Chapter 529: Charles Wentworth's Rise (I)
Chapter 529: Charles Wentworth's Rise (I)
The document revealed everything Charles did after arriving on this timeline during the Marauder Era. Lily, James, Potter, and Snape were only in the fifth year, and Voldemort was rampaging worldwide, gathering followers.
After arriving at this timeline, Charles had many things to do, the first of which was to learn magic. Due to Edward’s contract, he forgot everything he learned from the Empire, including basic knowledge about Wandcraft Magic.
So, Charles’s first order of business was to get his hands on books. However, he had no money, including muggle dollars for exchange. So, he removed the shackles of morality, stole money from some muggles, exchanged them for Galleons at Gringotts, and bought the first and second-year books from Hogwarts.
With his ability [24-Hour Call Back], it did not take him long to master all the magic theory knowledge and basic spells. However, he knew it was not enough; he needed a deeper understanding of magic for his plans to succeed.
So, Charles secretly stole all the books in Flourish and Blotts. After all, he was a Tier 1 Arcanist, and most wizards were only Tier 0 Apprentices. Furthermore, Charles was a mage, not a wizard, making using Wandless Magic easier.
After getting the knowledge he desired, Charles had a basic plan for his future. The first problem he needed to solve was that he was not a wizard, and his body could not produce mana. He tried to recreate the Meditation Method of the Empire; however, that is something Hermione spent years creating while having access to countless knowledge and resources, so he failed miserably.
Charles realized the best way to fix his problem was to inject a bloodline into his body, turning into a wizard. He at first rejected the idea of injecting a magical bloodline into his body, knowing there would be danger.
So, Charles began to study magic, focusing more on bloodline theory. He sneaked into Hogwarts and copied their library; the task was easier since Dumbledore was busy fighting Voldemort with his Order of Phoenix.
Charles also raided the library of other magical schools across the world and the library of many ancient families.
“This guy unknowingly walked the same path as me,” commented Edward after reading to this part. He never revealed this news to the public, so it’s impossible for Charles to know what he did and copy it.
‘However, I still did it better.’
Charles did not think magical knowledge would be in the muggle world, so he ignored places like the Vatican–Edward did not. Moreover, many of the wild theories muggles had about magic, witchcraft, and rituals inspired him, so he wanted these books.
After acquiring all these books, Charles had a basic foundation to change his bloodline. But magic research takes time–unless you’re a unique genius like Edward. However, his talent only allowed him to learn knowledge faster. Although it did help for him to receive his research result 24 hours in the future, it was still not enough since he could not use his ability many times.
Additionally, he could foresee that his strength won’t increase much in a long time. So, Charles used the greatest lesson he learned from the Empire–use the power of many to help him ascend to a higher level.
He used the Imperius Curse and other black magic to control people and countless muggle scientists across the world. He then revealed the existence of magic to them, along with giving them access to his library.
He had only one objective–to use these people’s help to advance his magical research. His approach was successful, and Charles’s bloodline injection research made progress after experimenting on plenty of dark wizards and even muggles death rows.
However, three years had passed, and the research was far from finished. Furthermore, Lily and James had graduated from Hogwarts, while Snape became a Death Eater. He knew it wouldn’t be long before these two died.
His plan was to save Lily Potter and slowly plan how to lure her into becoming his wife. Furthermore, he wanted to use Voldemort’s death to become famous in the Wizard World and secretly gather power.
As such, Charles decided to take risks. He directly injected the bloodline into his body. As for the consequences of death? He did not care because he could return to 24 hours into the past.
In the end, after hundreds of attempts, failures, and deaths, he successfully injected the blood of the basilisk inside his body, becoming a wizard. Charles’ first step had succeeded; his body could now produce mana.
However, he had to face another challenge–the Bloodline Limit or the three Limiters. Since his mana had already reached Tier 1, it could be considered he had broken the first limiter. However, he still needed ways to break the second and third limiter, reaching Tier 3.
Luckily, Edward did not completely wipe out his memories and knew information like he needed different methods to break the limiters, and each method needed to be better than the former.
Charles knew the easiest method he could get his hands on would be to inject a second bloodline. However, he researched this method for the second limiter while searching for another method.
Luck was on his side, so he soon found the answer in all his knowledge. Knowledge about the limiters was known to certain ancient families–including Dumbledore, as he once suggested to Edward to walk this road instead of experimenting with bloodline, and the first and original method was only basic training of mana. After repeated training, it’s possible to break the limit; the only downside to this method is that it takes time–which Charles did not lack.
So, after a few years of practice, Charles broke the second limiter and reached Tier 2. In this world, he was now on par with Dumbledore and Grindelwald, and only Voldemort was stronger than him, but only by a small margin.
(AN: Remember, Voldemort was also Tier 2, but his mana was 60 times that of an ordinary wizard instead of the normal 50 of normal Tier 2.)
Once his strength reached a certain level, Charles began to appear in the Wizarding World, leading a battle against Voldemort. Dumbledore was suspicious of him, so he invited him to the Order of Phoenix to keep watch on him, but that’s exactly what Charles wanted; he had a legitimate reason to get close to everybody–especially Lily and James.
Then, on the night of Voldemort’s death, he ensured he was at the Potter’s house. Charles ensured he was in the bathroom when Voldemort arrived and killed James.
Then, he arrived and fought against Voldemort, losing but saving his life. Finally, Lily cast the Spell of Love, and Voldemort died by the rebound of his spell. Charles used an already prepared dark magic to save Lily’s life by injecting life force into her body and also preventing her soul from entering the Afterlife.
In the end, things went as he wanted. James died, Voldemort died, and Lily and Harry were saved. Only a handful of people doubted him, but there was no proof.
After this event, Lily and Charles could be considered the savior of the Wizarding World. Then, Charles began to enact his plan. During a solemn meeting of the Order of Phoenix, he had a “mental breakdown.” talking about how the Wizarding World has not changed for so many years, resulting in the birth of people like Voldemort and the death of innocent people like James.
He declared changes needed to happen, and many people chastised him, saying his thinking was similar to Grindelwald and even Voldemort. Charles apologized, and people forgave him, thinking he could not accept what happened to James and this war.
However, Charles’s objective was achieved–creating a reason why he changed so much in the future while also laying a seed in certain people’s minds.
Then, he proceeded to the next step.