Rehabilitiation, Part 7.2: Successful Murder
"So, would you mind explaining why you want me dead?"
When the Griffon disappeared in a pop, Riddle instantly knew the answer.
In the wake of the assassin's departure came a sudden explosion of political turmoil. There were harsh accusations made by pony diplomats and slightly more diplomatic accusations made by Changelings and the Griffon King's cries of innocence/ignorance and Celestia's attempts to ease tensions while still getting to the truth.
Everything was silenced by the sound of a magically-amplified CRACK, accompanied by an actual crack that spiderwebbed out from where Riddle's hoof had made contact with the floor.
"The assassination target would like to register his opinion," he said in an utterly calm and slightly dry tone of voice, "that the nation of Griffonia is not to blame. That was someone I personally knew, someone with a vendetta against me. In the future," he said to his own party, "do not make accusations on my behalf without consulting me first. Reparo."
While the damaged stone fixed itself, he less obviously dispelled the locks and wards he established. He had not performed the anti-apparition ward, believing he would not need it and that it would only hinder his own movements in an emergency. He would not make that mistake next time.
He then began eating the non-lethal parts of his dinner as though nothing interesting had just happened. He answered most of the inevitable questions that came his way, saying things like "I don't know the name he goes by," and, "Finding him would be a fool's errand," and, "Wanted posters would just encourage him to adjust his appearance."
Then Luna asked, "Why was he trying to kill you?" Given the stare she was giving him, she'd probably guessed a number of true things by now, thanks to his words and the Griffon's method of escape.
And that meant he could take a slightly different approach when responding to her. "Don't pry."
By her tense and pained expression, he knew he had successfully reminded her of his employment agreement.
Celestia, who was not bound by that agreement, gave him a highly suspicious look. But she did not press the matter in front of the griffons, especially the king, who seemed happy to drop the topic of a griffon trying to assassinate a pony.
Security increased tenfold after the incident. Riddle was not expecting his old victim to try again until the heat died down, when there weren't so many eyes on the lookout.
The protective line of soldiers leading from the castle, for example, was much longer and denser than it had been on arrival, and there were more armoured griffons in the air as well. Even still, one moment he was following Celestia and Luna down the red carpet, the next he was staring out at his ritual room from within the Elder Wand. The transition was instantaneous, his death so quick that he didn't even know it happened until after the fact, nor did he know the method the assassin had used.
Impressive, he mentally complimented as he incanted a tempus for future/past reference. I wonder how he beat the troll skin.
Had it been a killing curse, or some unknown Equestrian equivalent? If not, it would have had to be something that could destroy his brain in one go, otherwise the troll's regeneration would have saved him. It wasn't Fiendfyre – he would have seen and felt that coming. But the method needed to be magically and/or physically powerful enough to go through the reinforcements the troll provided to his flesh and bones, so it had to be something significant.
Whatever was done, it deserved praise for the tactics alone, especially considering he'd been surrounded by security. That was when he realized the very real and unsavoury possibility that it had been a large detonation.
He quickly began reviving himself by Transfiguring a temporary, non-permanent body from within his wand Horcrux. He couldn't move himself, as he had originally feared, but he set it up so that the wand's tip was already in contact with a pebble, and it would stay that way as the pebble grew to a body.
It's good that he did all his testing months ago, otherwise his dead body would have immediately revived itself in a stupid way. He did not want to avoid explaining, to his employer or to Celestia, why his dead body could become a newborn foal in a burst of phoenix fire. The age was easily fixed with a permanent self-Transfiguration, but the obviousness of the phoenix magic could not be helped.
He had to devote a large portion of his Horcrux testing to the phoenix revival problem. He didn't stop until the automatic instinct became a manually chosen process. He committed, back then, to Horcrux revival. He didn't think he would ever go the phoenix route unless his body, and the powers bound to it, couldn't be recovered any other way.
On the plus side, his testing had revealed a major improvement to his system: being murdered no longer knocks him out of commission, even for a few minutes. He didn't know if that was due to the phoenix or one of his other precautions, like the anti-Transfiguration trigger. It was probably the phoenix, but he wasn't sure. Until recently, he hadn't 'died' in over twelve years, so it could have come from any improvement he made since then. It could even be the result of simple experience with the soul-transfer ability of his base horcrux system, which he had spent years examining when he had nothing better to do than stare at the stars.
In practical terms, he can now respond to murder attempts, including successful ones, almost instantly. Even after he finished transfiguring a temporary body, occupied it, and apparated back to Griffonstone, a tempus informed him that less than a minute had transpired since he'd been killed.
He departed his notice-me-not arrival spot towards his corpse, thinking as he flew.
He didn't mind if Luna/Celestia discovered the true nature of his immortality – that he is deathless, not just ageless like they are – so long as they remain ignorant about the details. That means obscuring things as much as possible, but that can be arranged.
For instance, he had transfigured this body non-permanently, with as little magic as possible. When he leaves the body, his sustaining magic will leave with him, causing it to revert back into the small pebble it had been two minutes ago. An additional layer of disillusionment, which he just now added to himself, should cause that small pebble to go unnoticed, even if he has to perform the resurrection ritual while surrounded by witnesses. Until then, he will also remain fully invisible at all times.
He was not seen or detected as he approached the perimeter of the crime scene and slipped through the unicorn shields and detection webs around the whole area. Outside the barrier, there was panic, dismay, and a great deal of confusion. Inside, there was rigid military discipline. There was also the grisly scene of his corpse, whose body was unharmed, but whose head had been blown off above the cheeks. So, it had been something precise, not been a detonation.
