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Chapter Text

“The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,” he answered; “and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark.”

• Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

My parents, having met with Hannah’s and Megan’s (but not Susan’s Aunt) in Diagon Alley three weeks earlier in the summer, were content to drop me at the gates of Abbott Abbey. Which was the actual legal name of Hannah’s mansion.

“Now, I know you’ll be a wonderful guest, but don’t hesitate to ring me – or whatever magic the Abbotts have – if you feel like it. Okay?” My mother, Aissata Sahelian, had my hand clasped in both of hers.

This was the second minute of us standing outside the gate, while Baba sat in the driver’s seat and examined the somewhat church-like manor that hadn’t been visible until we turned up the drive.

I continued my silence. Fortunately, Mum quickly realised what she was doing and let my hand drop. Then she reached out and smoothed the fold of the new robes I’d gotten during that Diagon trip.

I didn’t sigh. “I know I haven’t been to a sleepover before,” (there had never been anyone worth the effort), “but I was at boarding school for the past year. I survived that, and I’ll see you tomorrow Mum.”

“Yes, but…” Aissata stopped herself. Stared at my eyebrow, which was replicating an expression of hers that I pretended had an effect on me. “Yes. You did survive. Very well – but you call if you need.”

I nodded vigorously, then stepped away to rest a hand on the gate.

Part of me was quite hesitant about this part. Back in Praes, in my first life, attempting to enter the home of another High House without a member of the ruling family present could result in… many things. Free welcome, cursed spikes, or spiked curses. Sometimes those things happened even when you were escorted.

But I had to trust that the wizarding world was consistent. Consistently docile, that is.

The gate was iron. Cold, even on such a sunny day. Hairs stood on end, all up my arm – a tingling of some ward. Rushing from the waist-high metal gate into my bloodstream.

Predictably, my skin did not melt, my heart did not seize, and nothing materialised or moved at great speed towards a vital organ.

Still, I didn’t try to push the gate open myself. Not with my parents here – they weren’t used to death threats, you see.

Sure enough, half a minute later, one of the big wooden doors of the manor shifted, and a blonde girl came running out.

“Hannah!” I waved with enthusiasm, because the girl got unreasonably happy when someone matched her enthusiasm – even only for a moment.

Very soon, my minion most in need of shaping stumbled to a stop on the Abbott’s side of the gate. Said gate hummed when she touched it, then curled in on itself like vines, excess metal forming an arch of flowers for us to walk through.

(And no hissing of poisonous gas. I was almost disappointed.)

“Good morning Mrs Sahelian, Mr Sahelian.” She shook Mum’s hand, then glanced at me and giggled at the novelty of acting muggle.

“Hey Akua, Susan and Megan are already here!” Another giggle. “Ah! We’re going to have so much fun!”

I smiled indulgently. “We will! Let me say goodbye, then you can show me around.”

Hannah nodded and stepped sideways to wave at Baba, who got out of the car to ask which century her home was built in.

I looked up at Mum and was suddenly swarmed with the memories of coming home after the end of the school year. Stepping into the living room of the place I called ‘home’ and seeing that sage green couch. I’d spent a long time staring at it. Then turned and looked up at Mum. She’d hugged me, not saying anything, just squeezing and being so obviously and affectionately glad that I was in her arms.

(She was hugging me again now. Hence the unintentional recollection.

It was a… novel… feeling. One that would not last. So, I admit, I clung to it.

Both in my memory and here and now, Baba stepped into the hug. I let it linger for three seconds. Then I pulled away. Baba knelt down – not as far as he’d needed to last year. “See you tomorrow, my little harrier hawk.”

Then I actually squawked as he ruffled my hair. Slapping his hands back, I grabbed my bag from where he’d lifted it out of the car. Turned on my heel – away from my second pair of parents.

“Come on Hannah, let’s go have fun.”

(I didn’t care if I’d just been incredibly transparent in my own actions – or played into Baba’s scheme to stop Mum getting emotional. No one touched my hair.)

<{   ҉   }>

Abbott Abbey was a sprawling expanse of stone, draped in ivy and surrounded by rather natural-looking gardens. The place gave off a remarkably down-to-earth air, for being the ancestral home of wizarding nobility. It was very quaint, and very countryside.

Pleasant. Content. Simple.

Peaceful.

Many people thought peace was a luxury. They weren’t exactly wrong, but in truth it was more of an addiction. Whether wilful or unthinking, those who clung to peace just as often clung to the idea of life being easy.

(There was a reason Hannah had turned out as malleable as she was.)

Power was also an addiction, I was not ashamed to admit. The difference between peace and power of course, was that you had to take power. And then you had to keep it. Iron sharpens iron, see.

There was very little iron in Abbott Abbey.

Just stone and beautiful wood and coiled vines holding little magical lights, hanging like chandeliers.

“Susan and Megan are out the back, just drop your bags and they’ll get shifted to your room.” Hannah was tugging me along quickly, so I left my suitcase by the door for whichever wizard lacked enough self-esteem to act as a servant.

“Out the back?” I questioned.

“Yeah – oh, all our rooms are down this corridor.” She pointed, then dragged me away immediately. “There’s some Quidditch hoops over the barley field, and Megan was impatient even before you got here.”

I got glimpses of the various gardens and fields that surrounded Abbott Abbey – even a separate back building and a flash of vineyard. What I did not get was a reason why we would be hurrying towards Quidditch hoops.

Hannah finally let go of my hand, but only so she could start skipping. “This is going to be the best! Susan’s been here since breakfast and Megan since lunch. She got a new broom, so she’s just dying to show it off.”

And then Hannah shoved open doors to the back of the estate, and a wave of warm summer air hit us, carrying the scent of barley and lavender. Behind Abbott Abbey stretched narrow fields – each long row holding a different set of produce. Which… maybe magic made that a feasible commercial layout, but everything still felt… hmm. Displayed.

Not that displays (of power) were wrong. Quite the opposite, in fact.

But I was little off put by the lack of personality. The presentation here implied a subtle power, land and edifice partly blended, the growth of plants mixed with the ordered fields. Everything in full bloom, regardless of the plant or actual season. But nothing stood out. Nothing was displayed as the achievement of this or that ancestor, with a bigger demonstration as to how the family had soared to even greater heights since then.

Now, I was aware that most of the wizards and witches of this hidden world were (or appeared to be) perfectly content doing nothing in particular. The apparent culture was one of keeping yourself out of the history books. But the nobility should have something. Some sign of…

I turned to the barn-like structure, standing a short walk away the main manor building. There was a sign over the entrance.

The First and Original Butterbeer.

Part of me gave into despair. Was this what elevated the Abbotts above the other agricultural families?

Surely not. It must all be a ploy – subtle schemers consolidating their control over food production. Slowly squeezing our other producers, cornering trade into Britain, shaping Ministry policy. Keeping this shed up as a shield of humility, a pretence for the greater populace. Abbott butterbeer would be a household name, and no one would trace where the rest of their food came from far enough to realise it was all controlled by the same smiling faces.

Surely not.

Because if this estate was as honest in presentation as Hannah was, then... Then the Abbotts really hadn’t achieved anything grander since then. Aside from practicing ideological eugenics, of course.

I had to be missing something, like how it had taken me years to realise that the muggle royals kept it toned down for fear of rebellion. But really, could you blame me? It was so wrong to think anyone rational wasn’t constantly trying to amass power.

“Akua!”

I blinked. Turned away from the butterbeer barn. Came face to face with Megan and Susan.

Megan was already dressed in her Quidditch gear, face alight with excitement and dark hair pulled back tight. “Akua! We were waiting for you! Ready to fly?”

“Hi Akua, how has your summer been since Diagon?”

I nodded at Susan, mouthed ‘later’, then shook my head at Megan. “I’m not getting on a broom.”

Megan actually pouted.

And all the pressure that had been building in my chest during the drive, while bidding my parents goodbye, and being dragged out to this picturesque back portico suddenly crystalised.

(But this was not the time or place to bind the tracking curse on me (or my wand) to the flesh of a sacrificial victim – and then send a much nastier curse back at whoever decided to place rules on my magical activities.)

“I…” I rubbed at my eyes, looked around again, then took a performatively deep breath. Relaxed my shoulders on the exhale. “Sorry, it’s just… so nice to feel magic again. I’m very excited to see you all, but I wasn’t expecting this, and… I think I need a moment.”

Megan, who had stopped pouting (fortunately for her), fidgeted a little before taking her own deep breath.

“You mean the wards?” Susan asked.

I hadn’t, but I could feel a difference between magical and muggle places. Apparently, that wasn’t a common capability. I nodded, taking the given moment to make sure nothing was showing on my face that I didn’t want.

(Rage was an easy emotion to act on, but success was far sweeter.)

Megan stepped closer to me. “I can’t feel anything apart from the sun today, but maybe that’s because I’ve got magic at home. I’m sure not feeling any magic at all would be awful, but I’m glad you’re here, Akua.”

She smiled, then went back to fidgeting. “Are you suuureee you don’t want to play Quidditch?”

I scoffed, but smiled.

Then Hannah tackled us both in a hug.

“Ah! I’ve missed you guys! Susan, hey Suse, join in!”

Susan met my eyes. I tried my best to shrug despite the constriction, made my expression welcoming. After a moment, she joined us too. The squeeze was… tolerable. It had purpose, at least.

Megan got Hannah focused back on Quidditch soon enough, and Susan was happy to just enjoy the day and walk through the barley field towards the three large wooden hoops.

I did have to get on a broom, but didn’t even have to stage an accident before the others agreed that I was better suited as referee.

(I really needed to reinvent another form of flying.)

<{   ҉   }>

The afternoon was now long, and clouds were coming in to remind the British sun where it belonged as we walked through the fields back to Abbott Abbey. Megan was still fired up in a way I’d never seen her before, talking about joining Hufflepuff’s Quidditch team back at Hogwarts. Every position on the team got a thorough analysis regarding why she would or wouldn’t be suited for it.

I didn’t interrupt or otherwise quash her spirit. Reasoned and rational decision making was a useful trait in underlings.

But just as Susan and Hannah started getting more hungry than swept up in social energy, I cleared my throat.

They all looked at me. Like I’d trained them to.

“I… have a proposal. It’s a little, well, just hear me out. Okay?”

They nodded. Megan was still high on endorphins Hannah, latching onto my fabricated mystery. Susan was a little more reserved, but that was expected.

“All this talk about Quidditch back at school and practicing,” I said, my tone carefully casual. “I just… was wondering about practicing… other things. For school.”

Megan’s tilted her head, eyes bright and unguarded. “Like what?”

Susan met my gaze steadily, though she said nothing. She didn’t need to.

“Well,” I shrugged, the picture of nonchalance, “We’re entering our second year. But you guys – and the rest of the students – have been around magic your whole lives. I’ve only had a year of it. And it was the best year of my life. Thanks to you guys too.”

I paused, played with my M.A.S.H scarf. Hannah was the only one wearing hers, but that was a useful effect too. “Going from seeing you everyday, being in Hogwarts, feeling magic everyday, to… nothing? I don’t know if wizards avoid the muggle world just because of the Statute of Secrecy, but to me it feels empty. Something’s missing.”

My minions stewed for a moment, each trying to find a path out of the emotional tension. Lucky them that I’d just laid one out.

Hannah frowned a little, reaching out to fiddle with a stem of barley. “But… we’re not allowed to do much outside school, are we? The Ministry–”

“From what you said last year Susan,” I cut in, turned the spotlight to on the redhead. Megan and Hannah turned to look at her, and I continued, “it sounded like the Ministry can’t detect magic when we’re on a magical property.”

Susan nodded. I waited.

“Wards do hide the origin,” she admitted, “…especially ancient wards, like Hannah’s house. And mine.”

Megan frowned, but Hannah was the one who stopped in the field and clenched a fist. “Which isn’t fair! Akua, you’re fantastic at magic, and even if you were just normal at it, you deserve to feel magic all the time.”

She blinked. “Maybe that’s why we can’t feel magic? Because we’ve never, like, not felt it?”

(Possibly, but equally possible was your society’s utter lack of ambition or self-betterment. A sign to show what a lack of political pressure and literal backstabbing could inflict upon a people.)

Hannah stamped her foot, angry on my behalf but not quite comprehending what it meant to grow up without a great manor or parents on the Wizengamot – ridiculous as that legislative body was.

Megan was closer in situation to me, just sporty instead of academic (and an actual child with no steel in her spine or strapped to a hidden thigh holster).

Susan had some steel, and knew what absence was – just not materially.

Together my minions presented some common traits of the generations raised in this stagnantly Good society.

“Let’s not worry about practicing magic right now,” I decided for us. “We can talk about it tomorrow, but right now I want the actual tour of the house that I missed. And maybe some butterbeer.”

Hannah nodded, immediately distracted from social justice. “We should be able to walk around the fields and house before dinner, though I’ll get a house elf to clean us up to save time.”

I smiled – on the outside.

An elf?!?

<{   ҉   }>

Hannah had been referring to the Abbott’s house elf.

An indentured or outright enslaved servant that more resembled the goblins of Praes than the single taxidermy elf in all the Dread Empire. And while this wretch may look like the goblins of my memories, it was all bowing and scraping and strange grammar instead of incendiary weapons, siege weapons, or pit traps filled with incendiary siege weapons.

This house elf definitely didn’t act like the elves from my first life either, which were xenophobic extremists who took over a forest, committed a minor genocide, and then stayed there. Immortal creatures who murdered anyone that went near tended to be insufferably smug, as a rule.

(My plan for dealing with that little forest kingdom was to simply drop a demon from the sky. There were many ways to make immortals wish they weren’t, and demons were good at most of them.)

But house elves posed another factor for wizarding society that I had not yet considered.

The cycle of empire was one I was very used to, and I was determined to lead an expansionary period myself in some shape or form. But the fact that wizarding society had slaves (in name or not), coupled with the general complacency, suggested a historical and chronic lack in leadership that would lead to significant cuts in governmental expenditure in the next three to ten years.

Rather ripe ground for revolution, it seemed. Whether it be house elves themselves, or the decline of the statute of secrecy, I had many opportunities to plant the seeds of societal upheaval. And secretly found at least seven different political movements.

Easy, but engaging.

Still, self-reflection aside, dinner at Abbott Abbey was an exercise in politeness.

I did not point out the hypocrisy of an unpaid servant ‘who liked it that way’ and Lord and Lady Abbott were welcoming of their daughter’s diverse new friends in return.

(My politeness extended to not commenting on the implication that Hannah had not had friends so ‘diverse’ as a muggleborn or an economically middling half-blood before.)

The food was pleasant – “straight from the fields and gardens you can see outside!” – and the conversation was largely banal. How Susan was, what her Aunt was getting up to, Megan’s connection to Gwenog Jones. Quidditch.

Quite a bit of Quidditch, even during the conversation regarding how we were all finding Hogwarts. Especially how Hufflepuff was treating us. Hannah’s parents were both Hufflepuffs. (I was not surprised by this.)

But then:

“Wasn’t your grandfather a Governor of Hogwarts, dear?” Lady Abbott enquired of her husband, then turned to me. “Hannah’s great-grandfather, a lively man from all accounts, but the Dragon Pox got him.”

“Yes, Glenn Abbott!” Lord Abbott snapped his fingers. Everyone’s glasses were immediately topped up.

“He sat on the Hogwarts Board of Governors for, hmm the exact years elude me, but a few decades. Got the turn of the century though – 1700s to 1800s – quite an exciting time, everyone still dealing with MACUSA having its own international relations. And of course, the establishment of the Ministry.” Lord Abbott nodded and stared into the distance, apparently living vicariously through his ancestors.

He would benefit more from living vicariously through a hallucinogenic nerve toxin.

Lady Abbott rolled her eyes at her husband, then leant towards me. “Glenn was the one to expand Hogwart’s fund for muggleborn students, you know. From just wands to all school equipment.” She gave a light laugh. “I can’t imagine the look on whichever Malfoy and Nott when they realised he’d snuck a full set of robes into the necessary equipment.”

I pretended a chuckle. Then debated whether to skewer her worldview on a stake, or just crack it slightly round the edges. Hmm.

Well, I would interact with Hannah’s parents in future, so it was better (if less immediately fun) to play the long game.

“Um,” I started, after cutting off my chuckle and frowning. “Sorry, I just… did you say a full set of robes?”

Lady Abbott blinked at me, and the noise of dinner slowly fell until Lord Abbott returned to the present and looked at me too.

“Yes, uh, Miss Sahelian, a full set of school robes.” And Lady Abbott didn’t know what question she wanted to add onto that statement.

Fortunately, I had one for her. “Oh, well, I only got a single set of robes. My parents bought the rest.” I let them stew for three heartbeats. “Have prices gone up? On robes or other school equipment? Or are there more muggleborn now?”

Lord and Lady Abbott didn’t know how to answer that question, because they’d never actually investigated the policies they professed to ‘champion’.

Now, failings of due diligence aside, I had to admit that reform was complex and complicated. It was much more straightforward and impactful to stage a coup or just conquer the government you wanted to change. But engaging in neither reform nor takeover?

At that point you deserved some nerve toxin.

“I… will have to check whether the fund is indexed for inflation.” Lord Abbott eventually managed. “And see whether anyone might be able to contest Malfoy for Chair of the Governors next year – there’s no way to shift anything while Lucius has his fingers in the pie.”

I thanked him, then immediately switched to ramble about how interesting all of the classes were – making sure to add in a comment about how having the rest of my school equipment paid for was a great thing regardless.

By the end of the dinner, only Megan was still giving me side glances.

<{   ҉   }>

At quarter to midnight, I climbed out of the comfortable bed in my room of Hannah’s guest wing. The question of whether – and how – to set in motion a rebellion or civil war within wizarding society was not as much of a distraction as I’d hoped it would be.

(Being around magic again, feeling it, reminded me of what I’d achieved at the height of my power as the Diabolist. Reminded me of the wonders I had worked. Of greater things I had never gotten a chance to achieve.)

(Reminded me of that cursed Mirror of Erised, and how my dreams of the Black Tower still felt hollow.)

Civil war was all well and good, but it didn’t matter how much planning I did on how to achieve that, if I wasn’t sure what the civil war was – in itself – achieving for me. Yes, I could lead it, use it all to elevate myself into a position of political power. Or, I could play multiple sides and orchestrate the downfall of the entire governmental system, then build something anew in my image.

These were all things I could do. But… why? Why would I do them?

I knew myself well enough – adapting to this new life had aided the self-reflection – to know that I would readily shatter the statute of secrecy, conquer all magical and muggle Britain, and show the USA how you were supposed to do global hegemony.

I also knew myself well enough to know I needed a proper reason to risk it all as a Villain once again. I had most of a reason. (I would do it because I fucking could.)

But Villains died. And if I was going to die, it would be hells damned worth it.

(The mirror had ruined me, because I now couldn’t do it for the Black Tower. For Praes. Not really. After all, in this world, there was no Dread Empire to be heir of.)

I sighed. Went through some breathing exercises. Then opened the door of my room and wandered through the manor. The corridors were lit by moonlight, but the polished stone flooring was still warm. Probably because of normal enchantments, not the bound energy of a fire devil.

I did miss Praes, dearly enough for it to be a weakness the mirror exploited. But it was nice to wander at night without having to deactivate or dodge traps. It was easier to just… be, here.

(Easier to get soft, too.)

As I walked quietly through the halls, I found myself heading downstairs, drawn by some urge to stand in the middle of a rose garden and test how long I could bear the night chill. Maybe burn some flowers when I got cold.

But when I reached the back portico, I saw that someone else was already brooding out at the night.

Susan sat on a windowsill, bathed in the pale glow of moonlight, her knees tucked up to her chest. Rather maidenly. She wasn’t startled when I entered, glancing over her shoulder, blinking tiredly.

“You couldn’t sleep either?”

She shook her head, her gaze returning to the plants and stars outside. I moved closer, opened one door. Leant against it and stared outside.

Neither of us spoke. Susan was often quiet. Tended to retreat inside herself, whenever reminders of the underlying flaws of the world came up. Still, one month was not enough to erase most a year of group social dynamics. Susan would speak to me, because she trusted me, and because she was twelve.

It took until my fingers got cold enough for me to start twirling my wand for her to speak.

“Why do you really want to practice magic Akua? It is illegal.”

I spun my wand back the other way. Traced the faint flame carvings with a fingernail. “Harry Potter nearly died twice last year.”

I let her mull it over.

“You-Know-Who isn’t back, Akua. Maybe… maybe he still has some followers, but he’s dead.”

I shook my head. “Its strange, actually. I don’t actually know who. No one has ever said his name around me. I don’t know the name of the Dark Lord, or You-Know-Who, or whatever he’s called.” I turned and held Susan’s gaze. “People aren’t scared to say a man’s name if he’s dead, Susan.”

She shivered.

“And his followers don’t wait to try to kill the Boy Who Lived until he’s at Hogwarts. Followers don’t wait eleven years if they don’t have a leader.”

Susan’s jaw tightened, and she rested her chin on her knees. I waited for her.

“I don’t believe you.” She whispered.

“Something will happen at Hogwarts this year,” I whispered back, then twirled my wand and tapped it against my temple. “Something will happen, I know it.”

(Because Fate was really fucking obvious most of the time, and I wasn’t blinded by peace of all foul things.)

“So you want to be prepared for something that might not happen.” She shivered again.

“It will happen Susan. I can’t predict what, but something will happen. And because something will happen twice, Harry Potter is going to face something for every year he attends Hogwarts.” I ended the staring contest, looking back out at the ordered countryside. “I want to practice magic, because I want to be safe. I want us to practice magic, because I want you to be safe. All of you.”

(There was no point having incapable minions, and even less point to having half-way capable minions die on you. Unless it was to buy you more time against Heroes, but if things were at that point, then every asset was disposable.)

We were silent in the night for another while. Had it hit midnight yet? Probably not, she hadn’t agreed to my plan.

“I won’t do anything if you’re not comfortable,” I offered. A tiny gamble. She straightened her back against the windowsill, and I knew it had paid off.

“That’s it? That’s all?” she asked, her tone measured. “You just want to be safe? Against… something.”

I held her gaze, my face open, earnest. “Yes.”

For a long moment, the only sound was the faint rustling of leaves outside, the ambient noise of nature; wind and creatures eating plants or each other. Then, slowly, Susan exhaled, her posture relaxing just slightly.

A grandfather clock tolled midnight. (I didn’t roll my eyes, because Fate was as spiteful as it was obvious.)

A cloud covered the moon, and I allowed myself a brief moment of satisfaction. If the niece of the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was on board, my other minions would follow.

“Good night, Susan,” I said softly, stepping back and closing the door.

She glanced at me, rested her forehead against the window’s glass. “Good night, Akua.”

I walked back to my temporary bed quietly, the echo of our conversation lingering in the night air like… hmm, like progress.

(Anticipation sung through my veins happily enough that I didn’t feel any urge to bloody the Abbott’s wooden floors.)

<{   ҉   }>

“It’s so good to see you guys, and I know – I know – I said it yesterday, but – ah!” Hannah squealed. Happily. She was practically bouncing on her toes as we walked away from breakfast. “This summer is going so slowwww.”

Because time was relative and subordinate to higher laws of reality, I had to agree with her. The wait until I returned to Hogwarts – and was able to freely practice magic – was a novel (unwelcome) torture. Still, this would be a happy little respite before I went back to feeling the lack of magic like a phantom limb. A gentle introduction of rule-breaking for the sake of self-improvement; these children had to start somewhere, after all.

“I’ve missed you all too,” Megan was dressed in quidditch gear again, “like, my family is nice, but its special with you.”

Susan nodded, fingering her M.A.S.H. scarf. I’d been wearing my version of the Hufflepuff coloured scarf I’d got monogrammed with our first initials yesterday, and two comments to Hannah’s parents about how I’d organised them as a Christmas present for our group had been enough for Megan to wear hers this morning. Susan, initially bare-necked, had quietly retrieved hers before we set off.

It was... almost amusing, this small, quiet test of influence. Seeing how far I could nudge these children. Scarves in summer was nothing, really. Especially since, having lived my first life in a wasteland empire (not entirely Praes’ own fault), British ‘summers’ still sat firmly in the cold side of my experiences. For my sheltered minions however, the scarf was a nice unconscious reinforcement of obedience being more important than comfort.

