The Yule Break Scheme
By the end of term, Hogwarts was covered in several feet of snow. Growing up in Surrey, followed by London, Hadrian had never seen snow quite like this before in his life. It was incredible. Himself and his friends had taken to having snowball fights in the evenings and weekends, as the snow just kept on coming over a two week period with no apparent sign of stopping. Hadrian assumed it had to be magically influenced- even in the Scottish highlands, that couldn't be normal. By the last day of term, most of Slytherin House had taken to joining the first years outside. Some brave students (Fred, George and Lee Jordan) had taken to bewitching snowballs to hit the back of Professor Quirrell's turban- even knowing who he was likely possessed by. Hadrian hoped that if it truly was the Dark Lord, that he never found out their suspicions. Fred and George planned on becoming Death Eaters when they were older if the Dark Lord returned, and that really wouldn't do them much good.
They had one final snowball fight before the majority of students returned home, on the 20th of December.The only students to remain in the younger years of Slytherin were Hadrian, Theo, Draco and the twins. Other than them, there was a small handful of upper years- most of whom had passes to the restricted section of the library, copying charms and a lot of determination.
At lunch time that day, when everyone else had left, Hadrian received an inconspicuous letter from Gringotts.
Heir Hadrian Potter-Black,
Heir to the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Peverell and Heir Successor to the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black
We write to inform you that Gringotts have at last completed the audits of your vaults that you requested. A portion of your gold has been invested, as per recommendation. The relevant statements have been sent onwards to Lord Arcturus Black, as per agreement.
We also must inform you that a Peverell heirloom is missing from the vault, and cannot be retrieved by normal methods- a cloak of invisibility, which has remained in the hands of Peverell descendants for countless generations. Thankfully, we have been able to track the location of this item using blood of the Peverell family. The tracking ritual showed the item's current location as Hogwarts, but unfortunately cannot pinpoint a precise location. We must therefore deduce that the item is in the hands of either Lord Albus Dumbledore, or Heir Charlus Potter.
If you are unable to locate the cloak yourself, or do not wish to risk it, do inform us. As the Peverell's have long been a friend of the Goblin Nation, we are more than willing to enact our own methods to ensure the retrieval of the item.
May your gold ever flow,
Master Goblin Sharpfang, Account Manager for the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black
Master Goblin Gornuk, Account Manager for the Most Ancient and Most Noble house of Peverell
Hadrian really did not want to deal with that. He passed the letter to Theo, where Draco read it over his shoulder. Theo then passed it over to Fred and George.
"A friend of the Goblin Nation is not an easy feat to acquire," Draco mused, "I wonder how your Ancestor became one? The last Peverell Lord was killed by Grindelwald's Acolytes, and he wasn't a mainline Potter, so it's remarkable Gringotts have continued to uphold the title."
"I'll visit the vault over summer and skim through the Peverell history," Hadrian said with a wave of his hand, "That's not my main concern here."
"Trust Draco to focus on a fancy title and not the fact that Dumbledore has clearly stolen a priceless heirloom off your family," Theo said, rolling his eyes.
"We should get it back ourselves," Fred said, his eyes gleaming mischievously, "We have a couple days, anyway."
"Are you mental?" Draco asked, incredulous.
"No, no, think about it," George replied, determined, "Molly's always bragged about Dumbledore not needing a cloak to become invisible. We've seen him appear out of thin air enough to know she wasn't lying. If that cloak if in this castle, it's either already in Charlus' position, or it will be soon. Perhaps a holiday gift."
"So what's your plan?" Hadrian asked, leaning forward slightly in anticipation.
Fred and George held some form of silent conversation for a few minutes. Their twin connection. Hadrian felt a slight pang of longing in his heart. Himself and Charlus would never be close enough to be able to telepathically communicate like that. Theo took this time to cast a muffliato around them before Fred broke the silence.
"Okay. Okay, so we've came up with a few options. None of us will be here after breakfast on Yule morning, so that's our time limit."
"The riskiest thing we could do would be to search Dumbledore's office," George said, "Obviously, without an invisibility cloak, that could be disastrous- Dumbledore likely has monitoring wards and the office is filled with portraits. This is a last resort."
"There are invisibility rituals..." Theo trailed off.
"They're strong Dark Magic," Fred pointed out, "The leader of the light is definitely going to detect lingering traces in his office, even if it's casted in another area."
"We considered sneaking into the Gryffindor common rooms at night the day we leave, but Charlus and the Weasleys celebrate Christmas, not Yule. There'd be no presents until the 25th of December," George explained.
"There's another option, isn't there?" Draco asked.
Fred nodded solemnly, "It'll involved us getting into the restricted section."
"Severus will give us a pass, especially if we explain why. Now, what's your plan?" Theo said.
George grinned, "Blood summoning rituals. The restricted section should have books on them, Bill and Charlie told us. They aren’t anywhere near as Dark as invisibility rituals, and leave no magical residue in the place the item is summoned from. We just need to find a place to do it. Essentially, you're using your blood to pull the item into the ritual circle. Might tire you out a lot, but it'll work."
"Then that's what we'll do," Hadrian nodded, "We can go to Severus after lunch, get permission, and then start the research."
•••
Albus didn't think he should be under this much stress at the hands of pre-teens. Especially not at this age. Yes, yes, maybe it's to be expected as the Headmaster of a school, but without a few particular students he wouldn't be stressed at all.
The 1991 lot of first years did not seem as pliable as he hoped, as many previous years had been.