His employer was loudly and physically mourning his departure, which was annoying, but also… something else.
That 'something' was over in a flash, though. It was like a single heartbeat, a single instance of a chemical flushing through his brain. He didn't even know what it had been, just that it was either something he'd never felt before, or something he had not felt in a long time, so long that he couldn't even name the emotion anymore. It's not something he'd recently felt in someone else via the Changeling sense, but then, he does his best to ignore that sense on a daily basis.
Whatever it was, he could investigate later in the astral plane. For now, he has work to do. He trusted his protection from subsequent murder attempts to his future/past self/selves and got down to business.
First he cast a wordless ventriloquism charm so that his ritual chant would sound as if it was coming from the exact location of his corpse's lips. For the sake of mischief and further obfuscation, he cast a puppet spell that would cause his corpse's lips to move in tandem with his own.
Then he quietly walked forward into position, retrieved the Stone of Permanence from its hiding place, and chanted, clearly and precisely, "Flesh, flesh, flesh, so wisely hidden." Bone and flesh and skin and fur rose and wove together from the stump of the lower half of his head, until the whole thing was healed in less than five seconds.
The effort took more magic and mental strain than usual, though. Outside of his ritual room, he couldn't rely on pre-programmed obelisks. He had to maintain a tedious and draining charm that would produce the secondary echo chants. For that reason, an electrical shock would restart his heart faster and more efficiently than the blood ritual.
That was another test he'd run in private, multiple times until he'd perfected it: the newly-invented defibrillator charm, modified from the shock spell.
With blood circulating through it once more, his body was ready for re-occupation, so he dismissed the Stone, touched his forehead with his invisible hoof, carefully avoiding his gaping employer, and said the words of transfer: "Fal, tor, pan."
Luna stared in shock and disbelief as the wound in the head of her dear departed fool closed itself. She watched as skull and flesh and skin and fur sprouted up from the gaping wound and wove itself together in a methodical, magical, and impossible display of healing.
She thought she had been hearing a ghost when she heard her fool's voice just now. Though ghosts took longer to anchor than a minute, she was now realizing, and their voices were not accompanied by creepy six-fold echoes, or the healing of their dead bodies.
When the head was healed, the body beneath her convulsed, causing her to startle in alarm (though not jump back and leave her position). After another brief chant coming from the mouth of the dead body, her fool jerked beneath her hooves and neck and cheek.
(A disillusioned pebble dropped unnoticed to the ground about a foot away from his head.)
There came a groan of discomfort. "If you would kindly release me," said the voice of her fool, "I would appreciate it. Unless you want to owe me a favour for yet another hug."
She was utterly, completely dumbfounded, and maybe a bit frightened, as her fool rose to a seated position.
"Luna," said the voice of her sister. "Stand back."
Luna had already been rising, but she stepped fully back at her sister's concerned command. She turned to see Tia's horn glowing golden.
"If I intended to hurt her," said the voice of her fool. Luna turned back to see the dead pony rise fully to his hooves. "I would have done so long ago."
"Where dark magic is concerned," said Celestia, aiming her horn directly at him, but casting no spells yet, "intentions rarely matter. Harm always comes."
"Dark magic?" he echoed. He raised a single eyebrow. "Immortality is dark, now? I hope you are not about to say something hypocritical." Luna felt a significant bit of deception in his words, but also the sense that he hadn't outright lied. It really was him.
"Mere immortality?" asked Celestia. "No. The kind that reminds me of a lich? Absolutely."
"A lich?" Riddle echoed, frowning. "I was under the impression that liches were purely fictional fabrications, due to the absurdity and inconsistency of the accounts about them. Are they real after all?"
"Luna?" Celestia demanded at once.
"He speaks true," said Luna. "Though he is hiding something, as always."
Celestia looked around at the staring/gaping/fearful/awed crowd of Changelings, Griffons, and ponies. She established a crude privacy barrier. "Are you a threat to me, my sister, Equestria, or Griffonia?"
Her fool took a moment to think about it, then said, honestly and without any deception, "Not an active one. I think I have proven as much by now."
"Are you a potential threat?"
"Everypony is a potential threat," he replied. "In my case, if I become one in the future, I don't think it's possible for me to be the lethal or tortuous kind of threat. At worst, I can plot for you to suffer the errors of your own ways, like I did with Blueblood. So no, I am not a potential threat in the sense that you care about."
Her sister glanced at her.
"He is being honest," said Luna.
"Then we will speak more in the carriage," Tia declared. She dispelled the privacy barrier. "I think it best," she announced to the staring crowd, "if we leave before any more trouble is caused. I apologize for the fuss."
The Griffons tried to offer their own apologies. They offered for the ponies to stay until the killer- er, the attempted killer is hunted down. They offered to supply extra guards for the carriage.
Celestia rejected every offer. The safest option, she said, would be for them to leave as quickly as possible, under the strongest shielding charms she and her guard captain could establish. That way, if the killer tried again, no Griffons would be harmed.
"Liches are not fabrications," sighed Celestia once they were airborne and alone and warded for privacy. "I would not ordinarily tell you of all ponies, but you clearly have a better version of deathlessness than liches, so I trust that you will not go out and become one now that you know the truth."
"That is an excuse," said Riddle.
"I know," said Celestia. "It's not like I have a choice anymore. The fact of the matter is that I should not have let it slip like that."
Riddle nodded. "Thank you for acknowledging the mistake for what it was."
"We all make mistakes," Luna defended her sister.
"True," said Riddle, "but if you excuse them, you will simply get more."
