place.
It was undeniably useful in s deep-cover espionage situation where an active, impenetrable wall would immediately look suspicious to a handler.
But that was a highly specific, niche application.
It was completely useless for general, everyday security.
Without a convenient method to defend his mind from unwanted intrusion coming from the HP world.
Leon turned his thoughts to how he could defend his mind utilizing Elder Scrolls magics.
There was not very much on this topic in The Basics.
Mainly because it didn’t really need to be covered all that much.
A basic Spell Ward would eat up most any kind of mind-reading magic in Tamriel, that kind of magic was notoriously delicate in the Elder Scrolls universe.
The only problem was whether or not it would actually treat HP world magic the same.
The two systems were fundamentally different after all.
Leon quickly perused his inventory of trinkets and stuff that he had pulled out of the Vaults of both his families.
He quickly found an unassuming gold chain and shrugged while mentally cataloguing all of the souls that he had available.
The vast majority of them were petty souls, so he figured he’d start there.
He went over to an enchanting table in the mockery of the imperial city in Coldharbour and set the gold chain down within its fancy geometric lines.
One thing that Leon kind of thought was funny was how easily he could enchant things within Coldharbour.
Here had the alacrity of a true Daedric Prince when it came to enchanting.
He could infuse up to three enchantments on a singular item without breaking a sweat.
While the greatest enchanters of Tamriel had struggled to apply only two and to accomplish that level of precision they needed years, sometimes decades of experience.
Unlike in the video games, however, those percentile functions of the enchantments were not magically tied to the raw quality of a soul gem.
A grand soul wouldn’t automatically grant a grand shield that stopped 90% of some specific damage type.
Each percentile increment of a spell’s power came directly from the actual, geometric architecture of the runic script itself.
And Leon was still only an apprentice at enchanting.
Aside from placing a few basic Soul Trap enchantments onto some weapons over the past 11 years, he hadn’t played around with the craft all that much.
Leon simply didn’t know the refined, high-tier architectural versions of the protections he wanted to place.
Even with three slots open on a single ring, his Apprentice-level runes would only yield a tiny, single-digit percentage of baseline Spell Absorption or Resist Magic.
He was going to have to rely on manual practice and trial-and-error to squeeze any real efficiency out of his rudimentary blueprints if he wanted to save his OP for the future.
Not that he had all that much OP to work with right now.
Only a paltry five thousand-ish at the moment.
Not enough to purchase the enchanting knowledge necessary to create a masterpiece.
But this was just a test piece anyway.
He mentally selected the enchantments that he wanted to place, Spell Absorption, Resist Magic, and Reflect Spell.
Guiding his magicka into the precise runic architecture of those enchantments and wove all three of them into the thin gold chain.
Once the runic architecture of all three enchantments were in place, and Leon confirmed that they weren’t interfering with each other.
He took the final step of enchanting by binding a petty soul to the enchantment pathways, locking everything into place.
The gold chain necklace now had a very subtle hue sparking across its surfaces.
Even to mundane senses, the necklace would obviously be magical.
Though the power that it held was miniscule.
In game logic this would have been an utterly useless item.
With only like 3-5% resistance/absorption/reflection.
And for all Leon knew it might be useless.
He shrugged and put it on then summoned Morty-1.
“Cast Legilimens on me and report what the effects of my new defense are.”
Morty-1 nodded and raised his wand, casting the spell with familiar ease.
Leon raised an eyebrow when he felt nothing and Morty-1 dawned a confused expression before adjusting his posture and casting again.
This time, Leon felt a featherlight brush against his consciousness that flickered and died out moments later.
Morty looking absolutely puzzled.
“Master, that was very strange.
It was like trying to push through a curtain of falling sand around your mind.
Reflective sand that also disrupted the stability of the probe.
Each individual effect is not strong… but while I fortify one aspect of the probe, it destabilizes elsewhere.
