Life in the house on Grimmauld, one might say, was in full swing—I understood this immediately after my morning run and other activities under invisibility.
In order to understand all the activity in the house, you just need to imagine the usual daily bustle in the Burrow, remove household issues regarding gardening and so on, and transfer everything here.
Early rise. This procedure passed me, as I woke up even earlier, but it looked something like the following. Mrs. Weasley, as the most active sentient in this house, woke everyone up, sent to wash and put themselves in order, after which everyone was charged to go to breakfast, and the status of this wizard was not important. For example, on the second day of my stay here, a certain dark-skinned severe wizard in a dark purple robe and a strange hat was present at breakfast—everything in some kind of his national style. No, he didn't spend the night here, but ran in on business, and as a result was seated at the table.
There was a rather young witch with colored hair here. Tonks—that's what she was called when she patrolled Hogsmeade and the surrounding area together with other employees of the Auror Office and DMLE in the third year. But only now we bothered to introduce ourselves to each other.
"Tonks," although we just sat down at the table, and specifically she—opposite me, the girl held out her hand. "Just Tonks."
Naturally, I shook hands, briefly evaluating not the figure, but the style—what's the point of evaluating the figure of someone who is capable of changing appearance as she pleases? And her style was similar to some punk, with a slight touch of "heavy metal"—gloomy, while bright, a little leather, a little denim. High boots like army ones, wide pants with pockets, not at all restricting movement, a lot of all sorts of accessories and rivets. In general, quite a character.
"Hector Granger. And does Tonks have a name?" I smiled, sitting down in my place—had to stand up to reach for a handshake.
"I don't like when it's called," the girl waved it off, spinning enthusiastically in place and trying to make out what Mrs. Weasley would serve.
"But still wouldn't hurt to introduce oneself in full form," I smiled. "Suddenly have to contact, write a letter. And where? To the name Tonks? Who exactly? Ted, Andromeda?"
"Oh, you know my parents?"
"Nope," I shook my head, simultaneously glancing out of the corner of my eye at those present: Sirius, Ron nodding off, twins rushing back and forth near the stairs and not rushing to enter the kitchen yet, Mr. Weasley sitting next to Sirius and clearly gathered for work, as before, in his dark brown suit and heavy dark green robe.
"And how so?" Tonks tilted her head, looking with a question.
"Just collecting information from different sources. Still, not every day a girl from an ancient and noble family marries a first-generation wizard."
"Muggle-born, or what?" Ron grumbled something, trying to open his eyes. "Say so."
"I try to use the word 'Muggle' not often and only for certain cases and in a certain context. Still, I myself, heh, am Muggle-born, and it sometimes seems to me that if I call parents Muggles—I will, in some way, betray them. Semantics of the word, after all, is not the best."
"Yeah..." Sirius, sitting at the head of the table, smiled sadly. "Remember, there was a notable hysteria. When cousin got married, I thought my dearest mother would go shit herself..."
"Sirius!" Mrs. Weasley, who had just started setting the table, looked at Black with reproach. "Don't swear at the table."
"Sorry, but can't convey the meaning otherwise here," Sirius shrugged, but neither his face nor his gaze expressed either remorse or guilt. "It generally sometimes seemed to me that the whole family agreed with mother, just so she would shut up this nasty siren of hers that she had instead of a voice."
"Understand," Mr. Weasley quietly encouraged Sirius.
"Any problems?" Mrs. Weasley with a smirk in her eyes, but with a strict face looked at her husband.
"No-no, that is, Sirius," Mr. Weasley feignedly bristled. "Bad to say so."
It was at this moment that the twins and Ginny quickly ran into the kitchen, instantly sitting down in places.
"Good morning to all..."
"...and good mood," they began to speak, looking at everyone with smiles.
"What do we demine today?"
"Fifth room?"
"Sixth?"
"Second hall?"
"Basement?"
"Library?"
"Personally you, gentlemen," Mrs. Weasley finished with her duties, setting the table, which caused Ron's displeasure, who only now realized that there were a lot of cutlery in front of him again, and this is not a dream, "will go to the Burrow and attend to your usual duties. Let the house be closed for now, but the garden will not take care of itself, the living creatures will not feed themselves."
"Won't the piglets feed themselves?"
"Or geese?"
"Or chickens?"
"Punishment?" Mrs. Weasley arched an eyebrow in the manner of Snape, and the twins exchanged glances, nodding to each other.
"Feed, so feed, understood, not fools..."
"...If were fools—wouldn't understand."
