Chapter Text
Hogwarts
Albus congratulated himself as Hagrid dropped off the stone in his office and shared that he had made sure Harry had been told the right things about Hogwarts. From the reports he got from Arabella, the boy's family had treated Harry like shit so the kindness that Hagrid and Albus would give the boy would ensure he followed their direction just to make them proud of him. But since neither he nor Hagrid could be around him full-time, Albus had already found some incoming students who could lead Harry in the right direction. First off there was the youngest son of Molly and Arthur Weasley who had always supported him but had not joined the Order during the last war due to how young their kids had been.
Having met the young boy, Albus knew instantly the child would be good for Harry not only would the boy become jealous if Harry used too much money something that would prevent Harry from discovering that Albus was stealing from the brat's accounts. Ron was also lazy and had the same temper as his mother so might throw a fit if things did not go his way which could be useful to make sure Harry stayed ignorant about the Magical World.
Molly and Arhtur's daughter might also prove to be useful as well with the right potions added to the spells and potions he already had the boy under. If he could force Harry to fall in love with Ginevera Weasley, who was her mother in miniature, it would give Albus another way to control the boy later on. And by writing up a Marriage Contract between the pair, Albus could ensure that Ginny got everything from Harry even if he did manage to survive his encounter with Voldemort when he returned. And since the Wealseys were all loyal to Albus he could be appointed to run Harry's accounts and control his family seats, as long as he passed over some money to the family from time to time. And since they were all focused on Harry being a Potter they had no idea how much money was in his other family accounts so he could get away with paying them even 10,000 Galleons a year which was not even one percent of the total money Harry's family held in its Vaults.
Apart from the two youngest Weasely children, Albus had found the year before a young Muggleborn girl who could play a large part in his plans for Harry. One of his contacts in the Ministry brought the girl to his attention. According to the psych profile of the girl, the Ministry was on the fence about letting her join the magical world. One of the agents who had tested the girl thought it was best to give her a magic dampening cuff and use memory charms on her to let her live her life as a Muggle. Albus had used his position as Chief Warlock to meet the girl. He had been rather impressed with the young Hermione Granger, she had spunk but also looked like she would be good at following orders. According to her parents, the girl had a photographic memory of any book she had ever read, so Albus tested it by taking one of the books on a shelf in the home and turning it to a random page. Given the page number and what paragraph, Hermione was able to recite word for word what was written in the book.
Hermione was so sure of her intelligence and Albus was able to play on that belief as he continued to tell her she could easily be the Smartest Witch of her age. Both the girl and her parents drank in his lies as he told her that he would need her help in making sure Harry would learn properly about the Magical World. Pretending to have a coughing fit he asked the girl's parents for a drink. As soon as he and Hermione were alone, Albus told her that he actually wanted Harry to remain ignorant of the Magical World and that if she could help him with that task he would pay her back in books about all sorts of lost magic. These books would solidify her as the Smartest Witch of her age since no one else would know about them. Seeing her hungry expression at the thought of all that lost knowledge settled it for Albus as he agreed to send her a few books before she started Hogwarts.
Among the books, he had sent her were some that related to Harry so she could get to know him better. He actually had to take some of Arabelles' notes and use magic to turn them into a book so Hermione would read them. He did find that there was a small downside to Hermione's love of rules. Hermione would absolutely refuse to break them so had not read the notes on Harry until he had used a spell to transform them into the book. With Hagrid, Ronald, Ginievra, Hermione, and himself, Albus was sure they could manipulate Harry to follow the plan Albus had set out for the boy.
Before he took the stone, Hagrid had gotten for him down to the chamber for its "protection," Albus cast a spell on it creating a duplicate stone at least in appearance. Even with all his magic and the Elder Wand, he could not recreate the magical properties of the Philosopher's Stone. Albus then had the portrait of Phienus Nigelus Black open up to put the real stone in the Headmaster's Private Study before setting the copy aside to place in the Mirror of Erised after he allowed Harry to see it. Now wanting his staff to know what protection he was going to use for the stone, Albus went down to the protection chamber placing a fake challenge as a placeholder. As he set up the fake challenge which included a bookcase of magical tomes which would open up to different scenes and only one of which would be used to "protect the stone" Albus dropped one of the books right on his foot. While he felt the sharp jab of pain in his foot he was more concerned with what he felt in his magic. The Wards around where he stashed Potter had just broken.
