Because of everything that had happened with Ariana, Dumbledore found himself in the imperative need to take advantage of the weekend to legally secure his lie, fabricating the background story Ariana required.
What the headmaster had completely overlooked was that he had already promised that very same Saturday off to his deputy headmistress, and his plan to delegate his duties to someone else ran straight into a wall.
"Albus! It is inadmissible for you to intend to leave the school precisely tomorrow!" Minerva McGonagall rebuked him, torn between indignation and alarm at her superior's apparent irresponsibility.
"Minerva... I truly apologize for this, but an matter of extreme urgency has arisen that requires my immediate presence outside the castle," the old man apologized, visibly embarrassed. He had guaranteed the professor her day off, but the crisis with Ariana brooked no delay.
"It's just that I... I also have my own urgent matters to attend to," she admitted, while a sudden, slight blush tinted her cheeks. Although her business could well be postponed a bit, her body and her conscience demanded she resolve a certain accumulated tension in order to regain her peace of mind.
A heavy silence settled into the headmaster's office. Both were guarding their own secrets and urgencies... And right at that moment of maximum tension, the office door swung wide open. Severus Snape strode in with his usual billowing cloak and expression of deep distaste, ready to deliver a report and complain in the process.
In unison, Albus and Minerva froze. They stared at each other, then shifted their gaze to Snape, and finally locked eyes once more with perfect synchronicity, sharing a smile loaded with absolute complicity and malice.
Snape's eyes widened, and he took a step back, narrowing his gaze with deep suspicion and bewilderment as he perceived the sinister aura emanating from the two people in front of him.
...
Tenebrius arrived in Little Hangleton in absolute silence. Without alarming a single soul, he walked slowly through its streets, completely hidden from muggle sight, until he reached the boundaries of a specific property: the abandoned and decaying residence of the Gaunt family.
He paused for a few moments, raising his eyes to the last vestiges of that lineage... at least, the only ones the ordinary magical world was capable of finding. Contemplating the ruin, he couldn't help but consider a peculiar way to "honor" or, rather, "prevent the extinction" of that iconic pure-blood dynasty, while simultaneously insulting a certain psychopathic terrorist.
[Lyz... get me Merope Gaunt from one of the campaigns, please.]
He sent a [Message] while making his way into the dilapidated structure with total naturalness.
[You're always thinking about getting more females! 🐎😠]
[Just do me the favor, sweetness 💋 You know I'm asking because I recognize how benevolent you are and that you'd grant it to me... my sugar mare.]
[Hmm... you better return soon! If I had known that taking your power would keep you so far away from me, I never would have accepted it! It doesn't feel right to channel your energy without your consciousness present. It's not the same... Abusing your separated half only feels good fifty percent of the time!...]
[Were you abusing my other half?]
[... No...]
[Elise? 😟]
[Just come back soon... I have a surprise for you 🎁 Besides, just because I'm an immortal being doesn't mean you can keep me waiting forever. Do it, or I swear I'll start fucking your other half in the ways you don't allow me to... you know... shoving things into certain places... and not exactly your "things"... forcing you to do this... and that... 😍 💥 🌊]
[All right. We'll take a short, one-week adventure from the board.]
[A year! At the very least!]
[A month... You know perfectly well I try to avoid conceptual separations so close together. The process is extremely strange and uncomfortable; it literally feels like I'm breaking in two.]
[Fine... but you're going to have to be very good to me during that month... If not, you already know what awaits you.]
[Yes, yes... Although, you know? It would be an interesting experiment to reverse the roles. I wonder what it would feel like to violate the unconscious body of my beloved alicorn... To defile her empty shell while her spirit can do nothing but witness it... to watch how I corrupt her body without her being able to do anything to stop it.]
[DON'T PROVOKE ME!!! 🌋🌋🌋🌊]
Cutting off the communication with a smile, Tenebrius stood before the entrance of the house. Before taking a step inside, he began to check the items stored in his inventory. Out of nowhere, he materialized several protective charms, necklaces, and medals in his hand.
"Well... time to put these beauties to the test. Must make sure they function adequately," he said to himself.
He pushed the door and entered. He advanced with a firm and steady stride, without hesitating, holding his wand high. Although he had already acquired the passive skill of night vision, he cast Lumos mainly to evaluate how the light interacted with the magical traps of the place.
Barely had he stepped inside a few meters, the back door slammed shut behind him, and a thick, unnatural blackness absorbed him completely. Instantly, one of the amulets around his neck began to screech loudly before cracking and going inert.
"Acid darkness... Nothing out of the ordinary," he commented with disdain. He waved his wand with a precise movement, dissolving the curse with its equivalent counter-spell. The surroundings cleared up again. "It seems the security of this place remains the same as always."