Though the real test of today was yet to come.

“Okay, Akua,” Hannah stopped before a grand set of double doors. “This is the biggest empty room in the house.” She pushed them open, revealing an elegant hall with polished wooden floors and wide arched windows that bathed the space in sunlight.

Enchanted wooden flooring. A dance hall. (Again, very quaint.)

I stepped inside, wandered forwards. Straightened my posture and clasped my hands as I stared out onto the Abbotts’ fields. Waited.

Megan gave in first. “So, did you... want to talk about... practicing again?”

I blinked, as if I was actually twelve and caught out in trying to be subtle. More to reward Megan’s observation skills than hide anything. Let her feel clever for ‘noticing’.

“Yes,” I said at last, sharp anticipation in my throat. “I’ve been thinking about practicing magic. Getting ready. Because of what happened at the end of last year.”

Susan shifted. Hannah looked at her, then frowned at me. “The thing with Harry Potter?”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything until Hannah started fidgeting. Then, I clarified the problem.

“The thing with You-Know-Who's followers.” Gods Below, I hated that epithet. But it had the necessary effect of making my minions pale with fear – or flush with determination. “I know I’m muggleborn, but it’s a bit obvious that some of those followers are still hanging around. And if one of them tried to get some revenge, then others are going to have the same idea.”

I spread my hands wide. “Harry Potter is going to attract danger like a lightning rod,” brought my hands together, “or like goblin gold.”

“You think the troll wasn’t an accident. That more things will happen, and it might be... us. Instead of Granger.” Megan’s eyes were darting between connections that I’d had to spill out for Susan myself last night.

Hannah’s shorter hair was hanging in front of her face. “It’s not fair,” she told the floor. “We’re just kids. We shouldn’t have to deal with—”

“We shouldn’t.” I’d stepped forwards, reached out to hold her shoulder. My other hand lifted her chin, and the mouldable girl’s posture straightened on command. “We shouldn’t. But there are still monsters and people just as bad out there. We should get to enjoy quidditch and learn magic without any worries.”

I looked over – reached out – until Megan stepped close enough that my fingers could fold over her shoulder too.

“And we will enjoy quidditch. We’ll study lots of things and have a fantastic amount of fun. Because we’ll be ready.”

And now I looked over at Susan. Orphaned by followers of the Dark Lord. Standing alone, eyes wide and wanting me to offer her a hand as well.

“The world doesn’t care what’s fair,” I confided softly. “But we can be ready. Keep ourselves safe. Stay together.”

It took a moment, a stretch that was probably agonising for everyone but me. But then Susan’s fingers tightened around her scarf, and I knew it was time to let Hannah stand alone and bring Susan in. Susan met my eyes while she stepped forwards.

Yes. This was what I needed from them. To play their parts.

Megan could piece together the tasks I delegated, and Susan direct all her determination at the obstacles I highlighted for her. Hannah could keep gathering information and... ideally reveal an additional talent.

We formed a circle now, with our scarves and hands on each other’s shoulders.

“I’m in,” Susan said firmly, her voice steady. “The world isn’t fair. We need to be ready.”

Hannah nodded eagerly at her friend. “Yeah, totally. I mean, we’re not doing anything bad. Just practicing. Getting better. I mean, I’m sure Malfoy has like tutors or something.”

Megan’s brows were furrowed. But the twist of her mouth was thoughtful, not hesitant. Weighing risks against the narrative and emotive argument I’d just made. As much as a tween girl could, anyway.

“Okay,” she said finally. “But only if we keep it safe. Nothing too risky.”

I didn’t smile at her. Just met her eyes, then Hannah’s, then Susan’s.

“Of course.” Another pause, as if I hadn’t planned out the shape of this conversation days ago. “This isn’t about breaking rules for the sake of it. This is about getting ready. Getting better with magic. Being smarter. Safer.”

I leaned back, taking in the three of them.

My wand all but fell into my hand. I twirled the glorious thing, then flicked it like flint against steel – pointed out towards the empty cavern of the room.

“Incendio.” I uttered.

Flames poured into the air. Smokeless, clean, lovely.

I closed my eyes and let the feeling of power flow around my body. Down my arm. Out through my wand.

Ah.

Magic.

There were few better feelings than that tide rising within me, shaped by naught but knowledge, will, and power. For a long moment, I simply stood there, breathing in the freedom. The rightness of it.

I let the flames fade after ten long breaths.

Opened my eyes, to see Hannah’s mouth hanging open. Megan let out a low whistle. Susan glanced from me to the fading heat-shimmer in the hall.

“Sorry,” I chuckled (adopted the persona of a normal girl again), “we should probably start with charms, and move onto transfiguration. I just… needed that.”

Hannah giggled. Susan nodded slowly. Megan closed her mouth, then said, “yeah, uh, you needed that.”

(Indeed. More than they could ever comprehend.)

Chapter Text

“A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.”

• Niccolo Machiavelli

I stood in the middle of my room. In the darkness of a new moon and what little light from the street lamps made it through the black curtains I’d had since I was seven. My bedroom door was locked, too. (The lock was new.)

I’d done everything I could to make my bedroom a little refuge over the summer – emotionally and physically. Because, after weeks of cross-referencing and research into Old English dictionaries, I was finally going to cast something from The Ancient Arts of Blood and Binding.

The Gods Below had been very kind, that day in the Restricted Section, and placed in my path a truly tremendous tome. Ancient Arts held many spells for many things, with only one commonality between them all: the form of casting.

I had a semi-comprehensive book of rituals.

Decoding the entire book had been a real delight, honestly. Possibly the only reason I’d been able to wait a day during that trip to Abbott Abbey before encouraging my minions to cast a few spells. But patience was always a boon – no matter one’s moral status – and that trip to Hannah’s grand old estate had sparked a realisation for what my first casting had to be.

A ward.

Or rather, wards. Three of them. The preparation broadly overlapped, and even if wizarding rituals used different (or no) equations, the basic features were the same.

Instructions. Area. Power source. Anchor. Catalyst.

Really, at the end of the day, rituals were spells that drew power from a source other than the caster. Thus, rituals tended to be slow and have exacting requirements. Creation – and this earth, I suspected – didn’t particularly like having its magic channelled in ways the magic wasn’t already flowing.

Which was why ritual magic had things like backlash. You had to be rather particular about your casting – if you wanted to cast another one, anyway.

The array I’d spent three nights drawing across my bedroom floor now sprawled from cupboard to bed, door to desk. Geometric chalk under swooping whorls of silver wire. It looked fragile, and stepping in the wrong spot would ruin enough of it that I would probably just switch to the approach of sacrificing some small animal to safeguard my room with sheer brute force.

Only the trappings of this Good society and the useful lack of suspicion from my parents kept the disappearance of neighbourhood pets from being my first approach. Fate held enough biases against Villains without needing me to tempt it like that.

That said, if my parents were to walk in now, they would probably have quite a few problems with what I was doing. Typical parental problems for this world, like bed times and making a mess of one’s room and stealing bowls from the kitchen. Though Aissata and Jamaldine probably wouldn’t be happy that I was bleeding into said kitchen bowls either. Or that bloody sand was covering my body in other patterns.

Another reason to be doing this at midnight.

Midnight. A new moon. Alone in my room, making sure no red dripped onto any chalk or fine glinting wire as I placed the last bowl in the final corner.

What I had so meticulously prepared here was a combination of rituals. Some would say that starting out like this wasn’t wise. That jumping straight to differential equations was foolish when one hadn’t yet opened an algebra textbook.

I would sooner kill those people than bother explaining that I was one of the best mages in Creation. And that if any society on earth properly practiced ritual magic, I could teach them a thing or two, too.

A ritual was a ritual.

Instructions. Area. Power source. Anchor. Catalyst.

The Ancient Arts of Blood and Binding described its instructions through chants. An older form of English. I didn’t change anything for each of the three rituals I was conducting tonight, just added some... well, a muggle analogy would be programming language.

Here shall be a web of magic / tied by casting and caster / the magic shall flow thus. Ritual one AND ritual two AND ritual three.

Effectively translating that into old English took longer than preparing my room. But I’d done it properly, just as I’d done everything else. I leaned back from the stretch required to place that last, red-filled bowl. Licked the beading blood from my palm. Stepped back to the middle.

Took a deep breath, then drew my knife along my tongue.

“May iron sharpen iron, till the last cut be made.” The words were swollen, heavy, and coppery, and felt strange in old English. (Strange in anything but Soninke.)

I spat at the centre-point of the silver wire. Red dripped from that onto the chalk. The metal scent of my blood grew stronger, then buzzed – flash-twisted – into ozone.

The chanting that followed was heady. Hazy. Time felt… slippery.

The magic had built, and then sounds came through my eyes and colours up my fingers. Air thickening like electric soup.

A tiny storm. Rumbling, growing, stoked like a fire. Fed like cold anger, flowing down the paths of least resistance.

The chalk was glowing loud. Silver wire sang hot.

Time passed. (Quickly?)

Nothing had meaning. Except what meaning I was demanding to be true.

I was altering the fabric of the world and it all felt so good.

Finally (way too soon) I struck a match and focused, chanting on, until each bowl of blood boiled and steamed. Then I reached down, carefully pressed my finger onto the middle of all that wire and chalk... and ate the burning match.

Which was when it started hurting.

(Now, what I was doing was truly masterful. But it wasn’t the refined arts of my ancestors, honed through generations of perfection. My workings tonight were cobbled together from old Celtic runes and Trismegistan theory – and the Praesi knowledge that sacrifice was a very powerful thing indeed.)

When my uterus cramped like water being wrung from a towel, it was nearly as painful as the backlash of the ritual being channelled through my body.

See, only two of the three rituals I’d combined had come from Ancient Arts. The chalk lines provided instructions for a ward that hid specific areas of a family manor. The silver wire instructed another ward that protected people of the same blood line in a place.

The area was my room.

Power source? A world that didn’t like being pulled at.

I was the anchor, and my blood was the catalyst. Maybe next time I would use some feral cat, but right now I didn’t want the cat’s family protected by these wards.

No, this was for me and mine, and so the red of me demanded that the world provide its own protection.

When the power source lashed back, it had to go somewhere. Previous examples of my genius had been directing the backlash into the area, and using that as power for a completely separate ritual. Tonight, I poured it all into the anchor.

Me.

And whether it was Fate or my planning or the pure stress of holding that magic, well, I’d lost something tonight. (By the measures of many cultures, I was no longer a child.)

Sacrifice is power. Loss leads to gain – if you’re smart enough. It wasn’t an equation. Nothing mathematical. But still a truth, a rule of the world.

The backlash of my dual rituals fuelled a third, painted with reddened sand upon my skin. And it didn’t kill me, because I’d already just lost something I could never gain back.

(All Praesi know the value of lost innocence – especially the Sahelians. Symbolic and otherwise.)

When the pain and general synaesthesia calmed down, I finally let myself lie down on the floor. Chalk and wire were gone, but when I twisted my head, faint patterns appeared on the walls. Only in the corner of my vision, but there. I twisted my head again, then pulled my wand out from where it had been pulling double duty as a hair pin.

I hadn’t had an orgasm in over a decade, but fuck if this didn’t feel better.

(So good that I didn’t even care about the oncoming consequences of puberty.)

I lay there on the floor and felt the sand on my skin sigh, then dissolve. The blood I’d mixed it with flaked away like dried bark on a tree.

My fingers buzzed when I tapped them together. Pain flashed through me again, but I wasn’t dead.

My third ritual was also protective. But for my body. Not growing bark or having skin of stone, but tempering a vessel. Letting loose magic live in my bones like lightning, but making sure I was grounded.

(I’d need to use the magic for something, but right now I was basking. And I was going to continue to bask.)

Patterns on the walls. A faint shimmer from the floor. And an itch under my skin I had to push away.

Three for three.

Who needed sun when you had the sweet warmth of success?

“I wonder how you’d fare in this world, Catherine.” I wondered, feeling both high and drunk. “Would you still be an orphan? You wouldn’t have magic, of course. Too much of a brute, you are. It would be harder for you here, even if you had a mentor to replace Black. You’d really struggle to start a revolution in this modern society.”

I raised a hand to the ceiling. “But you’d hate it, wouldn’t you? It’s not Callow, it’s not your precious kingdom, and there’s no war. Do you even know how to survive – without war? Oh, yes, you’d say you fight for peace and blah blah blah. Its beside the point, anyway. If you were here, you’d get yourself into a fight. Lots of fights – one after another in pursuit of some grand ideological dream. The world is never good enough for you, is it Catherine?”

I was smiling. And not entirely from the raw magic tucked under my skin. Smiling from an imaginary conversation with the girl who had ripped out my heart. Literally – it was still a bit mortifying. But she’d won, and iron sharpens iron, and...

“The world was never good enough for you, and it was never mine enough for me. Maybe that’s why I ended up here. A nice thought, even if you still won.” (Even if you’re a righteous bitch.)

“Or maybe you didn’t win, and my grand design exploded on you. Maybe I’ll be well on my way to ruling the wizarding world and run into you, some muggle fighting in an alleyway over the galleons from some stupid wizard’s pocket. Maybe I’ll be in the right place and the right time to point you at the wizards and watch you rage and roar. Just tear it all down, and don’t look behind you, not while I’m taking all those broken pieces and building a new tower. You can even be it’s first sacrifice!”

My fingers tingled when I picked up my wand, the magic in me flowing around and into the wonderful length of black walnut.

“I know you’d hate me even if I introduced you to magic. But your life would be so bright. I’d let you burn so very many people, Catherine. You’d be happy.”

Success and magic swam in me, and I raised my wand. She would burn so bright, and then I would end her. “Lumo–”

A sharp tap against the glass cut through my thoughts.

My head whipped towards the window, halfway to casting a slicing charm.

The sound came again, insistent and loud. I blinked, but the barn owl was still there, its yellow eyes gleaming even on this dark night. A scroll was tied neatly to its leg, and seal for the Ministry of Magic hung across its chest.

For a moment, I felt very ill.

Then I was acutely aware of how the muscles at my face pulled at my skull.

My parents were asleep. I didn’t scream. I didn’t do very many of the things that I wanted to, right there in that moment.

Even though an entire fucking summer of preparation was curdling like milk poured into....

(The owl tapped the window again, uncaring for anything but the fulfillment of bureaucracy.)

...poured into bleach.

I didn’t have enough time to pour bleach onto some owl treats. I didn’t have any poisoned food on hand at all, actually. An… oversight.

Slowly – suddenly stiff – I got up, crossed the room, and unlatched the window. The owl stepped inside, feathers ruffling as it extended its leg toward me.

My hands hurt again. More from how my nails were pressing into my palms, but the magic in me still prickled. Sympathetic echoes? Emotive reactions? How sentient was magic, and how much of that was borrowed from the world around it?

These were questions I didn’t have time for.

I untied the scroll from the owl’s leg, and stared at another copy of the Ministry’s seal in miniature. The owl flew away.

I didn’t have time for other questions, because I needed to know how.

(I had set up wards, so the Trace should be blocked. Should be. But I’d set up wards, and here was a Ministry owl, and I hadn’t even cast anything.)

The owl hooted softly, almost reproachfully, then took off very quickly – as if it could sense how close I was to throwing a knife.

For a long moment, I simply stood there, parchment in hand. Good quality parchment. It would burn satisfyingly, regardless of the words on it. And I had matches and now-empty bowls right there.

(Deep breaths didn’t reduce my anger. But I didn’t want my anger reduced. Just... directed.)

I broke the seal with a flick of my thumb and unrolled the letter, my eyes scanning the crisp, official script.

Dear Miss Sahelian,

We have detected the use of underage magic originating from your wand. This is a direct violation of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery.

Please be advised that further infractions may result in disciplinary action, including a formal investigation.

Yours sincerely,

Mafalda Hopkirk

Improper Use of Magic Office

Ministry of Magic

The words blurred as I read them again, then again. My fingers tightened and parchment crumpled. One edge tore.

“Oh,” I heard myself say from a distance, “it links to wands. Of course it was never soul-bound.”

Then from even further away. “I was monologuing again. That’s how I died the first time. That’s…”

My wand was still in my hand. I put it down and watched as a spark flew from my fingertip to land on the handle.

I didn’t pick it back up. Just sank to the floor – knees to chest – and tried to plan a violent coup.

(It was harder, when everything was numb.)

<{   ҉   }>

Supermarkets were fascinating to me, most of the time. A culmination of technology, labour, and sheer logistics that made the military supply lines I was used to laughable.

This time last year – before I’d learnt of magic and wizarding society – supermarkets and globalisation had been the things that filled my mind. The webs and chains of it all. Machines to harvest, trucks to transport, warehouses to store, employees to sort and shelve; all creating an illusion of effortless availability.

A utopia, by some economic metrics. Insidious and false, by more ‘human’ measures. (Impressive, no matter which way you sliced it.)

I walked beside my mother in our local supermarket. Walked alongside rows of neatly arranged fruits – red apples, yellow bananas, green… greens. The visual symmetry was nice.

I wanted to draw my wand from my sleeve and slash through the display like a knife through a throat.

Which was how I was keeping calm today. Planning and visualising the spells I could use to express my…

Well.

Rage was such a small word, you see. And I wanted to do much, much more than simply express it.

The boiling in my blood that I’d felt since last night had combined with a frozen sensation behind my eyes. And while these emotional reactions would… ease… the memory carved into my mind would not.

Neither would the very literal energy bristling under my skin.

 A slicing charm would be the easiest thing to damage the produce, if I could get the arc of spell wide enough. But the thought of levitating – yanking – the whole shelf down and causing a cascade of vegetables better matched my mood.

(It would also feel fantastic to curse these damn lights to poison or irradiate the food underneath them, creating a mild catastrophe I could leverage to destabilise British society. But I didn’t know how to do that with this world’s magic. And I couldn’t fucking experiment.)

The freezer system behind the more sensitive fruit clunked, then whirred back to life after I passed.

I picked up a tin of lentils, tomatoes, and silently met the requirements of the shopping list I’d read over on the drive here.

Though I was… angry, it must be said that these cans were marvellous. The sheer layers of planning and organisation required to mass produce food like this simply wouldn’t happen in Praes.

Not only was the mechanical technology of my home artificially hamstrung, but the High Houses would never have cooperated enough to allow this structure of hyper-specialisation to develop. But this world had managed to work itself into some complex dance of schedules and coordination – cooperation and utterly inequal benefit.

It was admirable. And wasteful. Magic could have made this can with a flick of the wand. Or a deceptively tricky trismegistan calculation that nonetheless could have been fed the lifeblood of a few criminals and run smoothly for a year.

Praesi rituals and wizarding spells could allow one person to create much greater things than anything in this supermarket. But that power could only be expressed in single events.

Muggle power was in systems. Not re-ordering the objects of the world to their whim, but changing the state of the world itself. Longer term. Slower. More powerful?

I wasn’t quite convinced.

(It depended on how you measured it).

Ordinarily, I didn’t mind having examples thrown in my face about how my true home was not the grandest civilisation to conquer a continent. But ordinarily, I hadn’t been thwarted.

Fortunately for the insignificant people around me, one of the few things keeping me calm enough to only visualise the destruction of this store and its symbolism was the fact that the wizarding world was so backwards and impotent that recreating a different civilisation from its ruins was possible in the first place.

The lights flickered. Like they had when my mother first explained tampons.

“Akua.” My mother’s voice was gentle.

(She’d been gentle the whole damn day.)

I looked up at her. Looked at the sachet of chilli flakes clenched tight – nearly bursting – in my fist. Looked at the whole chillies already in the cart that she’d talked about using instead of the pre-masticated flakes we usually got.

“Do you want to go home now, or should we finish the shopping?”

Someone else walked past us with their own cart. I put the chilli flakes back on the shelf. Stepped back to Aissata’s side.

“Let’s finish,” I said with a perfectly normal tone.

Was it weakness, that I didn’t step away when she put one hand on my shoulders?

(Yes.)

Was it sorrow, that left me thinking about how impossible it was to have this and build a new Black Tower from the rubble of the Ministry of Magic?

(Unfortunately.)

Was it love, that made her hold me for nearly half an hour when we got home, even though I spent most of the time rambling through hypotheses regarding the maximum mass I could levitate and what factors influenced that?

(If it wasn’t love, then it was the closest I was ever going to get.)

<{   ҉   }>

When my parents had found me in the bathroom the morning after that Ministry letter arrived, magic burning under my bare skin and uterine lining bleeding onto the tiles, they...

Had been very good.

So good, that I nearly started crying when Aissata got me into the shower.

It took a week after that morning and the following grocery shop before that gentleness faded into something more normal. Another few days after that before I stopped needing showers to assist my emotional processing. Some of that was probably hormonal, but most was...

Well, these parents didn’t seem to mind being hugged for multiple minutes. There was no reason for me to stop.

(It was the closest I was going to get to love. I may as well take advantage.)

Chapter Text

“If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.”

• Catherine Aird, St Louis Post-Dispatch 1 November 1989

Earlier in the summer, when my minions and our parents had gathered in Diagon Alley, I had mandated an hour at a book shop. An hour that I spent aggressively pushing the boundaries of what everyone would expect a twelve-year-old muggleborn girl to buy.

(Though, really, those expectations ought to be woven into rope and used to strangle the patronising fools who perpetuated them.)  

Of course, that I even required a book shop – that there was no ancient repository of knowledge awaiting me as a birthright – still stung. A little. The public libraries of the muggle world had soothed me for most of a decade, but the reveal of Hogwarts reminded me of the high standards I once held.

Thankfully, Aissata and Jamaldine were ever supportive of my acting like their ‘little hawk’ and ‘hunting’. Thankfully, because I would not have responded well to... barriers.

Just as I (internally, where no one could see it) was not responding well to the Trace. Observation of my activities was a problem, naturally, but the enforcement of a ban on magic? That was just as much personal insult as ridiculous and stifling example of bureaucratic overreach.  

Dictators were far better than these ‘democratic institutions’ – at least in terms of honesty and societal innovation. In the long run, anyway. Because in the long run, any bureaucracy as undirected as the Ministry of Magic tended towards control. Given enough time and at least one rational thinker, the answer to ‘how do we stop muggles discovering magic?’ became ‘stop magic being cast around muggles’. And the solution to that, was inevitably ‘control magic or the people who cast it’.

An authoritarian tyrant was at least honest.

Besides, there was always ways to get around societal control. Individual control – cursed vows, soul bindings, that sort of thing – was generally only effective until the Villain died. Societal control could last longer, especially when self-perpetuated by a ruling class and supported by incentive schemes for the general populace.

There were still ways around that control, of course. Even aside from the probability that discrimination would leave some child an orphan who would rise up to break the chains of their people and spew sunshine or shit gold until the economy fixed itself.

Of course, we of Praes had our own methods of promoting free will. The time Dread Emperor Imperius had mind controlled the High Lords of Praes, the people of the capital city formed a mob and tore him apart. Then tried to get one over on any High Lords who didn’t recover quick enough. (Praes did not have Heroes.)

Still, it was strangely pleasant, to be the one benefitting from the inevitable fall of a controlling government.

And besides, I had ways to practice magic. Ways to get around the societally hobbling (and just cruel) effect of the Trace.

A silver lining of my experimental combined rituals – though every ritual was an experiment, one way or another – was that I knew the mechanisms of the Trace. It applied to wands, and it applied after one went to Hogwarts.  

Not that I was willing to gamble on any more experiments this summer. Regardless of how I wanted to orchestrate the complete and utter ruination of the Ministry of Magic, I needed a clean record. For now.

There was little point wondering how much of my blood, spilled over my wand to further stain those flame etchings, would be needed to break the Trace. (I would bleed all I needed.) The problem was not the volume of blood. No, I exsanguinate all I liked, and it would do nothing without proper channelling.

Or without proper weight.

Even the most focused stream of power I could manage would amount to nothing without the momentum of Fate behind me.

It made a sick kind of sense. If Harry Potter was going to return to Hogwarts as scrawny and underfed as he arrived the first time, then the balance of things meant that I couldn’t cast spells – have access to magic – without consequence either.

