Read my new story (CaveLeather)
Game of Thrones: The Sword King
Game of Thrones: From Deserter to Power
Game of Thrones: King of Harrenhal— Garth Greenhand Stat Panel
"I need a place to hide things."
"I need a place to hide things."
"I need a place to hide things."
After pacing back and forth three times in front of a tapestry and chanting his desire, a door actually appeared. Owen held his smaller wand in his left hand, double-checked the layers of Armor Charms on his body, carefully opened the door, and tossed a magical training dummy inside.
Good. No attacks triggered.
After confirming the dummy was safe, Owen walked in. Immediately, he was greeted by a pile of... junk!
Judging by the thickness of the dust, no one had entered this room for at least a few decades. The items stored here included tables, chairs, books, broken broomsticks, and even... a love letter?
"This love letter wasn't sent but hidden here... unrequited love, I guess?"
Owen had no intention of opening it. He put the item back exactly where he found it. Who knows? Maybe years later, someone would come in and pleasantly discover that their great-grandfather or great-grandmother had such a spicy backstory during their school days!
Young and reckless in youth, leading to dying of embarrassment in front of grandchildren in old age. Funny stuff.
A utility closet would be tidier than this place. It seemed the previous discoverers of this room didn't value it much. Waving his wand to clear a simple path, Owen began his serious search.
In the library records, the effect of Ravenclaw's Diadem was documented in detail, stating that whoever wore it would possess Ravenclaw's wisdom.
However, the nature of this wisdom wasn't described, nor were there any photos or portraits of the Diadem itself. So, Owen's search strategy wasn't based on appearance, but on magical fluctuations—specifically, the signature of Dark Magic.
It took a full two hours before Owen finally found a tiara emitting Dark Magic waves atop a stone bust. It had a feminine design, quite vintage in style. As he got closer, Owen could clearly sense a restless little soul—or rather, a soul fragment—inside this retro lady's crown.
"It seems Voldemort never actually wore it. Otherwise, he wouldn't have continued making Horcruxes, and certainly not using such famous artifacts."
His curse-breaking work in Egypt hadn't been in vain. However, extracting the soul from inside while keeping the object intact required more than just spells; it needed the assistance of potions.
After stowing away the Diadem, Owen spent time in the room until dinner. confirming there were no similar items, he left, returning to the Great Hall to eat.
After dinner, he went to the Chamber of Secrets for his two-hour Teaching Assistant session. Once he had sent all the little wizards away, he finally took out pen and paper to design the prescription.
In his countless failed attempts at modifying potions, he hadn't come up empty-handed. Among the failures were four types of poisons specifically targeting the soul!
But there was only one that destroyed the soul without damaging the vessel. It was the potion Professor Snape jokingly referred to as the "Unforgivable Potion"—the Felix Soul-Shatter (modified from Liquid Luck).
As the name suggested, this was an uncurable poison Owen had accidentally invented while trying to alter the recipe for Felix Felicis. To this day, Snape couldn't figure out why, using the exact same ingredients, Owen's version became a deadly poison just by changing the order of ingredients and adding a few common toxins.
Fortunately, Owen had a habit of taking notes; otherwise, even he might not have been able to brew a second batch. After targeted research, he discovered that the essence of this Felix Soul-Shatter was just one thing: Moldy Salt!
Yes, that's right. Salt that had grown mold.
Something impossible in the Muggle world was achievable in the wizarding world. If word got out, muggle chemists would lose their minds.
But in the magical world—hey, if a rooster can lay an egg (for a Basilisk), what's wrong with salt getting a little moldy?
Authentic Felix Felicis took six months to brew. Even with Owen and Snape's endless improvements, they only managed to shorten it to two months. However, turning it into an "Unforgivable Potion" took only three hours. Once the normal ingredients were preliminarily fused, adding the moldy salt made it finish instantly.
It was already midnight by the time the potion was ready. Owen, however, was wide awake. He found an open space, conjured a large transparent glass tank, and carefully poured all the potion inside. Watching the liquid radiating rainbow-colored light, he gingerly dropped the Diadem in.
Glug, glug...
The potion reacted immediately, bubbling up as if someone inside was drowning.
It's working!
Owen didn't step closer. Instead, he backed away further, alert with his small wand in his left hand and his main wand in his right. If anything charged out, he was ready: a Cruciatus Curse from the left, a Killing Curse from the right, plus the Fiendfyre Curse that had become instinctual enough to cast with a mere thought.
Forget a soul fragment; even if Voldemort himself popped out, he'd lose a layer of skin.
The potion's effect was surprisingly good. It dissolved the soul inside the Diadem without even giving it a chance to scream. That said, Voldemort's soul was incredibly resilient; it actually exhausted the potency of an entire pot of Soul-Shatter.
The rainbow-colored potion had now turned completely into a transparent white liquid and was rapidly shifting toward red. Owen quickly fished the Diadem out. If the liquid turned red, the Diadem wouldn't survive—that stage was a strong acid five times more corrosive than aqua regia.
Disposing of the waste was much easier; just setting it on fire would do.
Looking at the floating, brand-new Diadem in front of him, Owen had no intention of wearing it. Instead—
"Aguamenti."
His small wand turned into a miniature high-pressure water gun, rinsing the Diadem inside and out. He then dried it with normal fire before locking it into his homemade safe.
Owen had zero interest in Ravenclaw's wisdom, but he was very interested in dealing with the remnant souls inside. This was just the first physical experiment, and the results were excellent. Once he had enough data, he would mail the formula to Egypt to bring a little good news to the curse-breakers working there.
So far, it hadn't been proven that the Soul-Shatter potion worked on curses, simply because Owen didn't have any cursed items on hand.
Of course, there was no rush. Such experiments would gather data quickly enough. The reason?
Well, wizards... the one thing they never lacked was curses!