Three more steps and a few of the sparse wall decorations transmuted into sharp knives, shooting toward him at full speed. One of the charms lit up with a blinding flash; all the daggers aimed at his vital zones bounced off violently upon colliding with an invisible barrier, while the rest pierced his body mercilessly.
Tenebrius didn't even blink. He pulled the blades out one by one with total indifference while another of his medallions vibrated, beginning to crack as it neutralized the potent poisonous curses permeating the weapons.
A few more steps. An agonizing shriek that disturbed the very soul echoed down the hallway; further ahead, a thick black cloud with a skull inside flew straight at his face; then, the illusion of thousands of flesh-eating maggots that would have driven any ordinary wizard insane...
Every corner of the property spat dark curse after dark curse against the invader—highly lethal traps typical of a very capable dark wizard. However, most were contained by the pendants, which activated and shattered in the process. Well, not all spells were stopped; the amulets only prioritized those attacks that were immediately fatal.
Of course, in addition to the offensive magics infesting the house, defensive barriers designed to prevent entry were also operating, but that was something Tenebrius could easily bend with the simple application of his magical brute force.
Soon, after having traversed every inch of the structure to deliberately activate every cursed trap, Tenebrius reached a certain room in particular, having strategically reserved it for last.
There, on a table pushed against the wall, sat a small, luxurious chest, buried under a thick layer of dust. Without the slightest hint of fear, he cast a powerful counter-spell to force the lock. Immediately, he turned around toward the floor, completely ignoring the countless cursed snakes emerging from the chest and lunging at him. He approached a specific section, pried up several floorboards with a subtle charm, and froze a hidden golden box in mid-air. The vipers, upon biting him, died instantly due to his passive protection, while the rest of his medallions fragmented, heating up to a red glow from the saturation of dark magic.
Tenebrius opened the golden box. There lay the ring; an ancient piece that seemed to emit an imperceptible, hypnotic ethereal voice urging him to put it on. Without his features altering their cold serenity, he slid it onto his finger.
The next instant, a powerful and malignant curse—infinitely superior to any other trap in the house—attempted to invade his system. In that microsecond, several of his necklaces and amulets exploded into a thousand pieces. Nonetheless, thanks to the sacrifice of the protections, the curse that should have been instantly fatal was reduced to a simple, manageable chronic decay.
"Good... the performance is acceptable," he commented, examining both the ring and the protective pieces that still remained nearly intact.
Without wasting any more time, Tenebrius vanished from the ruin, appearing directly in his [Fief]. He set out to craft the perfected versions of those amulets while evaluating the attributes of the ring along the way. Although the object was severely corrupted by the Horcrux fragment, that was an inconvenience he would resolve very soon.
...
The next morning at Hogwarts, I could already feel it in the air. I didn't even require the reports from the clone I kept monitoring the target to know that the exact moment was approaching; my own prophetic talent warned me in advance. It was a physical sensation, like a drastic change in atmospheric pressure or a subtle prickle at the back of my neck that put me on alert.
I fixed my gaze into the distance, as if capable of spotting my target through the castle walls, and then returned my attention to my girls, who continued training against one another until they were drenched in sweat. To be honest, the scent of collective sweat, the damp robes clinging to their bodies, added to the pants and groans of exertion echoing throughout the place, made me a little horny. But now was not the time to be distracted by that. Each of them had spent these last few days under my constant, merciless torment; even so, they were giving it their all. Granted, some proved more capable and adaptable than others, but none had faltered. And now, it was time to channel all that sweat and sacrifice.
"Girls!" My call echoed loudly throughout the training hall, forcing them to stop dead in their tracks and turn in my direction. With my hands clasped behind my back and an expression so severe it left no room for doubt, I sentenced: "This afternoon... be ready."
My words impacted them directly. They knew perfectly well what I meant, causing the atmosphere to tense up immediately. The crucial moment, the one for which they had prepared so much, had finally arrived.
"Rest, gear up, and get your heads in the game," I ordered with the solemnity of a general addressing his battalion before deployment, managing the pace of the scene to raise the tension according to the circumstances.
Some of the girls nodded with determination, others let a spark of excitement show in their eyes, and a few could not hide their worry. Realistically speaking, most of them still found it hard to digest that they would be the ones executing the mission. Perhaps the bolder ones were already savoring it, but to the rest, it seemed like an extremely dangerous undertaking. Despite everything, they had pushed themselves too hard for this; they understood that this was a step they had to take on their own account if they wanted to achieve true glory and experience the satisfaction of concluding the job by their own means. Furthermore, the blind faith that I would protect them from any real danger gave them the necessary courage to suppress their fear and reaffirm their resolve.
After all, this was a job exclusively designed for the "heroines of Hogwarts."