Two hours later I was in London, at the Leaky Cauldron, in a small room I'd rented for two hours, sitting by the small desk/makeup table thingy, with a jewelers kit beside me, hunkered over a hastily conjured vice that I'd clamped to the table. In the vice was, of course, the ring of Marvolo Gaunt. The ring had supposedly belonged to whats-his-name Peverell, which was why Piddle had wanted to use it for a soul jar. Personally I thought doing it like that was rather stupid, why put your soul into something that someone was more than likely to go looking for? If I had been stupid enough to try something like that I'd put it into something a bit more durable, entirely nondescript and uninteresting, and then I'd have put it somewhere where it would remain undisturbed, like in the foundation of a house I owned. Okay, so Piddle did one thing right, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Now, if the books were right then I theorized that the curse on the ring was only set to activate if anyone actually put it on, which meant that if I could pop the stone off I was home free, so to speak. The stone might still function as a soul jar, though that depended on whether or not the enchantment had attached to the ring or the stone. For an enchanter's perspective, it should be the ring, because the stone was already enchanted and should not accept any more enchantments. Unfortunately, I knew that the spell that created Horcruxes could circumvent that, or Piddle wouldn't have been able to use the Ravenclaw Diadem or the Cup of Hufflepuff as vessels for his soul shards.
I don't know if Piddle had figured out a way to get past the normal restrictions of enchanting, or if it was some sort of inherent property stemming from the spell itself, or even the fact that it centered around a piece of a person's immortal soul. I sighed. I really wished that the normal rules didn't go out the window every time that ass started to swing his dick around, I really did.
At least the ring was shoddily made. Looked nothing like the movie version besides general shape. Pure gold roughly shaped like two stubby fingers to clutch at a stone that was way too big to actually fit on a ring and still be considered tasteful. I'd blame inbreeding, but apparently, the Gaunts got it through a marriage with the Peverell's. Then again, they might have been inbred too, if they forgot what the damn stone actually was. Now that was a mystery for the ages, how do you forget about the soul summoning stone? I feel like that would be something to remember. I would bet good money on it being wizards and their lack of common sense, though.
At least it proved easy to slowly pry the fingers apart. There was a small crackling discharge of greenish energy when the stone popped loose that had me diving for the floor in pants shiting fear followed by a frantic examination of my hands and arms to see if whatever that had been had gotten on me all the while promising myself that I would get right on designing some sort of prosthetic arms that could be used for handling dangerous artifacts without having to touch them. It should be possible with some creative use of the Protean. I might even be able to give myself some more arms, maybe even tentacles or something.
I smiled a bit as I pictured how people would react to that. I could even make them flesh-colored with little hands on the end. "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch." I sang softly, and badly, before sitting back up and stared at the Resurrection Stone where it lay innocently on the desk. I licked my lips nervously.
I'd have to test it.
It should be safe now. The curse, if that was what it was, was set to activate if anyone put on the ring. He didn't know about the stone, so it should be safe to use.
It didn't stop me from being nervous. Not even a little.
I steeled myself and got to my feet and picked up the stone and stood there staring at it resting in the palm of my hand. But odd to think that this little stone was the center of an age-old legend. In the real world, it should have been in a museum. Felt kinda cool. Too bad it wasn't a sword or I would have done a He-Man impression.
Okay, enough procrastination. I turn the stone three times in the palm of my hand.
"Merlin."
The stone flared with a ghostly green-white light and a trailing agonized wail drifted through the room making me drop the stone and then do a second inspection if various extremity. Fucking hell was that? Had the ancient old fuck managed to magic up some sort of defense against summoning?
As it didn't seem to have done anything to me I picked up the stone again and in the name of science and lack of common sense I tried again.
"Merlin!"
Nothing.
No glow this time either. I tried it again with the same result. Well, that was passing strange, even for this kind of situation. Conclusions? No idea. The sudden thought that I might have broken the damn thing flashed through my head, sending chills down through my body. I quickly turned the stone three times again. "Agnes Sampson."
