A ball of dark mist moved through trees like a ghost. A place untouched by any except a known few. The deafening silence was broken by a low hiss of a serpent. The dark mist gathered around the snake. Voldemort had fled .
He floated as he looked for a new host, finally settling on a quadruped due to the lack of an option. He had long given up on his so called followers. The truly loyal were locked up within Azkaban and those who followed him without loyalty did not trouble themselves to find him. A group of cowardly snakes who'd shed identities faster than politicians.
Yet he did not desire to go back to the wizarding world. Not at the moment. A new variable had appeared. Someone who wielded ancient magic. He could still remember the burning sensation he felt when he was grabbed by the figure. He could not see his face. But it reminded him of the pain he felt when Harry Potter touched Quirrel.
Was the boy truly special?
Was his miraculous survival more than just a fluke and Lilly Potter's sacrifice? Had Dumbledor taken the child under his tutelage?
The questions worried the Dark lord. One thing was clear, he needed a way to truly bypass the protection planted on Harry Potter.
-------------------------------------------------
Richard laid under the shade of a grown tree. His robes presses against the prickly but still bouncy leaves underneath to provide a decent cushion. He gazed at the sky through the leaves absentmindedly as he floated the object of his conundrum over his palm.
"What to do with you?"
He asked himself the question as he propped himself against the tree. His gaze temporarily stopping at the orange red ♝ bishop piece in his hand. It was no ordinary chess piece. Richard remembered the humiliation he went through, the begging he had done from the ROB to obtain the right to bring it there. The crystal chess piece glowed under the sun, it's value unknown to all but Richard.
An evil piece. A piece of magical crystal shaped after chess pieces capable of reincarnating humans or any other creature as a devil. And even though he had begged the ROB to bring it to the Harry Potter world, now he had no idea of what to do with it. He had no intention of turning anyone into a devil, that was his gimmick. But without that he couldn't think of what to do with the evil piece in hand. These were his evil pieces. The ones he had used on his peerage back on DxD.
The thing was powerful, if used right. If he was smart enough with it, then it might even become his trump card. But at the moment, he was at loss. The pieces needed mana to work, and this world had no such thing. He had fourteen more of those at hand, and yet, at the moment, they were nothing but simple chess pieces.
He put it away again, as he stood up, walking back to the castle. His mind quickly moving on to other matters.
Things were not working the way he wanted it to. Not recently. He had been trying his best to materialise a patronus charm, at least a partial one. Yet his wand failed to produce even a wisp of the silver magic. The last time he tried it, a small stream of black warm liquid flowed out of the tip of his wand. It seemed that his time as a devil had affected his soul and magic a lot more than he first came to believe. Just like how copying magic circuits from Shirou had effected his magic.