"He is right," Celestia said. "Do not worry, Luna. I am not upset by the fact that he is driving the point home." She turned to face him. "What does upset me is your continued reticence. So, now that we are in private, would you mind explaining why your immortality reminds me of lich magic?"
"Yes," said Riddle, "I would mind."
There was a clash of eyes and wills in the room. Luna could feel the tension in the air.
"Why?" asked Celestia.
"Because I do not even know why my magic reminds you of liches, so I don't know the accusation I'm defending myself from. And even if I did I would prefer not to explain."
"What would it take to get you to explain?"
"I would say it would take a Vow similar to the one your sister has sworn before I explain, but seeing as I have not even told her, and I have no intention of telling her, I think the answer to your question is that nothing could get me to explain. Nothing that I can see."
"Not good enough," said Celestia firmly, her voice no longer containing a hint of negotiation. "This is how things are going to be, Mystery Book. I helped my sister compose the Vow she swore to you; even though I was not in the room, I know the contents."
"And?"
"And that means, if you are innocent of recent wrongdoing, you can tell her what you have done without fear of reprisal. You will tell her what your immortality entails. And if the exception to her Vow allows for it, if you have done recent harm to our little ponies, she will tell me about it."
"I said I don't have the intention to tell her."
"And I say that you will, regardless of your intentions," said Celestia. "Unless you wish to be ignobly discharged from your positions and arrested for the use of Dark Magic."
"Despite your lack of hard evidence?"
"If you refuse to be questioned by Honesty, that shall be all the 'hard evidence' I need to know that you have done something terrible to my subjects."
"Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence?" he asked sarcastically.
"Honesty happened," said Celestia. "We no longer need to presume. We can know if you are innocent or not. Thus, you will submit to honesty or you will be jailed. You do not realize how lenient I am being. Ordinarily, suspicions of such magnitude warrant immediate arrest."
"And if I leave the country instead?"
"Then you will be declared an enemy of the state."
"You do realize I can take on the state, yes?" he asked dryly, not sounding intimidated or cowed. "I can defeat any force except maybe you two. I can escape any cell. And I can go into hiding easily enough, if all else fails. Why should I-"
"Doing so would not make you happy," said Luna, finally deciding to intervene.
Riddle turned his gaze from Celestia, regarding her with an intense and thoughtful look for a surprisingly long time.
"…Very well," he said eventually. He turned back to Celestia. "I'll acquiesce. But if the exception to her Vow does not apply, you will be told nothing, and you will never question me about it again. Agreed?"
Celestia met his gaze steadily. "Agreed. But if you wish to say anything in advance to defend what your lich-like immortality involves, in case I discover it on my own, now would be the time."
Riddle opened his mouth, looking ready to deny her request, then he hesitated, closing his mouth in a brief pause of thought. After the brief pause was over, he grinned slightly, then he replied.
"The best I can do for you is to say what my immortality does not involve. But for that I would have to know more about liches, and the specific 'darkness' you are worried about. As I said earlier, I do not know what I am being accused of doing."
"You must promise not to abuse the knowledge I tell you," said Celestia at once. "You must promise that no ponies will come to harm as a result of your learning it."
"Fine," said Riddle honestly. "I promise, as much as such a thing can be promised. As you said, I have something better, at least compared to what is said about liches in fiction. I don't have a fragile phylactery that can be crushed by hoof, for example. But I can't promise that I won't draw inspiration from other aspects, depending on the magic involved." He held up a forestalling hoof at Celestia's furious expression. "Keep in mind that I am entirely ignorant about lich magic. If it is a ritual requiring a blood sacrifice of a hundred ponies, I wouldn't know."
Tia's gaze shot to Luna, who said, "He is telling the truth."
"I am," Riddle nodded, then seemed to hesitate minutely. "Does it require a blood sacrifice of a hundred ponies?"
There was a long silence in the cabin of the carriage.
"Ten," said Celestia, her eyes still focused narrowly upon him.
Riddle sighed. "Of course it does. You can see that my statement was coincidence, yes?"
"I can," Celestia said. "Tell me more about your own intentions before I tell you more. Why you are curious about lich magic?"
"Other than the fact that I am being accused of using it," Riddle said for the third time, his tone dry once more, "my general usefulness to you and your sister is a direct result of my creativity. I draw inspiration from unusual places and innovate in ways that other ponies can't. If the lich ritual is extremely dark in almost every way, but I can see how to tweak one aspect to make the whole thing less dark, or if I can see how to apply its principles in a way that does not conflict with your morals, I would not hesitate to... well, I would hesitate to tell you about it, depending on the risks of letting the knowledge out. But I think you get the point I am trying to make."
"I do," said Celestia, seeming to relax slightly when Luna nodded to her that, yes, he's still telling the truth. "What else do you need to know about liches that you do not already know?"
"Does it require anything other than a ten-pony sacrifice to become a lich?" he asked. "And why must so many be sacrificed in the first place?"
"It also requires the self-sacrifice of the pony who wants to become the lich," said Celestia. "And I do not know why it requires the deaths of so many. I only know that the ritual does require it."
"What, precisely, does the ritual accomplish?" asked Riddle.
"It binds the consciousness of a pony to an object on this physical plane, as you seem to already know. Once the lich ritual is performed and the phylactery is made, the target lives a half-life evermore. Their ability to feel is permanently removed from them – pain, pleasure, love, hate, and every other emotion ceases to reach them. Even tactile sensation is gone. They become evil creatures of logic and power and apathy, endlessly pursuing their own interests until madness finally takes them."
"When you say they are creatures of power," said Riddle with a frown, "were they more powerful than you?"