(My first consequence hurt. The second – that damn letter – was folded up and hidden in a starter sociology textbook, where no one would look at it and where I would be reminded of the bigger picture if I ever started following through on the urge to burn now, plan later.)

Fortunately, I was gifted in more areas than spellcasting, and other activities were not affected by the magic still prickling the underside of my tongue and sparking across my ribs.

Understanding the overlap between the Trismegistan sorcery of Praes and the yet-unknown-to-me intricacies of wizarding spells was probably the best way to use my summer effectively.

Which is what I did, until the urge to use myself as the anchor of another working grew too great.  

At that point, I sent a letter to Hermione Granger.

<{   ҉   }>

Dear Hermione,

Firstly, I hope you’ve had a good break so far. I know I’ve been trying to catch up with everything that has happened in the world, but I can’t help but keep my wand in my pocket and try to remember how the castle feels.

Home feels wonderful and, well, like home. I don’t even think I’m complaining, just using a lot of words to say that I miss magic and thought you might feel the same.

I did promise to write, so I hope you don’t mind how long it took. Would you be willing to ask your parents if I could come over? Hopefully in the next few weeks so we can review the summer homework.

Your fellow muggleborn,

Akua Sahelian

<{   ҉   }>

Dear Akua,

My break has been very nice thank you. I appreciate you writing, because it would be good to talk with someone about it all too. I have missed my parents, but they don’t quite understand what my homework is, no matter how I explain it. Trying to describe Hogwarts is even harder, and I’m not sure they believe all of it. Of course, I wouldn’t believe that the staircases moved if we hadn’t been walking up and down them for most of the year.

My parents are very happy for you to come over. Does Saturday in two weeks work for you and your parents? Your parents are welcome too, and I think mine want to talk to yours about everything anyway.

Oh, I’ve already finished all the homework, but another review would still be useful!

Your fellow muggleborn,

Hermione Granger

P.S. Our landline number is below, if your parents want to confirm any details.

<{   ҉   }>

The Grangers’ home was organised. Quite deliberately. From the neatly stacked dental journals to the curtains (possibly even dusted!) that caught the afternoon sun. It was the kind of home that would produce an academically driven child who would use different coloured highlighters and date each page of class notes.

Hermione Granger was visibly content here, in this stable and structured home. I would have hated it, of course. The space was clearly her parents’ house, and she’d adapted herself to fit into an adult space.

This home, given the income of its occupants, was filled with almost as many small wonders as a supermarket. Countless elements of muggle life taken for granted by the moneyed masses. No spells, no enchantments, just a network of economics and relentless technological ambition.

(To distract myself from the way my fingers would spark when they touched my hair or skin, I’d investigated the leaders of muggle tech businesses and found a shocking resemblance to figures from Creation. The Good CEO, stepping back from the company to lead charitable foundations. Then others, already kicked out of one company and wearing black turtlenecks. Their struggles were different, but not by much. Or maybe I was projecting.)

Mr and Mrs Granger were currently making lunch for the two of us, after Aissata had dropped me here. The three parents had happily let Hermione and I move to the sitting room to start discussing homework – each of them with a somewhat relieved sense that their child wasn’t the only one. I was sure that some of that relief was also about how they, as muggle parents of magical children, weren’t the only ones either.

The sitting room coffee table was now getting packed up. My homework occupied maybe a quarter of the space, Hermione’s homework maybe a fifth. The rest was solely Hermione’s notes. The girl had a tendency to collect as many sources as she could, and then jot down anything that could be important. It worked, but only when the task’s time limit was measured in weeks.

I simply relied on critical thinking and a near eidetic memory bred into the ruling line of Wolof over millennia.

“Well,” Hermione fussed over how straight her parchment was stacked, “even if these assignments are only meant to refresh our memory of the past year’s content, I still think that it’s good to show that we’ve read ahead.”

I smiled at her until she looked up and grinned sheepishly back.

“I still think there’s more value in waiting till the professors give us some guidance on what’s most useful for the year.”

Hermione pursed her lips, then frowned. “Wait, you said you read ahead?”

“I did.” I smirked, but this was the part of the conversation I was actually excited for, so sue me. “But more generally. It’s interesting to look into the difference between charms and transfiguration animation spells, but I want to know how spells work in the first place.”

And Hermione slowed, her hands coming to rest on a page that she was staring straight through.

I leant towards her. “McGonagall tells us that transfiguration changes the properties of a material, and involves equations, eventually some real maths. Flitwick describes charms as enchanting, the magic powering an effect until it runs out. Two different ways of creating the same effect. But where does it come from?”

“Like, what is magic?” Hermione guessed.

I shook my head, smiled like we shared a secret. “Magic is magic, its everywhere and in everything. But how does magic become a spell? When you say lumos and flick your wand up, it’s a spell that makes light – but when you say the same word and flick your wand sideways…?”

Hermione’s eyes were flicking between my gaze, the notes on the table, and the middle distance. Her mouth moved silently, then she finally latched onto a single train of thought. “Do different wand motions mean different things? A bunch of spells that create things have an upward motion – well, spells from charms, anyway.”

Then she paused, reaching into her pocket and rolling her wand in her fingers. “Do you think wand motions and the words each tell magic what to do? Could we… make our own spells?”

(Maybe the Grangers had managed to breed near eidetic memory as well, by complete accident.)

I reached forwards and laid my hand on Hermione’s shoulder, smiled with more of my teeth. “Exactly.”

“So, is magic like some form of physics in the end? Can we measure the energy and force and… oh, but you’d need to observe magic itself, not heat or gravity or kinetic… ugh, physical force.”

(As good as she was, Hermione Granger was still only twelve. She knew what she knew, and avoided what she didn’t.)

“Magic is magic.” I waited until she met my eyes. “There are rules, but those rules can always be broken. Physics and muggle technology always works the same way, which is part of its power. Magic is more… alive. There are rules, but a spell can be shaped by your emotions, or a potion by the phase of the moon. Some would say that that’s just more rules – that eventually you’ll find the true rules that the universe runs on.”

I shrugged. (People who tried to gain power through such indirect methods usually died, or were lucky enough to get nowhere or were the child of the Warlock and got very far indeed.)

“I don’t know even a quarter of the rules yet, but everything I read before we were pushed back onto the Express made me think about it like… algebra. X and Y and Z are all rules you need to balance and solve for, but the influence of those rules changes depending on how you cast magic.”

“Incantations for wand-based spells and ingredients for potions!” Hermione’s eyes were bright. “And phases of the moon for advanced things, like you said!”

I nodded, then grabbed my notebook and tore out a new page. Pulled out a ballpoint pen, because the ink wells had already been capped. Wrote and underlined ‘Magic’ at the top of the page, then filled the page with five dot points.

“As far as I can tell, that’s how you use magic.”

Hermione leant over the page as I handed it to her. “So… balancing these five variables, or… no, that’s too simple.”

“Far too simple,” I waved a hand, “ideally, you want to balance as many variables as you can think of for each of these five mechanisms. The more you want to do, the more you need to balance. But, very simply, those five things are what you need to cause an effect.”

And with that, a light grew in Hermione’s eyes. I grinned at her, and she grinned right back – showing teeth.

I leant even closer. “Put your wand on the table,” I whispered, doing just that myself.

The girl was so swept up that she did the same without even nodding.

“Instructions, area, power, anchor, catalyst.” I stared straight into her eyes. “Instructions: keep staring into my eyes, give me your hand, and focus on magic making a spark between our other fingers.”

This time Hermione did nod, after a deep breath and squaring of her shoulders.

“Area: the space between our fingers – make it small, but don’t touch. Power is all around us, but especially the electricity in the walls. We’re going to be the anchors, which will hurt a bit, but only like static electricity.”

I took my own deep breath. Squeezed her hand until she was breathing in time. Deep. In and out.

“We’re the catalyst too, Hermione. We’re magical, and so magic will respond to us.” I squeezed her hand, held it tight. “Want it.”

(The prickling in my palm, running up and down my fingers, that had been buzzing all day suddenly sparked and seized my muscles and I couldn’t let go even if I wanted to.)

The lights flickered.

I took a deep breath in and tried to open myself. Metaphorically.

The need for air built in my lungs and I stared into Hermione’s eyes and saw how she wanted the magic.

Our fingers touched, and she leaned in, desperate for –

The lights flickered and between our fingers a spark.

Lightning raced up our separated arms and – rocketing across my collarbone – grounded itself in our joined grip. Which we could now let go of. Hermione jerked back with a gasp and I…

…I was laughing because those prickles were fierce enough to hurt and it still felt so good.

My eyes were open, looking into Hermione’s. Which was why I knew that Fate was deciding to pull a fast one when suddenly I was seeing a younger version of the same girl, sitting in a school yard. Alone.

(Fate’s fast one was that I had no idea whatever Hermione was seeing, just that there were lots of things that would paint me in a rather red, unpleasant light.)

The moment passed, and then we were both recalibrating to the present. My skin still crawled.

“Sorry if that hurt – or prickled,” I offered before any proverbial ice could form, “my running theory is that the less balanced each of the aspects of our working are, the more magic the anchor has to ground or disperse. It should start to feel nice once you’ve… like, metabolised it?”

Hermione stared at me, face paling and then starting to twitch.

“We just cast magic. We did magic. Outside of school. Oh no oh god we’ve broken the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery I’m going to get expelled Akua how could you do this – no, surely there’s some way to explain that I just got caught up in–”

Well, this was going nowhere useful. I grabbed the girl by both shoulders. Ignored the flinch. “The Trace is attached to our wands, it’s okay. I made sure you’d be okay.”

She blinked at me, and then frowned in a way she must have frowned at Harry Potter. I tried to inject as much guilt into my shrug as possible and probably didn’t express enough (because there was none).

“I may have tried something at my house and got sent a letter by the Ministry. I promise you, the Trace is on our wands, and even if it isn’t, you get one free pass.”

The frown continued.

“It’s true!” I sighed, held myself still – despite the way every bit of body hair below my neck was standing on end. “You’re not in trouble. My owl arrived within ten minutes and that was at midnight. I’ve checked it with Hannah and Susan too, so ask Ron about wands if you want. His father might know about the rules for illegal wands even. But tell Harry as well – I’m sure he’s going to need to use that free pass strategically at some point.”

Hermione didn’t stop frowning, but her shoulders drooped. A child halfway to despair grabbing onto the hope that things would be okay after all. She excused herself to take her homework (and all those notes) up to her room and, after a second’s hesitation, also took the page I’d used to jot down the structure of magical cause and effect.

Which told me that she still trusted me. Enough, for today. Whatever vision (or version) of me that she saw as a side effect of our spell, the consequences would be far down the line. Fate’s long games were always the most complicated; branching with possibilities until one direction suddenly solidified. Tricky, and always made worse if you tried to force it.

Still, as long as Hermione didn’t see me in some pitiful childhood situation of my own, I would be okay. Anything but a redemption arc for this Villain. And I didn’t think Hermione had seen anything that would form the seeds of hate – no snapshot of me holding a knife to a rival’s throat or standing over Liesse as the city’s populace rose as undead.

Really, the slightly impulsive experiment was a success! Rewards all round. (Of course, this was the Granger’s house, so the risk of actually alerting the Ministry was always on Hermione’s head.)

<{   ҉   }>

When Hermione came back down, I’d shifted to help her parents prepare the last few things for lunch. Talking to them about how it was good to have someone that got it and how magic helped explain so many things that before were strange and a bit different.

They ate it up. Except Hermione had paused in the doorway when she’d come downstairs, and was now listening closely to everything I was saying to her parents. Worried about secrets, obviously, but what about?

Halfway through lunch I got my answer.

“Akua, we really are happy you came round. Hermione did mention you in a few letters, especially as competition in exams,” Mrs Granger’s smile was benevolent, indulgent.

“It’s good to meet you in person.” She turned to her daughter. “We’ll have to see if we can meet Harry and Ron at some point too.”

Hermione nodded absently at this, processing the required logistics. Her parents smiled at her, even if she wasn’t watching them.

“I’ll send another letter to Ron, maybe all get our textbooks and school supplies together.”

“Is Harry still having issues with the mail?” Mr Granger asked, making Hermione start in her seat and glance at me surreptitiously. “We can try ringing or going to the post office again darling.”

Hermione gave me another side glance, but quickly deflected the question and returned to the normal behavioural parameters of semi-formal family conversation.

I had to contain my grin.

(What a secret. Such juicy implications.)

Lunch resumed and concluded after not too long, and Hermione seemed to relax after the obligatory conversation about how I was finding Hogwarts. Which filled in a few more edge pieces to this puzzle.

When Hermione and I returned to the sitting room for the half hour before my parents were due to arrive, I wasted no time.

“Potter’s in trouble again?”

Hermione glanced back at the kitchen, then upstairs. Her parents were not around.

“No, he’s probably fine,” she sighed, “it’s just that he isn’t replying to my letters. Or Ron’s letters. So it’s probably just his Uncle and Aunt being awful.”

(Statistically, that was the most probable cause. But Harry Potter was a Hero. Statistics did its best to ignore Heroes out of faint horror.)

“Trouble does seem to follow him, hmm?”

Hermione shook her head in resignation. “Yeah.”

“If it is his… bad relatives, then can you tell me whether the cursed broom was related to the whole Philosopher’s stone thing?” I raised my eyebrows at Hermione’s questioning look. “What? I just want to know if we’re going to be dealing with just one problem for our second year or multiple sources of… issues.”

(People in this world always made the same kind of disbelieving face when I introduced – or even alluded – to Fate. Despite magic existing in multiple other forms. Of course, they didn’t have my memories, or the knowledge that I was a dimensional immigrant, not second-generation African.)

“Come on,” I spread my palms, “I know that Harry faced the You-Know-Who person everyone is scared of – or at least one of his followers. And when people hate someone enough to try and kill them, they’re not going to stop after the first time.”

Hermione looked at me.

I tapped the dark, dark skin of my forearms. Shrugged. Hermione flushed at the reminder – definitely the kind of person to feel shame at forgetting imbalances of privilege.

“Like you said, it’s probably Harry’s family interfering with his mail,” I tapped the table, “but it was definitely a dark wizard who was after the stone and cursing the broom. Or dark wizards.”

I let the distinction of the plural hang in the air as Hermione fidgeted and looked around to make sure her parents weren’t nearby. They weren’t. I waited.

And then the girl finally broke. “It was Professor Quirrel. He’d become a follower of You-Know-Who when he was in Albania and let himself be possessed. He was on the back of Quirrel’s head – which was why Professor Quirrel wore a turban and hid the smell of it with garlic. According to Harry, it wasn’t a… clean possession… not that I’ve read up on the types of possessions that exist unfortunately. But since Professor Quirrel was drinking unicorn blood – which Hagrid told us gives cursed immortality after Harry ran into Quirrel murdering a unicorn in the forest – then the possession must not have worked very well.”

She finally took a breath, and I wondered how worthless this Dark Lord was to not even manage a full possession properly. Existing on the back of one of my minion’s heads sounded more like a curse to inflict upon my enemies, rather than anything I’d make use of myself. Unless immortality really was that hard to come by here?

“Harry said that Professor Quirrel nearly defeated him, which does make sense because as good as Harry is with many things, we are first years – or were, then.” Hermione glanced up and seemed inordinately relieved that I wasn’t looking bored or frustrated. “But Harry won because Quirrel had enough of You-Know-Who in him that the protection that saved him the first time protected him again. Harry said that Dumbledore thought that his mother’s love for him was what stopped You-Know-Who. I couldn’t find anything relating to protection spells that needed love, but Harry didn’t want to talk about how exactly he was protected, so there wasn’t many details to narrow things down and…”

I let Hermione ramble on. It got less coherent. I wanted to close my eyes and sag back against the couch. A mother’s love? Really?

Gods below I was sick of Heroes. Their parents died and it set them up as Fate’s favourite children. My father got murdered and all that I got out of it was my heart ripped out with a side of the destruction of all my plans.

But if two biologically young girls could channel magic on this world with only unfocused emotions as instruction, then maybe a selfless sacrifice could save a toddler’s life from even a competent Villain. Ugh. The mere thought left a bad taste in my mouth.

Not that such an occurrence would be too problematic – if I decided to conquer this world by force I would simply never directly attack a family home myself. Limit the accumulation of weight against me, put off having some orphan rival.

(Killing nuisances was what minions and devils were for, after all.)

Still, a mother’s love.

How bothersome.

Chapter Text

“Algernon: ‘Oh! I am not really wicked at all, cousin Cecily. You mustn’t think that I am wicked.’

Cecily: ‘If you are not, then you have certainly been deceiving us all in a very inexcusable manner. I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.’”

• Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Two weeks after I’d visited the Grangers, Hermione finally seemed to relax about how we cast magic at her house. The Ministry had shown no sign of interest in magic channelled without wands, but I still knew better than to test Fate. This summer, anyway.

That said, Hermione was still anxious about Harry not replying to her mail, and there was the ever-presented undercurrent of how she tied her self-worth to academic performance, but those things were manageable. Or exploitable, for the idealists who thought there was a difference between the two.

Less manageable was the behaviour of my parents. When Assaita and Jamaldine suddenly realised (or so it seemed) that there was but one month before my return to Hogwarts, I started preparing.

Not that either of them would have the capacity to chain me in the basement or otherwise prevent my re-immersion in magic. No, I had gotten used to (overly comfortable, even) with the conditional support I received from “Mum” and “Baba”. That the conditions of said support were so relaxed was really rather nice, and a further indicator that the only thing that would stop me from walking the halls of Hogwarts would be a consequence of my own making.

Hence, no testing Fate with experimental or other applied use of magic. And exhibiting only the traits of an ordinary gifted child. (Even if I was sure that I could properly set a half-decent ward by sacrificing one of the feral cats from three streets over.)

The day after my parents had their realisation regarding the passage of time, there was a considerable uptick in physical affection and Assaita talking about having me sit in on her lectures again.

I’d prepared for that, naturally. And there were so many reasons – logical, clear and goal orientated reasons – to dedicate myself to the activities both of them so eagerly proposed.

<{   ҉   }>

Despite my mother making the suggestion, my first day joining my parents at their work was spent with Baba. Whose office was… cluttered.

I didn’t tease my father about how far he’d let things slip in here in the year I’d spent away and, in return, he shifted a stack of papers from a spare chair to balance upon another stack of papers. There I sat for most of a day, flipping through copies of Time and Nature that I hadn’t caught while at Hogwarts.

Baba was in and out for a few lectures, but we had a nice lunch with a few of his colleagues. Which involved an enjoyably fierce debate about the Gulf War that I did nothing to start or fan the flames of, no matter how much Baba raised his eyebrow at me. (Mum’s eyebrow was more effective, mainly because she didn’t smirk while making implied threats.)

Back at the office – where Baba kept all the books he used for actual reference and all the books that had failed Mum’s “have you even opened this in three years?” test – the rest of the day passed quickly. The only thing of note to happen involved one of Baba’s masters students.

The student, tweed and loafers and arms completely full, came along while Baba had stepped out to go to the toilet. It was technically his office hours, but to simply open the door and walk in after knocking only twice was… probably something I would do if I wasn’t twelve. Said student, who had possibly ten years on me,  wasn’t quite tall enough to see over the stack of stuff in his arms.

“Professor, I got one! A laptop! It’s perfect for a modern comparisons section in your chapter about hand-held arithmetic tools! Well, it’s not quite hand-held, but changing to portable tools will allow for more sources anyway.” This person, who had more awareness of Baba’s research projects than his own surroundings, finally turned to the side enough to see that the chair Professor Jamaldine Sahelian was supposed to be sitting in was in fact empty.

“Right. I guess I’ll just put everything down, um, oh.”

“Hello.” I said, having finally been noticed.

“You’re a child,” replied the person who was barely an adult and even more barely an academic.

There were a number of ways I could respond to that, and quite a lot less ways that wouldn’t land me in trouble with Baba or the police. Hmm, getting blood on the books was a no-no, but I could tell him to exit the office and wait outside for my father to let him in – all while those scrawny arms shook under the weight of books and…

Hmm.

“What’s a laptop?”

He blinked, head still turned sideways, nose brushing a leather folder. “A computer. A portable computer. They’ve been out for a year and–”

Right.

“If I let you put everything down where I’m sitting, will you show me how it works?”

The young man nodded. The stuff in his arms tilted precariously.

A minute later, after Baba’s student had shifted things around and made sure the laptop – a flat wide brick of a thing – was balanced properly, the top half of the machine was lifted up to reveal a screen and chunky keyboard.

“It, uh, takes a bit longer to boot up than a normal computer, but it still runs windows!”

Sure enough, the loading bar blinked towards completion slow enough that it wasn’t worth watching. Baba’s student watched it anyway.

“So it’s just a normal computer, but you can move it around?” Impressive enough, given that neither of my parents used even normal computers at work yet, but I needed to make sure this was an innovation of hardware, not software.

 “Just a…” the man spluttered. “No! This is going to change everything This baby can process data, simulate experiments, write documents… just think about having laptops on dig sites! Its revolutionary!”

I disagreed. Innovation was a fascinating thing, especially in the muggle world (where I could actually witness it), but technology only crossed the line into revolutionary when someone used it to make someone else upset. Or dead. (This felt quite a few years away from having that capability.)

Baba returned from the toilet before the loading bar was halfway done.

<{   ҉   }>

For a week I had been ferried between my parent’s offices and lecture halls. Not every day, of course. I needed time to plan and make comprehensive enough notes from the Ancient Arts of Blood and Binding that I didn’t need to risk anything by bringing the actual tome back to Hogwarts – and I needed some amount of general independence. Still, three or four times a week I would end up at an institution of higher learning and try to absorb as much of the muggle world as I could.

After the laptop, nothing really disrupted me from refreshing my understanding on both global and local socio-political contexts, along with the technology enabling quickening trends in these pale western societies. Until one afternoon when I was following Mum through a library.

Now, Villains don’t get nudges from Fate like Heroes do. We definitely don’t get lucky breaks or (positive) coincidences. If we wanted something from the world, we had to make it – or take it – ourselves. I was very used to taking what I needed, and rather adept at the prerequisite skill of finding what I needed.

Almost all of the time, I found what I needed to due my own efforts and investigation. Us Villains didn’t get help. But what we did get, were instincts. Someone else might call it an evolutionary adaption, where the Villains who couldn’t pick up tiny but important pieces of information or divine truth from observations of the world simply perished against Heroes who were – relatively speaking – given great big flashing arrows pointing to the exact object they needed.

Some Villains reported their instincts as whispers, telling them to check on the prisoner again – just in case. I didn’t hear whispers or get flashes of hindsight, because I was (A) sane and (B) competent.

What I did get quite often though, was the sensation of having glanced twice, of looking back at something interesting, except I hadn’t yet seen the object.

So, when some part of my brain found something interesting on a bottom shelf, I bent down and looked.

Tucked away, outside of the bookends and considerably more battered than the surround texts on Chinese political history, was a book with the wrong Dewey decimal number for China or political history.

Comparative Accounts of Merlin and Morgana had no blurb, but was authored by one Muggle, B.

I put it back in the crammed spot on the shelf. Then jogged to catch up with Mum, thinking about why Fate might be so eager to give me actual hints towards underground tension regarding the Statute of Secrecy. Because fighting for the plight of the Muggleborn felt rather Heroic to me. Like the tactile feel of eating brunt toast.

If I was doing anything to benefit Muggleborn as a population, it would be incidental. A side effect of creating benefits for me. And even if there was no Black Tower in my future, I certainly wasn’t going to walk the path of redemption.

<{   ҉   }>

Two weeks before I was to board the express, and a few days after my parents had ventured into Diagon Alley to watch as my minions and I collected our supplies for the school year (with only some diversions to skim interesting books), my parents had taken me to see a play. A treat for the family.

The only reason there were no implicit implications of valuing time together or them already missing me was because they actually said those things. A different approach to Praesi child-rearing, but still... compelling.

The Importance of Being Earnest had been entertaining, though I probably found my humour from a different direction than what Oscar Wilde had intended. The play had been entertaining, and it had ended half an hour ago. My family – sticking out in a theatre full of the pale skinned and upper class – was now halfway home.

