The Black Patriarch must have sensed his fear. His eyes softened and he spoke in a gentle paternal tone, "Harry, there's no need to look so worried. I told you; I'm not interested in using you. I'm too old, and I'm too tired for this, I am getting your measure as my potential heir, nothing more, and I have a lot more on my plate than attacking a schoolboy for no reason. You're young and you made a lot of mistakes when we talked to each other, and you will make a lot of mistakes over time. You need to be careful when you're talking to politicians. You're an intelligent boy, I'll give you that, but you are inexperienced when it comes to politics. I suppose that's something I'll have to help you with. My heir or not, you're Charlus' heir, and I do owe that man much, enough to help you out sometimes. Now tell me, about the basilisk. What do you have too far in terms of fighting it?" the Black Patriarch asked.
Harry took a deep breath and for the first time in this life decided to show a modicum of trust towards an adult. It wasn't easy, but the man knew already knew that it he was a seer and that he saw the chamber of secrets. It wasn't exactly true. He was technically a seer, but it wasn't how he knew about the chamber. Honestly, it was his seer abilities that pushed him towards accepting Arcturus' invitation in the first place. A week before receiving the invitation, he saw a vision of a Grim giving Harry a sword that he used to kill a giant serpent. The moment he had read the invitation later, he understood what it meant, that Arcturus Black would help arm him for the coming conflict. Perhaps revealing enough wouldn't be a bad idea, "Well, I constructed my own Basilisk Glare-Resistant goggled to avoid being killed immediately. I combined the old designs from the book you gave me with Jewel Craft, which…"
The man's eyes lit up and continued, "Which would let you absorb the diffracted magic of the glare, adding to the durability of the goggles and a possible reserve for something else. A very impressive idea, indeed. Does it work?"
"I have to way to test it, but it does refract any spell I tried, so it should work with any magic, including the Basilisk Glare," Harry responded.
"What else have you done to prepare?" The Black Patriarch was getting very excited now.
"I learnt Ice magic, but the progress is slower than I like. But the biggest thing I did was plan a weapon, one that should be capable of killing a Basilisk. The problem is that I have a few problems acquiring the materials."
"So, you need my help. What's the guarantee that this will work?" the man asked with shrewd eyes.
"Well, I am planning on crafting it tomorrow. The Winter Solstice should be optimal for this. You can judge it later, but let's be absolutely clear, that this weapon will be mine, and mine alone. You will have no stake in it whatsoever. I would rather not build it at all if that means that it would fall into another's hands. No offence, but you seem nice and all, but I don't know enough about you to trust you with something like this."
"But you'd trust me enough for the materials…" the man stated with a slight smile on his face.
"Yes. I think you would do it out of curiosity more than anything."
The Black Patriarch burst into laughter, "You know what, I really am curious. You'll have your materials. Impress me, little Potter. What do you need for your weapon?"
Harry grinned and asked, "I need as much Goblin Silver as you can spare, the more the better, and a House Elf in your service called Kreature."
The man's eyes widening almost made the Potter scion burst into laughter.
21 December 1992, Hogwarts
It was finally the winter solstice and Harry was ready. It was two hours before midnight, and Harry could feel the energy of Yule slowly reach its peak, at which time, building the weapon would be optimal.
Despite what the high officials of the Ministry of the Magic chose to believe in their paranoid minds, Yule celebration rituals were in general very tame. It was well known that the night of the Winter solstice was the moment of the year when magic seemed the most willing to be chaotic, wild, and destructive.
You see, magic comes and goes like season. The closer the date is to the Winter solstice the more the magic is wilder and darker. Similarly, the more we approach the summer solstice, the more orderly and burning it becomes.
And it shows, very few people risked using this magic for any large ceremony in the Winter solstice due to the unpredictable nature of the magic, the same way that the magic is very limited and rigid in the summer solstice. There was a reason why most people preferred to use Samhain and Beltane for their preferred rituals.
Samhain rituals were already potentially dangerous; the celebrations happening at a time when the veil between the dimensions of the living and the dead thinned considerably, and more than one wizard or witch had met their rather painful end on this particular day because they were careless, but Yule rituals had a far more sinister history. There were countless tales of tragedies that wiped out entire towns and families, who had recklessly harnessed the power of the Winter Solstice for their purpose.
Of course, it is possible to use that power especially if you're some kind of specialist with an iron will and precise control over your magic, and in the case of people like Harry, if you also don't know what the actual end result is supposed to be specifically and are somehow following the flow of magic, guiding it, instead of controlling it. In Harry's situation, the only thing that guaranteed that the ritual would work was Harry's arcane hearing and the plans provided by his magical crest.
Harry went down to the ritual room in the dungeons, while wearing his special robes, took out a piece of chalk, and started to create the ritual circle. It wasn't anything fancy, just a way to absorb a fraction of the energy of the winter solstice and imbibe its destructive properties in the weapon.
It wasn't exactly necessary, but since the Potter scion aimed to create a weapon, destruction was a good attribute to have. Inside the ritual circle, was a second alchemical circle, which held the materials sacrificed for the ritual. There were seven in total, an ingot of Orichalcum that Harry had left over from his research into his Basilisk glare-resistant goggles. There was a pinch of Zouwu hair, which was a magical creature that was native to China. It was essentially a gigantic elephant-sized cat, that had some kind of scraggly main, and a disproportionately long, ruffled multicoloured tail. The main characteristics of this magical creature were the fact that it was very fast and could actually teleport while bypassing most apparition wards. These hairs cost him a pretty penny to buy.
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