After breakfast everyone went about their business, and this was the second point of bustle in the house. I joined in cleaning up, but was in no hurry to climb into rooms in search of adventures, and began to do what the others shirked for reasons incomprehensible to me—bringing the kitchen in order with magic. Apply charms there, renew a little here, restore here. In some places I felt strongly weakened charms on objects or surfaces without any prompts—magic seemed to envelope only part of the object, and it was this part that seemed the least worn or aged. Having restored such objects, I stretched these charms on the entire object with a volitional message, as it would seem, correct, and saturated them with magic—stood for years, if not decades, and will stand just as much after repair.
During lunch many were pleasantly surprised by the situation in the kitchen, which became like new, and although it remained gloomy, but now it is neat gloom, beautiful, and not an antediluvian ruin. Well and after the meal I went to my room—to forge. What did the others do? Well, adults in the person of Molly and Sirius tried to clean up. Twins—and who knows what they are busy with in the Burrow? Ron, probably, as always, walked back and forth, hit door jambs, leafed through Quidditch magazines or spat at the ceiling. Ginny, like me, tried to spend time alone with herself. What she does there—does not concern me.
Having completed the second quarter of the order, I looked at the clock—a couple more hours until dinner in this house. Would be good to estimate how to remove curses. Considering the little knowledge of maleficism that I have, and my understanding of magic in principle, can come to some thoughts.
For example, the most frequently encountered way to counteract sent curses are counter-spells, and it doesn't matter whether the curse is in flight, just broke from the wand, or it is already a dark spell embedded in the object, unfolding its effect. But all this is lyrics, for one should not consider oneself the smartest—land owners surely turned to qualified specialists in this field, and I strongly doubt that they did not try to apply their knowledge, including the initial level.
Also one of the ways, obvious both for me and for local Dark Wizards, is "Substitution". Simple in its essence, but difficult to implement and realizable only under certain conditions method. Its essence is fully conveyed in the name—simply substitution of the object of the curse is carried out. Only in this method, besides difficulties in methods of implementation, there is another important limitation—equivalence of the object of impact of the curse, and the object for substitution. In the case of people and in the absence of any special moral restrictions, everything is quite simple—human for human, wizard for wizard. When using, as it seems to me—just a guess—rituals and other additional manipulations, can substitute, for example, a human with a chicken. The curse will pass to the chicken, and it remains only to cure the person from the consequences of the impact of the curse.
But "Substitution"—is also a fairly obvious way. And the greater the difference between the significance and scale of objects, the more difficult it is to carry out the "deception" of the curse. Simply put, substituting land with a chicken—is a business, not only ungrateful, but also not a fact that it will work out, no matter how hard you try.
But can use what locals, it seems, generally do not think about or even suspect—purely energy manipulations. For example, conjure a likeness of the Lotus. The essence is simple—let it sprout like the Lotus on Nott territory, but will not infect and flourish, but absorb and flourish. Like roots absorb moisture from the earth. But... These are all guesses—need to be directly on the spot and determine there.
Which means, remains only to wait.
. . . . . .
Exactly five minutes before the appointed time, hidden by all methods known to me, I stood in a wasteland in a transfigured and fixed Plague Doctor costume and held a coin in my hands—it was the Portkey. Stood, and looked at the darkening sky in the west—the sun had already set.
I myself was ready for any, as it seems to me, surprises, and immediately after the transfer was ready to respond to aggression if someone showed it.
The Portkey triggered, a spatial anomaly pulled me in and smoothly threw me a step away from a huge black patch of land, clearly hidden behind some interesting protection. I landed clearly, one might even say, perfectly—not a single blade of grass was crushed. To my surprise, three wizards in robes stood around the place of my appearance and pointed their wands approximately where I was supposed to get.
"And where is he?" one of the wizards asked nervously. "It's time already."
"Don't be scared," the second one pulled him up. "Maybe he decided not to come here at all."
"Maybe someone busted the trap?" asked the third. "Or, maybe this is a trap for us?"
"Are you sick?" the second was indignant. "If they wanted to kill us, they would have killed us for free, without transferring a large amount to the account."
"Also true."
Hmm. Well okay. Activating the bracelet with triangles, directed them into the wizards' hands. Quiet whistle, and wands in the wizards' hands literally exploded, shattering into fragments, and their hands followed them. Before they realized and screamed in pain, I already sent three sleeping spells at them. Concentrating, splashed out a huge amount of energy through the wand into the Homenum Revelio spell. If such magic could be seen, it would be a wave carrying no harm, spreading in different directions and running, it seemed, to the very horizon. Absolutely no one around.
Approaching the sleeping wounded wizards, ran the wand over them—one, whom I mentally called "second", was found to have a large purse full of ringing gold coins.
"I came in successfully."