"No," said Celestia, "but nor were they less powerful. Both of the liches I have encountered had the magical strength to match mine almost exactly, which did not help to dispel their delusions of grandeur."
"What do they look like?"
"The two I encountered liked to take the appearance of skeletal Alicorns most of the time, but from what I heard, they could take other forms as well. I think they came to prefer the form for the symbolism of it. They have the power of Alicorns, true, but a skeleton is a literal representation of what they feel inside. They are the powerful, empty remnants of the ponies they used to be."
"I see," said Riddle, still with that thoughtful frown.
"What are you thinking, fool?" Luna asked, a bit nervously.
"I am thinking that the ritual should not need to sacrifice so many ponies to achieve that result," said Riddle. "Not unless it is extremely inefficient, with the only point of the excess being to grant power akin to an alicorn."
"Are you thinking of using it to empower yourself?" asked Celestia, eyes fixed firmly on the fool.
"Oh, you needn't worry about that," Riddle chuckled. "If it were possible to become over-powered using that method, you'd think that a would-be lich, who's willing to sacrifice ten ponies in the first place, would be willing to sacrifice more. There is likely a hard limit, and that hard limit is likely the stage of Alicorn power. Even on the assumption that I am evil, and even on the assumption that I would be willing to perform that sacrifice, the truth is that I'm close enough to reaching Alicorn status honestly that I wouldn't bother with the evil route, especially given its drawbacks. The only thing that still confuses me is how that ritual grants immortality." He made a 'hmmm' noise. "Were there any recorded instances of a lich making more than one phylactery by performing more than one ritual?"
"More than one?" Luna asked, horrified.
"No," said Celestia. "But not for lack of desire, or a lack of trying. Now I am no longer sure if it was to make more phylacteries; maybe he was simply trying to become more powerful like you have just suggested. But the first lich I ever encountered caught my attention after destroying a few villages close to Canterlot-"
"You allowed it to happen on your doorstep?" Riddle interrupted in an amused voice.
"I allowed nothing," said Celestia. "This was back when news could not spread so quickly. I had not heard about him before that point. Once I did, I managed to track him down before he could murder another village. Afterwards, it was easy enough to track his trail of destruction. I believe he tried it at least ten times, but in the end, he only had a single phylactery, and he was no more powerful than the other lich I encountered, who only ever did the ritual once."
"You are certain the repeat offender did not have more phylacteries?" Riddle pressed. "What if he simply allowed you to assume you destroyed the 'only' one?"
"He didn't," said Celestia.
"How are you certain?"
"My encounter with the other lich put all such fears to rest. He was much smarter than the first, and he knew more about the meaning behind the ritual, even if he did not tell me. By the time I met him, I had finally come to fear exactly what you suspect; that the first lich had succeeded in making a second phylactery after all. So I had a conversation I otherwise would not have had, calling on Kindness and Friendship and Generosity for the strength to tolerate a lich's evil until I learned what I needed to learn. When I asked the second lich if he had tried more than one ritual, he said it would have been pointless. He did not even hesitate in his answer, so he must have considered it himself in the past. And when I revealed the actions of the first lich, he simply laughed and said 'idiot'. He was referring to the other lich with that insult, not me."
"How is that certain?" asked Riddle when Luna's sister had finished. "He could have been lying to throw you off his own success, as well as the other lich's."
"His 'generous' sharing of knowledge and his 'kind' display of deigning to speak with me in that conversation was genuine. Twisted as he was, he was not trying to deceive me. And if you are still not convinced, we would have heard more from those two by now if they had succeeded in surviving the crushing of their phylacteries. Well, maybe not the second, but definitely the first."
"Interesting," said Riddle leaning back in his seat. "So the ritual can only be performed once. Probably. Whatever they sacrifice to create a phylactery, it can only be sacrificed once, and it results in a form without feeling."
He stayed silent for a time, eyes closed.
"I'll have to ponder that at length, I think. I can't see it at the moment. Can you see it, now that the constraints have been clearly laid out?"
Celestia shook her head. "I prefer not to think about such matters. It is not true that to comprehend evil is to become evil. I must comprehend evil for the safety of my kingdom. But my mind is not eager to go there, nor is it as... tolerant of such thoughts as you seem to be. I only do so when I am left no other choice. For instance," she said, her gaze sharp once more, "in order to have physical influence, liches must arrange for a servant to sacrifice the soul of a pony. Liches manifest as ghost-like entities, unable to interact with the world beyond whispers. In order to gain a body, they must steal it from another, killing the victim in the process."
"Interesting," said Riddle.
"No. Not interesting. Evil, wrong, and gruesome. But most importantly, it is what I fear you have done in the past hour. Now will you say more of your own immortality method?"
"I can disclose a bit more," he nodded. "I can reassure you that no intelligent beings are harmed in my revival process." He glanced at Luna. "My consciousness is a bit more... loosely connected to my body than most ponies, to the point where accidental transfer and possession has happened..."
Oh. So that is how he came to possess Thorax. Luna was bound not to tell her sister about it, but it was good to know the underlying reason. He had honestly said it was a magical accident.
"...but even when I use my abilities for possession," Riddle continued, "I do not kill the possessed in the process, or even harm them. Physically, anyway. I suppose you could say there is the trauma of having your body taken from you, but I can prevent them from remembering the experience as well. I should also mention that I have only ever done such an occupation twice, and as I said, one of those was an accident. The host actually came to appreciate it in the end. In your terms, thanks to the accident he lived happily ever after."
Celestia looked to Luna, who nodded. She didn't even need her honesty sense to confirm that statement. She had been there. Thorax and the rest of the Changelings do indeed seem to be living happily ever after.