If I practiced against this defense far a few hours it would be easy to get through once I figured out the nuances, but this should be enough to disrupt those that are not determined to push through by any means necessary.” Morty-1 still looked very confused by what had just happened.
“And if the effects were stronger?
Like say four or five times stronger?” Leon asked.
“No one would ever be able to pass through,” Morty-1 stated flatly.
“Legilimens is a mind probe.
No matter how much power a wizard pours into it, it is fundamentally a delicate thing that requires absolute stability.
I wield it like a scalpel and can easily penetrate any Occlumency.
But active, chaotic interference like what you have created is something I have never encountered before, Master.
Such a thing would be the bane of all Legilimens.”
Leon laughed when Voldy said he could get through any Occlumency easily.
Snape proved that wrong a lot in the books and movies.
But he didn’t say why he laughed and Morty-1 didn’t seek an answer as to why he was being laughed at.
“Ok, with that mostly settled.
I do have a few other questions.
First, they say that you cursed the DADA instructor position.
Is that true?
And if so, how do we get rid of the curse?” Leon asked.
This time it was Morty-1 who laughed, a quick mirthful chuckle before answering, “No Master, the DADA Professor position is not cursed.
Not by me, and I felt no curse upon taking the position.
Hogwarts has simply had a multi-decade string of bad luck.
The fact that they attributed it to me? Read this novel at novelping.com for the best experience.
I was flattered.
But curses don’t work that way.
Curses need a target, a real target.
Like a person, or a place, or a thing.
Hereditary curses, target the bloodline, location bound curses act like a ward meant to harm instead of help, and things tend to just be ‘cursed’ essentially, it’s just a charm that has a negative effect.
In order to curse a position within a hierarchy like Hogwarts I would have needed access to the castle wards.
Even the current headmaster can’t just access the wards as he pleases, no matter how powerful.
Hogwarts herself doesn’t like to be messed with.
With those options out, I would have had to hide a cursed item in close proximity to where the DADA instructor would predictably be.
The first places anyone would check if they suspected a curse.”
Morty-1 shrugged, “There is a lot more to than that.
But I suspect that you have more questions, Master.”
If Leon didn’t know that his Dremora could not rebel, he would have decided to keep an eye on Morty-1 then and there.
The Dremora seemed to have retained Voldy’s love of his own voice and exposition.
Leon didn’t really mind it too much.
The elaboration filled in some context, even if it was useless information.
“Ok, next question.
Can you make expanded spaces?
Expanded spaces like Newt Scamander’s famous briefcase.” He asked.
A Portable container that could store a huge amount of stuff would be useful in a couple of applications.
The one that Leon was thinking of though, was capturing the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets.
There was no possible way that he could move that thing into Coldharbour with his tiny 11-year-old body.
Even if he were an adult, he doubted that he could manage to physically drag it into Coldharbour.
That thing was huge… but then it occurred to Leon that he might just find what he needed in the Room of Requirement.
“I am not an expert on such things… Dark Magic is mainly about ways of harming, destroying, controlling, or altering people and animals.
I would need to brush up on the charms in question and get access to the alchemical products necessary for permanent enchantments.
But it shouldn’t take me long to make something like that.
Although it does depend on the size and complexity of functions you want.
Something like Scamander’s legendary briefcase would be beyond me and most enchanters.
It is considered a magical marvel unto itself.” Morty-1 explained.
Again, adding unnecessary exposition that Leon found mildly amusing.
“Forget about it for now.
But we may need to design something to trap and transport that Basilisk that Slytherin so kindly left in the castle for us.
I want to pull it here into Coldharbour and transform it into a Dremora.” Leon said.
“Is that what I am now?” Morty-1 leaned in with interest, “This can be done regardless of species?”
Leon nodded, “Anything with a soul can be converted into a Dremora.
You saw Pettigrew.
If I can get their physical body in on the conversion process, they retain their exact physical body until that body is killed somewhere, then their soul will return to Coldharbour and be reborn in a similar fashion to yourself depending on the quality of their Soul.