Baba was driving. Assaita was humming, tapping along to the quiet radio. I? I was distracted. Ruminating.

The new Defence Professor had required so many books for his curriculum that there was no chance to grab anything extra. In the moment when we’d bought the full set of Lockhart’s volumes, I hadn’t minded learning from factual recounts of contemporary challenges in wizarding societies. Now, days later, I severely doubting the learning possibilities of his books. Along with the proportion of factual content.

But irritation with my educators was more normal than not – and no excuse for this level of distraction. Really, I should have noticed we were nearing home before Baba pulled into the driveway.

(Anticipating the possible paths of my future should not consume so much of me that I couldn’t anticipate the probably paths of the present.)

Ugh.

The real problem here was not my distraction. It was my purposeful avoidance of something... personal.

Debating whether to tell my parents about what had actually happened at Hogwarts last year was relevant to my plans, yes. The outcome of the discussion was important, even. If Assaita and Jamaldine reacted protectively, infringed on the independence that was as vital to me as food? If they impeded my ability to use magic (to be myself)?

That was personal.

(The car engine was loud in our garage. Then it wasn’t.)

Really, looking at those risks, I should feign fatigue and not speak a single word.

(The car doors slammed. Then things were quiet again.)

But there were other factors in play. Longer term... problems. For I was a Villain. I was and would always be Evil. And I was hiding it. Fate loved to take that little combination and ensure that the people I cared about would inevitably discover everything I was keeping hidden at the worst possible time.

Since I would rather not kill my parents, maintaining my secrets was not a possibility. Not all of them, anyway. 

(Lights in the living room. Bright. I should blink.)

“I need to tell you something. Both of you.”

It was the only decision I could have made. Given a choice between two paths, and I picked self-preservation. But that path led straight into a fucking maze.

“Of course, Akua, you can tell us anything.” Assaita said it like a sentence, but she was... asking, reaching for my hand.

I sat on the ridiculous old couch. It took a moment for my parents to join me, almost certainly because they’d been giving each other a look.

We were still holding hands. I allowed it, in case her reaching out became something of memory. Or something tainted.

A matter of self-preservation. My parents discovering me at the worst possible moment would create a weakness for a Hero to exploit. To end me, lethally or not. An easy decision.

But now I had to reveal that magic – and the world it was free in – held danger. Beyond prejudice and hate. Now my parents were making the decision.

It was still a matter of self-preservation. Attachments were a weakness. One I allowed myself in this soft world, but nonetheless, a weakness. If my parents decided that it was them or magic, I would be... wounded.

(Maybe more than if I had to kill them.)

This muggle world did experiments with children. Gave them a cookie, told them they could get a second one if they waited. Delayed gratification, a sign of maturity.

Praesi High Houses did something similar with poisons. There was a snake, especially enchanted and bred. It had sunk its fangs into my calf. There was a knife next to a potion. The snake had not let go – spelled so. I’d had to use the knife to cut its head off my leg, drip its blood into the potion. Pull the fangs out of my muscle.

Drink the potion, knowing it would hurt twice as much as all that. Knowing it was the only thing that could save me.

It was tradition to boast about how fast you managed it. I’d been the fastest in three generations.

(I was being slow, now.)

“What do you remember about Harry Potter?” I looked up, saw how worried my parents’ eyes had gotten, in my silence. Watched confusion overtake that worry and then be eaten from behind by a faint fear.

They remembered my letters. What I’d talked about over Easter.

They had never heard about how Potter’s broom had been cursed. Or the troll. Or how he’d ended up in the Hospital Wing.

(The snake was clamped onto my leg. I reached for the knife.)

I told them the story of Harry Potter’s first year at Hogwarts. The dangers he was exposed to, the secrets he uncovered.

He was a Hero. Fate revolved around him. Last year had been his story. Revealing these secrets was not a dishonest representation of my own year.

(I had to look at my hand a few times, to make sure that Assaita had not, in fact, let go.)

There were questions for me, when I was finished. Most of them were easy, if not straightforward, to answer; about duty of care and the extent of discrimination I faced as muggleborn. Two were… complicated. Personal.

My mother, half pulling me onto her lap so she could wrap her arms around more of me: “You weren’t in any danger yourself, were you? You said you became friends with Hermione at Halloween, and if she became friends with poor Harry through… a troll… then…”

Baba, resting a hand on my knee, looking at how I hugged Assaita but did not fully relax: “Little Hawk, what are you really worried about?”

(The anti-venom burned, but it hadn’t made my eyes water, not in my memories.)

It was incredibly unlikely that Harry Potter would ever interact with my parents – even less likely than orphan managing see his own in some vision – and he didn’t even know what I’d really done last year. My parents would not discover my secrets in conversation with a Hero.

Cracking open the safe that held my true secrets would not come back to bite me, so long as I bled for it now.

But even so, that was the cruelty of Fate.

Villains lose.

The weakness that ended me would be of my own creation. I put too much work into success – so only I would be able to cut myself.

This was the foundation of the Dread Empire of Praes. Iron sharpens iron.

“I was with Hermione when the troll found us. I... tricked her into going somewhere safe, then tried to... distract it. I had to run away.”

Preventative suffering. The opposite of delayed gratification. (There was no reward.)

“It’s not... I... I’m not worried about what happened.” Self-preservation. Iron sharpens iron. Sometimes you had to make the cut yourself.

“I just don’t want to have to choose between magic and you.”

 <{   ҉   }>

The already-increased physical affection ramped up further. But even though I made sure to eavesdrop on all my parent’s private conversations, I never heard a word about keeping me away from Hogwarts.

(It made it easier to deal with the magic itching under my skin.)

<{   ҉   }>

“But it can’t be a pocket dimension,” I was saying, “it has all the signs, so it was my first thought last year, but there was no spatial distortion when the train left or joined the normal lines. So, the enchantments here have to be manipulating physical space – either expanding this area, or possibly enclosing everything else.”

Baba blinked at me.

“Yes I can hate philosophical distinctions like that and still be precise when it comes to real things, Baba. We’ve talked about this. I’m a knowledge application type of person. The only reason to have your head in the clouds is if–”

“–the rest of you is there too.” My parents quoted, smiles finally reaching their eyes.

“Exactly.” I nodded. “Which is why the first step of inquiry is the nature of the barrier,” I gestured at the entrance to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, where latecomers were bustling through, “if it acts as a portal or moves us, then this area is the enchanted location and any spatial distortion is tied here, but if the entrance acts as a doorway, then it follows that part of King’s Cross is enchanted, with this location only existing due to an external anchor and outside instructions.”

I paused, both to maintain the mask of being measured and logical, but also because if this place was generated through external enchantments and was not a pocket dimension, then the wizarding world might have done something new. Or simply made something incredibly prone to tampering – and the whole crushed-in-a-collapsing-magical-field was something I preferred to do to other people, not experience myself.

While I was gathering myself, I saw Baba glance down at his watch, then back over my head to Assaita. Mum shifted, and then Baba’s jaw moved silently.

I was pushing it. The Hogwarts Express would leave soon. More to the point, they’d evidentially noticed my stalling tactic.

Which I hadn’t noticed myself, until a minute in.

It wasn’t even stalling, really. Stalling was hesitating, putting something off. I didn’t hesitate. I’d simply wanted to talk to them about magic in a way that would fly over the heads of my minions – and so I had. Wanting to keep talking to them was just the same impulse.

It wasn’t like the teachers at Hogwarts would sufficiently debate my very real hypotheses. No, the teachers were going to treat me like my physical age, with a curriculum to match. Hmm...

“Brief question,” I turned so I was facing both my parents, “the ghost who is horrible at teaching history – the one I wrote about last year – would you help me figure out a way to get him fired? Only if he teaches the same curriculum again of course, but given that the assigned reading for this year is also on the Goblin Wars, I don’t have much hope for a–"

“Akua,” Assaita didn’t speak loudly to cut me off. But she didn’t say anything else.

Probably because that single word had made me straighten my back and shift my expression to haughty confidence.

I hadn’t stood like this – posture domineering and eyes staring forwards – in front of them before. Not without it being the start of a fencing match or when I was launching into a debate with someone who’d assumed I was actually twelve.

(Not since I realised that Assaita and Jamaldine weren’t interested in training their child.)

It took way too long for me to realise that the command of “eye contact, daughter” was never going to come.

And then the world felt a bit distant and my inner ear started sending conflicting messages in time with the sudden pulsing of my heart.

I blinked again and Assaita was crouched in front of me, saying that it was okay to be scared of what might happen, but that the teachers would keep me safe and that I was her harrier-hawk no matter what and more than clever enough to think my way out of any problem besides.

(Something twisted in my gut.)

It was easier to slump forwards until my forehead pressed against her shoulder than think about what was happening with my neurological associations.

“I’m the scariest thing at that school, and none of them are ready for me.” I promised her. In Soninke, which meant she lifted my head up and started actually looking worried.

“I will be fine.” I promised her. “Fear has no hold over my decisions, and...” (And I’ll miss you. You. Not the mother sneering in the back of my head.)

Baba rested his hands on both our shoulders. His watch said that, even if I hadn’t been stalling earlier, time had still passed.

I didn’t have time. To say goodbye. Or say much of anything.

“Expect a letter soon. It... will be quite long.” Was what I did verbalise.

In English.

They walked me to the train. I should have cared about others witnessing this affection.

But this was self-preservation. Anti-venom. For the future.

I should have cared, but standing tall took enough effort. Iron sharpens iron. Later, I would cut the world. (Right now, I was bleeding.)

Chapter Text

XXXVII.                 “Ninety percent of the time things will turn out worse than you expect. The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect so much.”

XXXVIII.                “The early bird gets the worm. The early worm...gets eaten.”

XLV.                       “One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the unexpected should have been expected.”

• Norman Ralph Augustine, Excerpts from Augustine’s Laws

The Hogwarts Express was exactly how I’d remembered it. My minions were too. They’d saved a compartment for me and were enthusiastically welcoming and cheerful once I’d finally got on the train. Well, Hannah and Megan had been cheerful.

Susan was staring at the cover of one of Lockhart’s books. She looked up when I entered, but only opened her mouth once I’d shoved my trunk into the overhead compartments (it was easier this year, and maybe next year I wouldn’t even have to stand on the seats to reach).

“My Aunt says that Lockhart’s a fraud.” Susan dumped those words onto the floor like a severed head. My mood picked up.

“Well of course,” I ignored Hannah’s sudden spluttering, “no one serious about monster hunting writes that many books.”

Megan hummed at that.

I then realised that Susan wasn’t feeling triumphant at uncovering the truth of a conman. No, she was tracing Lockhart’s book cover portrait like someone disappointed. In the state of the world or because the handsome ones were always fake at heart, I wasn’t sure.

And I didn’t care.

(She was disappointed that a pretty man was nothing more than his smile? I was disappointed that I’d spent the summer with a wand in my pocket that I couldn’t fucking use.)

Two minutes in, and I was already putting too much effort into matching the irritating positivity of my minions to pretend to care about a sliver of Susan’s innocence falling away – much less the loss of her infatuation! Sure, my minions were twelve and soft, but why was Lockhart even a topic of discussion?

I just wanted one hour to deal with the magic coiling around my veins. Just one hour to adjust from having insufferable (actual) parents to advancing my plans.

I didn’t have an hour. But five seconds was enough to breathe.

“Well, even if Lockhart didn’t do the things he said,” I told the children around me, “he wrote about them. Maybe we can find the bits that are useful and fill in the gaps.”

Susan nodded, but didn’t put the book away. Hannah finally stopped being shocked at the accusations against “such a hero, look at his cheekbones!”

(Five seconds was enough to breathe.)

Megan hummed again, but happier. She pressed her knee against mine, then said, “so you’ve already got a plan to get top marks for this year? I feel like it's going to be a fierce competition with Granger.”

I did have a plan, and the competition was not based on whether I could win, but whether... whether I wanted to. Ultimately.

(I’d spent a lot of last year hiding – biding my time, lying in wait. A snake in the grass. But there was no Black Tower to claim, no guaranteed throne. Maybe I would have to bite, to get what I wanted. Or maybe I just wanted to.)

I pressed my knee back into Megan’s, and threw myself into conversation about the coming year. To shift my focus away from the two people I’d left on the station and to important things. Like how I’d manage to cast a proper ritual somewhere in the castle.

<{   ҉   }>

Susan was in the middle of articulating what she knew of last week’s house-raids. The Ministry had actually taken an action that impacted the pseudo-feudal nobility of wizarding society. Apparently, the aurors had found a bit more than the newspapers had reported on, which suggested that certain families had spent money to keep those details out of the spotlight – instead reporting only the total numbers of items collected per vague category in a list hidden on page twenty five.

But all that that suggested (to me, anyway) was that all the Ministry of Magic had done was discover exactly what had been planted for them. Heroes and law enforcement were broadly similar; let them discover one secret room and they’ll never think to look for another.

Still, hearing about the processes involved was useful – even if I did need to decide whether I wanted to take over the Ministry from the inside or out.

Susan was talking about how frustrated her aunt was at having to deal with Wizengamot complaints for the next month, when Hermione Granger slid open our compartment door.

“Um, apologies, but, ah, have any of you seen Harry or Ron?”

The world narrowed.

My heart thumped once. Twice. Thrice – faster. 

“Do you think they got left behind!?” Hannah pole-vaulted to a conclusion, then walked herself back. “Or, maybe they’re just in another compartment?”

Hermione’s jaw was tight. “I would’ve seen them at the station if they were getting on. They weren’t there.”

(Intrigue was such a lovely feeling.)

Hannah leaned further forward, eyes wide. “Do you think they could be in trouble?”

Megan was looking at Susan, who was looking at me with something like resignation.

Hermione’s shoulders were tense under the questioning, hands tight on the compartment door. “I haven’t seen them since this morning at the Burrow – that’s where the Weasleys live – and we were running super late, but I haven’t found them so far. I’ve only searched two carriages, but...”

(I tried not to laugh. Things kicking off this early was fun. A bit of much-needed relief, honestly.)

Hannah glanced at me for a moment, then said in great detail how she would be happy to help search. Megan nodded the same, eyes flicking between me, Hermione, and Susan. Susan, who was shifting in her seat and frowning at the floor.

(Ugh, really.  Susan and the developing brain hidden under her red, red hair should know I was always right. Of course something was going to happen to Potter.)

I stood up.

“The train has been moving for about fifteen minutes,” I raised my hands to tick points off my fingers. “There is a slight possibility that Potter and Weasley are on the other end, or having a luggage accident, or experiencing the hospitality of some Slytherins. But the much greater likelihood is that something has happened. This is Harry Potter we’re talking about.”

I gave them a moment.

“Still, to properly search the train, we should travel in both directions. Megan and I will go right, one for each side of the corridor, and Susan and Hannah will do the same going left.”

(It really was nice to be looked at like an authority, rather than a child.)

“Hermione, you go alert the Prefects – maybe they can get word to the castle or a professor somehow.”

Four nods and four different looks of respect, one additionally flavoured with gratitude. Then my plan was in motion.

It took twenty minutes for us to make very sure that neither the Boy Who Lived nor his best friend were on the Hogwarts Express. It took two minutes to encourage Hermione to read up on the consequences of missing the train – along with reinforcing her image of me as a problem-solver.

It took ten seconds of me raising my eyebrow at Susan for her to concede that something was going to happen this year. Which she really should be happier about. Life couldn’t be properly enjoyed unless it was threatened.

<{   ҉   }>

Naturally, I still advanced my own plans during the journey to Hogwarts. Having the entire student population all but captive on one train was such a fantastic opportunity to do… well, multiple things.

First on the list, after telling my minions I needed to go to the loo, was walking into a toilet cubicle and focusing as hard as I could on controlling the magic inside me. Because whatever I had absorbed when trying (mostly succeeding) to ward my bedroom halfway through summer was reacting to the magic of the Hogwarts Express.

Far more than it had reacted to Diagon Alley, or even the Platform where I’d… held on to my parents.

The normal itch and flowing I could deal with. Diagon had been tolerable – buzzing in my teeth and needles down my spine. Honestly, this too was tolerable. I could tolerate a lot of things. A wide range of poisons, fencing multiple opponents, even pretending to lose – all deeply challenging or unpleasant things.

But I really would rather just take some poison than have to constantly concentrate on keeping the current roil of magic filtering through my body; under skin, over bone, around the muscle and along the nerves. It kept wanting to gather.

When the magic gathered in small amounts, it meant the magical equivalent of static electricity. Large amounts meant distracting pain and muscle spasms in that area of my body. I hadn’t tested what would happen beyond that, because I had the faint sense that this power would expend itself. And having a hidden source of energy – to protect myself or just for its own sake – was always worthwhile.

But I really didn’t like how it was making me sweat.

I had to look presentable.

Thus, the train bathroom.

Next on the to do list was talking to some Slytherins.

Now, I’d made sure Megan was the one to talk with Malfoy and his compartment. Told her I wanted to see how she’d handle it. Honestly, she did well – not giving more information than she got. But mainly, she’d done it.

Which meant that Draco Malfoy hadn’t seen nor interacted with me yet. Poor boy.

I’d waited until we were close enough to the castle that everyone had gotten changed into their school robes. Better to be seen as a Hufflepuff than further remind Malfoy that my parents weren’t magical. And so, with a few broader factors accounted for, I knocked on the compartment door.

Crabbe answered. Frowning with… effort.

“Akua Sahelian, here to provide Draco Malfoy with news.” Brief and business-like. Sure enough, Crabbe stepped aside.

Malfoy frowned at me more deliberately – expressing displeasure rather than trying to stimulate cranial blood flow. “Why are you here? Crabbe, get rid of her.”

I stared at him, then looked past Goyle and Parkinson. Nodded at Bulstrode. Raised an eyebrow at Daphne Greengrass.

“Don’t you want to know what’s happened with Potter?”

(Having the attention of everyone in a given space could give one a bit of a rush. If the people giving attention were worth anything, that was.)

“Well spit out,” Malfoy sneered, “time is valuable for some people, not that I expect you to understand.”

I didn’t expect Draco to ever realise that if you wanted to stay on top of the rumour mill, you needed someone out there grinding the flour. Parkinson would fill that role, but only because she was desperate to please someone who hadn’t worked for any of the devotion offered him. But Parkinson was still twelve – statistically, given the time of year – and hadn’t quite worked out what Draco Malfoy would like in a minion.

(It was, of course, Malfoy’s job to tell her that. But the wizarding world was run by fools who couldn’t make a decision or lead an ideology unless you whipped them.)

Regardless, he’d been rude. I smiled. Little Draco shifted in his seat.

“Did you know that Harry Potter is missing?” I dangled the words like bait. “No one can find him anywhere on the train. Weasley too.”

The next minute involved me being thoroughly ignored as Malfoy sprang to his feet with glee and declared he was going to go determine this for himself. Crabbe and Goyle followed, but not nearly as eagerly as Pansy Parkinson, who at least remembered enough to sneer at me before flouncing after her infatuation.

I took a moment, walked back into the compartment, then sat down where Malfoy had been sitting. Greengrass noticed.

I looked back out the door. “Did Malfoy actually rub his hands together when walking off?”

Greengrass blinked at me. Tracey Davis, sitting next to her and trying to be inconspicuous, laughed.

“I know he’s rich,” I continued, “but he’s also ridiculous. Don’t tell me he’s not.”

Greengrass’ lips twitched. I gave her and Davis a nice smile. Which sent Greengrass’ expression back to cold and haughty.

“What do you want?”

My smile stayed. “A partnership.”

One heartbeat.

Two heartbeats.

Three heartbe–

“About what?”

“Greengrass, you strike me as someone who hears a lot of interesting things. But unlike Malfoy and Parkinson, I think you understand what you listen to. Now, I hear a lot of things from the other three houses, since Hannah is friends with Lavender Brown and Megan talks with both Patil twins.”

That got me a “mmhmm”.

“See, you pay attention. Now, Miss Davis here – you like quidditch, don’t you – has reason enough to talk with Megan Jones – she’s the niece of Gwenog Jones of the Holyhead Harpies, you see – and could be very good at making sure we can communicate without boring people realising what’s going on. And you, Millicent Bulstrode, don’t care a whit about anything I’m saying, do you?”

“Piss off.” Millicent returned to patting her cat. Which was baring its fangs me.

I grinned at her, then at Greengrass. Who had to take a second.

“So, you’ve thought about this.” Another second. “But what can you give me that I don’t already have?”

(Oh, that line was definitely borrowed. But theft was as good a way to learn as any.)

“Slytherin is slightly cut off from the rest of the school, don’t you think? I mean, I’m sure you pick up on what’s going on, but wouldn’t it be better to hear everything... quicker?” I spread my palms, focused on the magic under my skin. “Information is all I can give you right now, I’ll admit. Gossip is free, of course, and we can work out exchanges for the more interesting things as we need. Really, Greengrass, what I want from you – what I’m offering – is something to build upon in future.”

I watched her eyes as she processed what I was saying. And what I hadn’t said at all.

“Why come to me?”

“Because you’re smart enough to ask that question.”

That got a raised eyebrow. Maybe the pureblood families did train their children. A little. (Some of them, anyway.)

I let out a performative breath and forced the magic coiling in my throat to relocate. “I’m coming to you, because you’re not going to immediately say no to a good idea just because you don’t know my parents.”

Greengrass was going to say yes. She acted adult, and acting adult meant doing business. And it probably helped that this deal would be the most interesting conversation she had for the entire train ride.

“Fine.” Greengrass declared. “Tracey?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, this sounds fun.”

I stood up. Bowed my head at the two of them, then extended my hand to Greengrass.  “Pleasure doing business with you.”

She stood, blonde, pretty, and blank-faced. Reminding me just enough of another little girl from Praes that I had to check her wand wasn’t pointed at me.

“Pleasure doing–”

When our palms met, the magic I’d deliberately let collect in my hand hummed. Maybe it was trying to get out. Maybe it remembered what I’d done with Hermione. Maybe it just recognised more of itself. Regardless of the reason, Greengrass gasped and looked down at the contrast of skin; mine ebony and hers oh-so-pale.

“Good day, Daphne.” I squeezed, then forced the magic to disperse itself.

I didn’t fully shut their compartment door, which let me hear a slightly shocked “she’s so powerful.”

(Of course I was. But more importantly, I acted on it.)

<{   ҉   }>

The obviously carnivorous horses pulling the carriages to the school were a great aesthetic. Especially since they were… selectively invisible?

I should tame one, before the end of these seven years.

<{   ҉   }>

The song of the Sorting Hat felt less... hmm, prophetic than last time. Probably due to the fact that neither the Hero nor his sidekick were here to hear it. The Sorting Hat’s messages of staying calm and sticking together didn’t do a single thing to quell the rustling whispers of where Harry Potter might be, or how many dragons and dark wizards he must be fighting to get to the school. Still, I suspected that whatever was going to happen this year would be more... public… than the baiting of the Philosopher’s Stone last year.

The rest of the chattering students were focused on another, more immediate (and very public) display. Gilderoy Lockhart.

Beaming. Handsome. Fashionable. Waving back to the students who were swooning over him – of which there were really too many. It was no wonder that Snape had left less than ten seconds after sitting down.

But that was for later dissection.

“Oh, this one’s a Gryffindor, just watch.” Megan then took a satisfied sip of pumpkin juice when Colin Creevey bounded over to the red and gold. I gave her another pat on the shoulder, because she didn’t have the advantage of guessing half of these kids from their family alone. Although the Carrow girls just before would so obviously grow up into haughty bitches that I had to re-assess the nature vs nurture debate.

The guessing game went on, with only a few upsets. I very quickly paid only half my attention to the line of new first years, instead doing a headcount to confirm that, indeed, this cohort was larger than mine. In fact, I suspected the birthrate would have a very clear trend when mapped to the recent war of this impotent society. If the wizarding Ministry even tracked birthrate. Or had birth certificates.

Ugh.

“Lovegood, Luna!” Professor McGonagall called.

“The Lovegoods are Ravenclaws right?” Hannah asked Susan, who nodded.