As Albus left the protection chambers, using a back way so he could avoid the other traps that had been in place all he could think about was the Dursleys killing Harry after Hagrid brought him back. He wished he had put in his letter to them that the boy had to stay alive at least until he faced Voldemort rather than getting into Hogwarts. He knew from Arabella's letter the Muggle family had hurt Harry over the years but never got close to killing the boy all thanks to the spell he placed on the letter making sure they let the boy live there and did not kill him. But now that Harry was coming to Hogwarts the enchantments placed on them might have ended letting Petunia have her revenge by killing her nephew.
As if Magic had the plan to spite Albus, the moment he left the castle a contingent of Goblins arrived. Using a writ of duty from the Hogwarts Governors the Goblins were given permission to access the Ward Stone and began to improve the Wards. As it had been almost thirty years since the Goblins had access to the castle's Wards they not only increase their power but also fixed them from all the "improvements" Albus had made over the years. The Wards would now detect the presence of Love, Compulsion, and Lust Potions within the castle before neutralizing them. All "Dark Artifacts" were removed and sent to either the Ministry or Gringotrs in case Albus had stolen them from someone's vault. If Albus had placed enchantments on the artifacts he had stolen they would be cleansed before getting returned to their proper owners. The dorm rooms within the castle would no longer allow a member of the opposite sex into them no matter the relationship with the person inside. In each Common Room, and Head of House's office a magical sensor was placed so that if a student was harmed or had magic cast on them outside of a classroom it would be logged. This addition was put in place after the Goblins had found a spell of a similar nature in use by Slytherin House.
While they were only working on the Wards and could not change the staff at the school the Goblins, at the request of the Governors, put spells in place to see how much time each member of staff was doing their job or in the case of Albus, the Heads of House, and Hagrid jobs. If the Governors saw that the staff was not spending enough time on their duties they would get involved with first a warning but if it continued to happen either fire the staff member in question or if the person held multiple jobs removed some of the jobs so the person could better focus on their work.
When Albus got back from the Dursleys he was annoyed. It turned out they had not killed the boy after all, but the brat was missing. He wanted to curse Hagrid for this oversight after all the man had left the only means back from the island at the shore leaving the Muggles trapped. It had taken almost a full day for the person they had rented the shack from to go to the island thus freeing them. By the time the Dursleys had arrived home, the boy was nowhere to be seen, and even Arabella did not know what had become of him.
However, when Albus reached his office and was about to summon Hagird to him to lay into the Half-Gaint for his mistake he froze in place. His bookshelves were nearly empty. All that was left on them were the recent volumes of books that the students used for their classes, and the hundred phone books he had on his shelves with fake covers to make the shelves look fuller than they really were. Not knowing what was going on, and thinking Peeves or someone was pulling a prank on him Albus tried to go to the Headmaster's Private study but Phineus' Portrait would not open up. He could not ask the old Headmaster for he had long since cast a spell on all the portraits to make them unaware which of them guarded the door to his workshop. His first thought was that Hagrid had mentioned to the Goblins the Governor's plan to increase the Wards with the stone being at the castle before he quickly dismissed it for Hagrid would have told him if he had talked to the Goblins about the Wards.
Gringotts
The Goblin Healers had no idea what they were dealing with as they looked over the Potter Heir. Sure the black goo that had come out of the human's eyes nose, and ears was standard when the combined Family Rings performed a Cleansing on a person, but the tar-like substance that had come out of the boy's forehead confused them all. They had tried to wipe it away, as they did with the Black Goo to find out what the cause of it was, but the tar could not be moved. Not even a tiny bit could be taken to be analyzed to see what was going on.