The most obvious problem was the Slytherins. Hadrian Potter (Albus was not adding Black onto his name, that was never supposed to happen) seemed to have taken the reigns, and surrounded himself with the other first years as a cohesive unit. The compulsion potions he placed in their drinks at the end of year feast did not even seem to take hold. Albus knew the strength of them should have been enough to overpower the protections offered by Heir rings- so why hadn't they? He hadn't found a conclusive reason yet. These children could have somehow been stronger than they should be at age eleven, the protections on their Heir rings could have been strengthened, or they could all be well into learning Occlumency at such a young age. The last one seemed the most unlikely to Albus. Potter should have been the only one with above average power, which meant strengthened protective charms is the most logical reason. Still, he had no proof. No way to confirm. The protections weren't anything bad, per se. Albus merely wanted then complacent- to act like the image the majority of the school had of Slytherins. But they didn't. Albus had to begrudgingly admit that any incidents he'd had with the Slytherin first years and students from other houses had in fact been started by the latter students. Not that he would let anyone know he knew that.
He had left five of the Slytherin first years free from compulsions- Pike, Moon, Crabbe, Goyle and Davis. The first two he simply couldn't target at the welcome feast because they had arrived the following day. The other three, however, he did not anticipate would be brought into the fold by the others. Yet, they had been. Out of these five, only the Davis girl appeared to be truly close with Potter's first year group (most surprising, as she was the only halfblood Slytherin in the year)- Pike and Moon spent most of their time with Ravenclaws from Neutral or Darker families, and Crabbe and Goyle mainly stuck with each other. Nonetheless, the Slytherin first years as a whole held study groups together and appeared to genuinely help each other out. They were a united front, one that Albus did not believe he could break alone. Not without arising serious suspicion, and the wrath of some of the most notable Pureblood families in Britain.
As for the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, they weren't exactly causing problems, per se, but Albus did not like how many of them were on good terms with that Potter boy. Corner, Boot, Goldstein, Li, Abbott, MacMillan, Bones. Yes, the Head of the DMLE's niece was had made the acquaintance of the Ward of the Darkest family in Wizarding Britain. Wasn't that a shock. Albus was surely there was more students falling victim to Potter's charm that he simply hadn't noticed.
Gryffindor was a whole other headache now. The only student he had noticed on cordial terms with Potter was Longbottom, but they were in no way close. Albus did not believe they would get close, so he didn't need to worry about that at the moment. He did need to worry about Charlus. Albus had carefully planned out Charlus' life since before he was born, and he couldn't risk deviations. He needed Charlus to face Voldemort during this school year. He had already faced a massive deviation from the plan in the form of Miss Granger's run in with the troll. That effectively ruined all hopes of the Golden Trio for this year at least. He had hoped that Charlus and the youngest Weasley boy would have reached Miss Granger before the teachers did, and saved her, but that was not the case. One of the Gryffindor prefects had intercepted them trying to leave the tower and it delayed their arrival. Whilst they still got there before teachers, they arrived too late to stop what had been done to Miss Granger.
That was even more reason for Albus to gift Charlus the Cloak of Invisibility. But he had his concerns, once again revolving around Hadrian Potter.
Charlus had taken an inheritance test in Gringotts. He was not the Heir to the Peverell family. Which meant his blasted brother (who wasn't even meant to survive) was. Albus had to hope that Potter would be unaware of his heirship, so that he could gift the Cloak to Charlus. He needed Charlus to gaze into the Mirror of Erised. Alone. Which meant it would ideally be at night, so he needed to sneak around.
Albus groaned, stroking his beard thoughtfully.
Potter certainly did not know he was the Peverell Heir. The Goblins would have pulled the Cloak back by now if he did, and the Elder Wand would surely have gone off to find its new master. Christmas Day was mere days away, nothing would happen before then.
He was sure of it.
•••
On the evening of the 21st of December, it was time to complete the ritual.
Severus had indeed granted the boys with passes to the restricted section, telling them he'd rather not know too much about what they're going to do until after they've done it so he can maintain some plausible deniability. He did, however, point them in the direction of an abandoned classroom in the dungeons that Hogwarts students over many, many years had turned into a ritual room- warded strongly enough that the Hogwarts wards could not detect what was done inside.
Hadrian was sat in the centre of a ritual circle made of his own blood, with a sacrificial dagger in his hand. The circle he sat in overlapped with another, also drawn in his blood. He needed to recite the ritual's words, spill fresh blood into the overlapping portion of the circles, and the cloak of invisibility should appear in the other circle. Simple enough.
Theo, Draco and the twins were standing close to the wall on the opposite side of the room, looking a mixture of anxious and excited. Theo, the kleptomaniac that he was, had swiped a couple of blood replenishing potions from somewhere. Hadrian was thankful.
"Okay," Hadrian said, his voice barely above a whisper, "Here goes nothing."
"Good luck," Draco whispered.
Taking a deep breath, Hadrian began.
"Effundam sanguinem meum libere in circulo," he said, and drew the dagger across the palm of his hand, hard. The blood immediately began to flow. He allowed the blood to flow into the overlapping space for a few moments before he spoke again.
"Mater Magia peto ut ad me redeat quid de meo sanguine ablatum sit."
He was beginning to feel slightly lightheaded, but he saw the air in front of him begin to shimmer ever so slightly. After a few more moments, the shimmering grey fabric of the Cloak of Invisibility fully materialised into the circle. Hadrian grinned as he pressed his bleeding hand onto the floor and concluded the ritual, "Mater Magia gratias ago pro auxilio dedit."
Hadrian picked up the cloak and exited the ritual circle. As he drank the blood-replenishment potion, whilst Theo and Draco fawned over the cloak, the twins made sure not a single drop of Hadrian's blood remained in the classroom. No one would even know they had been here.
They returned to the Slytherin common room at ease. The ritual had gone perfectly, Hadrian had his cloak back, and they'd all be celebrating Yule tomorrow.
It had been a good day.