All Humans would end up like yourself.
A Valkynaz Dremora.
Technically, Valkynaz is a social rank of a Dremora race called Kyn, your caste is supposed to be a general and the highest ranks in the Dremora hierarchy.
Crown like horns, built like a war machine, and stuff like that.
I’m not exactly sure how the transformations work, and technically you are not like the Dremora I am familiar with, so even calling you Dremora might not be correct.
Dremora have Vestiges in place of Souls.
But you have a soul, and so do all of the other Dremora I’ve converted.
I’m technically corrupting souls int Daedric Souls which is kind of novel.
You are the first ‘black soul’ I’ve changed without a body so I can’t be sure that others will follow the same template.”
After that explanation, Leon asked a few more questions.
He had decided that he was going to try hunting an Accromantula to fulfill his Task to get the Hunting Grounds.
The Hunting Grounds would probably end up being the center of life in his Realms.
Though he still planned to establish an Ecosystem on Coldharbour, that was a long-term project.
The Hunting Grounds was a ready-made place that could easily sustain everything needed for a healthy ecosystem.
No major preparation needed.
Though he did suspect that he would need to seed it with vegetation, and the baseline stuff to get it started.
He doubted that it was going to come with forests and grasslands already grown.
Based on the condition that he had gotten Coldharbour in.
He suspected that most realms would be entirely barebones and need refurbishing.
Anyway, because he was hunting an Accromantula, Leon wanted to learn a few spells from Morty-1 to help with that before he actually committed to the hunt.
And on top of all of that, Leon decided to fully inform Morty-1 on his Daedric powers and how he could add new realms to his holdings, how he could gain more points and all that.
Morty-1 was an intelligent being, and fully capable of helping him maximize his point income and plan out OP budgeting for the future.
Leon’s OP acquisition over the years had been spotty at best.
Conversion of lesser and petty souls didn’t give him more than 1 or 2 points.
And the insect soul shards didn’t contribute anything at all.
Acts performed in his name by his other Dremora were similarly pitiful in terms of returns.
1 or 2 points depending on what the actions taken were.
The ludicrous expenses and the tiny income were the main motivators for Leon’s desire to have a living ecosystem inside his Realms.
It would be even better if he could establish a large population of sapient creatures with cults focused on him.
Lifetime contributions and a final payout when he converted their souls at the end of their lives would maximize point value per individual.
And Morty-1 didn’t disappoint with his ideas.
Once he had the information he asked for parchment and a quill then began furiously brainstorming.
Leon left the Dremora to it and passed the gold chain he had enchanted to his Earthly Avatar before starting some experiments with his favorite branch of Destruction Magic.
Hurling lightning never got old.
And Leon may have spent too much of his time over the years practicing the Destruction school while ignoring the less immediately satisfying ones.
Though he hadn’t shirked experimenting with all of the magicka schools.
He would classify himself as an Adept at all of them, except for Destruction where he was closer to the top end of Journeymen, he was almost an expert in the subject.
He figured that with three to five more years he would be a true Expert of the Lightning Branch of the Destruction School.
And that was without having ever spent a single point on the subject in his shop.
∞∞∞
Meanwhile, back at Hogwarts, in the Medical Wing.
“Where?…” Professor Quirinus Quirrell said as he looked around.
He soon realized that he was in the infirmary at Hogwarts.
But he had no idea how he had gotten there.
He remembered planning out the sabbatical that he was about to go on.
But in his mind, he hadn’t gone on it yet.
His intent was to find the remnants of the Dark Lord, perhaps a few his old loyal holdouts, capture them and return to be hailed as a Hero.
Perhaps on par with The Boy Who Lived.
That way no one ever dare to laugh at him again.
He was absolutely certain that the Dark Lord was not fully dead.
Quirrell, for all that people made fun of him, was absolutely certain that the Dark Lord had a Horcrux hidden away.
