HP: Spirit Talker

For a full-fledged Shinto ritual circle, I had to move Barty Crouch a considerable distance. Also, Shimenawa had to be used again, and I did not have as much of that sacred rope as I would have liked. When I bought it in Kyoto, I didn't think I would need it so much, but I did. All of these unexpected rituals, if you take the time to prepare them, don't require much in the way of materials, except for dried herbs and incense, of course.

You can organize and beautify a place, add different elements to that place, turn it into a full-fledged universal ritual site. But when was it easy, right? Every time we get something, the unexpected happens and we have to hurry, which means we have to make do with what we have. So after today I'm down to one rope for one ritual and that's it. I'll have to send someone to Japan. I can't weave it myself, right?

But it's one thing to use an off-the-shelf substitute, and it's quite another to literally make a newly invented "device" from scratch. What are we talking about here? Prison/storage/trap. To be honest, when this all started, I thought it would be easier to just, say, remove the Imperius, put Crouch's brains together, or something like that. In fact, after diagnosing the "patient," it turned out that everything that had happened to Crouch had created not just a second personality, but a full-fledged ghost in the process of germination.

That is, this formation was literally one step away from becoming a full-fledged ghost, and ghosts do not have the rank of "lower" due to the peculiarities, so they are already "born" intelligent. And for spirits, not only strength is important, but also intelligence — they are equally involved in evolution. So I have a chance to get a spirit, and since it will be in my ritual circle at the last stage of formation and will be fed by my energy, the spirit will be bound to me and my blood. The prospects are such that I simply lack imagination. Besides, I didn't even suspect or find any mention anywhere that such a thing was possible in principle.

The result: Bartemius Crouch Sr. lies in the center of the ritual, and a rather primitive but quite functional construction of several tree trunks, rope shimenawa, smoking smoke fryers and a few compensating errors and mistakes seals in the air, pumps out the spiritual education of the man and seals in a mirror (the mirror is taken from one of the few girls who participated in the pursuit of Crouch).

And yes, I set up surveillance on Crouch, and the "stompers" clearly recorded the frequency of the man's movements from home to work. Once Barty was less frequent at the Ministry and spent more time at home, we waited a little longer, and at the first opportunity the group professionally "tied up" Crouch, then dragged him to a secluded place and called me. That was it.

As for the conversation with him, everything went according to my plan. Or rather, I had three of them, according to the number of options, but I had the highest hopes for the chosen one. Even though I'm not the best actor, it wasn't difficult to play almost hysterical after the intensity of real emotions. And in general, all my words were not an outright lie, including about the battle in the championship, although whether this battle, so — beating psychotic and seizures.

Crouch, no doubt, in politics and political games, is a bison, but the fact is that intelligent people often do not have all the pieces of the mosaic, make assumptions from which the original picture is distorted. Yes, I want revenge on the ministerial freaks who decided to screw me, but here you need to look more broadly. The thing is, this group of ministerial mouth-breathers is the creation of a grey-bearded Dumbledore, and through them the old man spreads rumors, misinformation, corrects the opinion of the masses.

If they are caught, Dumbledore's attention will be diverted, his maneuvering will be limited, and while Crouch, who doesn't like Dumbledore either, and the Headmaster of Hogwarts fight, the first round of the old man's weakening will begin. Earlier I thought the Greengrasses and Malfoy would be the first to hit the Headmaster, but Lucius is "slowing down" for some reason, so let it all start with Crouch, or rather, let it start with a new trial, with the preparation for which I was pulled out. And I'm doing all this to weaken the last strong force in Britain.

 The Ministry, the Eaters, and the Order of the Phoenix are the strongest factions, not only in terms of fighting, but in terms of money, politics, and influence. The Ministry is in disarray, the Purebloods have been divided since the first war with Voldemort, and the last stronghold remains the faction of the Headmaster of Hogwarts. And because of its unified leadership, the Order is quite influential and powerful. As for wealth, I don't know, since I have no idea where the Order's agents might have been and what they might have gotten their hands on.

***

— Welcome home, Momo-chan! — Sora lets go of the amulet she wore for so long as a Zashikiwarashi.

Smoothly rising into the air, the amulet flew away from him and descended slightly. In an elusive moment, the amulet transformed into a teenage girl in a short pink kimono, barefoot, with a wide, joyful smile on her cheerful face. Landing on the tatami, the girl raised her arms like a gymnast and turned to face the boy, her face beaming with joy.

— I'm home~!

The finished part of the mansion literally came to life, taking the first breath of a newborn. Zashikiwarashi took the new home into her safe arms, becoming one with it. Happily, the girl covered her eyes and felt the whole finished building and the other parts of the whole complex of buildings, of which only the foundation was left. Pulling her attention further, Momo felt the ponds being laid, the technical communications and even some unfriendly Yurei that had settled in the caves under the hill. She felt other spirits, humans and even mages all around her, all the lands that belonged to the owner of this house.

Momo didn't even notice how much her powers had grown, how easy it was for her to cover such a large area with her attention. And her appearance had changed as well. She looked two years older, not in height, but with a more rounded figure, and her hair had changed to a "high ponytail" tied with a wide white ribbon. The peach kimono became pink with a pattern of multicolored balls and a tigress with three tiger cubs, placed on the back of the kimono. To Momo, all these changes were natural, for they reflected a change in the power and essence of the spirit that had once been an ordinary zashikiwarashi, but had become a few or three steps higher.

The spirit of the earth that had been released a little earlier was rumbling somewhere in the depths, arranging the rooms that the master had requested: underground halls, passages, chambers, an entire underground system with the preservation of underground water arteries, as well as the extraction and refinement of several wells with drinking water. Unfortunately, there were no hot springs, but the Earth Spirit, who had received a powerful gift of fire and deeper bowels, was not interested in that. If his master wanted it, he could easily do it — he could do more than that now.