Darius was thanking the gods that thy had decided to make the journey during the day, he could only imagine how unsettling the place would be during the night. It was already quite eerie and foreboding and he was sure a person of lesser mental fortitude would run screaming for the hills. Or that may just be the effect of one of the wide-range, low-powered wards around the property to keep all muggle trespassers away from the place. Sirius and he were at the edge of the grounds of the Gaunt cottage. The both of them had spent the last couple of days preparing in any way they could and had come armed to the hilt.

Darius wasn’t taking any chances and was fully dressed in his basilisk hide armor and armed with both sword and wand. The sword was in his right as he was not skilled enough to wield it with his left, not that he was all that skilled with it to begin with. All that he knew of sword-fighting came from lessons learnt in the RoR fighting against swordsman constructs, though he could confidently say he would still be far better than a huge majority of magicals. He had already trained in using his wand with his left hand as he anticipated having to use two wands someday. Currently he was using his main Yew and Unicorn hair wand.

Sirius was in a special armor, similarly made of some kind of leather but still couldn’t be identified by Darius. It had a sort of ancient cut to it, likely an heirloom of the Black family. He was also wearing a black dagger at his waist, which almost caused Darius to feel sick when he looked at it through his aura sight. The dagger was a seething mass of vile and disgusting miasma and was cursed to the hilt. He could confidently say that anything pierced by the dagger either wouldn’t have long to live or would live but in the most painful agony. Both of them also had a small pouch at their waist, enchanted with expansion charms and carrying anything they felt would be useful to this venture.

Darius hadn’t let Sirius know the full extent of his inherited abilities, but he did give a brief and abridged explanation of them. So, he stepped forward first to scope out the place. He released the block on his own eyes and flooded them with magic. His eyes took on a hazy layer of white energy through which his normal black eyes were barely visible. He saw at least four barriers around the cottage. Though his eyes weren’t as detail oriented and couldn’t tell as much about the barriers as someone with advanced mage sight, he was more adept at divining the purpose of wards and circumventing them rather than trying to release them.

The first was a fear barrier in an ingenious combination with some sort of subtle nightmare illusion and was merely designed to turn away unwanted visitors who had stumbled across the place by mere accident. The barrier was relatively easy to take down by anybody who knew what they were doing. But Darius knew an easier way to get rid of such kind of weak dark barriers.

“Expecto Patronum!”

The pure aura of the Patronus cleansed the taint of the miasma holding up the first barrier and it silently collapsed as if just melting away. Darius wasn’t sure if it was down for good or just dispelled temporarily but he could easily get rid of it if it came back up again.

Sirius gave a low whistle when he saw how the first barrier was dealt with. He was also wearing a pair of glasses he hadn’t been until now. They were black framed stylish glasses inset with runes all along the edges of the frame.

“That was a nifty little trick you pulled there. I thought getting rid of Dementors and Lethifolds was all Patronuses were good for. Oh, and that technique you use to send messages with it. I had no clue they could be used for such purposes as well.”

“Before I explain further on that, what the hell are those glasses you are wearing. I may be good with runes but even I can’t tell the purpose of every artifact just by looking at it. I can however tell that it is quite an ingenious piece of work with at least three separate enchantments on it with no conflict between them either.”

“The glasses were something which belonged to my uncle Alphard. He was one of the few relatives that I liked. He was a known adventurer and travelled across many parts of Europe though not much beyond that. These glasses were commissioned by him for the sake of reading magic auras so that he could stay safe during his travels. Though it was a tall ask considering there are very few natural aura readers in the world, the glasses did manage to attain a level sufficient to be used as a identifier for most traps, wards, contraptions, artifacts and the like. Though it isn’t all perfect and requires quite a bit of knowledge on the part of the wearer to even discern the information it gives, it is mighty handy to have around.”

“That it is. I have heard tell of such glasses, but they are pretty rare. You could buy out some of the poorer wizarding families with the price of one of these artifacts. Keep it safe, it will come in handy throughout your life.

But now, it is time to get through the second barrier. It is pretty simple to tell what it does. What is not simple is getting through it. It is an elemental barrier. A quadra-elemental barrier at that. The ward is composed of elemental energy attuned to wind, water, fire and earth. The wind shears will rip us to shreds, the fire us designed to burn us alive, the water will suffocate us, and the earth will box us in between nearly impregnable walls.”

“Daaamn! He doesn’t do things halfway, does he? I was expecting an elemental barrier, likely a wind one, where invisible blades are designed to cut you down, but this is way beyond. This is going to be a nightmarish gauntlet to get through. My glass read the strength of the barrier to be sufficient to trap us in each of the four parts for at least five minutes. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I can get through it, at least not all of them.”

“Luckily for you, or rather, both of us, I have a way through. There is no normal way I could have gotten through this except may be if we overpowered it with our combine raw magical power. But that would leave us pretty drained and the next two wards would automatically activate, not even giving us any time to get a read on them. Not to mention that the resulting light show would be visible for miles. Also, Riddle Manor is just a little way away from here and we don’t want old Tommy boy knowing we are here or what we’re up to. I am pretty sure it is under Fidelius since I can’t make my way up to the place, or I would have directly slit the fuckers throat while he was in that homunculus form of his.”

“That bastard is here?? Why don’t we get Amelia on the case and get a contingent of Aurors and Unspeakables down her then?”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said? It is under Fidelius. There is no known way to get through that. Well except the most basic way to get through the ward with purely raw magical power. And if destroying this ward is going to be visible for a few miles around, the Fidelius is going to light up the entire effing county, so that is out of question unless you want the ICW and its Enforcers on your ass for breaking the International Statute of Secrecy.”

“Well, you don’t have to be so bitchy about it. I get it, we can’t brute force our way through. Now, what do we do about this one. You said you had a way of getting us through.”

“Yes, I did. It is very simple in essence. There are magical systems all across the world and they aren’t exactly compatible with each other. Some of them even repel each other. Case in point, elemental systems. If you look at the European and American system, you are looking at Wind, Water, Fire and Earth. But go to the Far East and it changes to Water, Earth, Fire, Wood and Metal. There very elemental laws differ from us. I learnt this during my studies about ‘Kekkai’ or Barrier magic for one of my personal projects. Their ‘Kekkaishi’ are miles ahead in terms of understanding of barriers and the sheer complexities involved in their best barriers is mind-boggling.”

“My uncle Alphard did mention that their barrier arts are far more formidable. The Far East is not actually under ICW jurisdiction though the ICW sought to do so several times. And the ICW can’t even protest, since the number of incidents where magic was nearly exposed is far, far lesser over there than in any ICW controlled areas.”

“That is true. And now it is time to put my study of their barriers to the test. I am nowhere near the level of a Barrier master over there, but I do believe I qualify as an initiate at the very least instead of a novice. Take care not to disturb me during the process, or there may be a backlash.”

It was time to crack open a barrier!