"And the other possession?" asked Celestia. "The one that was not an accident? What happened then?"
"That was a desperate situation in which I had no other options," Riddle replied with a frown. "It was also before I was as competent at reviving myself as I am today, so the possession went on longer than it otherwise would have."
"Would such a circumstance cause somegriff to develop a vendetta?" she asked, still with narrowed eyes.
Damn. She made that connection more quickly than he had been expecting. In fact, he had not been expecting her to make it at all. And unfortunately, there was no hiding it with his employer here. He was forced to own it.
"It would," Riddle nodded evenly.
"That Griffon, if I remember correctly, looked sickly," said Celestia. "And yet you claim your possessions do not take a physical toll."
"The possession itself did not," Riddle confirmed, "but circumstances forced me to use combat rituals when I was occupying his body."
Celestia frowned, heavily and disapprovingly.
"Which," Riddle continued, "as you should already know, often take a toll on the physical body of the wielder, but are not otherwise dark."
"What were the situations that 'forced' you to use them in the first place?" asked Celestia.
"Mr. Silver encountered a dangerous, unintelligent foe."
"You couldn't have used any other method to save him?"
"It was in a place warded against all forms of fast transport except phoenix-travel. I was forced to use Fiendfyre to burn through a number of magically-reinforced, solid stone walls to reach him in time."
Fiendfyre is one of the few rituals in Celestia's private library, surprisingly enough. In fact, it's one of the only wizard spells he encountered in Equestrian texts. Only the effects were written down, of course, but the sacrifice was probably known to a mage of Celestia's level: a single drop of blood from your own body, gone forever to form a fierce fire that will burn through almost anything, including the user, unless you lack the dominance to command it.
"Very well," Celestia sighed. "I can imagine a good pony's hoof being forced in a circumstance like that. But you did say combat rituals, plural, so I would like at least one more example of what you mean when you say you were 'forced' by circumstance to use a ritual."
Riddle tilted his head in consideration. "I used a shielding ritual that sacrifices a layer of skin to block almost all magical offense." Which was why the skin of the Defense Professor's body had become thinner after his and Mr. Potter's intervention with S.P.H.E.W. "That case was to protect Ms. Sunshine and her friends from an army of spells. Though in truth, I mostly did it for my own amusement, and out of dislike for the bullies attacking them. And as a boon to Mr. Silver, of course."
"Why did you not overpower an ordinary shielding spell?" Celestia asked. "Was the offense truly that strong?"
"Not quite," said Riddle.
If it had been 40 aurors, with half of the force assigned to casting brute-force finites – standard procedure when fighting a single, powerful wizard – he would have needed the ritual to block such an offense. If his goal was to block it. That's one of the many reasons why shields are inefficient ways of fighting.
The only fellow student who hadn't humiliated him at the martial arts dojo, and thus the only one who had been spared his wrath, put it more simply and directly than he had ever heard it. In English, it roughly translated to: 'Just dodge, forehead.'
But Celestia's right that he didn't even need a ritual to block the offense of forty 6th and 7th year Hogwarts students. If his goal was to merely block it, he could have used a normal spell. But that hadn't been his goal.
"Then why use a ritual?" Celestia pressed.
"My intervention was deliberately strange and eldritch," he said, recalling his reasoning at the time. "You're right that I could have used a simpler shielding spell, but it would not have produced the same desired results of intimidation and awe." The ritual he used was very visually impressive. "A normal shield might have also bounced spells back and stunned some of the audience," who did not know how to change shield harmonics to prevent their own stunners from passing through their own shields like a competent auror would. "That could have spared some of them from experiencing the necessary fear that would later protect Ms. Sunshine and her friends from their vengeance. The ritual I used was a nullification shield, so nothing bounced. If it had been an ordinary fight, with only myself involved, I would have simply dodged."
A/N: I made a post on the HPMoR subreddit about this, but here's the short version:
The shield being a ritual and the 'skin sacrifice' I just had Riddle talk about is NOT true canon, but it doesn't contradict canon either. It's a canon-compliant interpretation of established facts.
That's all about HPMoR continuity for now. Proceed.
"You could not have protected your pupils pre-emptively?" asked Celestia. "So that you were not forced to do so much damage to that griffon's body?"
"Not for those two circumstances, no." He hadn't been expecting Mr. Potter to confront his troll, and the bully situation had been complicated as well. "The others, perhaps. In all honesty, I was expecting the possession to end the moment I got ahold of an artifact capable of reversing the negative consequences. The possession did end when I acquired that device. Unfortunately for the griffon, the moment of de-possession also coincides with my arrival here, and the device proved harder to use than I first assumed as well. Furthermore, I did not even know my former host had made it to Equus until yesterday."
While he had not originally planned to restore Quirrell's body upon acquiring the Philosopher's Stone, the sequence of events he had just described was factually accurate. As for what he currently planned to do…
"And now that you do know your former host made it here," said Celestia after a glance at Luna, who gave a slight shake of the head, likely at the lie by omission. "If you ever meet him again, you will undo the damage to his body like you claim you can, you will apologize, and you will beg for his forgiveness."
"All but the begging part," Riddle nodded, ignoring his annoyance at her telling him how he 'would' act. "I do acknowledge that I owe him a debt. Even if he provided the aide unwillingly." Riddle grinned. "In return, I will provide my own aide to him, whether he is willing to accept it or not. I think that is appropriate enough. I do not know what recompense he will demand in return for the damage and losses, but I shall grant it if I can. If not, I will think of something myself."
"You truly will?" asked Celestia. "To the best of your abilities?"