This Lovegood was skipping up to the stool, bright flowers in her silver-blonde hair and carrying a... newspaper.

“Maybe Gryffindor though,” Megan suggested, “cause... well, she’s, uh, not caring about what other people think?”

My minions glanced my way, even though I was too busy staring at the back of the Sorting Hat. Luna Lovegood’s head was shifting, but from what I couldn’t say. The Hat was shifting too – muttering.

“I think there’s no points for this one.” I decided.

My minions exchanged looks, but it still took another ten seconds for the Hat cry: “Ravenclaw!”

Lovegood promptly stood up, smiled up at McGonagall, bowed to the Hat, and then walked towards the Ravenclaw table while staring directly up at the ceiling. The next name was called, but I carefully watched her (head still tilted back) wander up to an empty spot at the Ravenclaw table.

Some of the flowers in her hair had fallen out on the walk over, but she didn’t trip on the bench seating – despite never looking at it.

(Interesting.)

The Sorting wrapped up with a “Weasley, Ginevra!” who actually took two seconds to be sent to Gryffindor. But she was guaranteed overly-raucous cheers from the rest of the red-heads – and anyone else eager to start eating.

Dumbledore didn’t give a speech, because Professor Snape returned with actual glee on his face, and we were all told to “tuck in” halfway through Lockhart standing up for a toast. McGonagall went with the Headmaster, mouth thinning even before she left the Great Hall.

I sighed. Took some lamb shanks from where Megan was holding the platter. “Well, Potter’s turned up.”

Everyone around me paused. Then Megan glanced at where my gaze had been moments before. “Oh, because Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall left. They went to get him.”

I gave her a smile. Told Hannah to give Megan the gravy she’d been eying.

“What do you think happened?” Zacharias Smith leaned over.

“We’ll find out the truth tomorrow morning, but it’ll be some kind of crazy adventure.” I took a bite of the lamb. Ate some pumpkin – which was perfectly acceptable when not juiced. Then Snape stalked back up to his seat, rigid with rage. “But whatever it was, Potter won’t face any consequences.”

“What! How do you figure that?”

To answer Smith’s question, I pointed my knife up at the High Table, where Snape was trying to re-murder the meat on his plate. Dumbledore was also back (somehow unobtrusive in vivid lime green), informing the half-giant groundskeeper about whatever mess Potter had gotten in.

Megan explained the implied logic to Smith, who only believed it when Susan said the same thing in different words. I didn’t roll my eyes, but my knife happened to scrape my plate when he asked a third stupid question.

When there was another lull along the table, I got the attention of all the Hufflepuff first years. (A simple “do you want to see some magic?”)

They stared obsessively as I transfigured a napkin into a sheet of parchment, the bare bone of my lamb shank into a quill, and a jug of pumpkin juice into a jug of ink.

“Everything I just did is spells you’re going to learn this year,” I told their impressionable faces. “Once you get the hang of the basics, there’s no limit to what creativity can give you. The main thing you need for any spell – but it’s key for transfiguration – is a clear picture of what you want, and to really, really want it.”

Then I wrote a quick letter about how Potter and Weasley had arrived and been questioned by the professors. Folded it, then quickly re-opened the paper to write a postscript about how they were not getting expelled.

(Not before Fate had its way with them, anyway.)

The children watched, open mouthed, as I levitated the letter over to where Hermione sat, surrounded but alone. When she looked around for who sent it, I lit my transfigured quill on fire, and made it wave above the table.

She waved back.

A flick of my wand plunged the quill down into the jug I’d used.

(Magic roiled up and down my right arm until my fingers tingled.)

“Awww, I wanted some of that!” A brown-haired boy cried.

I raised an eyebrow.

Hannah leant over and passed another jug. “That one’s still ink, cause Akua’s transfigurations last forever, but you can have this. Oh, my name is Hannah Abbot, by the way. What are you firsties excited to learn about?”

They stared at me in wonder, then eagerly told my minion all about themselves.

(Ahh. It was good to be back.)

Chapter Text

“This individual does not know where initiative ends and rocket-propelled idiocy begins.”

• Elizabeth Moon, Moving Target

I was using a slicing charm instead of a knife to cut up my breakfast. For practice. And to make sure the students around me – new and old – understood that I, tall as a third year and skin dark as night, was the genius of Hufflepuff House.

(I honestly hadn’t intended for the ‘senior’ years to try replicating my practice, but it was amusing when someone nicked their thumb.)

Of course, that was only a minor distraction from how the entire Hall was buzzing with how Potter and Weasley had flown a flying car to the castle. General consensus had decided that they were very cool for doing so, but there was a small contingent (mainly Ravenclaws, Draco Malfoy’s followers, and Hermione Granger) who thought it was all very arrogant of them. I was more curious as to the enchantments powering the car, having heard Weasley complain that “he didn’t know the invisibility button was there at the start!”

Schedules were handed out soon enough, although McGonagall, rather than Professor Sprout, handed ours out to the Prefects. Professor Sprout had rushed off early last night after a word from Dumbledore and not shown her face at breakfast today at all. Which made me wonder what exactly Potter had done.

I didn’t have to wonder for long.

First, the Gryffindor table started scooting away from Potter and his friends. Secondly, an explosive roar silenced the rest of the room. Thirdly, a vibrating red envelope jumped into the air and began berating Ronald Weasley.

A minute of verbal bludgeoning later, the population of Hogwarts took a second to be thankful they’d never met Mrs Weasley, much less gotten on her bad side.

I relaxed my grip on my wand as the laughter rose and general conversation picked up again. The volume had been... bracing, but I was actually half impressed. That red letter was such an effective method of shaming someone. Personal delivery, public humiliation, and sheer traumatic volume. Best of all, the sender wasn’t even there to have backlash directed at them.

“How do they even work?” I leaned over to my minions.

“Howlers?” Hannah blinked.

Yes, Hannah, the thing I didn’t know the name of but acted like I did so you all would inform me indirectly – surely you haven’t forgotten that much since last year.

“I think the paper is enchanted with an impression of the voice, but...” Susan frowned. “But I don’t think people need to shout at the letter before they send it.”

“Well, it was red and on fire, so I think it must be blood magic.” I stated, then managed to separate the fat from another bacon slice with a careful diffindo.

Hannah and Megan got halfway through nodding before the table around me gasped into silence. Someone choked on some pumpkin juice (which served them right for drinking it).

“What?” I asked. “Blood magic is red, right? And the letter must be using up some source of power to burn like that.”

There was some more silence.

“Blood magic is dark.” Susan bit out. “It’s illegal and wrong, and... if that is how Howlers are made, they shouldn’t be used.”

I nodded at her. Reached over and squeezed her hand in apology. “Mm, making a scene of someone like that in public isn’t very nice. I’d hate it if it happened to me.”

(Look at me, I’m innocent. I definitely haven’t collected more of your hair to make up for what I wasted at the end of last year.)

Breakfast finished quickly, with Hannah filling the conversational cracks – spaces where I would usually speak – with excitement about Herbology.

I smiled and replied, but otherwise kept quiet quite on purpose. The reactions of everyone else to my mere suggestion of blood magic – unanimous agreement with Susan’s condemnation – had been very clear evidence that blood magic was not to be done by anyone upstanding. Not even when the blood was merely a mechanism for a spell and not actually having an effect itself.

As expected of a society with the ambition of a church-going goldfish, but still. Boring.

(The magic under my skin itched.)

<{   ҉   }>

The first class of the year was Herbology. With the Gryffindors. Auspicious.

Especially since Professor Sprout turned up covered in even more earth than usual, arms hefting a head-sized bundle of bandages.

(Harry Potter looked guiltily over at... a tree? A tree, with... its branches in slings? Well then.)

Sprout didn’t look happy, though that was probably to do with the bowerbird of a man strutting next to her, wearing enough shimmering turquoise to provide for a dozen nests. Gilderoy Lockhart and his perfectly placed hat began prattling about Whomping Willows (oh, the tree) – before being conversationally cut off at the knees by the announcement that class was going to handle some fun plants today.

Except Lockhart recovered, and managed to pull Harry Potter out of class through the same tactic of ignoring the other authority figure and just giving out your own orders.

It was so frustrating that children here couldn’t get away with the same thing. Like, yes, morality was inherently prescriptive, but Good was so heavy handed about hierarchies.

(There was no morally justifiable structure of power because power and morality were antithetical. Saying otherwise, even primative ‘might makes right’ concepts, was merely a lie to convince the masses and middling lieutenants that having a boot on their back was actually comfortable. Or... chiropractic, at least.)

When Potter returned, Sprout – via the answers of one Hermione Granger – explained that we were going to handle lethal plant life.

Or just harmful plant life.

And have to wear earmuffs.

Ugh.

“Finch-Fletchley!” I called out before he could walk over to Potter. “Megan wanted to talk Quidditch.”

Megan blinked at me rapidly, then called him over to see if he was considering trying out for the House team this year. Being a muggleborn and thus not having practiced since he was five years old, there was little chance of him ever joining the team, but he could certainly spend time talking about himself.

He could also be easily redirected, and I could finish the walk he was attempting to make.

“Hermione, good morning. Weasley, Potter.” I nodded at the boys.

“Morning Akua.” Hermione turned to me and smiled. Slightly performative. Ah, the rules-follower was upset at the great chaotic adventure. Or a tween girl was struggling to express the worry she’d felt for her friends yesterday on the train. Or she’d seen something nasty in my past during our summer ritual.

I stared into her eyes for a second. Flicked my gaze to Potter and back. She firmed her jaw but didn’t react.

(Ah, good. Just drama for the Hero to resolve through his earnest personality. Nothing for me to manage – but I still wanted some fun.)

Weasley started glowering in my general direction.

“So how was your break?” I asked him.

There was a moment of awkward silence.

“I’ve been practicing chess a bit and I want to see if you’ve improved too.” My words hung in the hot greenhouse air. Ronald Weasley looked confused.

Which was not his fault, really. When one person had interacted with the Hero’s band of three – especially when that trio was having some internal conflict – there were three scripts that Fate liked to follow. And I’d done something completely different.

“She was looking all over the train for you, you know?” I told the still-silent boys. “Quite a few people were worried.”

Harry shifted at my words. Ronald blinked, then looked at Hermione – who was now both blushing and glaring at me – then tried to frown in two emotional directions at once.

I ignored them (avoiding the possibility of starting any lectures, thank you Fate) and chatted to Hermione about the new invention of laptops until Sprout told our group to put our (foul) earmuffs on. Then I discovered that mandrakes looked like infant children. Wooden ones.

Watching Neville Longbottom revealed that twisting the wrist was the best method of plunging these awful things back into the soil. That or spite. Because I had lots of spite for the duration of the lesson. I’d never had to harvest my own poisons back in Praes – much less re-pot them.

<{   ҉   }>

Things improved by the end of the first week. The teachers, after a brief grading of the summer homework, remembered that I had started jousting with Hermione Granger for the title of child genius, and were treating us both accordingly.

Flitwick indulged me for nearly five minutes after class on how spell anchoring functioned.

When McGonagall mentioned extra detail we could aim for when making coat buttons, her eyes flicked to me instead of only resting on Hermione.

And as the week went on, Sinistra asked me about the impacts of planetary positions, Sprout blinked at my extrapolation of the uses for mandrake, and Binns did absolutely nothing different from last year. I couldn’t even be sure that he’d even graded the final exams.

(But he could be sure that his un-life would cease before my graduation. If he ever gained enough awareness to feel my glare.)

As angry as History of Magic made me, Potions was as nostalgic and soothing as a purposefully stressful environment could be. Professor Snape exuded such an aura of thwarted vengeance for the first week of term that everyone spoke in whispers and was afraid of chopping too loudly. Which was all we were doing; chopping, slicing, dicing. Knifework, with breaks to hurriedly copy down the recipes written furiously on the blackboard as examples of what we would be covering throughout the year.

He never commented on how I pulled my potions knife from a pocket instead of my bag. I never commented on the way he physically tensed every time Lockhart called out to him at meals. Villains had to look out for each other in small ways. You never could know when you needed a rare object or favour from a dangerous ally. Or a scapegoat to point your enemies at.

I also sent a very long letter home. Then a second one. (And almost a third, before I reminded myself that there was absolutely no way that I could be feeling guilt about being in Hogwarts or learning magic again.) Thankfully, the Hogwarts library had extensive material on all of the disciplines adjacent to blood rituals provided glorious distraction.

But class that had everyone excited – my minions included – was Lockhart’s.

Gilderoy Lockhart. The new Hogwarts Defence Against the Dark Arts professor.

What I heard from the halls and courtyards of the castle could be summarised as fawning, worried fawning about the curse on the DADA position, and awed fawning over how ‘hands on’ his first class with Harry Potter was. In terms of information, it was useless.

I found Hermione in the library.

“Hermione, hello.”

“Oh!” The girl shoved books aside until there was a spot for me on the table, then whispered. “Akua, hi, how are you? What are you here to study?”

I looked over her reference material, then lowered myself into the seat. “Not the year’s entire transfiguration curriculum like you are, but I might grab Gamp’s Laws from you once you’re done. Not urgent though. How are you with the first few classes?”

Hermione looked down at her notes, before succumbing to conversation like a good ‘friend’. And, like a tween girl, immediately gushed over... huh. Some extended reading she’d asked Professor McGonagall for. (What an interesting puberty she was going to have. And damn the House favouritism, ugh.)

“Asking for that is an excellent idea, have got anything from any other Professors?”

She had.

Flitwick and Sinistra I would probably follow up on, though with more tailored questions. And rather than trying anything with Snape – like conspicuously leaving different reference books on my potions table and watching his reactions – we agreed to ask Sprout for manuals on the uses of magical ingredients.

I still needed more data to test my general magic theory. And data from across magical disciplines would help all the more.

“Did Lockhart mention any good spell manuals to look up?” I asked.

Hermione blushed. “He was very impressed that I’d already read all of his books, and that I got a perfect score on his test.”

So, no.

My minions and I had had a single lesson with Lockhart yesterday, while the Gryffindors had had a double following us after lunch. The test Hermione talked about was one of basic comprehension and memory. Which could be useful tool for someone armed with a proper pedagogy and experience teaching a diverse cohort of students. What it actually was, was a transparent ploy of narcissism.

That was conjecture, of course. Psychological profiles were built over time.

But Lockhart’s first lesson provided important framing. Other teachers, when introducing themselves last year, had performed complex and interesting feats of spellcasting. Demonstrating skill and knowledge, subtly proving and reinforcing their own authority. Lockhart had walked amongst the desks, smiling and treating students like friends. But more tellingly was that he had handed out every one of those initial tests by hand.

I knew that no other – or very, very few – students who would notice those details, but it was still disappointing for Hermione to ramble on about everything that Lockhart had done, from “hands on experience we never got from Quirrell” to “the safety spell he used against the pixies that I still can’t find!”

Denial and justification of flawed illusions was a sad thing to see in a mind with so much potential.

It was a core problem with Good, and the societies, ideologies, and general approaches to life that sprang from it. The very nature of Good fundamentally assumed that there was a correct way of doing things, and thus a distinct superior state of being. For societies and individuals and all the structures in between.

And yet, because Good societies went around saying ambition and proactively ensuring one’s survival was bad and wrong, all the people sucked in by ‘Good’ tried to fit themselves and their lives to the correct way of being.

(Which was really just the allowed way of being.)

To be clear, I was all for encouraging futile aspirations as a method of managing the masses, but if no one was realistic about how power and authority was gained (by force, guile, and very rarely marriage) then all the competent and capable people – who just so happened to exist underneath well-born fools – ended up imagining very smart reasons as to why the world is the way it is. Justifying to themselves why they weren’t at the top.

The hypocrisy made me feel sick. And violent.

(Accepting reality for what it really was could be a hard thing to do. But once done, once you understood that the wants of individuals were the only reason why anything was the way it was, then it was quite easy to be free.)

Truthfully the grand pervasive lie of Good – that there was a correct way to live – was far more sinister than any scheme I’d conducted. Possibly except for accepting refugees into a city I was governing and then feeding them poisoned grain to raise an army of the dead. But even so, no one had really expected anything different.

Even when I’d stolen the secret soul gestalt of a rival nation and used it to power permanent gates to hell, I hadn’t turned around and told that walled city that it was for their own benefit. Or smiled benevolently and spun some tale about trickle down demonics. No, they’d had power, and I’d taken it for my own.

Evil I may be, but at least I never lied. About who I was, anyway.

(To myself, at least.)

Hermione was back to talking about how the spell Lockhart had used wasn’t in any of his books, nor any spell compendiums up to fifth year. Weaving a web of weakness around herself with the very thing that made her strong.

Suddenly, I was very done with her infatuation.

“Hermione, last year, we agreed that us muggleborn need to stick together.” I put my hand on the table, softened my tone ever so slightly. “So, I’m going to tell you right now that Lockhart is at best a narcissistic fake and at worst a bumbling fool.”

I stared deep into her wide and worried eyes. “That’s my warning, and you can do whatever you want however you want to. Just think clearly about it.”

The conversation did continue after that, with some distractions to calm her down and then back to transfiguration theory. I didn’t stay too long though, and neither of us brought up the real topics of interest. Like what had been stopping Potter from receiving letters over the summer or his… unique… journey to Hogwarts this year.

(Or the secrets we’d both seen as a magical side effect during the summer.)

I did ask whether the Boy Who Lived had started giving out signed autographs. He had not, to my great relief.

<{   ҉   }>

When Hufflepuff had our double lesson with Lockhart later in the week, he did nothing hands on at all.

After the lesson plan turned out to be ‘acting out scenes from his books’ I decided that this was going to be another History situation. A useful and fascinating topic area, taught terribly enough that the teacher ought to be torn apart and fed flaps of his own flesh.

Binns had no concept of stress, being a ghost. For him, I would simply plan the most excruciating second death I could generate.

Lockhart could feel many emotions. so I decided that he was going to have a bad year.

“Professor?” I asked, eyelashes fluttering, voice dripping with flattery. “What’s the most powerful piece of magic you’ve seen?”

Sky-blue eyes blinked before the buffoon beamed. It was so bright I wondered if he’d enchanted his teeth with a lumos. “Ah my dear, please don’t interrupt next time, but I do suppose that you should all know the heights of what wizards are capable of, hmm?”

Popularity was a blade with two edges and no handle. I widened my eyes innocently and watched him juggle it.

“The strongest individual bit of magic I know of was the binding of the Beast of Billund. You see, this particular dragon was of the frightfully vicious sort; snapping up sheep and carrying off cows all over the place. Of course, all the frightful details are written down.” He gave a friendly grin and winked at the class.

(And in case one couldn’t connect three dots shoved directly into their faces, Lockhart levitated one of his books up: The Broken Binding of Billund.)

“But the binding! The binding was grand, ancient magic, keeping the dragon contained to its lair. The beast could leave, but flew as if there was a chain around one leg – once it got too far from the binding itself, it would stop dead in the air!”

He mimed hauling on some chain. “Yanked back to the earth!”

Lockhart continued, managing to weave a decent story for the class about how he had been called in to help once the binding had mysteriously one day broken. His tale wasn’t too predictable, to give the man credit, but the only real skills he had ever displayed in front of me were those of a charlatan.

His answer was also objectively incorrect. Getting any spell to stick to a dragon for a hundred years was definitely impressive, but in Pitfall Pyramid the man wrote about a semi-sentient enchantment that controlled the wards of an entire Egyptian tomb and was anchored in the desiccated remains of an ancient vizier.

Dragons were big, but scaling a containment or shackling ritual up in size was merely a matter of logarithmic functions and proportionally more blood sacrifice – or another power source, I supposed.

Soul-linked enchantments though? That was where things got complex. Making your anchor provide the instructions of the spell without having the ritual also use the soul as a power source was a real problem. One that I’d solved before I’d turned twenty in my first life, but only after a year of testing.

“Sir?” I’d waited till he finished the story, even if it was obvious the man would filibuster his way through providing us an education. “Sir, would you be able to show us the re-binding spell? Or part of it at least? It sounds super useful for protection.”

Lockhart smiled. Chuckled. Gave warnings regarding dangerous levels of ambient magic energy and unintentional interactions with the castle wards.

(Juggle that blade, jester.)

But then Susan put her hand up, all on her own. “Professor Lockhart sir, could you show us a shield charm then?”

Oh yes. She was getting positive reinforcement for the rest of the week.

“Ah, I like your gumption Miss Bones! Unfortunately, I do have to save a few things for the rest of the year – can’t teach you all the tricks now or you’d get bored of me! Now, for this lesson, we’re going to go over my encounters with the Beast of Billund. You should all pay attention and try to learn these tactics. You’ll need them if you ever want to do any dragon taming or handling yourself!”

Disappointing, but expected. Susan was still getting rewarded though, if only for making the damn fool spell out the truth himself. Though I was rather bored of him already.

I spent the lesson making sure the magic in me kept circulating, and thought through the steps of tearing out Lockhart's vocal cords. While there was surely a curse to do just that, it was always a good to know how to do it with conventional spells.

Regardless, this class was going to be one where I self-studied the dangerous creatures and spells Lockhart refused to give actual details about. Along with whatever else I wanted to.

Oh, and how to kill the fluffed-up peacock.

Chapter Text

“And it is clear that in the colonial countries the peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system, is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays. For him there is no compromise, no possible coming to terms; [it is] simply a question of relative strength.”

• Frantz Fanon, Damnés de la terre, 1965

“This is so mean.”

“Oh come on,” I waved a hand at the Quidditch pitch, dewdrops shimmering in the dawn. “You’ll be down there on the field one day, and I know you said you wanted to see Gryffindor practice before you went for the Hufflepuff try-outs.”

Megan groaned. “It’s so early.”

“They’re the only team that doesn’t have to get new members.”

“Ughhhhhhh.”

Indeed.

It was early, I’d give Megan that. But it was for her own good. She’d collected this information for me, and I’d told her how to use it to benefit herself.

(Besides, I always woke this early. Discipline was a virtue.)

“So mean.”

I rolled my eyes. “Megan, if I was mean, I would have made you do this by yourself.”

She groaned again, then stilled. Looked up at me, as if to check whether I would’ve actually done that. (I would’ve, but she was the most aware of my minions and hadn’t upset me so far this year beyond the usual endless Quidditch talk.)

I scoffed and reached over to pull her against my shoulder. Let the small girl rest her head – for thirty seconds – then pushed her back upright again.

“Look, there’s Granger and Weasley – mind if I call them over? You can see if Weasley knows any of the team’s strategies yet.”

Grumbling.

I untied my scarf, then levitated it to wave around in the air. (Because I couldn’t cast enough magic, now that I was allowed to.)

“Hermione! Up here! Weasley! You owe me a chess game!”

A minute of stadium-navigation later, we were joined by the Hero’s sidekicks.

“Good morning, good morning – Hermione, Weasley, this is Megan Jones, my dear friend who loves Quidditch even more than she likes sleeping in.”

Megan took a deep breath. Let it out. “Good morning.”

There was a moment. An extended moment, where the early hour combined with tween inertia, and not a single person picked up the conversation.

Amusing, but still ridiculous.

“Right.” I clapped my hands together. “Weasley, do you think your House is going aggressive or defensive this year.”

“Oh, aggressive,” he puffed out his chest, “this is the best team we’ve had in decades. No one else will know what hit ‘em.”

Megan managed to sit up at that. “Okay, sure, but your reserves are… well, really bad. If anyone can’t play like what happened at the end of last year, then it doesn’t matter how good the rest of the team is if they have a weak link.”

“Yeah, but that’s cause Harry was seeker. Nothing’s going to happen to Harry this year, so we’ll be fine.”

Everyone looked at Ronald.

I coughed to stop myself from laughing.

Megan said, “oh,” like something had finally clicked and then nodded at me.

Hermione looked between the three of us, thoughts whirling. Then she blinked, sat down heavily next to me, and knocked on the wooden bench.

(Bit late there darling.)

Ronald Weasley looked confused, but predictably launched into a defence of Gryffindor’s team – which no one had actually demeaned. At least he and Megan would be occupied.

I turned to Hermione, gave her a grin, and knocked on the bench myself – to psychologically reinforce our shared ‘muggle upbringing’ – then scooted closer to talk homework.