Horcruxes were an obscure and heavily hidden form of immortality.
Quirrell got queasy just thinking about the spell and ritual he had read about in ‘Secrets of the Darkest Art’ even the allure of immortality was not enough for Quirrell to imagine anyone conducting that ritual.
But if anyone had done it, it would have been the Dark Lord.
And if Quirrell was right?
All he would need to contend with was a vestige of the Dark Lord and potentially any protectors he might have left around his Horcrux.
Quirrell was no slouch.
He had scored O’s in DADA, and Charms.
He was particularly good at defensive charms, they always seemed to just click for him.
So, he was confident in handling a few aging defenders and a vestige that was lesser than even a ghost.
And he was certain that it had been hidden the Albanian forest.
Too many clues led that way for it to be a coincidence.
Now the question remained in his mind.
How had he ended up here?
He raised his hand to his abnormally cold head and froze.
“What happened to my hair!!?” he shouted and leapt to his feet, conjuring a mirror to look at himself in horror.
The only thing he could imagine was that the Weasley Twins had visited the hospital wing and done this to him.
They were the only pranksters that did things like this.
Nymphadora Tonks… she pranked people, but it was mainly spooking them or sneaking into places she shouldn’t be.
She didn’t tend to get physical… This was exactly the reason that he intended to take his sabbatical.
The level of disrespect was just too much!
Quirrell’s expression firmed as he decisively called out.
“Twenty points from Gryffindor!”
Satisfied for now that at least someone had paid for the transgressions against him, Quirrell decided to figure out how he had ended up here.
Madam Pomfrey would know.
∞∞∞
The night flew by quite quickly for Leon.
He had spent the time playing with lightning after all.
Morning came and he almost reluctantly returned to his Earthly Avatar.
It was a lot harder to mess around with dangerous magic on Earth without having to deal with unwanted consequences.
But the day was afoot, and that guided tour of the castle would be useful.
He hopped up and quickly found the showers.
The showers were magical.
In both a metaphorical and real way.
The stream of water spraying from the nozzle was perfectly calibrated.
And Leon knew that he would probably end up with a habit of taking really long showers with how nice the experience was.
All freshened up, Leon headed for the Common Room, where he found that he may have miscalculated.
It was basically empty in the common room, only a couple of students sitting near the windows reading books and sipping on their morning tea.
It was already 5:30, why were there so few people up and about?
It took Leon a moment to remember that most people did not rise at the crack of dawn.
And especially the other children his age would not be early risers.
The lack of a need to sleep due to his nightly retreat into Coldharbour made Leon have a skewed perspective on sleeping anyway.
He never really slept.
He was either in Coldharbour or doing something here in his Earthly Avatar.
He managed to learn and grow on a daily basis because of that.
Leon shook his head as he realized the situation.
He shrugged it off and decided to introduce himself to the few students that were already up and relaxing in the common room.
The older students were exceptionally polite.
He introduced himself and exchanged a few words with them before moving on to the next.
Leon found himself mildly disturbed when he met a third-year named Celina Diggory.
She was, quite frankly, obnoxiously pretty for her age.
She wasn’t wearing a single drop of makeup, yet her complexion was utterly flawless.
Thick, long waves of honey-brown hair framed her face, shining with natural golden highlights under the warm early morning lighting of the common room.
She already possessed the early beginnings of a high-tier athlete-model build, her toned muscles clearly visible beneath the casual clothes she was wearing.
Worse still, she seemed completely, utterly clueless about her own beauty.
Her grey eyes radiated nothing but a simple, open honesty as she spoke to him.
She even offered to give Leon an early tour of the castle.
Given the fact that it would be several hours before the arranged tour with the Prefects began.
Leon didn’t see a reason to refuse.
He accepted.
Celina smiled, “Ok, give me a moment to put my shoes on and I can show you around.
The castle is always so quiet this time of the day.”