Don't know how much money is there, but it's definitely there. There is no protection on the purse, and the only magic is Undetectable Extension. Having checked the purse properly, made sure of "cleanliness" and attached it to my belt. Pointing the wand at the poor fellows, began to heal the wounds of each, using Vulnera Sanentur on pure life energy. This spell began to work so well that it fused the torn hands, pulling each of the pieces scattered around. Nice. Now it's time to get down to business directly.
Approaching the barrier separating a large, really large plot of black land, on which stood, as a mockery of the world, an almost white mansion, I wrapped myself in dense neutral magic and took a step forward.
Dark Magic literally began to beat me with a pood hammer. Not attack, but precisely press. If I understood the message of this magic correctly, this curse, it wanted to break my mind, introduce hallucinations so that I would see monsters in everyone and try to attack, so that I would be afraid of every shadow... So that it seemed as if they crawl under the skin and drink life. True, the latter is a real effect, because of which everything on this land was dead. The funniest thing, as it seemed to me, is that the curse was very hungry for food—it exhausted everything it could reach in the zone of action, and infused properly under conservation charms, completely unwilling to exhale or weather out, or disappear in any other way.
Much funnier was that I-phoenix woke up, feeling a stream of dark magic passing from me-human. As I expected, the connection worked perfectly—dark magic, distorted energy, it flowed from me to the phoenix, not affecting me, but also not affecting the phoenix itself—such energy is its essence. How can energy not affect me, but pass through me? Devil knows, but the elf shard "claims" that one should not perceive the world as purely three-dimensional space. That is, for magic, as energy, I-human and I-phoenix are, as it were, at one point. Difficult... The inferiority of the shard's knowledge raises more questions and misunderstanding than gives answers.
But, no matter how wonderful all this was, I can solve the problem in two ways. First—stand here, be bored, dark magic will be absorbed by me and go to the phoenix, and the curse will simply "end" because of this. Second option—create a semblance of the Lotus, as I planned. For me personally, it is obvious that the second option is better—it is unknown how long I will have to stand here for such a method to take effect. Which means...
Directing palms towards each other, I began to create a semblance of the Lotus, of course, with corresponding adjustments of images and mental messages. A minute, two—I was in no particular hurry, but did not slow down either, straining brains and will to the maximum.
At one fine moment, a black drop appeared between my palms, and when the process was completed—it fell on the black earth underfoot. Again it seemed to me as if a lonely drop fell on an endless calm water surface, diverging in waves.
With my eyes I saw how a wave of distortions seemed to roll over the black earth. Again. And again. But in fact everything remained calm. Black smoky jets began to stretch from the ground and, like prominences on the Sun, they twisted, touching the surface again. Some initially, like arcs, grew, burst and were drawn into the ground. Amusing spectacle, and in magic some incredible pandemonium was happening at all. But at one fine moment, black grass seemed to grow out of the ground. Grew with stakes, and immediately was drawn in. I clearly felt how the curse is pulled into one point—exactly in the place where the drop fell. Just in this place a lotus flower began to form and bloom.
A couple of moments, and the only source of dark magic, the source of the curse and generally, the infected object, was this very lotus flower—not material at all. I stretched out my hand over the flower, and it broke away from the ground, flying up and landing on my palm.
"Beautiful, damn it. And not nearly as scary as real energy of darkness or death from... From there," I interrupted myself.
Just one question—what to do with it now? No, I understand, feed to the phoenix—this will be beneficial, after all, it needs to be fed with something like that, if talking about energy diet. How to carry this into the house on Grimmauld? Even if dark magic is now felt in the lotus only upon contact, and the curse itself is reliably sealed... Ah, okay, I'll come up with something. Here, for example...
Transfiguring a simple-looking wooden box with a wand, put the Lotus there and closed the lid—this alone was enough for even my sensitivity to fail. Of course, I won't drag this into the house on Grimmauld—will hide under charms nearby, and then take a walk with the bird and feed it to him.
Concentrating, Apparated so that even crumbs of magic did not go into the background and did not leave a trace. Apparated a couple of blocks from Grimmauld, in a deserted and gloomy alley where there was not a single street lamp. Making sure that no one is around, knelt on one knee, parted the earth underfoot with magic and put the box there. A couple of spells—and ordinary people will bypass this place for a week at least, and wizards won't even notice anything. Simple spells for hiding, but the efficiency of their work increases with a decrease in the coverage area. Wonder how powerful charms are on the Leaky Cauldron then?
Dispelling my clothes and finding myself in ordinary ones, in which I went for a walk, boldly went to the house on Grimmauld. Need to write to Delacour that the work is done. Mention the ambush? No, I won't. But the main thing in all this is that I can engage in solving such issues, which means getting money too. Will need to rock the Frenchman's enthusiasm so that there are as many orders as possible—let him sweat for such a large percentage.
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