After half an hour of discussing the theoretical basis and implications of finite incantatem as a general-purpose counterspell later (did it remove magical instructions or did it interfere with the anchors of spells?), the Gryffindor Quidditch team finally stumbled out onto the pitch.

Hermione and Ronald cheered and waved for the Hero. Who was leaning against one of the Weasley twins. Yawning.

This would be quite a good moment to kill him.

Well, not now, especially since some red-clothed first year was waving a camera and hollering like a chipmunk. But if any other Quidditch practices started this early, then...

Well. That was one of my problems with this life.

Killing someone, no matter how important? Shockingly easy. Getting away with it? Quite a lot harder when assassinations weren’t a normal part of society.

(And impulsive murder was really such a faux pas, even across dimensions. One ought to plan these things.)

Regardless, my idle thoughts were just that. Idle thoughts. I had no plan to end the story of The Boy Who Lived. Mostly because Fate would viciously act to stop me until Potter’s existing rivalry with the Dark Lord was done. The rest of the reasons boiled down to the fact that it just wouldn’t get me anything.

“They look a bit drunk, don’t they?”

Ronald snorted. Megan did the same, but slightly more dignified.

Hermione’s sensibilities got in the way of her humour. “Well, they did wake up over an hour ago. Though I’m not sure what they’ve been doing till now.”

“Wood has loads of new plans.” Ronald provided. “Sometimes he makes me think it’s possible to like Quidditch too much.”

“Never.” Megan declared.

“Only sometimes!” Ronald defended. “You’re right, but Wood is... intense.”

While the sports fans debated details that didn’t matter, I noticed motion at the other side of the pitch.

Green and silver motion.

Ah, interesting.

“Gryffindor did book the pitch, yes?”

The children around me looked around, then took a moment to process.

“The hell are they doing here?” Ronald Weasley shouted.

Megan sat up. “But Slytherin hasn’t held tryouts yet. They don’t have a seeker!”

Except there were two groups of seven people facing off in the Quidditch pitch below. Slytherin did, in fact, have a seeker. One with pale blond hair and even paler skin.

“Let’s get a closer look.” I declared, and was then followed down to the edge of the stands by my minion and the Hero’s two sidekicks. Which didn’t get us much closer, to be fair. Quidditch as a game took up a lot of space, given the three-dimensionality of its play. But this was a sporting stadium, and not being able to see the players at all would have been... counter-productive.

“Is that Malfoy?” Megan asked me.

“Probably,” I replied, “he is trying very hard to start a rivalry with Potter.”

The Slytherin Quidditch team then started showing off their brooms. Megan and Ronald started muttering with increasing disbelief.

“Can’t be.”

“Well, those are the Nimbus footrests, and every other Nimbus model has a hooked handle, so...”

“That...” And Ronald, in lieu of spouting an adequate insult, started hissing. His face was also rapidly matching colour with his hair.

“Megan?” I requested.

“The Slytherin team are all using Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones. Which only came out last month! Even the Harpies are still waiting for their order!”

Hmm. How petty.

“So Malfoy bought his way onto the team?” Hermione sounded scandalised.

Ronald stopped hissing only to shake his fist down at the small green figures. Then started growling.

Megan looked at me, down at the confrontation – where the Slytherin captain was waving some parchment at the Gryffindors – and then back to Hermione. “Probably, if he’s jealous of Potter.”

I let my minion see some of the dark laughter I wanted to let out. (She was shaping up so nicely.)

The Gryffindor team was looking very angry down there. It would be very funny if... hmm, yes.

“Ronald, give me a coin.”

The boy jerked over to look at me.

“It will make Malfoy look like an idiot.”

A second of staring him down later, I was reluctantly given a copper knut. I checked back down – yes, still some time.

Focusing was harder with the magic under my skin. It wanted to be used, to be part of the world and rejoin the greater spread and flow. I didn’t let it. Even when biting the inside of my cheek to draw blood, that loose magic fizzed around the nerves in my neck. Focusing was harder, but still not hard.

After all, magic was just a form of power. And power was something I took.

“Let this knut, from one without, strike the face of one with clout.” My words tasted of cooper, even as the magic in me made my teeth numb.

I kissed the coin, then threw it out over the pitch.

“Hey!” Ronald went to shove Megan aside to get to me. I stopped him with a look.

“Watch.” I commanded, turning back to the field. They all did, even if Megan got closer to me and kept glancing at...

...my mouth.

Huh.

I decided then and there that I didn’t care. (The power of even this small spell felt too good.)

It was just as Harry Potter turned around, defeated, that the smallest silver-green figure yelped and brought a hand to his face.

The Gryffindors started laughing. As did Ronald Weasley.

“You,” he managed to get a full breath in, “hit him in the face! You... he... he dropped his broom!” More cackling.

Hermione was trying to be disapproving of the violence. It wasn’t a very earnest attempt.

Megan was staring at my mouth. I gave her a big smile – without any red in it. She looked up guiltily, but relaxed when I winked and slung an arm around her shoulder.

The buzz – good from the spell and irritating from the magic I still kept captive – lingered while Hermione and Ronald ran down to talk to the Hero.

Megan and I stayed to watch the Slytherin team, because “I’ll still learn tactics, even for a different team.”

Of course, Megan also wanted to know what I'd done – unable to keep herself from glancing up at me or shifting under my arm on the wooden benches. When it looked like she couldn’t keep it in any longer, I pressed my forehead against her temple. Whispered. “There are many different ways to cast a spell. But it’s easier when you find a catalyst that... suits your purpose.”

She shivered. I didn’t let go. (There was static under my skin where I touched her.)

It turned out that the Slytherin Quidditch team wasn’t used to the acceleration of their new brooms. A chaser crashed into one of the hoops. We both laughed.

<{   ҉   }>

That afternoon, two hot pieces of gossip were racing around the school. Firstly, Malfoy’s father bought his son’s place on the Slytherin team, and secondly, that Malfoy had gone after Potter again – but actually come out on top. It took Hannah another hour to confirm that Ronald Weasley had tried to curse Malfoy and ended up making himself puke slugs onto the shore of the Black Lake.

A day and one brief meeting with Hermione Granger later, I discovered that Ronald’s wand had been broken in his adventurous landing of that flying car. And that broken wands – broken catalysts – interfered with defining a spell’s area. Probably disrupted the anchoring too, since the boy had been spewing slugs for sixty minutes instead of... three.

Excellent data.

Of course, I’d worked out almost immediately after leaving Ollivander’s that the phoenix feather in my wand was the catalyst for spells cast through it. But if the wood of the wand – or the runes or enchantment on it – also played a factor in anchoring magic, then that would explain both the lack of any magical backlash among the student population and the way my wand felt like a semi-sentient object sometimes. As eager to channel magic as I was.

That magical catalysts had to have some amount of magic already in them made sense. I could – with effort – test this by seeing if my parent’s blood worked to activate a ward.

I suspected it still would, given the linked but distinct power present in living things. A better test would be to see whether a bone from my local cemetery could act as a catalyst and channel magical power for a single, measurable spell in the same way some wizard’s femur could.

But that was the fundamental observation. The next level was understanding the catalytic thresholds and channel coefficients of each material (how much magic you needed to cause a spark, and how much magic could then flow through the catalyst).

Then, once the material properties were all established, came the current stage of wand-making – as I understood it anyway. Selecting materials that supported a reuseable catalyst and cramming as many extra benefits in there as possible.

Would that description horrify wand-makers if I said it to their faces? Probably, but if that situation ever occurred, they would have other things to be horrified by. And I wasn’t wrong.

The three main catalysts used throughout magical Britain appeared to be unicorn hair, dragon heart-strings, and phoenix feathers. The first two were a matter of convenience, given that unicorns and dragons could be found on the island. But even so, every catalyst seemed to be tuned towards different... outcomes... in magic.

(Instructions were artificial rules used by cognisant creatures to focus their willpower, but dragons didn’t need language to breath fire.)

Unicorns were enchanting, ethereal. Unicorn hair wands were considered better for enchanting and charm-work. Dragon heart-string wands were better for fighting and imposing permanent effects upon the world, supporting my theory. Phoenix feather wands were the rarest and most powerful and for special people.

For once, I couldn’t actually say whether that was influenced by Fate or not. Well, it was now, obviously (both the Boy who Lived and the Dark Lord carried phoenix feather wands), but when wands first entered use, anyone in possession of a phoenix feather would have had to have been a cut above the masses to begin with.

Part of me was somewhat disgruntled by the findings of this research session, because I wanted my wand to be obviously and distinctively better. The way that Heroes got swords forged from star-metal or made from an angel’s feather. The rest of me walked back to the Hufflepuff homeroom remembering the first time I’d picked up my wand, when Ollivander had muttered “fascinating” and my parents had huddled against the back wall. My wand had cut me. Stained the faint flame carvings ever so slightly red.

It was not quite normal. More importantly, it was mine.

Hmm.

Next summer I should let it bathe in my blood.

And check to see if the Trace still activated if I used another wand. (Part of me didn’t want to. I already had my wand, after all.)

But for now, it was back to understanding the difference between circles and various other geometric shapes in ritual creation.

<{   ҉   }>

The first time that the pretence I showed the world publicly cracked was after lunch, on a late September Sunday.

Hannah hadn’t taken her cloak to the Great Hall, so we were all heading back to the common room before walking outside. My minions – and everyone else in the castle – would call it chance that Malfoy and his posse were walking down the dungeon stairs at the same time. Coincidence. Bad luck.

Which it might be. But to happen so soon after an altercation with the Hero? When a big part of the Boy Who Lived and the Dark Lord’s rivalry was ideological?

Well, chance would have been walking down the stairs at the same time.

Fate was Pansy Parkinson pulling Malfoy to the edge of the group when we got down to solid ground, and proclaiming that “You know you were right the other day Draco. Some people have no business being here.”

Susan whipped round to stare. Megan slunk behind me – ideally to draw her wand out of sight.

Hannah paused, and when I stopped in place, started fidgeting. “Hey! You insult one of us, you insult all of us!”

“As if,” Parkinson flicked her straight blonde hair, “the insult is standing right there doing it all for me.”

I exhaled, pushing the roiling magic down all my limbs. Pansy’s eyes flicked to Draco, who had started smirking in the moment of silence.

Children.

(I was above them, so very far above them. Was the height so great that they could not see? Or were they simply fools?)

“Nothing you can do can hurt me, but there are still consequences for trying.” I stated, voice flat. They’d expected emotion from me. I didn’t give it.

Parkinson did her best not to glance at Malfoy again, so she at least recognised that starting this circus act made her responsible for keeping it entertaining.

“Abbott, Bones, you really let this skinny tart lead you around? Doesn’t it get tiring, dishonouring your family?”

Susan actually hissed. (Good to know.)

Hannah took a step closer to me, looking up to see that I hadn’t moved an inch. Because, really Parkinson, you shouldn’t start things like this unless you’re at an official event where one can lose face. Or if the person you’re berating is kneeling chained to the floor and already has a few bruises.

No one here had any understanding of atmosphere. And – suddenly - it pissed me off.

“Last warning, Parkinson. And don’t be a hypocrite.”

The girl blinked, straightened her neck and –

“You’re the one following here.” I interrupted.

(Say it. That’s your aim, isn’t it little girl. Rile me up and then allude to my sub-humanity. Say it, you unoriginal sycophant.)

I stared dead into her eyes. Let that loose magic build in my temples, making my ocular tendons hum.

She faltered. “You... you shut your mouth, mudblood.”

My arm swung forwards, wand jabbing and stilling. A step forwards, another petrificus totalus – like my wand was a dagger ramming into someone’s side.

The rest of the Slytherins were only halfway through reacting when Crabbe and Goyle’s bodies teetered backwards to thump like wooden planks against the stone wall.

Parkinson looked like she’d been the one petrified instead.

“Point your wands at Malfoy, girls,” I told my minions. “Don’t curse him or anything, his dear daddy is on the Board of Governors, but a jelly-legs wouldn’t go amiss if he tries anything.”

Draco himself decided to finish drawing his wand, but didn’t know where to point it. There was enough awareness in there for him to eventually level it at me.

His eyes kept flicking down to my hand and – fucking really? He was insecure that my wand was longer? Ugh, it’s about how you use your blade, not the size of it. What a soft sack of shit his father raised.

But with that done, everyone’s attention returned to me. I pushed the magic away from my eyes before the itching swirls under my skin made them water.

“Now Parkinson, I did tell you there were consequences. But Hufflepuff does like to forgive, so if you apologise, I’ll let this slide.”

(By all rights I should take some of your blood and boil it in front of you while you sweated and screamed. You’re very lucky that we’re in public. And that my minions aren’t that accepting of violence yet.)

Little Pansy’s nose got remarkably pug-like when she spluttered. “I’m not apologising to you!”

“Well of course not, you didn’t hurt me.” My voice dropped to the intimate tone I used when licking sweat (or blood) from someone’s neck. “But you will apologise to my friends. Susan, Hannah, and Megan were minding their own business. You didn’t have to waste their time.”

Parkinson did her best to sneer. It was less effective when she had to look up at me. But one of her shaking hands did pull her wand from her pocket.

She managed a... flawed stance. But her footwork was fine compared to how much her wand wavered in the air.

I looked around the corridor. Raised an eyebrow at Daphne Greengrass, standing still against the wall – a few steps further away from the rest of the Slytherins than when this pettiness had started. Stared back at the instigator.

Pansy failed to meet my eyes for longer than ten seconds.

I laughed. Draco shifted his feet.

(Feel it, you ingrates. Feel the failure of your own making, the darkness you will always shy away from, and power you will only ever try to grasp.)

“Well girls, I tried, but some people are just rude. I’ll give you one week to apologise to my friends, Parkinson. I recommend that you remember your manners.”

And I lowered my wand and turned away.

The breaths around me stuttered.

One step.

Two steps.

I was level with Susan when her eyes widened.

Three steps.

“Flipendo!”

Slide to the side, bend, pivot my weight to the front foot, twist and – “Diffindo.”

My wand arced up as my arm extended.

Parkinson’s mouth was open, arm still bent from casting a knockback jinx that I’d ducked under without looking because this was all predictable.

Everyone watched as the humiliated girl’s green tie fluttered to the floor. The knot was severed right at the base her throat.

“One week, Parkinson. Apologise to my friends.”

And when I turned away this time, my minions followed me. Susan rigid, Hannah barely containing herself from rambling while we were still in earshot, and Megan all but pressed against my side, red-cheeked.

“Don’t worry Pansy,” Malfoy managed to project his voice despite everything. “They’re all going to get what’s coming to them this year. I can’t say, but it’s coming. Just wait.”

Iron sharpens iron, you silk-swaddled babe. One would think you’d never even seen blood drip from a knife.

So, yes. Just wait.

One day, I will cut you and the rest of your soft, soft world properly.

<{   ҉   }>

The next Sunday, Pansy Parkinson covered up her anxiety by acting more arrogant than ever, and never walking about with less than four people.

Our third shared class next week, I replaced the water flask in her bag with a transfigured copy filled with Befuddlement Draught. A few days later, Tracey Davis (on behalf of Greengrass) told Megan that Parkinson had nearly sliced her finger off during a potions class. And that Snape had privately threatened to “properly drug” anyone sabotaging a fellow Slytherin.

Because Gryffindors weren’t that subtle, and no other house would dare, would they?

But rumours were already going round that Parkinson had gotten sloshed – and in her second year, no less. She was too busy trying to salvage her reputation to even consider me a rival. Not that I’d ever said a word about her drinking habits. Not directly.

Daphne started meeting my eyes when we passed in the corridors.

Chapter Text

“Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!”

• Dr Seuss, Happy Birthday to You!

“You stink like a faerie, all flowers and sunshine and evil manipulation.”

• Keirsten White, Endlessly (Paranormalcy Book Three)

I was the first one to wake up in the mornings. Not ‘ordinarily’ the first one, or ‘usually’ the first one. I was the first one awake in the Hufflepuff second year girl’s dorms. Possibly the first one awake in the whole House, though I hadn’t measured.

But some things were just fact. Immutable.

My routine was where adjectives like ‘usually’ could be used. Half an hour of stretches, fencing forms from this world, and some of the more effective (lethal) Praesi duelling patterns. Then I would transfigure my sword back into the fencing foil my parents had bought me a few years ago.

After committing to memory any pertinent ideas that bodily movement had generated, I would shower and return to my bed to flick through a tome or two that was relevant to my day. And that’s how others would find me.

I did all my real training without waking my minions. Because I didn’t want the questions, and as a half-relevant measure of my mastery.

Usually, when my minions woke, I was composed. Ready. An ordinary, if genius, girl, acting like an ordinary genius. Reading yet another new book related to rituals while my hair dried.

On the third of October, 1992, I was still the first one to wake.

I rose from my bed, wearing bandages wrapped tight round my chest and sports shorts from my primary school.

My stretches flowed from flexibility to endurance stances until my heart felt as awake as my mind. I dedicated more time to stretching this year, since it was the best way to tame the stray magic that still roiled through me. One day, I would use it, this wild power. But until then, it would be made to accept my will.

(Some things were just fact. Inevitable.)

Each and every day since the school year had started, my first spell had been transfiguring my training foil – blunted for the sadly soft competition of children – into my sword. The sword I wielded against my Praesi rivals, against Catherine, and the few assassins that got close enough to meet my eyes.

Magic was my might, knowledge my power, but sliding steel through a ribcage was a skill one should never underestimate.

That said, I did need to find some way of channelling magic through weapons other than my wand. And there was something very appealing of having a sword made for me properly, hilt wrapped in my hair and blade quenched in my blood. That, or carved from dragon bone.

Transfigured items couldn’t be enchanted.

(Some things were just fact. For now.)

On the third of October 1992, I started my fencing forms – sword in my right hand, wand in my left. I switched, every few days. If practice ever stopped being slightly challenging, then I was in danger of being lulled into the false sense of confidence that had all but poisoned me last year.

One’s sense of confidence should never be false, you see. No, a Villain’s self-image should always be objective. And I had many, many reasons to be confident. I didn’t need lazy arrogance when my superiority was clear.

When my arms ached faintly, I switched to Praesi patterns. My ancestors had – through a century of stealing the memories of master swordsmen and implanting them in vassal mages – developed a style that actively used spellcasting during duels. The end result was a work of art, and as likely to get you killed as your enemy until you developed your own substyle. I was having to go through that process all over again, since casting magic through a wand required completely different movements than trismegistan sorcery or High Arcana.

So, on the third of October, 1992, I was thinking about how to recreate Great-Great-Aunt Nezha’s feat of using the shed blood of her enemies as catalysts for the rituals she drew around them in her duels. Then I heard a faint buzzing.

Megan yanked her curtains open, staring towards my own four-poster, quilt bunched around her waist.

Half an hour early.

There was more buzzing, overlapping. Joined by grumbles from Hannah’s bed and the shifting sounds of Susan pushing away her own sheets.

I didn’t move until Megan’s wide, wide eyes shifted from the open curtains of my bed to where I was paused – halfway through a lunge – in the middle of the room.

Only then did I smoothly, silently, bring a finger to my lips and then tap my wand to my sword. My whispered transfiguration turned the weapon back into something less obviously lethal.

Something that matched the image I presented.

Something normal.

(You knew that I was not a normal girl, Megan.)

Megan nodded, blinking.

I lifted my finger from my lips. Shifted back to a fencing form, let my breath even out. Stepped. Thrust. Flowed.

The noises of Susan’s movements and Hannah’s reluctance to wake didn’t matter. This was going to come sooner or later, so I simply moved. Practiced. Ground the whetstone of my will against the blade of my body and felt... sharp.

Megan was watching me, I knew. At one point I heard a hissed whisper, then a gasp, and then Susan’s rustling stopped. I let her watch too.

Pivot, step, parry – riposte.

With a real opponent – and a real sword – I would have just taken an eye. Instead, I got Hannah, pulling her curtains open with a yawn and then choking on her own breath. The girl literally fell out of bed. Loudly.

Which put an end to the pretence that I was too lost in practice to notice what was happening.

“Oh... crap. Hannah, are you alright?” The foil got tossed back onto my quilt, my wand out and ready to heal any small bruises.

“Owwww.”

Well, she didn’t land on her face. She’d be fine. Which even Hannah herself conceded after five minutes of attention.

My minions then all looked at each other. Glanced at me far too obviously. Waited for someone to allow them their initiative.

“So, uh, what are you guys doing up so early?” I asked, because I was the leader.

“Uh.”

“Ahhh...”

Another round of glances.

“We wanted to surprise you,” Susan said softly, “sing happy birthday and have a pile of presents and... stuff.”

Huh. (What a waste of initiative.)

“But I was already awake. Hmm. Well, I can’t really go back to sleep, but we could do something now.” Except I hadn’t eaten anything safe yet, so... “Or maybe after dinner, we could grab some sweets for second dessert, take a break from homework for a day, open presents then.”

“It’s your birthday, no way are we doing homework!” Hannah burst out, then froze, looked over at my sword, looked back at me, and shut her mouth. “Except you would, wouldn’t you. You did it last year. This is why we had to surprise you and just have fun for a day! And what were you doing awake even earlier than this?!”

(Susan looked very interested in the answer to that question.)

I looked down. Spun my wand between my fingers. Thought over the carefully-framed truth I’d prepared during that last fencing form. “I told you guys I used to be into fencing, right? Well, I loved it – it’d be my favourite thing to do if I hadn’t learnt about magic. I practiced fencing over the summer cause, well, you know...”

They all flinched. Looked away.

“But I remembered how much fun it was. And I wanted to stick with it. Turns out its pretty useful for magic too.”

Megan’s mouth made an ‘O’. “Parkinson. How you just ducked her jinx.”

Hannah hummed in semi-awed realisation.

“No other reason?” Susan’s fingers were curled tight in her nightgown. Not suspicious, just... unbalanced.

I shrugged. “Something is going to happen. Not the thing with Potter arriving at school – something real. Probably really bad. Fencing won’t protect me from all magic, but it’s better than nothing, and if I keep getting better then one day maybe it will help keep me safe when I need it do. And, well, I’m kind of used to needing to protect myself.”

Only Megan looked uncomfortable in the way that privileged people did when reminded that privilege wasn’t a universal state of being. I sighed and explained it to my noble minions.

“In the muggle world, some people hate people with dark skin the way some people here hate muggleborn. I’ve never been in danger, but knowing how to fight – how to get away – is a good thing.”

Ten minutes later, when Hannah’s outrage faded, it was unanimously agreed that prejudice against certain populations was stupid.

Which it was. Objectively. A good Villain should always play all sides of a conflict against each other. Blind prejudice simply resulted in blind spots for a Hero to stab you or incite a revolt in.

(If the Hero was too idealistic to stab you, the revolution would do it for them.)

The rest of the morning passed with some fanfare. I was sung to twice – an enthusiastic Hannah deciding the privacy of the dorms meant I wasn’t celebrated enough the first time. Which was true, but I did want to earn it.

Susan spent the day looking at me differently. Like she was trying to put together a puzzle she didn’t have the pieces for. Like she’d only just realised I hadn’t sprung into being, perfect and fully formed on the train to Hogwarts.

Megan watched me far closer. Searching for another glimpse past my persona.

(But even if my birth wasn’t immaculate, I had always been perfect – or as close as one could get.)

<{   ҉   }>

Classes passed normally, apart from Lockhart’s... ‘lesson’. Truthfully, I was glad for a day that conformed to expectations.

Birthdays were a cultural phenomenon developed before the modern disciplines of biology and psychology, and did not reliably gauge human development on anything more specific than a population scale. Still, cultural phenomena did have its own value. Its own weight. Things happened on birthdays – for all sorts of reasons.

This morning allowed me to engineer the happenings of my own day. And, outside of that, I appreciated having Hufflepuff House and a few other students treat me with the deference that I rightfully deserved every day of the year. Deference was enjoyable. Easy.

A lot easier to handle than presents.

Everyone wanted you to open their present in front of them, but half of those people were anxious you wouldn’t like it. Even worse, half of those without worry would just assume their gifts were appreciated. Social norms meant that you had to smile and gush over every single thing, or appear ungrateful. Hells forbid you hurt someone’s feelings, see.