The Black Goo, on the other hand, could which allowed the Goblins to see that the boy had been enchanted so his eyesight was as bad as it could possibly get, apart for some reason when he was on a broomstick. His Core had been blocked by almost sixty percent making them glad they had discovered it when he was so young and had not used magic all that much so there would be no rebound effect on him. He had been dosed with potions to make him loyal to Albus Dumbledore, subservient to his Muggle family, and not to report any abuse that had been done to him.
The tar seeping out of his forehead gave them nothing, and not even their Loremaster, Cracknector, knew what was going on. All the Goblin Healers could do was watch as the tar poured out of the scar causing the human endless pain even when he was rendered unconscious, at least by the look on his face. They did notice that even though more tar kept pouring out of the human it did not drip or move beyond the boy's forehead but built itself up. After nearly an hour the team noticed that the tar started to change its shape a little so rather than a cylinder shape some sharp edges began to form along some of its sides. Finally, after three hours Harry's scar stopped releasing the tar-like substance letting the Healers breathe out a sigh of relief. Healer Silverwing tried to remove the tar from the boy's head since it had stopped but the item still did not budge.
They all agreed that until the object could be removed they would not wake the boy up. As they placed the boy under observation the tar object continued to shift its form as more edges appeared on it making it look less like tar and more akin to a pitch-black crystal of the Black Cat-Eye Scapolite variety. This comparison became more abundant when they noticed a small light appearing in the center of the crystal. As the light appears the crystal tumbles off the human's head and fell onto the bed. Silverwing immediately cast protective spells on his hands as he lifted up the crystal finding it weighed more than it should have due to its size and felt a little warm.
Now that it was away from the boy's head and its shape had solidified, Silverwing took the strange crystal to Cracknector to see if the Loremaster could determine what it was now. Almost as soon as Silverwing placed the crystal on the Loremaster's desk the old Goblin muttered a curse, "Dear Veles."
"What is it Loremaster?" Silverwing asked.
"It is a Soul Cyrstal," Cracknector said, "but I have never seen one so dark before."
"A Soul Crystal does that mean that the Potter Heir lost his Soul?" Silverwing asked.
"No, no, no he is young there is nothing he could have done that would have tainted his Soul that it would appear like this. And even if the boy we see is actually a resurrected person who had such a tainted soul his current Family Rings would not have exorcised it," Cracknector explained. "No this is somehow an invading Soul that had been connected to the human so let's see who it belongs to," Cracknector spoke in an ancient dialect of Gobblygook so old that Silverwing did not recognize it as the old Goblin waved his hands over the black crystal. "Now that is unique."
"What is?" Silverwing asked.
"This is the crystalline form of a Horcrux without a vessel. No wonder we did not know what it was," Cracknactor said.
"I don't get it?" Silverwing asked.
"As far as I know there has never been any record of a Horcrux being bonded to a living being," Cracknactor said twirling his small beard for a moment. "It might be a good idea to give the boy a full cleanse."
"But his Family Rings just gave him one," Silverwing said confused.
"As I just said there has never been any record of a Horcrux connected to something living. Who knows what it might have done to him that even the oldest Family Rings could not detect," Cracknactor explained.
"Thank makes sense and I am sure the Prince will agree with the precaution for his client," Silverwing said using his Mate's title rather than his name since it he was at work.
"There is also something troubling about this Soul Stone," Cracknactor said as Silverwing started to leave his seat.
"What?" the Goblin Healer said.
"As you might know a Horcrux is a part of someone's Soul, but this soul fragment is very small," the Loremaster pointed out.
"So?" Silverwing asked.
"The actual soul fragment in this crystal is that small point of light the rest of the crystal is nothing but taint. If this was the only Horcrux that the person created the soul fragment would be bigger and the taint would be smaller," Cracknactor explained.
"What does that mean?" Silverwing asked.
"Whoever this soul fragment originated from has created multiple Horcruxes and that is not good at all for themselves, those around them, and Magic in general," Cracknactor said.