Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
Chapter 7: Research at the Ministry
The trip to the Ministry of Magic was a lot more pleasant than the previous one to Hogwarts.
This time around, Harry had brought his supplies in a shrunken bag stored in one of his pockets.
He also had a lot of fun riding his broom all the way to the Ministry without having to worry about any muggles spotting him.
Harry entered using the phone booth and made his way directly to the Department of Mysteries, where this whole mess had started.
"This place is bigger than I remember..." He muttered after venturing into the long corridor covered by dozens of doors.
It was going to take a long time to find what he was looking for.
Harry was sure that the blueprints to create Time-Turners were one of the Ministry's best-kept secrets and would be well hidden and protected.
"Well, if there is one thing I have, it's time, I suppose…"
It didn't take much to find the library of the Department of Time Regulations, but the information he wanted wasn't there.
He still took all of the books and placed them near the entrance of the Ministry. He wanted to take them all back to Hogwarts once he could get his hands on one of those dimensional suitcases that can store entire rooms' worth of stuff.
For some reason, Harry felt more at ease at the school, even if both places were as quiet as a tomb; the familiar halls of Hogwarts were enough to reassure him and made him feel at home.
Later on, he found the Aurors' Headquarters and again, he brought all of their books to what he named "the book dumping area" near the entrance of the Ministry.
Finally, he gained access to the Unspeakables Headquarters by the use of his 'Bombarda' spell, which was starting to become his new favorite magic to use.
The place had been hard to find, but even harder was gaining entrance to their vault.
It took him an entire month of going through every document and book they had there until he found the protocol necessary to open the vault.
The task had left Harry mentally exhausted, but the reward was immense.
The vault was easily three times the size of Hogwarts' library and contained every bit of restricted or straight-up forbidden magic that the Ministry could get their hands on.
Seeing the colossal task ahead of him, Harry had to take a day off to regain his wits before getting started.
<><><><><><><><><><>
Six months. That was the time it took him to find the documents that he was looking for, and he didn't even go through half the vault to get there.
He didn't just read the documents and books but also took some time to learn about what he was reading...otherwise, it would be a waste of time.
He also took the extra effort to catalogue and place all the material he was going through at the "book dumping area". He may want to study those further at a later time since he found a lot of interesting pieces of magic and rituals in there.
The book that contained the actual instructions to create a Time-Turner was a lot thinner than he expected, and it had a blue cover with the word "Time" on it.
There was no hint of who wrote it or when, but it looked very old. The instructions were very detailed and easy to follow.
The Time-Turner was basically composed of three important parts: the metal casing that required a special alloy, the time sand, and the runic work carved on the casing.
The casing would require him to learn some smithing, the sand was a work of alchemy, and the runes… well, they required him to know how to write runes.
"I should first make sure I have all of the ingredients, then I can start learning how to craft the individual parts… this is going to be a colossal task."
The components for the alloy were not that rare: gold and goblin steel. He was sure he could find those at Gringotts.
As for the time sand, the main component was fairy dust. He wasn't sure how rare that was, but the Ministry should have a storage area for potions and alchemy materials. That was a good starting point.
It took him less than a day to find the ingredient storage areas. He had grown very familiar with the Ministry in the last six months.
.
There was one inside the Aurors' Headquarters and another one in the Unspeakables' Headquarters.
Harry was sure that the collection of materials at the Ministry would make Snape drool like an idiot.
Rows and rows of shelves filled to the brim with stuff. He managed to find all of the ingredients on the list in great amounts, except for the fairy dust that he needed.
"That's bad… if it's not in here, the chances of finding it somewhere else are dim. But, I guess it's time to visit Diagon Alley."
<><><><><><><><><>
He landed in the middle of the main street and looked around with interest.
"It's been a while since I came here...I have truly missed this place," he said with a smile.
Harry directed his view toward a shop called Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment.
"If I remember correctly, they had some of those luxury multi-compartment cases."
Harry entered the shop and started to look around, and soon found the expensive section of the shop.
There were several briefcases and suitcases. He opened one of them and went inside it to take a look. The inside of the briefcase was as big as his dorm room back at Hogwarts.
"This one will do for now. If I need more, I'll just come back here." By this point, he no longer felt bad about taking stuff that didn't belong to him. After all, for what he had come to understand about this frozen world, whatever he did in here was unlikely to affect those on the outside.
He took the briefcase and went to the Apothecary. Harry then started to go through the many ingredient containers, looking for his missing fairy dust.
"Sigh… It's not here." He said with great disappointment.
Harry was starting to lose hope. He was now sure that he would not find it at Hogwarts either. That ingredient was at the very least regulated by the Ministry, if not straight-up illegal.
"Dumbledore would never let Snape have something illegal at the scho—"
Harry then came to a realization.
"Wait a minute… illegal. Of course! Knockturn Alley!"
He had only been there once by accident, but Ron made sure to inform him just how dangerous that place was. It was filled with criminals and shops that sold illegal artifacts and ingredients.
Harry ran to the entrance of the alley and went in without hesitation...after all, at this point, there was nothing for him to fear.
He went to Cobb & Webbs, a shop that sold all sorts of dark artifacts but no ingredients.
His next stop was Borgin and Burkes. This was the shop he appeared in during his previous trip to the alley. The shop was very creepy and dirty.
He took his time to look around and carefully examine everything.
The store contained a large number of old tomes that he immediately stored inside his case for later review.
"Man... I'm becoming quite the book collector," Harry said to himself with a hint of amusement, as he was also trying to imagine how Hermione would react if she saw the immense amount of books he had already acquired.
However, he did not dare touch any of the artifacts since he did not know the effects they could have. His Godfather had once told him stories about the cursed artifacts inside his old family home, so Harry was very hesitant to touch anything that he didn't fully understand.
He also found some potion ingredients, but unfortunately, no fairy dust...again.
He was once again losing hope when he came across a shop called Mr Mulpepper's Apothecary.
The front of the shop contained a great variety of ingredients that Harry was now familiar with, and none of those were that rare.
He knew that there must be more to this shop, so Harry started inspecting every inch of the place until he found a hidden latch below the carpet that led to a basement.
He opened it and went down into the dark room.
"Lumos."
A strong light illuminated the place and, as Harry suspected, this was where the owner kept the rare ingredients.
As he started looking around, he recognized some of the labels, like basilisk venom and unicorn blood.
"That's some crazy illegal stuff," Harry muttered.
In the corner of a shelf was a small wooden box with beautiful gold decorations that called for Harry's attention.
He approached and picked up the box. His hands were shaking with anticipation as he opened it… and there it was.
"Yes! I found it."
A tiny glass jar containing a shiny powder was inside. Even without reading the label, Harry already knew that this was the real deal.
His long search had come to an end.
A.N: - Remember to comment, vote, and/or leave a review if you have the time. Those things help me a lot and I would really appreciate it.
You can Support me on P@treon if you like and get 20 advanced chapters. You can also find characters images to view for free in Collections/Invincible Stage Images
-patreon.com/Kriogenix
For donations and commissions, go to ko-fi.com/kriogenix