It would have been a lot even if I didn’t remember my first upbringing.

You only handed somebody something in Praes in three situations:

• When there was a clear and enforced power imbalance between you, almost always involving some sort of servitude.
• When you wanted them and everyone else to know that they were going to die and that you’d outplayed them enough to make it happen in public.
• When the thing was a weapon and you were already crushing or pinning their hand against another object.

This world was not Praesi. Not even close.

Still, I’d had practice, receiving gifts. And I’d had far more practice not showing discomfort.

It was fine when the whole second year Hufflepuff cohort sang to me at dinner and handed over an envelope. I honestly quite appreciated the voucher for an owl-order book catalogue, after opening the envelope with a flourish of levitation. (There were some volumes on using potions in runic circles I wanted that would be better not linked back to my bank account. Even better that I was ‘forced to’ borrow the owl of one of my noble minions.)

So, it was fine.

That was fine.

Something else wasn’t. Something else was churning away inside me. Halfway between the back of my brain and the place I understood as my soul.

A disjunction, some fracture in my very being. Unrelated to the magic that still spent most of its time misbehaving, going the wrong way past the blood in my veins.

Now, the only other time I’d ever felt this was also the only time I’d ever acted counter to the goal of re-creating the most terrible glory of the Dread Empire. Except there was no shiver in the Name that I embodied. There were no Names to embody in the first place, not in this world.

(I would have to deal with that sourceless sense of wrongness. Sooner or later.)

But first, I sat with my minions in our dorm and accepted their presents. Which was easier, because I knew none of them were making moves against me.

I ‘ooo’ed over the magical duelling primer Susan had wrapped in paper illustrated with shooting stars that had raced around and around under my fingers. “I reckon this is going to teach me more than Lockhart will this whole year!”

Susan ducked her head, pleased, laughing with the rest of us.

Megan handed over a sealed tube, which contained a woven Holyhead Harpies banner.

“For your bedroom at home!” She beamed, then forced herself to say the next part. “Because if you can, like, feel magic then you should have more magical things in your house.”

The banner was enchanted, embroidered players weaving themselves across the banner’s sky. I stood up and gave her a hug, then sat back next to Susan and pressed my shoulder against the redhead. These years were going to be the foundation of my leadership, and I needed them to trust me unthinkingly.

(And not ever think I favoured one of them over the others.)

Hannah’s present was the biggest, and most likely to contain poison, if any of them were going to. The basket of sweets, snacks, and various preserved produce was as big as the average adult ribcage. While we stuffed ourselves in a second dessert (larger than the first), I made sure to subtly hoard all the things that Hannah’s eyes revealed as her favourites for long enough that she rationalised and accepted the loss. Then I gave half of them back.

In the end, it was a pleasant and useful evening, even with the slight surprise that my minions wanted to know what my parents got me.

(Tickets to the production of Les Misérables, which Hannah knew of. At the Palace Theatre, which registered with none of them.)

Susan and Hannah went off to the bathroom, leaving Megan to help me hang up the Holyhead Harpies banner – “but only till Christmas, then you’re talking it home, yeah?”

I made sure to be sitting on my bed with some of Hannah’s snacks and the duelling book Susan got me cracked open when those two tucked themselves into bed. I ignored the unsubtle high five that reached between their curtains.

I’d done quite a good job at equalising my minions, but Hannah and Susan were still pureblood, noble, and had been close for years growing up. Not that I wanted all of that gone, not at all. If one was tied to me, the other would be too.

(I would have both, of course.)

After another minute, I put the book down, removed the food from my bed, and grabbed my pyjamas.

Megan was alone in the bathroom. Staring at a chin pimple in the mirror. Drying her hair with warming charms.

My own wand was in my pocket. The loose magic coiling through my right thigh was buzzing, rising to just under the skin. Seeking more.

I resonated with the feeling: anticipation.

Every activity – or hour in general – with my minions was a chance to reinforce things. Our relative places. Specific lessons. A few unspoken tests – rare and spread out. Because my minions were young, for one, and more critically, not Praesi. They were not used to earning.

I walked to stand behind Megan. She noticed me in the mirror, but kept running her wand through her hair. Merely observant, even as I stepped closer.

Her trust only faltered when I put my hands on her shoulders. Curled my fingers until my nails pressed against her collarbone.

“Megan.” I whispered over her head.

She shivered, small and half-captured. “Akua?”

“You know that what you saw this morning – the part only you saw – is secret, don’t you.”

She nodded. I pressed my thumbs into her triceps.

“Yes,” she offered. Appeased.

“Good. You're smart. You didn’t mention it to anyone.”

Her breathing was shallow, but: “No, no one.”

“Dear thing.” And I let my forehead rest on the top of her head. Because she was. Megan had seen me lunging with a real sword and obviously involving my wand in the manoeuvre. Then I’d shown her that my even my usual standard of specialness was a purposeful front.

Keeping that secret deserved a reward. And what better than another peek behind the curtain she’d only just realised existed?

“I can tell you that there’s something deeper going on.” I pressed my forehead against her skull, whispered my words into her hair. “I know that you know I have plans. They are big plans, dear thing. It’s going to take years. I’ll tell you, one day.”

She shivered. I pressed down from above – bone to bone. “When you’re ready. When the rest of the world isn’t. That's when I’ll tell you. I’m going to need your help then.”

Straightening, using my grip to turn her, enfolding her in my arms. “I’m going to need your help then, even more than I do now.”

I pulled the girl close to my chest before she had time to think.

(All humans had instinctive reactions to physical contact, good or ill. Especially children.)

Megan’s internal conflict burnt out quickly – or maybe she just surrendered. Either way, when she melted against me, arms coming up to fold around my own back, I smiled at myself in the mirror.

But then she said:

“Gryffindor may have Harry Potter, but we got you.”

Oh.

Precious.

But you don’t have me. It's the other way around, dear thing.

I hummed into her hair. "Yes, I have you. Keep your eyes and ears open out there. For me.”

She nodded. Shivered. Relaxed again.

Chapter Text

“Red, of course, is the colour of the interior of our bodies. In a way it's inside out, red.”

• Anish Kapoor

The morning of the 31^st of October, I turned to Susan at breakfast. “What’s the bet that the thing which happens this year starts happening tonight?”

She paused long enough for marmalade to drip from her knife onto the table. Sighed – at the marmalade, more than at me.

“You mean Potter and the flying car wasn’t enough?”

I blinked at her. Did she really think... Was it not obvious? The car thing hadn’t involved anyone trying to kill the Hero. Of course it didn’t count.

I put my cutlery down. “It’s not that I want Potter to be in danger, it's the fact that he will be – regardless of how much anyone wants it. Well, apart from You-Know-Who, anyway.”

Those at the table around me looked uncomfortable.

“Don’t look at me like that! I've already explained the logic.” The children shifted. “Ugh, forget about betting on it then, I shouldn’t be joking about dangerous stuff anyway.”

“But that’s ridiculous!” Ernie Macmillan gestured with a spoon, exposing himself as someone who hadn’t listened to me weeks ago when I had explained the logic. “Nothing’s going to happen, and there’s no way you could know either way!”

I shrugged. “The troll was let in around dinner last year. Just wait.”

(You don’t have to agree with me to start unconsciously expecting an inevitable event.)

It took ten seconds for the people who didn’t want to believe me to scoff and settle back into their confirmation bias. Susan was quiet for the rest of breakfast. Megan kept glancing at me, until I met her eyes and very faintly nodded.

Hannah seemed to decide that if something was going to happen, it was going to happen at dinner, and that she was going to fidget incessantly till then.

I let them be and kept using the cutting charm to divide my eggs.

<{   ҉   }>

It was in our free period after lunch that the day, already filled with pumpkins and ghosts trying it on, got personal.

“Mine started this morning.” Hannah said softly in our little library nook.

“Your...?” Susan started frowning, looking Hannah over. Hannah was fidgeting. A lot.

“You know, moon... stuff.” Hannah’s eyes were glassy, voice fragile. “I noticed during Transfiguration, and...”

I set my book down, even though the seventh use of dragon blood looked to have some interesting implications. Susan reached over and took Hannah’s hand. There was a minute where no one did or said anything.

Then Hannah tried to smile, but ended up with tiny tears running down her cheeks. Megan started packing away everyone’s homework.

“Let's just go back to the dorms. You can borrow my heat pack, and I’m sure Akua will test out that healing charm – we’ll find something that helps your cramps.” Susan was half picking Hanah up out of her chair. “Come on, it’s alright. We’ll take care of you today.”

It turned out that Hannah did not want a heat pack. Fortunately, the charm I’d found in the first week of school at least worked like a painkiller for her. It helped Susan more, and me none, because magical biology reacted to magic.

(I was resigned to a life of bad bleeding and worse cramps, but that was what one got when they sacrificed their innocence to power a blood ward in their room.)

It also turned out that, once the tears slowed and we went to lunch Hannah was hungry. Unlike myself and Susan, who fought irregular digestion and nausea to gain our sustenance, Hannah had cravings. The first of which was the buttery spinach from breakfast.

“You guys, we need to get into the kitchen. I’ll take a steak with me so I don’t staaarveee, but we need to have that spinach with every meal. Yes Susan, I know you hate spinach – I’ll leave it alone next week I just want it today can we goooo.”

<{   ҉   }>

Fortunately, there were no other crises or emotional dams breaking throughout the day of Halloween. Just... anticipation. And dinner.

The Hogwarts population greatly anticipated the Halloween Feast. To a disproportionate degree, really. After all, if you ignored the role of Fate and cultural traditions, then all that changed tonight from a normal dinner to ‘Feast’ was floating candles, a couple kitschy enchantments, and three extra dishes. All pumpkin-based.

But ignoring Fate was how it killed you.

Regardless, the evolution of cultural traditions from Samhain to Christian religious practices – now with added American celebration of pop culture horror iconography – was really quite interesting. Especially since most of the wizarding world was a few centuries behind, culturally. Still settling into co-opted Christian style holidays at Easter and Christmas. Or Yule, as I’d heard someone say meaningfully.

It was interesting, to see the sheer stagnation emerging from the simple fact of magic doubling lifespans. The innate human resistance to change from (as I learned in this life) evolutionary neurological patterns became much, much stronger when people lived for two centuries instead of most of one. Couple that longevity with the demigod status the wizarding world gave to the powerful, and a single Dumbledore was all you needed to smoothly insert the muggle idea of Halloween into a school that thought fountain pens were untraditional.

Of course, it helped that Halloween was a bit of good fun.

Mild exposure therapy with the horrors of the night.

An evening where being a bit different, a bit strange was... encouraged.

My minions and I turned a lot of heads when we walked into the Great Hall. Half of that was because our gait was far too graceful to be described as ‘walking’. And the other half (which took even longer than teaching my minions how to properly place one’s foot) was the hair.

Proper Prasei styles. Not seen anywhere lower than the court of the Dread Empress herself. The braids and coils we of Wolof wore when playing the Great Game, standing in the Black Tower. These were the hairstyles I’d worn when eating poisoned food and drinking wine grown from fields watered with blood.

(Which was the only way anything grew in the Praesi wastelands, if one were honest.)

Irritatingly, nothing happened during the dinner.

Not even an accidental stabbing. My sense of nostalgia was thwarted. A few older Hufflepuffs even joked about how the second years had gotten worked up over nothing. I’d show them nothing – a careful incision into the spinal column coupled with blinding and deafening would grant them a life of sensory deprivation. I’d be able to measure how long the decent into madness took.

But I persevered.

The lack of excitement was only because Potter, Weasley, and Hermione weren’t in attendance, after all. And a few notes levitated across to the Gryffindor table later, I learnt that the trio were attending the anniversary of the day Gryffindor’s ghost almost got his head chopped off and died in the process.

(Which was honestly just amateur of everyone involved.)

As the long tables became slowly less burdened with food – and the school population’s robes became tighter round the stomach – the mood mellowed out. Beside me, Hannah was groaning enough that I tapped her back with another healing spell. Megan’s braids had fallen out of the circlet I wove for her, sacrificed in the face of rosemary-crumbed lamb shanks. Susan’s eyes kept drifting shut on the other side of the table.

The magic I captured back in July raced under my skin – from fingers to clavicle, cradling my skull then zapping each disc of my lumbar spine. Adrenaline excited it, I’d discovered early. And my body knew that something was coming just as well as my brain.

(By the end of the dinner, I had quite a bit of adrenaline for that magic to react to.)

Dumbledore stood.

My heart thundered.

He spoke nonsense.

No one interrupted him.

I...

...sat there.

“And with that, I shall send you all back to your beds – before some of you burst. Thank you all for a fabulous feast, and prefects, make sure everyone is accounted for. Goodnight!”

And then we were all sent back to our dorms.

Macmillan sleepily scoffed at my early prediction.

(I didn’t shove an incendio down his throat.)

And then it happened.

Right in front of the entire school.

Harry Potter, reaching out towards Filch’s cat. Mrs Norris was frozen in place, limbs outstretched. Hanging from a torch sconce.

(Purposeful. Cruel.)

But that wasn’t what sparked the gasps. The whispers. The hush, as everyone realised that the words on the wall weren’t written in paint.

Malfoy took the opportunity to be crude.

The staff weren’t quite panicking.

I stood, admiring the placement – smack bang in the middle of the corridor. The way it must have been written by wand – bold, sharp strokes. How the blood dripped down to the flooded floor.

Fresh. Shining and red.

The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.

<{   ҉   }>

On the first of November, everyone acted incredibly dense.

“But how do you know?” Cried Anthony Goldstein, who’d come over from the Ravenclaw table to get some gossip and was now demanding book-based evidence in order to believe something logic could conclude with ease.

“Because it's obvious, Slytherin’s monster is a snake.” I told him and the quarter of the Hufflepuff table obviously listening in. “It’s a straightforward conclusion, given that that Slytherin’s animal on the Hogwarts Crest is a snake.”

It was just how these things worked. Fate had patterns.

“But there aren’t any magical snakes that petrify people!”

I stared at him. “Have you even heard of Medusa?”

“Medusae aren’t snakes!”

Ridiculous. These children all deserved to be turned to stone, to match the rocks in their skulls.

“The connection between snakes and petrification exists in multiple mythologies. But it doesn’t matter what the monster is anyway. What matters is the Heir.”

“What?! I care about the thing that’s trying to eat us!” Zacharias Smith burst out. “Or… well, that’s trying to eat you.”

 (In Praes, dunderheads didn’t keep their heads. It was a societal failing that the wizarding world allowed such stupidity.)

I could understand their fascination, but even the people that weren’t scared refused to engage in a rational debate. A human enemy is far more of a threat than a monster, however rabid. Intelligent monsters were troublesome, of course, but this was the Boy Who Lived’s challenge – and this had to link back to the Dark Lord.

“Well, as the person in danger of getting eaten or petrified,” I started, “I have to ask. Harry Potter is a Hero, yes?”

Smith nodded, confused.

“We all know he survived the killing curse, but he’s a Hero for more reasons, right?”

“Yeah! All those books!” Said another Ravenclaw who existed in a very narrow definition of intelligent.

“Sure. Those. But!” I raised a hand. “We have a Hero in the school. I’m not worried about the monster, because Harry Potter is going to fight the monster. What I care about, is whoever wrote on the wall. Monsters are scary, but its people who are Evil.”

There was a moment’s pause after that. Then a few mutterings turned into side conversations. And a few minutes later, the Hufflepuff table was buzzing. Wondering who the Heir of Slytherin was.

A better direction for discussion. But it still pissed me off. For all the rapid rumour and tangential theory, the one thing they all just blindly accepted was the claim of Heir.

The Chamber of Secrets. The Heir of Slytherin. I had not heard of them. Had not guessed of them.

I really should have suspected that such a Name would exist. Even in this seemingly limited capacity. Fate had patterns, and Hogwarts was old. I… should have questioned. Investigated. Explored more of the castle. Wandered further, delved deeper.

Harry Potter was going to waste all of the opportunities that came with this enemy, I just knew it.

(The unconscious churning that had started when I saw that mirror – that had grown ever time my minions had seen the tiniest glimpse of my true capability – was now roaring like a jet engine.)

It was hard to keep from baring my teeth for the rest of breakfast. Everyone else thought I was being a bit too smug about being right that something awful would happen on Halloween.

(I had been Heiress of Praes for years. Descendent of Dread Emperor Sinister, who slew Maleficent and spoke the truth of the Empire. I was iron, sharpened by iron. All who dared claim the Name of Heir – to challenge me – had ended up inheriting an early grave.)

Anthony Goldstein had sat down and was stabbing a pancake. “No, no, no. The monster has to be a cockatrice!”

I transfigured his pumpkin juice into piss.

<{   ҉   }>

Lockhart was even worse at guessing than pedantic Ravenclaws. It was quite a shame that my plans for him had to be deprioritised.

The rest of the professors were not much better, refusing to admit that there even was a monster.

<{   ҉   }>

Hermione Granger caused a stir by getting some answers out of Binns. Others tried, afterwards, but the ghost simply retreated into the History classroom’s blackboard. I levitated the chalk to draw ‘X’es over his eyes.

<{   ҉   }>

Harry Potter and his friends were wandering around. Determined. Looking for something.

The ancient lineage, reborn? Or some ancient power that had awakened with it?

Whatever he was seeking would find him, before the year was done.

<{   ҉   }>

Quidditch distracted the castle. I was almost glad for it. Except for Potter experiencing another cursed piece of sporting equipment.

(Vanishing whole bones was a useful spell. Unfortunate that no one would tell me the incantation Lockhart used.)

<{   ҉   }>

A Gryffindor first year was found petrified in the night. Muggleborn.

Draco Malfoy was immediately insufferable about it. Parkinson started sneering at me again.

<{   ҉   }>

“Akua?”

I looked up from my extra credit charms work – because the professors acting like nothing was wrong did have a silver lining, and I wanted to learn more about spell interactions – to find Hannah standing with her hands behind her back.

The girl glanced at Megan, tucked into one of the Hufflepuff common room’s couches next to me.

“Yes Hannah?” She gulped. (For no reason. I was acting completely normal.)

“One of the Ravenclaw sixth years was selling some protective amulets, and…” She fidgeted under my stare. Hands came forward, cradling a polished quartz crystal etched in runes. “I made sure that this one was actually magical.”

Another pause. “I want you to be safe.”

There were two sensations roaring through my body. One was physical sensation, muscles and nerves reacting to the loose magic trapped under my skin. The other was psychosomatic. A memory. Of a mirror. And all I could not have.

“Thank you, Hannah.” I remembered to say.

She placed the crystal, held in a woven net, into my waiting palm.

It took a second of focus to make sure the only magic in that palm was mine, and three seconds more to channel it enough that the quartz started glowing.

“Oh! It works!”

“No. That’s me.”

In my peripheral vision, Megan sat up. Looked between Hannah and me. Others began looking over too, quieting.

Only one of the ten runes on this common crystal was emitting light of its own. I put the crystal down on my book, flexed the static spiky feeling (self-inflicted, for once) out of my hand, then pulled out my wand. Transfiguring something into a prior state of being wasn’t something McGonagall had taught us yet. But she had taught us how to clean something through transfiguration, and a single afternoon with Hermione had allowed us to find a few spells that took the principle to logical conclusions.

The crystal’s facets filled back in, until it was entirely smooth except for one large mark. Hannah shifted – still standing in front of me.

“Who knows runes and can tell me what this means?”

A beat of silence.

Cedric Diggory stepped forward and swept back his hair – someone sighed longingly. I stared him dead in the eyes and shoved away the whisper that he had everything he wanted, that he didn’t have to choose between futures.

He looked down. Then looked closer, and said, “that’s a futhark storage rune. Used for small enchantments that need their own source of magic.”

Impressed muttering from the choir.

“Does it do anything by itself?”

He looked back to me. Glanced at Hannah. The smile froze on his face. “Well, ah, it–”

I tuned him out. Pulled out my knife and held it by the back of the blade.

“Oh, um, look, miss, that’s… you…”

I ignored him and started gently carving.

(Other mutterings.)

“Do you know runes?” Diggory asked me.

“We’re second years.” Megan told him, leaning closer to watch me etch long lines onto the smooth planes of the crystal.

“It’s really dangerous to combine runes when you’re not familiar with–”

“Britain is not the only place in the world with magic, Cedric Diggory.” I deepened a scratch, then paused to look up at him. He barely stopped himself from stepping back, if only because the entire common room was watching.

“Runes are language, yes? Symbolic, representative of the fundamental forces of the world.” This I knew for fact, because the instructions for my summer warding ritual had been in physical form, yet were large constructs that contained runes. “There are many languages in the world, and countless symbols for even more countless things.”

My knife scratched.

“Do you know the story of Adam and Eve, Cedric Diggory?”

A flake of quartz broke off, fell to the pages open on my lap.

“Uh, yes, but what does that have to do with… runes? Or... symbolism?”

(They were all so blind.)

“There is a snake in the halls of Hogwarts. A snake in two parts. Slytherin’s monster, and the pathetic coward who claims the title of Heir. Snakes symbolise many things. What does the snake in this castle symbolise? Two things. The monster is venom to us, petrification and paralysis – fear. But the Heir? Secrets.”

“The Chamber of Secrets.” Someone with few brain cells whispered from the back.

“Adam and Eve lived in paradise, Cedric Diggory. Eden. A better place than this, but not perfect. Never perfect – no matter what they tell you. Maybe they didn’t have exams, but neither did they have magic. And of all the trees and glory of that garden, there was one fruit they could never eat. The first forbidden fruit; knowledge.”

“Oh! Is that where the saying came from?” A scuffling, then “shhh.”

(My knife filled the silence.)

“The fruit of the tree of knowledge was denied to Adam, to Eve, to all the creatures of the garden. Which did not upset them. None of them, except the serpent. You see, the serpent had slithered through the garden until it knew it all there was to know. Learnt all there was to learn, within the walls of that paradise. And one could learn anything they wanted to, there in Eden. All except what was held in the tree of knowledge.”

I tapped more quartz shavings down onto my book.

“Knowledge of Good. Of Evil.”

A quick spell sharpened my knife, then I returned to my task, turning the crystal as I went.

“There are no real reasons given for why the serpent did what it did next. Maybe it had already eaten the fruit. Secretly – when no soul was watching. Maybe it was cautious, or maybe it only tricked Eve because it did not have hands.”

Chip, chip, scrape. Chip, scrape, chip. (I wanted to be carving into that damned mirror.)

“What is written of the myth states only that the serpent spoke, and Eve reached up and plucked that forbidden fruit. She ate some. Gave some to her companion – the only other creature that looked like her in this paradise. That’s all we know. Maybe she dropped the rest on the ground. Maybe the serpent ate those scraps. Or maybe the serpent never tasted the knowledge of Good and Evil at all.”

I couldn’t stop myself from sighing. (Wondering when I’d unconsciously inserted myself into the allegory.)

“Snakes represent many things, but there is a common theme. Something that ties it together. Not morality, not greed, not anything we know today. The fundamental thing about snakes is that they want. Even without knowing Good from Evil, without knowing right or wrong, the serpent wanted.”

I glanced up and – sure enough – half the common room was immediately thinking about the Slytherins. (Which wasn’t incorrect, just… so very shortsighted.)

“So, Cedric Diggory, we have a snake, here in Hogwarts. Monster and Heir. Venom and secrets. Hurting and hiding. But what does the snake want?”

I met his eyes, watched him watch me until it was clear he hadn’t really listened. Went back to carving out an eye.

“I know things are scary right now,” Diggory stood tall, shoulders broad. Centre of attention. “And even though there was a second petrification, the teachers are looking for whoever has done this. It’s going to take time for the mandrakes to mature, but it’s all going to be okay.”

(It would be very bad, to laugh at him. Needlessly detrimental. But oh, this Adam had never left Eden, had he?)

A few precise taps with my knife – loud in the silently spreading relief – and the coiling snake I’d etched into the quartz crystal was baring fangs around that one futhark storage rune. While Diggory started calmly answering fearful questions from the rest of the room, I subtly pricked my thumb and let the rune store my blood.