Riddle nodded. "He was forced to help me against his will, and now you are forcing me to help him against mine. I suppose it does all work out in the end. It is genuine debt I owe-" and it's not too much trouble either, and it's actually the prudent thing to do, "so I shall not complain. Speaking of..."
He cast a mental tempus. It's been fifty-five minutes since he was killed.
"Now that I have the Time, I should get started on that affair. Unless you needed something else?"
"We are not opposed," said Luna. "In fact, I am glad to see you are taking the initiative. But wouldn't the trail be cold by now? Especially if he can teleport like you can, and he knows you are hunting him?"
"Under ordinary circumstances, yes," he said, and teleported back to Griffonstone. "But I have a Time Turner," he said to the empty air, removing the hourglass from his cloak and preparing a mental checklist.
Tom Riddle needed to take a few steps to ensure that Quirinus Quirrell would not escape his reward.
The first time through, Riddle simply observed his own death to get a general idea for where the bullet had come from. For the next fifty-five minutes, he did a high-flying sweep of the area – invisibly, of course – making a general note of which buildings might be tall enough to hide a ranged assailant capable of hitting him at that angle.
The second time through, he established a wide, invisible barrier that detects physical intrusions and allows the caster to calculate the trajectory of penetrating projectiles. For ten minutes after that, he staked out the building whence the projectile had come – a tall clocktower with a single open window. He kept his distance, not wanting to get too much foreknowledge on the decisions his future self was making.
His third and final time through, he arrived fifty minutes before the shot was fired, slipping through wards he hadn't encountered in over a year. He remained invisible as he staked out the one who staked out his past self. He watched for many long minutes as a griffon stared into the scope of a muggle weapon with calm, perfect, and unwavering focus.
At one point, the griffon muttered the charm of true-shot – an ancient and nigh-forgotten medieval charm which ensures that muggle weapons like arrows and throwing knives (and, apparently, bullets) would hit the wizard's sighted target.
Cheater, Riddle thought with an appreciative grin.
The griffon then said, clearly and precisely, "Brechden Anwee-eld Gefelueck."
They were the activation words to a different enchantment – yet another bit of obscure magic from the medieval period. It was powerful, but not quite powerful enough to be bound by the Interdict of Merlin. Still, Quirrell must have been quite the historian to know about it.
That explains how he pierced my troll-reinforced body, Riddle thought to himself.
This particular spell grants a physical weapon the power to pierce almost anything, even metals as hard as titanium and spell-resistant skins as hard as a Mountain Troll's.
Normally the spell is accompanied by a blue flame, but if it's a projectile weapon, the flame only appears after firing. That effect of the spell was originally intended to protect the bows and fingers of bowmen, but in this case, since the gun didn't blow up, the spell seemed to conveniently prevent any burning until the bullet was out of the gun's chamber.
Then the griffon pulled the trigger.
The instant the shot was fired, Riddle cast a stunner from point blank, knocking his murderer out cold. He then picked up the griffon and phoenix-traveled to home base. The inner-phoenix did not object to his intentions, not that he expected it to. Riddle had to physically drag (i.e. levitate) the griffon into his ritual room, which he would soon be modifying to ward against all teleportation, including apparation, now that he knows he has an enemy capable of using that magic. Even if that 'enemy' will be dealt with shortly, it's best not to take chances.
First, Riddle used the Stone to permanently Transfigure the griffon back to perfect health.
Well, actually first, he used a few diagnostic charms to learn all of the health problems. The Griffon body – which, like a pony body, has more magic than a human wizard – had done wonders for keeping Quirrell alive, despite his condition. The situation wasn't sustainable, and Quirrell would probably have died in less than five years, but now Riddle had an explanation for why Quirrell had not immediately died from the unicorn blood and combat ritual side effects within his first few days on Equus.
Or maybe it was just the Mirror's direct magical intervention that saved Quirrell, granting wishes at Riddle's expense yet again. But if that were the case, wouldn't it remove the health problems entirely? Or was it unable to do that with physical ailments, like the animagus transformation being unable to restore lost limbs?
Ultimately, it didn't matter. It was simple enough to fix with the Stone. Once the health problems concerning flesh and blood were healed – the magical ailment of unicorn blood poisoning had already been healed, probably by the Mirror – Riddle sacrificed the ninth-generation troll clone (after making a tenth-generation clone) in order to give the griffon's physical body the best chance of surviving its future endeavors.
Finally, Riddle cast a temporary anti-wand-summoning ward around the griffon. It was, quite literally, the only ward his ritual room did not use, since he still wanted the option of summoning the Elder Wand during an emergency.
He then said "Incarcerous. Petrificus Totalus. Finite Incantatum. Innervate."
The griffon opened his eyelids – which he could do thanks to the carefully targeted and carefully modulated finite. The rest of the griffon's body stayed locked in place, including most of his facial features, so Riddle could not tell what he was thinking. He could only tell what the Griffon was feeling, and right now there was a strong amount of fear.
"Hello," Riddle said. "Congratulations on killing me. That was a clever combination of spells. And to be honest, I'm surprised you even know about sniper rifles. I was not expecting that method at all."
The griffon who could not reply maintained a level stare, with only slight twitching from the edges of his eyelids.
"As a reward for livening up my day with your creativity," Riddle continued, "and to settle part of the debt I owe you, I have just healed your body. I acknowledge that I still owe you a debt for the time you lost during the possession, and for your displacement into a new world, but I do not know how to go about repaying those. I could offer you a new identity. Yours is compromised now that many know a griffon of your appearance is responsible for trying to kill a pony diplomat. I could also offer you wealth. Or perhaps you want power? Your competence has demonstrated to me that you are worthy of a parsing of ancient lore, a single magical secret that you may demand in recompense. I am about to undo the petrification of your beak and throat. Speak your desires and I will grant them if I can."
