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Harry Potter Squib Tales Chapter 68: The Fallen Crown
🕑 Added 2025-02-28 18:01:11 +0000 UTCChapter 68: The Fallen Crown
Remus POV
“Twirl! Twirl, I say, damn you!” a man with a rather falsetto voice called out. A grunt was his only response, followed by a loud fart.
Remus did his best to ignore the noises being made by a madman and his ballet troupe of trolls as he followed the instructions Edward Rose had given him before boarding the train to Hogwarts, and quietly thought about how his life had led him to this moment.
The werewolf who’d been hired as a teacher at Hogwarts was currently pacing back and forth on the 7th floor corridor across from a painting of a man trying to teach trolls to dance ballet, all in an effort to enter a place called the Room of Requirement.
‘Ravenclaw’s Diadem. Ravenclaw’s Diadem. Ravenclaw’s Diadem!’ he thought to himself, repeating this mantra in his head.
According to Edward, these actions were part of a ritual that would lead to a secret room here that would take him to one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes. After arriving at Hogwarts, and recovering from the unpleasantness of the Full Moon earlier, it had taken Remus a week to plan the whole thing out. He had needed to learn the staff’s schedules, the class schedules, where students were most likely to be depending on the time of day, and a whole host of other things to prepare. Including paying a visit to the Weasley Twins who possessed the Marauders Map.
It was currently midnight on a Sunday, most people in the castle were asleep as they prepared for the next round classes in the morning, and after checking the map a few times, nobody was near the 7th Floor corridor.
Finally, his pacing was rewarded by the appearance of a door out of the corner of his eye in the wall where previously none had been.
‘It seems Edward was right once more,’ Remus thought to himself as he opened the door.
He stepped through and found himself in a small room that was decorated in blue and black, the colors of Ravenclaw. Banners bearing the raven of Rowanda along with shields marked with her heraldry were hung from the walls. A bookshelf and writing desk covered in fancy tomes sat on the left while a broom and robe hung on a coatrack.
Last, but certainly not least, was a stone plinth at the very center of the study, atop of which rested a bust depicting the intellectual founder of Hogwarts. On the carved brow was a silver diadem, simple and beautiful with no ostentatious jewels.
Remus pinched himself with a grimace and raised his Occlumency shields before taking another step, and closed the door to the Room of Requirement behind him.
Waving his wand, he cast diagnostic spell after diagnostic spell into the room. There were many enchantments active, keeping everything as pristine as they’d been when Ravenclaw herself had placed them here. However, on the plinth there were a few alarms and traps. Nothing major, but they could be problematic if triggered.
On the diadem itself, there was nothing. Not even a spark of residual magic. And that in and of itself was suspicious. Some sort of spell, even just a cleaning charm, should have been put onto it. Yet it was as mundane as a plastic tiara from a Muggle costume store. Or so Remus’ scans told him. He didn’t trust it at all, because the Dark Lord had been a cruel and terrible man with some cleverness in him.
Remus did not dare get any closer, lest the Horcrux detect him. He wasn’t sure about how the accursed thing worked, nor he de care to, but he was going to take every caution possible. Barriers and cleansing spells lashed out from his wand as he filled the room with protections to negate Dark magic, and multiple charms on himself to block various curses. Last but not least, several layers of Sound Canceling charms placed onto the room itself.
When this was done, he lifted a bottle of basilisk venom from his pocket, given to him by Edward. He knew exactly how the Squib had acquired it. Using alchemy to extract it from Harry’s blood had been an inspired move, and it gave them a weapon against the Horcrux.
The acidic venom of the King of Serpents was resistant to magic and corrosive towards enchantments, so was perfect for eliminating cursed objects. He knew the goblins and Curse Breakers used the stuff to tear down wards on ancient tombs, and they’d bought the venom from Harry’s spoils of war at a massive premium.
Finally, Remus patted the necklace he wore around his neck, where a potent protective charm hung. Made of unicorn horn and hair, it would protect the user from any possession. Reassured it was still there, he began to walk towards the diadem.
The whispers started immediately, and he winced as they tried influence him. If not for his Occlumency barriers, he wouldn’t have even noticed them, they were so quiet and insidious. They sounded like people he knew and loved. Sirius. Harry. Even Edward. They urged him to put the crown on. To gain its powers and use them to protect everything he cared for.
But he resisted, knowing that the whispers were lies. Voldemort would not claim him!
The voices that tickled his mind did not try to do anything else to him, so far as he could tell. They were a passive defense, using his own thoughts and memories against him. A clever trick, one that’d be able to defeat somebody unaware of the dangers they posed. And after suffering the mental attacks, Remus finally reached the altar and stared down onto the crown.