A woman appeared, she was far older then her portrait from school, but I could still see the stern straight-backed woman that I had met that second day at Hogwarts. She looked at me and frowned. "Why have you summoned me from my rest, young man?"
I gave her a shallow bow and gave her an apologetic smile. "Beg your pardon, Mrs. Sampson, your name was the first one that came to mind.
Her frow deepened before she looked down at the stone in my open hand. "That stone is not a toy, young man. It would behoove you not to treat it as such." She admonished me grimly.
I shrugged. "I know. Return to your rest, ma'am." I said before tossing the stone up in the air. The moment the stone left my palm Agnes faded away with a sound like a sigh. I snatched the stone up at it descended. "So still on working order, hmm." I mutterd to myself.
I tried calling on Merlin again, and then I tried using Myrddin, Merlinus Caledonensis, Merlin Ambrosius and Myrddin Emrys. None of his various names I knew of got any reaction from the stone. So… either he had some sort of defense set up before his death, or… he was still alive. I think I had some research to do on Camelot when school started up again. I had been planning on it anyway since Arthurian legend was something of a favorite of mine. And now that I thought about it, there were quite a few other famous people from that era that I could call up, including a certain silly knight.
But that was for later. Right now I had a portkey to catch.
---
As anyone that has read or seen the movies can attest to traveling by portkey is not depicted to be a pleasant experience for anyone involved. Even so, I underestimated the sheer level of discomfort involved. It was like being stuck in a washing machine in a dry cycle while it was being shot out of a canon at supersonic velocities with a crash landing at the end just to add injury to insult. By God's heavenly underwear, who in their right mind would make something like that and then not try to make it a bit more customer friendly? I clenched my teeth, closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, not to mention keeping my stomach from expelling its content all over myself and whatever was around.
"Welcome to Blåkulla, Gotland. Do you have anything to declare?" A bored security guard asked me once I managed to get the world to stop spinning and get to my feet. I briefly saw Paddy, who looked none worse for wear, the bastard, appeared on a nearby desk before fading away again. No helping hand for your master!? I taught you too well!
"The contents of my stomach?" I groaned out. "God, how has no one invented a better mode of travel?"
"The dizziness and nausea should pass soon. A drink of water might do your stomach some good." The guard said unsympathetically. He was dressed all in blue, and had a funny little hat on that looked oddly like the one parents sometimes make for kids out of paper. I suppose I should have expected the magical around here to be just as weird as the ones back in England. I noticed that he did have a badge on, but I couldn't focus well enough yet to read it.
"Or it might make me puke all over myself," I muttered grumpily.
"Either way you will feel better." Was the dry response.
I groaned and gave him a halfhearted glare. "Can I go?"
"So long as you have nothing to declare." He stated.
"No." I lied. I didn't have anything too bad, well, perhaps the Stone, but it would be a cold day in hell before I admited to having it to this jumped up crossing guard.
The guard gave a shallow nod. "You are free to go then."
"Thank you," I said insincerely before I staggered away from the embodiment of uninterest. It took me a few moments to get outside, and once I did I took a deep breath of fresh air before looking around and was immediately struck by a sense of familiarity. It was like someone had cut a piece of Old Town from back in Stockholm and plonked it down here and given it a magical twist. The streets were paved with cobblestone just like there while the houses were all made of plastered stone that stretched up around three stories or more. Every house was painted in bright cheery colors, making it seem like someone had tried to make the whole street looked like a rainbow.
The houses didn't look crooked like the ones that ringed Diagon alley, being instead straight and even like I'd expected from none magical architecture. The only deviation from the classic Old Town look was that most of the houses had a bit of gothic architecture mixed in, many of the houses had fearsome gargoyles on the corners of their roofs. And some of the more expensive looking ones even had had statues in little alcoves. Both were moving, either just watching passively, or actually waving friendly at passersby.
All in all, I think I liked it.