When his beak was unfrozen, he did not move it immediately. The fury that was tangibly emanating from the griffon probably had something to do with his hesitation.
"You ruined my life," said the voice of Quirinus Quirrell. Riddle hadn't recognized the voice in that brief interaction nine months ago, but he did now that he was listening for it. "And many others. The only way to settle that debt, Voldemort, is to ruin your own."
"My life was ruined," said Riddle. "Twice. You think I want to be here?"
"Make it a thousand times and it would be a good start."
"I don't care for your moralizing," said Riddle. "I was in that cave for ten years as a result of my own stupidity-" not technically true, for he could move his awareness to all his Horcruxes, not just the one in the cave, but what he said was a close enough shorthand "-and I spent that time carefully pondering my past mistakes. If you want to look at it that way, I did pay a steep price for Voldemort, and I do not intend to pay another. Except, of course, what I still owe you. I am here to settle that particular debt and nothing else. Speak your desired restitution or I will choose it for you."
"I have no desired restitution," said the griffon. "Except for you to pay for what you have done. I desire for your life to be truly ruined. Unrecoverably. Like mine was ruined, and so many others were ruined, at the end of your wand."
"So be it," said Riddle, acknowledging that Quirrell had made his choice. "Stupefy." Then, after carefully considering the target time period, "Obliviate."
Now Quirinus Quirrell would not remember anything up until the exact moment he had touched Riddle's horcrux. He would forget his anger, hate, and resentment over the last two and a half years. Most importantly, he would forget his personal interactions with Voldemort.
After a bit more consideration, he Obliviated just a bit further back, then spoke the words of the False Memory Charm and began to form scenes in his imagination. False memories must be crafted as experiences of the present moment, so Riddle had Obliviated up to Quirrell's expedition into the cave that held his Horcrux, and he was starting the false memory from that point onward.
A/N: Final bit of HPMoR compliance for this chapter: It's never stated that this is how the false memory charm works. This is another one of those 'canon-compliant but not true canon' moments.
Same as last time, I made a reddit post on the HPMoR subreddit, if you're interested about the details. If not, feel free to ignore this.
Unfortunately, the False Memory Charm might cause a bit of confusion, or even suspicion, in this circumstance. Quirrell might wonder why memories of before setting out for his final dungeon crawl (i.e. the memories of about 2.5 years ago) seem so distant while the false memory of Monroe and the crawl itself seem so clear. But with a few mental suggestions, Quirrell would hopefully assume the cave accident resulted in mild amnesia.
As for the scene Riddle had just crafted in his imagination, Quirrell will now falsely remember meeting "David Monroe" in the Leaky Cauldron just as he was about to set out.
Quirrell will remember David striking up a conversation with him.
Quirrell will remember sharing a bit about himself, in particular his defense grades in Hogwarts and his line of work.
He will remember David then making the request to borrow his identity; i.e. he will remember being asked to supply enough hairs for an indefinite supply of Polyjuice.
He will remember asking why David would want such a thing.
He will remember being told it's for the sake of effectively teaching proper self-defense to the children of Britain.
He will remember asking how Polyjuice could possibly help David achieve that goal.
He will remember being told that it might allow a whole generation of otherwise hopeless Hogwarts students to learn from a good teacher, without politics or bureaucracy or noble families or ancient disputes getting in the way, as they surely would if the last scion of Monroe taught defense.
Quirinus Quirrell had gotten an Outstanding in Defense, but he also knew how useless his education had been after years of ward-breaking and tomb-exploring. And so, it would not be surprising to Quirrell when he remembers readily agreeing to Monroe's request after comprehending the reasoning behind it.
Quirrell should also not be surprised when he remembers warning Monroe that his own disguise might stop working at some point. His passion is dangerous after all. He might even die in his very next adventure, causing the Polyjuice to stop functioning.
The last thing Quirrell will remember Monroe saying is, "Then be sure not to die. I have trust in your abilities."
If Riddle ever has to explain to the 'light' faction how he came to take the guise of Quirrell, he should now have access to a plausible explanation, assuming he can take Quirrell with him. That false memory has the potential to prove very useful indeed.
On that note, Riddle put a trace on the Griffon's wand, which had been on the table supporting the sniper rifle. Then, after further consideration, he removed the wand trace, which Quirrell might eventually notice. He then surgically opened the griffon's chest (made a bit more difficult by the troll's regeneration) and put a trace on one of his ribs. That should go unnoticed.
The wound regenerated on its own via troll magic, though Riddle maintained the courtesy of magically sanitizing the area until it closed. Once it did, he stepped back and regarded his work.
Hm... not good enough. There was still the ongoing investigation to consider, not to mention the potential wanted posters.
And so, Riddle permanently Transfigured Quirrell into a different-looking griffon. He already knew from previous testing (on himself) that the troll's regenerative powers would not reverse such changes; the Stone causes the new form to be accepted as the 'base' if damaged.
Riddle didn't want Quirrell to be arrested, detained, or even questioned about the recent murder. He didn't want Quirrell to hear about the murder. He didn't want Quirrell anywhere near the controversy. On that note, Riddle took the Griffon to the other side of Griffonia, as far away from Griffonstone as possible. It took a full day and consultation of an atlas to reach the frontier of Griffon civilisation, but Riddle considered that to be worth the effort as well.