Nobody knew what the Diadem of Ravenclaw could do. Not even Edward. Some believed it could grant impenetrable Occlumency barriers. Others said it was able to bestow the ability to use Legilimancy upon the wearer. Whatever its powers were, they were now going to be lost forever.
A part of Remus did feel regret for having to destroy a priceless artifact, something the whispers tried to capitalize on, but the werewolf knew that any and all blame for this lay on Voldemort, and no one else!
He uncorked the vial of venom and poured it onto the diadem, ensuring that as much as possible dribbled onto the Horcrux.
The moment a single drop of acid green liquid fell onto the crown, the screaming started. Horrific howls of psychic rage and fear slammed against Remus, and he staggered back a step, almost dropping the vial.
His Occlumency shields flexed and bent, but held, and he refused to tear his eyes away from the sight before him. The basilisk venom started to melt through the silvery metal, like boiling water poured onto an ice cube. Wisps of steam and black smoke, which Remus suspected were traces of Voldemort’s soul, began to rise up.
Multicolored sparks began to spit out as the basilisk venom began to interact with the various enchantments layered upon the stone bust. White light flared up around Remus’ body as well as the tendrils of darkness leaking from the silver headgear tried to touch him, but were repelled by the unicorn talisman. A couple seconds later, a twisted, disfigured face formed within the final puff of smoke, before vanishing with a screech.
For a few moments Remus just stood there, staring, before he flicked his wand. This time, diagnostic spells reported that there was severe damage marring the stone bust and diadem. The alarms and traps were also gone, burnt away by the venom. Said liquid was also gone as well, having evaporated after destroying the diadem and the altar it’d rested on.
And speaking of Ravenclaw’s lost diadem, the front portion gone. Any magic it may have held was vanished as well, along with the tainted piece of Voldemort’s soul.
“It worked,” Remus breathed out, sagging in relief. The Horcrux was gone, and they were one step closer to ending the threat of the Dark Lord once and for all.
With the threat erased, he ventured to the shelf to browse the books on it, curiosity replacing relief.
‘The Sorting Hat did suggest I could have gone to Ravenclaw,’ Remus thought to himself with a faint hint of nostalgia, mixed with excitement as he browsed the tomes left behind by the legendary witch.
For the most part, the books were handwritten grimoires containing notes on magic. Or so he assumed. Unfortunately, Remus couldn’t read any of it. And it wasn’t because a Jumble Word jinx had been put on them, but because Rowena Ravenclaw’s handwriting was both terrible and in a language he didn’t recognize.
Deciding that he’d need to find a translator first and foremost, Remus left the books where they were, but did create a few copies to look over. They wouldn’t last long, but the originals weren’t going anywhere.
Checking the Marauder’s Map carefully before exiting the Room of Requirement, Remus quickly and quietly made his way back to his own quarters, where he scribbled a simple note onto some parchment he would send via owl to Sirius the next morning: ‘It is done.’
It would be a while before changes would be noticed, if there would be any at all. And Remus certainly hoped that the curse attached to the Defense position would be broken with the destruction of the Horcrux.
But until then, he had lessons to plan and homework to grade. The work of a teacher was never done.
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Cyrus POV
“…two tons of wand-grade wood of various types, five tons of broom-grade lumber of various types, six tons of assorted draconic parts, from blood to heart strings, and the usual order of five tons of potion materials,” Cyrus said as he read aloud the list of goods Edward Rose had just put in an order for.
It was a lot, and different from what the young businessman typically bought. Expensive, too, but the business-minded Squib was good for it, as Cyrus knew. After all, he’d already delivered a down payment of a quarter of the goods’ total costs.
“I wonder what he wants with all these magical materials alongside his usual orders of potion ingredients?” Cynthia wondered as she double-checked the list. “He couldn’t possibly be trying to branch out into wandcraft, could he?”
“Unlikely,” Cyrus grunted. As ambitious as the Squib was, there was no way Edward Rose would be stupid enough to try and make his own wands and sell them to Muggles. Not that they would even work for the non-magicals, but illegal wands were the quickest way to get the Ministry clamping down on him.
“The request to stockpile medicine was also a curious one,” his wife added, looking at the second order sheet that had come in.
That at least made more sense to Cyrus. Dragon Pox vaccines were lifesaving inventions, and there were plenty of other magical sicknesses where medicine could be hard to brew in time, such as Scrofungulus, so large stockpiles were always a good idea. Fatal magical diseases could either kill ridiculously fast, or take years to end a person’s life.
‘Yet the numbers he is asking for are insane,’ Cyrus thought to himself. If Edward Rose were to turn all of the ingredients he’d just purchased into medicine, he’d have enough to inoculate a million people against Dragon Pox and cure a hundred thousand people of a myriad of other diseases. But that was just one order out of several. And there would be more in the future. Cyrus had a gut feeling about it.
What was Edward Rose doing with all of the stuff he was buying?