Leon shook his head as Celina slipped into the girls’ dorms to get her shoes.
He was now absolutely certain this universe was designed by a horny smut writer.
The amount of genderbending was ridiculous.
He’d even seen the female Neville at the Sorting Ceremony, Willow Longbottom.
Unlike the chubby, awkward boy from the books and movies, Willow just looked like a normal, healthy eleven-year-old girl.
Albeit a very nervous one.
Leon’s thoughts were derailed when Celina returned and was practically bouncing as she walked with purpose and a smile on her face.
“I’ll show you the kitchen first!
We can grab a bite, then the tour can really start.” Celina said as she gestured at the exit to the Common Room.
The tour turned out to be a really good idea.
The castle was far more complicated and winding than the books really conveyed, and definitely more difficult to navigate than the Hogwarts Legacy game made it out to be.
As Celina walked Leon around to the various classrooms she pointed out different sections of wall, or corridors while explaining that certain hallways would only exist during a specific hour of each day.
On every other Thursday there was a shortcut that apparently opened between the quidditch pitch and the library for exactly thirty minutes starting at noon.
It took nearly three hours to navigate throughout the entirety of Hogwarts castle following Celina.
She didn’t just show him the first-year classrooms.
She also showed him the locations of all the third year and above elective classrooms.
With the castle itself covered thoroughly.
Celina then dragged him out onto the grounds and showed him where Care of Magical Creatures generally gathered.
The owlery, and the quidditch pitch.
“I just realized that we left super early.
What time does Curfew end?
I know its Lights out at 9.
But I don’t know when we are supposed to be allowed to leave the common room.” Leon asked as they were making their way to the quidditch pitch.
“Ah, 4:30 is when curfew ends.” Celina said with a shrug, “But almost no one gets up at that time.”
Leon absorbed that little piece of information.
It was good to know that he could wander around without getting in trouble so early.
And like Celina had said, basically no one would willingly get up at 4:30 in the morning.
But that timing meant having a lot of extra hours to do things during times when there was basically a guarantee that no one would be around.
After seeing the quidditch pitch and Celina expounding on the glories of quidditch for a few minutes.
She declared his tour finished and asked if he wanted her to accompany him back to the common room or if he was going to continue exploring. Read this novel at novelping . com for the best experience.
Leon graciously declined occupying more of Celina’s time and headed back towards the castle.
Celina had retrieved her broom and was flying around over the quidditch pitch as he left.
Leon’s destination was the Room of Requirement.
But as he walked, he surreptitiously dropped a rat form Petter Pettigrew to go out and accomplish his mission.
Unlike at the start of Leon’s tour.
The castle was bustling now.
Students and faculty moving here and there throughout the corridors.
Of course, there were still people who had yet to wake up.
But the majority of the castle was awake.
Making his way up to the seventh-floor corridor and finding the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy attempting to teach trolls ballet.
Leon walked back and forth across that section of the corridor holding the thought.
“I need a place to Hide something” in his mind as he paced.
Nothing happened.
No doorway revealed itself.
Leon tried for a little while longer.
But still nothing happened.
He tried taking off the enchanted gold necklace and doing it again.
Still nothing.
“Damnit, either its not here.
Or it can’t read my intent… Gasket!” Leon called out.
A moment later there was a soft pop, and the oddball conjoined twins elf appeared.
“Master summoned Gasket!
What can Gasket do for you?”
“I need you to pace back and forth right here.” Leon showed Gasket the stretch of corridor, “While you are pacing, hold the thought in your head that you need a place to hide something.”
Gasket did as instructed, their four feet shuffling in a decidedly odd manner as he moved back and forth.
And thankfully, it worked.
The doorway appeared and Leon opened it to find a cavernous room on the other side with mountains of trash.
Leon stepped across the threshold and gestured for Gasket to follow him.
He might need his help to get out.
Or he might just need help in general.
Once inside, the door closed and sealed shut.