Finally, he settled the rest of his debt. He gave Quirrell a single, highly liquid gem that would fetch an extreme price, allowing him to live a life of luxury if he wished. In the false memory, he'd included a minor scene of Quirrell finding it in the cave.
With his current combination of true and false memories, Quirrell should now believe that he had that conversation with Monroe, went on a yet another dungeon crawl, found the gem in the cave, passed out the moment he touched the mirror (not the locket), then woke up here in a new body.
Now Riddle regarded his work.
Hm… almost perfect, he decided. He just had to add a few finishing touches.
After waking the griffon into a state of half-consciousness, Riddle began the last memory charm he would be casting on this Griffon.
Quirinus Quirrell will remember thinking to himself, upon seeing his new body and that village over there full of creatures that look like himself, that it would be wisest to keep the human world, his past, his wand, his ability to cast magic, and his new regenerative powers a secret. He will also remember thinking that regret isn't wise, and that he should not mourn his unrecoverable past too much. He will remember deciding to continue his life of adventuring in this strange and promising land.
What he does with those memories is up to him. As it stands, if he believes them, he will very likely lead a happier life than he ever had as Quirinus Quirrell, if Griffonia is anything like Equestria.
He floated invisibly above when the griffon regained full consciousness and took off towards the village. Riddle had a fleeting moment of envy as he watched. It would be so easy to acquire happiness that way. All he had to do was Obliviate his own negative memories. Mr. Potter believed that was the only real shortcut, and now that he'd done it for Quirrell, he could see the sense in it.
But no. He wouldn't do it to himself. He would keep his memories. He would acquire happiness the hard way, whatever that meant, and whatever it entailed.
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I wonder if Quirrel will make another appearance.
A spelled bullet grenade from a Barret?
Thatt is an Impressive piece of kit to prevent collateral damage. the only other non magical stuff similar would be Heavy Bolters and Plasma cannon for the required diameter?
A Secondary Hellebore would be a tad overkill.
Good thing magic cant apply tempus to the soul link, making all the Horcrux absorb the dissipation energy applied to the targeted soul?
The "just a prank bro" is looking a bit more likely, but it could still be murder
it was even a pity that happiness had become so necessary.
11274906
A pity? It's kind-of the whole point of the story, you know. Yeah, I'm having fun with it, but happiness is the fundamental reason.
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Happiness is not the main thing.
Where'd Quirrell get the gun?
11274967
What I meant was that it was MY main thing. My reason for writing this. My motivation, as well as what will be one of the main underlying messages. I'm well aware that it's not the main reason most readers are reading it.
11275170
The answer will be demonstrated next chapter, but try to guess. How DID he acquire a gun?
11275319
I'm not talking about writing and reading a story. I'm talking about the fact that happiness is not the main thing in life.
11275323
Happiness might not be the main thing, but it sucks when you don't have it, and if you haven't had it for long enough, you can sometimes forget just how important it is. The same can happen if you have so much happiness that you take it for granted. Typically, doing the 'main' things in life (i.e. undertaking and fulfilling difficult and meaningful responsibilities, especially responsibilities that help other people or their community at large) will bring a person true happiness. So if you're not happy, it's evidence that you aren't doing the main things either.
11275363
it doesn't make it any less sad that he needed happiness.
where did you even get all this about the main things that bring "true" happiness.
11275680
Various sources. The most recent source I can directly point to is "Don't Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want". But telling others to read books doesn't work, and that one doesn't touch on mental health from a 'fixing mental illness' point of view, which is more what this story focuses on.
And come to think of it, I'm not going to go into a big long argument about happiness in this comments section. You're already predisposed to disagree with the importance of happiness, as well as any evidence I provide. So, yeah. Don't ask for evidence when you have that attitude, unless you're also willing to prove, with evidence, every single claim you make about happiness being NOT 'the main thing'.
11275761
phphphphhphphp, again a bunch of all sorts of nonsense and statements taken from the ceiling. Who said I'm not ready?)
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/fqh9TLuoquxpducDb/p/synsRtBKDeAFuo7e3
another easy drain
11275770
That article deals with wireheading and living in fantasy simulations. Most of us are looking for a certain kind of happiness, and within certain limitations. That doesn’t mean happiness isn’t the primary goal.
Celestia and Luna should definitely have noticed that he was being specific about beings harmed in his revival process and questioned him as to whether intelligent beings are harmed by his method of immortality at all.
Evil Vulcans? Oh, Romulans :-).
11365636
Primary inspiration was Barbosa's speech about the Curse of Cortez from the first Pirates of the Caribbean, actually. The 'logic and power until madness' part was... Kel'Thuzad, probably?
I think "you will simply make more" is better here.
11575438
I was having him be technically accurate here. Part of the difficulty here is that he's not expressing the advice in one complete sentence, but piggybacking off of Luna's, not even saying the word 'mistake' himself. Luna is excusing Celestia's mistake. Since Riddle is speaking to Luna, it doesn't make full sense that Luna would make more mistakes in the act of excusing Celestia's. (I mean, that IS how it works, making excuses for others is basically the same as declaring that you'll make excuses for yourself in the same situation). But anyway, "If you excuse [your sister's mistakes], YOU will simply make more" isn't what Riddle was trying to convey. In order to use "make more", I'd have to have Riddle say "SHE will simply make more", not YOU.
Which, in fairness, does sound a bit better, but I think I'll leave this one like it is. I like the occasional "wait, that sounds wrong, but is it actually?" grammar moment. The better an author's overall grammar and spelling, the better those moments become for readers who like to play with and think about language.
Is this good or bad? Hard to tell
Voldemort sure can be generous if he wants to be.