‘The only thing keeping me from tipping off the aurors is that letter,’ he thought to himself, thinking back a little bit. He had been very surprised when Harry Potter had sent him a note by owl a couple days ago, asking him to go ahead with any requests Edward Rose made, and to inform Harry himself if Cyrus had any misgivings.
The Boy Who Lived knew Edward Rose. And quite well, it seemed. Enough for him to be in on whatever scheme was being cooked up.
‘Could it be Harry Potter is the true hand guiding things?’ Cyrus wondered. A part of him, the Pureblood side, wanted to believe that a Squib could never be so successful without a wizard behind him, pulling the strings.
Yet the rational side of him, the one that had long since seen through the lies spouted by the blood purists, dismissed the idea. The evidence that they were working together as equals was strong, and Harry Potter clearly saw the Squib as a friend more than an asset or ally.
‘And I don’t see Mr. Rose being anybody’s subordinate. Not without a damn good reason,’ Cyrus mused to himself.
“Dear?” Cynthia called out, stirring Cyrus from his thoughts and he shot his wife an apologetic look.
“My head was in the clouds, I’m afraid,” he admitted. “What did you say?”
“I was saying that we may need to start expanding again, and soon,” she said. “We’ll need more warehouses to hold everything, and unless we want to make more contracts with the Longbottoms, we’ll need to increase our own domestic production of multiple types of potion ingredients in order to keep up with everything being asked for. Assuming Mr. Rose continues to buy so much.”
“I see,” he murmured. “Yes, that makes sense. I’ll go take care of it.”
“Are you going to finally consider expanding overseas?” Cynthia asked shrewdly.
“You can see right through me,” he chuckled. “And yes, most likely. I haven’t had much to do with the American side of the Greengrass family in a while, and they’ve been petitioning me for years to do more with our holdings across the pond.”
The Greengrasses – along with all the other Magical Houses who’d had land in the colonies – had not lost control of their assets there during the American Revolution of 1777, as that war had only thrown out the Muggle British authorities. And since the Greengrass’s branch family over in the States had sided with the Muggleborn during the Christmas Revolt of 1974 they hadn’t lost everything when the MaCUSA’s government had changed hands and the conservative Purist faction was overthrown.
Indeed, the Greengrasses of America were doing quite well as one of the few traders with unrestricted access to the European markets since many magical countries were very hesitant to deal with the ‘radical upstarts,’ and were only limited by the lack of support from the main family over in England at the moment.
“Well, you best go tell your cousin the good news, then, and to start buying up land for new potion ingredient farms!” Cynthia said, shooing him out of the dining room where they’d been enjoying a lovely breakfast before Edward Rose’s ridiculous orders had arrived.
He chuckled at his wife, but obeyed, heading up to his personal study to pen a letter. He stroked the feathers of his beloved owl Mortimer while passing by the owl’s stand, before sitting down at his desk and getting out his quill and parchment.
Before he could start writing, he was interrupted by an owl bumping into his study’s window, and he frowned when he wasn’t able to recognize the bird. Opening the window with a flick of his wand, the messenger bird deposited a letter on his desk, and Cyrus rewarded it with a bit of mouse jerky.
He only bothered to open the letter after the owl left – and following several intense scans to check for any sort of traps. Finding none, he read the words within, only to huff.
‘Another betrothal request for Astoria,’ he grunted. He’d expected as much.
Now that the blood curse on Astoria was gone, he’d begun receiving ‘invitations’ from ‘noble lineages’ to have him marry his youngest daughter to their relatives.
‘Sharks and vultures, the lot of them,’ he scoffed as he tossed the latest betrothal offer into the fireplace. Most of them were from the Dark Faction, and were rude in the extreme, acting like Astoria was broken goods they’d be taking off his hands out of pity. Compared to the way they’d treated her as some sort of plague-bearing beast when she hadn’t been cured, it was practically an apology from those sorts of purebloods.
The most insulting one he’d received to date was from Lucius Malfoy, who had made insinuations that his daughter would be the price Cyrus would have to pay if he wanted the current tariff laws being voted on in the Wizengamot to disappear.
Cyrus had burned that letter with gleeful vindictiveness.
‘Clearly, Lucius hasn’t noticed the moves I’ve been making in the Grey Faction,’ he thought to himself, amused by the former Death Eater’s lack of awareness.
He wondered what Malfoy’s face would be when he and several other Greys – and a few Light and Darks – suddenly broke away and started a whole new political block, one that was centered around economic recovery and liberal-minded changes to the law, such as shooting down that horrid toad-woman’s anti-werewolf bill?
The Gold Faction would arrive on the political scene soon, and with any luck, the Wizengamot would finally bring some measure of progress back to the Isles.
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Edward POV
I sneezed a little, rubbing my nose a bit.
“Allergies?” Charlie asked.