Leon turned to the room and took in the mountains of trash that accumulated in this room for the past thousand years.
“Alright Gasket, I’m looking for a Diadem that is somewhere in here.
Also, anything that looks like it might have an undetectable extension charms on it.
I’m also looking for a greenhouse-like structure.
It might be the size of a dollhouse, or it could be the size of a small shed.
It also might have multiple entrances to it.
It’s called the Vivarium.
You up for the challenge?” Leon asked gesturing around the room.
Gasket saluted, “Gasket is ready sir!
Gasket will do his best!” and with that, the weird little elf started scrambling around, looking for things.”
As Leon navigated the towering mountains of random furniture, he randomly grabbed items and shoved them into Coldharbour.
He was going to work on collecting everything that was in here eventually.
But he didn’t want to just spend hours upon hours hauling stuff into Coldharbour one by one starting from the entrance.
Finding the diadem would give Leon another Dremora Morty.
And finding the Vivarium would mean having a ready ecosystem of magical creatures to just live in Coldharbour, protected from harshness of the environment by being inside the self-contained Vivarium.
Leon didn’t pull out Morty-1 to expedite the process because apparently, he didn’t actually remember where he put the Diadem.
He’d been in a hurry, with very little time.
Morty-1 had entered the room of hidden things and sprinted through the stacks, grabbed a Broom and flew for a few minutes before landing and set it down on the bust of an ugly warlock that he didn’t know the name of.
Then he had left in just as much of a hurry.
Morty-1 said that he had wished to leave some defenses around it, but with the tight time schedule and the fact that he was confidant that he was the only person to have ever discovered the Rooms secrets he believed it to be secure enough.
After collecting a few dozen handbags, satchels, coin purses, and trunks of various sizes.
Leon grabbed an old broom and decided to give it a try.
He shook his head as he mounted the thing and attempted to take off… and the thing didn’t budge.
He felt stupid just standing there with a useless broom between his legs.
He moved the broom into Coldharbour and tried a few more before he gave up and kept walking.
How had he been able to telepathically chat with the Sorting Hat?
Everything else that required mental interactions seemed to just fail.
Another thing he needed to figure out at some point.
Maybe there was a difference between a telepathic chat and mind reading?
It would make a sort of twisted sense with the way magic worked in this world.
Or maybe the Founders had made the Sorting Hat in some clever way, and the chats weren’t actually in their head and somehow tied to fate?
Either way the fact remained that there were going to be some challenges to overcome.
It was a good thing that he had just discovered that brooms wouldn’t respond to his intent.
Ruled out quidditch as something that he could participate in.
He would speak to Madam Hooch at some point before the flying class and get himself an exemption from the class.
Apparently, Gasket could still Apparate around inside of the Room of Hidden things.
He couldn’t leave the room with Apparition, and he couldn’t enter the room from the outside with Apparition.
But within its confines he could Apparate just fine.
So, he constantly popped up beside Leon holding out a bag or a briefcase, or a chest of some kind, handing it to Leon before vanishing with a pop again.
Leon explored the Room of Hidden things until he suddenly realized that it was past curfew.
Then he shrugged and continued.
He would leave when he found what he wanted or when it was time to go to classes.
He still had over 24 hours to himself.
The Diadem was not all that important, but the Vivarium could likely alter everything about his coming plans.
Even if it was empty, he could use it to capture Acromatula breeding pairs and have an endless source of souls to produce an unending army of Dremora.
Though he suspected that only adult Acromantula would have the equivalent of a Grand Soul, even if he was getting thousands of lesser or petty souls.
Atronach’s would still be useful.
And Scamps also had their uses.
Leon continued wandering the stacks, randomly grabbing stuff and hauling it into Coldharbour.
He had been among these mountains of trash since Saturday morning, and it was now almost midnight Sunday.
He was certain that he was very lost and perhaps moving in circles.
But he kept finding new things.
He was going to need to catalogue and analyze everything that he had collected at some point.
