What ?! Grounded !!

// THIS IS AN OLD CHAPTER. THE NEW CHAPTERS ARE IN VOLUME 2. YOU CAN READ THESE CHAPTERS IF YOU WANT SOME INSIGHT ON WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN LATER BUT SOME EVENTS CAN BE DIFFERENT BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW CHAPTERS.

I am in the large office of the house facing my mother, the Philosopher's Stone and my ingots are next to her.

"So young man, I'm waiting for your explanation." The tension in the room is palpable.

"Uh, that's gold?"

"I can see it is gold! I'm not an idiot, I recognized Nicolas Flamel's stone. My question is, how did you get it?"

"Hummm, I found it on the floor?"

"Ah well, you want me to believe that the holy grail of alchemy was on the floor right in front of your feet and you just had to bend down to pick it up?"

"Um, maybe I had to do a little more than that."

"That is to say?"

"I maybe, and I mean maybe. Create two portkeys and take advantage of the fact that someone else removed the wards to take it and replace it with a fake?"

My mother looks at me speechless.

"You are in serious trouble, young man. I will first send a letter to your aunt so that she defuses the situation and that we do not lose our reputation, then I will take care of your case."

She takes a parchment out of a drawer and picks up her quill before starting to write

"But mom, it's not like anyone's going to miss it. They destroyed the fake I put in its place and don't know I have the original." At these words, she stops writing and looks me straight in the eye.

"Are you sure no one is looking for this stone?"

"Yes, I heard Dumbledore tell Harry he was going to destroy the stone because it is too dangerous."

She takes the time to think for a few minutes.

"You will not repeat anything you just told me to your aunt or your father. We will keep the stone but in a safe place and you will not have access to it. Do you understand?"

"What?! But I need it to finance my projects!"

"Well, we'll see that later, I told you our finances don't allow us right now, not that we weren't going to do it. Now go to your room and you'll only go out for dinner."

Two more weeks went by in the same way, my father did not understand why my mother had punished me, but he understood very well that it was not in his interest to get involved when he saw Elenea's angry face.

I took advantage of this time to train and write a series of books aimed at unifying all the courses in the wizarding world only to keep the best. But writing with these fucking quills takes an eternity, and I barely finished the potions book for the first few years.

I never saw the stone again, but I guess my mother uses it sparingly. She looks more relaxed than usual when managing our finances and there is a big stack of document for the acquisition of wizarding shops on the desk.

The only thing I have the right to leave my room for is to give her letters that she sends to my friends for me. I know she reads them before sending them to make sure I'm not talking about the stone. As if I was going to make such a big mistake.

From the few letters I receive, the others seem to be doing well. Daphne informs me that we are invited to a big ball at her place. Blaise is having fun buying whatever he can find in Muggle shops and Edward says he has become a better seeker than I am. I'm eager to see it.

I can just keep moving forward on my other projects in secret. I would need to deepen my research, but I think that a ritual to merge my essence with that of a magical creature in order to acquire their ability is possible. I already dream of being able to teleport like a phoenix or to become invisible like a Demiguise. But I think an easier target to get right now is the Chamber of Secrets Basilisk. I would try the ritual on a smaller creature but if all goes according to plan, the basilisk will go right after.

A priority target is Ron's rat, good old Peter Pettigrew. He's one of the main people responsible for Voldemort's return and his elimination is one of my top priorities with the destruction of Tom Riddle's diary. But destroying the latter is not really difficult, accidents happen and I have an endless supply of basilisk venom.