“It’s too late in the year for that. Must be dust,” I replied. “Anyways, sorry about that, I didn’t catch that.”
“It’s fine,” Charlie assured me. “I was just asking how you’ve been.”
“Not bad at all,” I replied. “Yourself? Any cool dragons in your life?”
He laughed a little. “Funny you should mention that,” Charlie said, and he happily told me about the reserves newest addition of a female Norwegian Ridgeback.
I had been surprised when Charlie had approached me out of the blue a couple days after Harry had gone back to Hogwarts.
I had known he’d been in town, partly to see off Ron and the others, but also for a meeting with the Ministry of Magic as a representative for the Romanian Dragon Reserve. And given my future knowledge, I’d had a suspicion about what he was there for. The Tri-Wizard Tournament needed dragons for their ridiculous task next year, after all.
But even though I knew all of this, I had not expected Charlie to ask me to hang out for a bit, so I agreed to meet up with him at the Leaky Cauldron.
Lunch and some drinks later, and the two of us had managed to catch up after not seeing each other for a while.
“…and so he says, ‘That’s not my broom!’” Charlie said, and I snickered in amusement.
“Oh, jeez! I sure hope the trauma doesn’t scar him too badly,” I said.
“He was fine after a few drinks. And a bath,” Charlie assured me.
“Good to hear,” I nodded. Then, after finishing off my mug of butterbeer, I looked at Charlie with a curious look. “So, don’t wanna be a downer, but there was another reason to speak with me, wasn’t there?”
“Yup, there was,” Charlie nodded. He emptied his own mug before revealing what he wanted.
“See, the truth is, my friend recently got fired from her job at the Hog’s Head, and well, I was hoping you might have a job for her,” Charlie explained.
“I’m sorry, you want me to do what?” I uttered in bewilderment, staring at my old friend.
“Look, I know it’s a big thing to ask, but I owe her a favor after she helped me a little while ago,” Charlie said. “And I was hoping to introduce her to you in the hopes you might hire her.”
“That’s what I thought you said,” I grunted, running a hand over my face in frustration. “Charlie, I can’t just hire anybody for my job. And it sounds like she’d be terrible trying to work in retail, which is the only thing I could offer her.”
“She’s very talented in potions,” Charlie said, still trying to convince me. “As well as Charms. Oh, and she can duel pretty well.”
“Charlie,” I said slowly. “Why would you think I’d need a potioneer or a duelist?”
“Because you are making potions and illegally selling them, and will need protection because of it,” Charlie stated.
“Huh, you know about that?” I asked, surprised, and a little worried.
“Ed, I know you, we grew up together,” the dragon tamer said, folding his arms and giving me a stern look. “You’d never have settled for living a normal life. And even without going to Hogwarts, you know more about magic than many graduates! Your ‘old fashioned Muggle remedies’ are obviously watered down potions.”
“And you don’t care?” I inquired suspiciously.
“Hell no,” Charlie snorted. “I think it’s risky, but you’re not a fool, and whatever game you are playing at goes beyond merely making money. There’s something bigger afoot. Don’t know what, but I can tell you’re worried about something in the future.”
“You’re pretty sharp, aren’t you, Charlie?” I commented.
“Have to be, in order to keep up with the dragons,” Charlie chuckled, before turning serious again.
“Who else knows?” I asked. “Bill? Percy? Your mum or dad?”
“Bill probably suspects, but the others wouldn’t have been able to keep quiet about it if they knew,” Charlie replied, and I nodded. That made sense, I supposed.
“Can she be discreet about this?” I asked. “Would she spill the beans, so to speak?”
“Merlin, no!” Charlie said with a laugh. “She distrusts the Ministry and the Aurors. Also has a hate for Dark magic and Dark mages. She’s a bit rough around the edges but loyal to her friends. So long as you aren’t performing blood sacrifices or the like she won’t care.”
“Hmm. I see,” I muttered to myself. “I’m not really comfortable with this, but… fine. I will meet with her. How much does she know about me and my job?”
“She knows you’re a Squib, and that’s it,” he replied. “Please don’t take anything she says too seriously, though.”
“I don’t like the sound of that, Charlie,” I said with a grunt, and he laughed awkwardly. “Ugh. Whatever. Does this woman have a name?”
“Merula Snyde,” Charlie said, and I blinked, recognizing the name.
“Well, alright, then,” I hummed. This might just turn out to be a good thing after all!
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Author's Note: Happy End of February! Here a bonus chapter for the shortest month of the year, and for being amazing readers!
Comments
Ian Rodgers
A character from a very obscure prequel game, that has Charlie as a main character! In fact, it is 'canon' that Merula is one of the riders who comes to Hogwarts to pick up Norberta in Harry first year.
Catherine Colin
Love this story with all my heart!
Catherine Colin
Who?