He only had about 9 hours left until he would need to be in class.
So, he was surprised when Gasket appeared beside him not with an item, but with a joyous exclamation, “Master!
Gasket found the Vivi thingy!
But he cannot moves it.”
Leon immediately reached out for the Elf’s hand, “Take me to it.”
A moment of discomfort later, where he felt his body get sucked through a straw in spacetime, he was standing in a large stone room with high arched ceilings.
At the center of the room was pedestal upon which stood the Vivarium in its Dollhouse sized form.
Surrounding it was a twelve foot in diameter circle of geometric lines carved into the floor and a bubble of swirling magic that was nearly blinding to his senses.
“How did you find this place?” Leon asked the two headed elf that was looking rather proud of himself.
“Gasket spotted an old Nab-Sack at the foot of a mountain of old cauldrons and tables Sir.
Gasket went to retrieve it for you and noticed a tunnel through the mountain of stuff that was hidden with magic.
Gasket has a good eye for illusions Sir!
He got curious and followed the tunnel Sir.
Then he found that door.” Gasket pointed to a doorway that was behind them, “Gasket opened the door and found the Vivi thingy!
He tried to retrieve it, but the magic around it stops him!
Gasket is a useless Elf Sir.”
Gasket’s demeanor went from excited to downtrodden at his last statement.
Leon shook his head, “Nonsense, Gasket is the best elf.
You did exactly what I wanted.
Thank you.” Leon patted the elf’s two heads with both of his hands and the elf started crying with joy.
Leon shifted his attention to the magical circle.
Examining it with all of his senses.
But he had no idea how he could get past it.
He circled the bubble and spotted a book laying open on the ground just beside the circle, on the opposite side from where the doorway was to enter this magnificent room.
He approached the book, and, not finding anything magical about it.
stooped down and picked it up.
Flipping to the front and starting to read.
“Gasket, could you fetch me a comfortable chair?
I have some reading to do.” Leon said as he realized what this book was.
It was an instruction manual for the Vivarium, handwritten by whoever had arranged the magic circle protecting it.
“Right away Sir!” Gasket cried and vanished, then reappeared within moments with a plush chair that did look comfortable.
“Thank you Gasket.
Now, if you could continue the search for that Diadem I would much appreciate it.
I’ll call you when I’m ready to leave.
Can’t be late for classes.” Leon said as he sat down in the chair and started reading.
The opening chapters of the journal were a dense user manual, and it quickly became obvious that the game had severely undersold this thing.
In its expanded form, the Vivarium’s entrance was basically a mini mansion.
Stepping through the front doors didn’t just dump you into a random field; it brought you into a central hub complex where distinct stone archways served as physical portals to different territories.
The complex also featured a high-techish monitoring station for seamless observation.
But the real kicker?
Unlike the isolated 2-acre biomes from the game that the player could interact with, everything was connected inside of this single dollhouse sized structure.
The Vivarium held a single, massive island preserve for magical creatures and mundane wildlife.
On top of the surveillance grid, the system ran an automated logistical system.
It quietly harvested raw magical resources like shed feathers, hair, and rare flora without disrupting the environment.
It even salvaged materials whenever a creature died, whether passing from old age or falling victim to the natural apex predators roaming the preserve.
At the end of the manual section there was a note that said that there may be undiscovered features that had not been discovered yet.
The next section of the journal read like a massive lore dump of theories trying to pinpoint the Vivarium’s origin.
Theories ranged from Merlin himself being the mastermind creator, to the artifact originating from an era completely scrubbed from modern history books.
The wildest theory in the bunch suggested it was totally alien.
The author speculated that ancient elves might have crafted the pocket world before going extinct, or that it was the cosmic byproduct of extraterrestrial magical civilizations.
The logic behind the author’s wild guessing was straightforward, the Vivarium was simply too advanced.
Its function and form breached the upper limits of modern magic.
The landmass wasn’t an illusion or temporary conjured matter; it was genuine, permanent earth and real, flowing waters.
The massive volume of materials packed inside, the multi-layered complexity of the spells, and the architectural design itself were baffling.
To any normal witch or wizard, the entire artifact was a flat-out impossibility.
Past the origin theories, the journal dissolved into a series of logs about the species the author had personally smuggled into the Vivarium.
He detailed his specific motives for each relocation alongside deep behavioral observations of the various creatures.
The list covered everything from Acromantula, Graphorns and Hipogriffs to unicorns and even Trolls.
The author had successfully preserved dozens of species within the artifact.
And that wasn’t even factoring in the reality that the Vivarium had already possessed its own thriving, independent ecosystem before he ever introduced a single outside creature.
Fascinatingly, the artifact ran an automated environmental safeguard.
This passive function dynamically regulated resources, shunted attention, and redirected various creatures, ensuring that the new species never became ‘invasive’ or caused predatory extinctions among the native wildlife.
More evidence for the authors’ theories of the Vivarium’s otherworldly origins.
After the various magical creatures that the author noted he had transplanted into the Vivarium.
The Journal then detailed that the author had smuggled in a clan of goblins, as well as a herd of centaurs.
The Author of the journal had rescued the herd of centaurs from a smuggling and poaching operation.
And the Goblin Clan had been a special case.
This particular clan had assisted the one who wrote the journal and were actively being hunted by various goblin clans and ostracized by the rest for having sided with wizards during the war.
An interesting side note after the two sapient species were placed within the Vivarium the structure did not seem to consider them to be ‘people’ they were just another species of magical creature to the vivarium.
They couldn’t access the exits without a human to pull them in or out.
Which led the journals author on a wild tangent about how he suspected it had to have been humans who made the Vivarium.
The last section of the journal laid out the blueprint for the glowing runes surrounding the pedestal.
The circle was a heavy-duty security shield wrapped around a massive temporal dilation field.
The math was staggering, time inside the Vivarium was compressed at a five-hundred-to-one ratio.
Every second Leon spent standing here meant five hundred seconds ticked away for the mini-world inside.
That also meant for the creatures and beings within the Vivarium, at minimum somewhere around 49,000 years had passed, since the notes revealed this was the author’s parting gift to the relocated Goblin and Centaur tribes in 1893.
Sick of human persecution and tired of being hunted as second-class citizens, they wanted completely out of the wizarding world.
The author had engineered the ultimate escape, giving them an accelerated timeline to build their own lives without ever worrying about being found or exploited again.
The author also warned that, depending on how much time had passed since he set the entire thing up, the tribes may have evolved drastically.
Suggesting that whoever found the ritual circle leave it where it was.
But if they were determined to utilize the Vivarium themselves, they should spend a good amount of time using the observation functions to make sure that they didn’t end up in a bad situation with the tribes.
Finally, there was a small section dedicated to how to safely deactivate the ritual circle to be able to access the Vivarium.
It was small because the process was simple.
There was a button on the floor that one only needed to press and the circle would deactivate.
It could also be pressed again to reactivate the circle.
The final entry implored anyone who found the Vivarium to simply access its storage functions and take what they needed or wanted before leaving and reactivating the circle.
To allow the creatures and people within to live undisturbed.
Leon shrugged to himself.
He was planning to leave the interior undisturbed.
He just wasn’t going to be leaving the Vivarium in its nice little time bubble.
It was a shame that he couldn’t take the circle to Coldharbour to.
But a full ecosystem on the scale of a large island?
He couldn’t pass that up.
It took Leon only a few seconds to locate the activation button hidden on the stone floor.
He pressed it, watching as the shimmering bubble of magic began to wind down, vibrating with a heavy hum for a full minute and a half before it dissolved entirely.
With the temporal dilation field gone, the dollhouse-sized Vivarium sat silently on the pedestal, perfectly stable and ready for transport.