Hannah was still standing in front of the couch.

I put the knife down and nudged her. “Watch.”

This time, when I separated out the magic I was holding and let only what was mine flow through my fingers, the quartz glowed rather differently. The crystal was still white, magic interacting with the refracted light. But the snake I’d so faintly carved stood out in red.

Hannah was staring. Had been staring at me the entire time. Barely even looked at Diggory. (It settled something in me, faintly.)

“Come, sit.” I patted the couch. Handed my quartz-dusted book to Megan, who was staring at my creation rather intently.

Hannah sat, looking halfway to shattering.

“Thank you, Hannah,” I looped an arm around her, pulled till she leant against me. “I like you looking out for me, even if I’m not in danger.”

“But… I tried.” She turned, whispered her words into my shoulder. “And it was still fake.”

“Mm, but you tried. Thank you. And I told you, I’m not in danger. Not now.”

That made her sit up. I held up the amulet she’d bought. Let it twist from its string, the snake turning and turning.

“You made it work? Really work?”

“It will light up when there’s a snake nearby. I’ll know to hide, get away. I’m not going to be petrified, I promise you.”

Megan leant in. “How does it work?”

“I described how it works. Even in paradise, a snake will want. It’ll glow when it senses intense wants.” It would glow when sensing either part of the snake in the castle, Heir or monster.

“You’re a genius,” Hannah blurted out, “just don’t get petrified, okay?”

I had to smile at her for that, regardless of how I actually felt. It wasn’t entirely fake. My minions were very nice, in the day to day.

“I mean it. Promise us. No petrification.” The blonde girl was ever so earnest.

I pulled Hannah back against my shoulder. “Promise. I’m not getting petrified. It’d be awful for my grades, anyway.”

I tucked the amulet under my robes, looping the cord around my neck.

(When I checked later, when my minions were asleep, the quartz was glowing faintly. When I let it drop back against my skin, the etched snake turned red. I rolled over in bed, thought of all that should be mine, and failed to fall asleep.)

Chapter Text

“Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic, and so am I.”

• Oscar Levant, Things We Lost in the Fire

“Megan, can I tell you a story?”

That was how I would start it. The revelation.

“Imagine a princess,” I said aloud to the empty room, “imagine a princess, born to rule. Instructed by the best tutors. She learned everything there was to learn and then invented more. She was the best.”

I started pacing. (Megan and my other minions were back in the dorms, asleep. No one had followed me down here.)

The analogy wasn’t clicking. I needed to relax, let my training take over, and step up to take the stage. But even though that was exactly why I’d climbed back down these empty passages, I couldn’t let down my guard.

My feet carried me around the circular chamber. This was where the Philosopher’s Stone had been hidden. This was where the Boy Who Lived had faced off against the Dark Lord. This was where I’d all but walked into that fucking mirror.

(One of the best places to establish a safehouse was where the Hero had already claimed victory.)

I'd made sure there was no longer any mirror. This room was empty. Every room that had been part of the trial was empty. Cleaned, just so they could gather dust again.

“Yes, a story. There's a princess. Crown princess, all set up to inherit the kingdom. There are rivals and competitions and… enough details I could reframe and obscure so you’d accept it as a daring tale of danger and self-expression. I wouldn't lie about it, you know. That would defeat the point. Self-expression was so much more important, you know. Back then, anyway. When I was competing to be Heiress. Challenging others for inheritance of the Empire and leadership of the Truebloods.”

I drew my wand, tapping it against my side. The irony of my social position in this life had arisen before, but my first mother’s idea of a faction name was...

Well.

I never would have chosen it, even back then. Gauche and fundamentally dishonest.

The Praesi High Houses only banded together when they each thought they could get something from it. Lasting alliances were for Good nations, who thought loyalty had value in and of itself.

“How do I explain the importance of story to you, Megan?” I asked the still, empty air. “The Princess and the Prince. Heiress and Heir. One throne, a personal competition where our struggles symbolised the struggle of rulers past. Mind against might. Magic against... well, we both had magic. But he focused on minions. Networks.”

I channelled magic into my wand. Focused on making a glow similar to a lumos, then tried to leave a trail of magic in the air. Tried to draw a picture of the webs that had been spun between us.

“He likened himself to a spider. Called the Princess a fly, then a bee. Then a wasp. The Princess had focused on personal strength, see? The Heir wove his webs and laid his plans, but she sliced through half of them and went around the others. The game wasn’t just about amassing power, Megan. It was about the application of your power.”

(Which was why, when it came down to the two of us, my predicting his plans had guaranteed my victory. Oh, he’d predicted my magic, but there was only so much one could do against a blood curse while trying to dodge lightning bolts and a small horde of devils.)

My hands waved. Wand spun – the light trails were an ineffective use of my energy, but Flitwick hadn’t even got close to discussing illusions. I couldn’t yet see the path from trailed light to lingering picture. I couldn’t see how to...

How to finish this farce of a story.

My past was full of red and bones. Blood and death. Any story written or told about me would be – should be – the same.

And I certainly couldn’t call those who sat on the Dread Throne ‘rulers’ or ‘monarchs’ with any sense of accuracy. They were Tyrants. One and all. Openly and awfully.

As I’d been, in Liesse. For such a short time.

Hiding that was an injustice to myself, to the Empire I remembered. And... I was obscuring so much of myself already.

Which is why I was down here. Being myself. Trying to work out why I'd started feeling like I wasn’t. Myself, that is.

Now, do not say that I was unused to existing with my emotions. I’d always had emotions, unlike the bastard who murdered my father. Mostly, those emotions had stayed in line. Not as… inconvenient… as they were now. And, unfortunately, the outlets I favoured back then weren’t exactly available to me in this life. For various reasons.

Still, if life handed one lemons, one collected the juice and flung it back in life’s eyes. Then cut life’s throat to power a ritual and grow a lemon orchard.

So here I was. Being myself. Existing with my emotions.

Trying to tell a cohesive story. About myself. Answering the question: ‘who am I?’

Diving into that answer, teeth bared.

“Yes, Megan, I’m glad you asked.”

(She wouldn’t have asked, not with that prompt. But I needed things to stop feeling off and this fake conversation was better than staring at the ceiling of the Hufflepuff dorms. Again.)

“When competing with another candidate for a Name – those are the grooves in history that Fate likes to personify and replay – having a secure sense of self is the most important thing. Especially for the Name of Heiress. If I hadn’t known, hadn’t proved, that I and I alone were worthy of inheriting the Empire? Well, someone else would have got it all.”

I sent a stream of fire out of my wand, still pacing around the edge of the room. It helped me see where I was going, if only physically.

“I’m beating around the bush, and you’re not even here to be swept up in the story. Or distracted away from the points I don’t want you focusing on. What I really should say, is that I was Heiress of the Dread Empire of Praes. A mighty nation, great and terrible. Falling apart on the inside, enough that we bowed to an Empress who would destroy everything we were just to keep herself on the throne. To keep the throne in place, but only for her.”

The flame petered out.

“Which… I don’t blame her for. It’s been over a decade, you know? I tried to counterbalance it all, bring back the Age of Wonders and conquer anew the continent. Everyone knew that some change had to happen. So I recreated our greatest achievements.”

The room was dark. Magical fire didn’t make any smoke. Was I upset by that? I curled my wand, adapted a smell, and smelt woodfire.

“Making a city fly was… it was fucking hard, actually.” I kept pacing. “Not as hard as stealing the Deoraithe’s soul-gestalt, but if that went wrong and exploded the city, it would have been a city I wasn’t in! Considerably different stakes, you see?”

(Imaginary Megan was gaping at me. Too shocked to even fully comprehend that, no, I didn’t care about mass murder. Ugh, this wasn’t working.)

Wand away, knives out. Two of them this time, from other people’s potion kits. I started practicing duelling forms I hadn’t touched since getting away from my fucking mother. As she said, if I’d ever needed to use a knife in Ater or the Black Tower, I would have deserved a defeat.

“I don’t even know why I’m talking to you, and not, say, some imagined Catherine. That bitch tore my heart out, you know. Killed me and then did something to my soul reliquary too. Otherwise, I’d be using her own hands to choke out her friends for my revenge, and…”

A few vicious stabs. Slightly sloppy – my guard drifted open.

“How about it, Catherine? Are you happy? Did you manage to become a bigger monster than me? Did you save your precious Kingdom?”

Catherine didn’t answer. Not even in my imagination. (I knew she’d moved on, hyper-focused on the next threat. She'd won, and was undoubtably being a bitch about it.)

Fuck it.

I threw my knives at the wall. Watched them leave white scrapes on the stone. Clatter on the floor.

“I was on the cusp of having everything.”

My wand was eager in my hand. The levitation spell flowed smoothly, a knife drifting back towards me. I threw it back at the wall. Harder. Levitated the other one. Clang.

“My success is not magic, not scheming, but bringing all my – fucking masterful – skills together. I didn’t play the game, Catherine, I won it. You recognised that, you short stack of orphan-issues, so you didn’t bother playing in the first place. And, honestly? Respectable.”

Magic brought another knife back to my hand.  Loose magic buzzed, coiling round my fingerbones. It wanted out. Hah. As if I’d ever let it leave me, just because I was existing with my emotions.

“So much effort and so much pain you caused me. You broke all the bones in my fucking body, Catherine. Gods below, you were awful.”

I tossed the knife up, caught it by the blade, and...

...sighed.

“And yet you won. Iron sharpens iron. Well done. You proved that having a band of actually loyal supporters beats even the best operator working alone.”

I threw the knife at the far wall. “But that’s not me.”

“Come on Megan. Back me up, you know I’m using you.” I chuckled, gesturing like my closest minion was actually standing beside me. “Tell them how heartless I am. How that hole in my chest where my heart used to be is still fucking empty.”

The room was silent.

Something in me suddenly wanted to scream.

“Windgardium Leviosa.”

A knife flew towards my face. Slowed – right at the last minute. The tip was an inch from my eye. When I rotated my wand, the knife rotated too. I took it by the handle, and transfigured the blade into a mirror.

My face – no apparitions – looked back at me. Dark brown eyes, darker skin, even darker hair.

“This world is too soft.” I whispered to my reflection. Her lips moved in time.

My own eyes stared at me.

When I’d been the Heiress of the Dread Empire, aspirant of the Black Tower, my eyes had been gold. I couldn’t remember when I’d first thought the brown of this life was normal.

“Is that your problem?” I asked my reflection. “Are you approaching everything like you would have back there, even though you consciously recognise that it’s a completely different situation?”

She didn’t answer.

I forced myself to sit down. Cross my knife over my wand. Regulate my breathing.

Hogwarts was ancient, grand and just marinating in magic. So much so that the loose magic wrapped around my bones reacted to it. More in some places than others. (The Great Hall was a prominent offender.)

But, majestic as it was, Hogwarts wasn’t part of the Empire. It wasn’t Praesi and neither were any of the people in it. The same was true of the wizarding world in general, with their culture that was more stagnant than swamp water.

I’d spent a year and a half so far, biding my time, infiltrating slowly – so slowly. The way I would have usurped a rival Praesi High House, if I hadn’t had the cumulative wealth and power of Wolof behind me.

Which I didn’t. Except that the true wealth and power of my ancestral home was its knowledge. And the cumulation of that was me.

I looked back down at my knife. “Have I really treated all of this like a thought experiment? Have I been… practicing? Gathering followers, trying to create a band of followers like Catherine’s, unconsciously making up for the perceived causes of my death?”

My reflection gave me no answer. Because that’s not the question that had been disrupting my days – like someone had used salt instead of sugar in the recipe of my month.

“Why am I waiting?” I whispered.

The wizarding world wasn’t defending itself against anything. I’d acted normal last year, passed over opportunities for disruption, and… then been informed that it was illegal to practice magic in the summertime. The summertime, when I’d planned to do all my experimenting with blood and the lifeforce of dying creatures.

But those plans were ash when it was just me and my two hands. I’d thought through the practicalities of hiding how pets disappearing from a neighbourhood in city with a forensics department. It hadn’t been viable. Capturing and slaughtering household animals by hand was not a rational step in a long-term plan to conquer… anything.

Rationality. Logic. Critical tools for the long-term Villain.

(All decisions were emotional; humanity held… defects. And I was a Villain. The greater my strength, the sharper my flaw.)

Emotion. Want. The only reason any Villain did anything.

What did I want?

“Why am I waiting?” I hissed at the empty room.

Even when someone had petrified a cat, painted blood on the wall, and declared themselves an Heir, I’d waited. To see what would happen.

And what had happened?

Nothing.

Fucking nothing.

Good had won in magical Britain, eleven years ago. How deep had they buried their memories of the Evil, now vanquished?

If I’d spent all of last year actively building a power base, would anyone have stopped me? Or would all those Good people ignored the signs and kept on plastering over the cracks in their civilisation?

(Probably not if I’d gone for outright conquest, or done the experiments necessary to figure out if devils could be summoned to this layer of reality.)

“Infiltration was the right choice,” I declared to the dark. The words hung in defiance of the mirror that had planted the seed of this indecision.

Defiance, but not denial.

“Infiltration is the right choice,” I affirmed, “but to what extent?”

This world was not Praes. Actions that would get me noticed – and assassinated – back home merely got me side glances in the common room for a few days. Being careful was important, yes, but the risks I guarded against should be real. Objectively weighed.

“I really don’t want to admit that it’s boring, do I?” My sigh... echoed.

(Ever so faintly false.)

I rose to my feet and transfigured the knife from mirror to a longer blade. Slightly shorter than my sword, but close enough for the forms to flow.

Objectively, I had to keep sharp. And, objectively, the best way to stay sharp was to have opponents. Which I couldn’t have if I stayed entirely secret.

Another factor: Fate. I would need some proper weight behind me, narratively, even if all I wanted was to, oh, spring from the shadows and cut Dumbledore’s throat open. While the Ministry burned behind me. For example.

I couldn’t come out of nowhere if I wanted to take centre stage.

“I don’t need–” lunge “– all of Wolof and half the other Houses behind me. They may have facilitated my first rise, but the power was mine.”

I followed the sword form through three parries, two artery slices, and a heart-skewering.

The wizarding world was soft. It was obsessed with champions. It didn’t mobilise military forces when dark magic was found in the (apparently) only decent school in the country.

The Heir of Slytherin had demonstrated that there were zero consequences for showing power. And only the barest consequences for taking it.

“My name shall be known. I shall be known.” Step, swing, step-stab. “I will work magic in ways unseen since Merlin, and the historians will define an era by my rise.”

I laughed. Long, vicious. “And they’ll define another era by my death.”

Having power, being visible about it? That was as core to me as being Heiress had been. Hells, it was the only reason I’d been able to compete to be the Heiress. (It was probably time to start acting as such.)

My form slowed. My steps finished. I let the transfiguration fade; sword shortening.

Inhale. Exhale. My breath was even. My heart steady.

I felt... hmm. More whole.

Like me again.

“Step one, find the Heir of Slytherin.” I told the knife in my hand. “Step two, stake my claim in their bleeding corpse.”

<{   ҉   }>

Dear Mum and Baba,

I’m sorry for missing last week’s letter, but there have been a lot of things happening at school. The prejudice I mentioned back in my September letters isn’t lessening. Some fanatic is using a myth of the school to scare people and vandalise some walls with… rather impolite messages.

Please don’t freak out, because everyone will be fine as soon as they find this shadow-creeping coward. A lot of students are very scared, but in the way that sheltered people are. Magical people don’t seem to teach their kids much of anything before sending them to Hogwarts.

I got more extra credit work for Charms, and Professor Flitwick said I should ask some upper years to show me their work from different elective classes. I already want to study runes, but it will be good to understand how the subjects develop throughout the years – and what careers are out there!

I promise I’m okay, even if other people are buying scam “protection amulets”. Hannah actually fell for one, but I managed to re-work the enchantment so it actually did something. I’ll show you at Christmas!

Lots of love,

Your Book-Hawk.

Chapter Text

“There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.”

·       Terry Pratchett, who Akua read a lot of very quickly, as soon as she figured out the local librarian hadn’t realised these “nonsense fantasy novels for children” contained a very adult analysis of Earth’s societies.

The Gryffindor common room was ridiculously red. And yes, warriors and their pride – the lion symbolism was very accurate and all – but be a bit more tasteful, hmm?

I looked back down at the chess board before me. A pawn slid forward without me uttering a word.

“What? But that’s dumb! There’s no… wait… unless…” Ronald Weasley trailed off, staring intently at the game between us. (Once again utterly failing to read strategy from anything but the pieces.)

The pawn that had moved by my mental command was as silent and stoic as the rest of my army. It could not see the chess board from on high, nor could it guess at my strategy. But Ronald’s inherited pieces had become familiar with – and appreciative of – my efficiency. So the pawn stood ready, glaring a threat against a bishop.

“I’ve got to take it. Unless that leads to… not the knight, no queen, but… oh.” Ronald traced the board with his eyes, fingers tapping against the edge. “No. Damn. What are you playing at?”

I glanced over to Hermione, who looked up and rolled her eyes.

(So, Ronald didn’t know he was muttering aloud. A good brain, but flawed in application.)

“Is she bluffing? She must be bluffing. But its chess! There must be a strategy... somewhere.” He trailed off again.

I giggled. Purposefully. The emotional turmoil I’d seeded was amusing, but I hadn’t genuinely shown amusement by giggling in...

Well, it might’ve happened once.

But embarrassment aside, such a front was necessary when dealing with Harry Potter. Who looked up from the homework Hermione had pushed him into starting and glanced between myself and Ronald. Then he leant closer to the board – always so concerned for his friend.

“Harry, mate,” the sidekick asked his rich best friend, “do you think the pawn is a set up to corner my rook or the knight?”

Harry Potter blinked. “Which pawn?”

Then he did the thing Ronald should have been doing this entire game, and looked up to focus on me as a player while thinking about the other games I’ve played. The Hero’s eyes roved over my face. Searching.

(There was a reason why I only did this twice a year.)

I sighed, nodding at Potter. Because letting him in on one performance meant he was less likely to see through the deeper one.

“I was bluffing, Weasley,” I admitted. “That was a ridiculous move meant to bait you out of your existing strategy. Knowing the board is important, but Potter figured it out as soon as he looked up and watched me, rather than the pieces.”

Ronald Weasley looked up at me. “I knew it!” He lied.

Then he took my pawn.

(He didn’t thank Harry for the help, because his existing insecurities hated that Harry was – even momentarily – better than him at his thing.)

You see, Ronald had an excellent tactical mind. Give him a battle – or a Quidditch match – and he could plan very effectively. But the boy lacked strategy. And, really, winning isn’t about battles, it’s about war.

I moved up my knight, opening a path for him to capture my queen. Eventually.

To be fair to these children, they weren’t consciously aware of the war. Not yet. So even if Weasley was a strategic genius too, I was the only person currently playing.

Well, maybe the Heir counted as an opponent. But comparing my schemes to how they swung a sledgehammer into Hogwarts’ social structure with every petrification was incorrect and insulting.

“Akua, you’re... friends with lots of people, aren’t you?”

I looked up to find the Hero watching me again.

“I’m chatty, yes.” I allowed. (Not a queen bee, just a nice girl everyone got along with. Nothing else.)

“Have you... heard anything about Malfoy?”

Ronald looked back up. Hermione sighed pointedly. Potter managed to maintain a decent intensity by completely failing to be nonchalant.

“Nothing beyond the normal stuff he spews from his mouth. Which he does in every classroom, even if he apparently tries extra hard in Potions.” That got a me two chuckles from the sidekicks and a smile from Potter himself – that died as soon as it came.

“But nothing about...” the Boy Who Lived steeled his spine, “about Malfoy sneaking around? Or doing anything suspicious?”

“I don’t think he’s the sneaking type. But apart from some creepy comments he said when Pansy tried to hex me earlier in the year, you’ve heard everything I have.” I shrugged. “He’s not been quiet about it.”

Potter sagged, frowning at his quill.

“But,” I continued, “I can try to ask a Slytherin or two if he acts any different in their common room?”

“You can get the Snakes to talk to you?” Ronald boggled.

“Sometimes. In class. Or when there’s a Quidditch game coming up.”

“Huh.”

Harry was still sulking a little. I made my move on the chess board, then decided the Hero needed a poke.

“Personally, I’m betting that the Heir is either a seventh year or Lockhart.”

Gobsmacked silence.

Then Ronald started giggling. (And not on purpose.) “Lockhart! But he’s useless!”

“Exactly!” I pounced on the opportunity. “He gets super famous, comes to Hogwarts, and acts useless to throw everyone off his scent while he’s completing his evil plan!”

The Boy Who Lived suddenly stilled, smile fading. But it was Hermione Granger who looked up from her homework, frowning very intently at me.

“Like Professor Quirrel?”

“Well, no,” I paused as Harry’s eyebrow twitched, “whatever happened with Quirrel was quiet – before and after. And don’t look at me like that Harry, you were in the hospital wing the day Quirrel took ‘a leave of absence’. Hufflepuff doesn’t mean dumb. But all the stuff last year was quiet. Lockhart is loud. The Heir is also being very loud.”

I spread my hands, hummed pointedly. (Nobody bought it.)

“Fine. You’re right. It’s probably not Lockhart.” I turned back to the chess board. Made another move with enough nonchalance to send Weasley scowling. “But then it has to be a seventh year or something. Someone who knows magic, isn’t worried about what happens to the school – cause they’re graduating or something – and maybe someone inspired by whatever happened last year.”

Potter and Weasley then looked at each other like they’d just found new evidence for why Malfoy was the start and end of all Evil. I wanted to slap them. And then cut off a few fingers so they knew who the real Villain was.

“Look, I don’t get the obsession with Malfoy, but I’ll talk to who I know in Slytherin. Just let me know when you find the Chamber, okay?”

The stammered denial that they were looking for the Chamber of Secrets collapsed when Potter remembered I did in fact have more than two brain cells. And after another ten seconds of him internalising my ‘Hufflepuff doesn’t mean dumb’ comment, I got a very short nod.

Which was enough. Heroes like Harry Potter kept their word so long as you reminded them of it with appropriate framing.

Besides, there was no point in me searching for the Chamber myself. Now that the Heir was using it, only the Hero would get inside, and, even then, it would require him to be saving an innocent or completely unaware that the chamber he found was The Chamber.

I had better things to do with my time than push Fate where it didn’t want to be pushed.

The table quietened when I shifted to ‘focus’ on the chess game – Potter not willing or able to maintain a conversation with a stranger when his two sidekicks were occupied. Weasley was similarly focused on the board. But taking enough time with his turns that I went back to scanning the Gryffindor common room.

Apart from the enduring loyalty to their colour scheme, the room was literally louder than Hufflepuff’s common room. Gryffindors were noisy as a rule, and all the small, segmented groups responded to the general noise level by speaking louder themselves. Honestly, the only area of the room that could pass for quiet was the space around the fireplace – and even that was punctuated by homework-induced groans.

Weasley took his turn. I smiled with glee, just to provoke a reaction if he was looking up from the board. (He wasn’t.)

Potter wasn’t going to change his mind about Malfoy – who only capable of an English schoolboy’s idea of Evil. But careful exposure with the Hero, and more direct exposure with his support network, was valuable in and of itself.

And it wasn’t like I actually thought Lockhart was up to anything other than a grab at further fame. While a seventh year might have been inspired after last year – or secretly instructed by the Dark Lord – there would have been signs that the Heir of Slytherin was in the castle.

Fate liked foreshadowing. But there hadn’t been any hints of the Chamber last year.

Honestly, it was probably a first year. Someone new to Hogwarts, from some long-faded family line. Taking vengeance on perceived slights and being so blatant about it that the Hero’s conflict took on a political dimension. Maybe Potter would find this person and – after some emotional conflict – convince them that blood supremacy was the real problem.

Then the Heir would end up becoming an anti-hero at a different school who would return to fight against the Dark Lord. And it would turn out that the Dark Lord was the real reason their family was destitute.

It was probably something like that. Sickening.

(Fate liked to repeat itself. Even more than it liked hinting at whatever repetition was coming.)

If initial investigation found a cold-eyed Slytherin orphan first year, I could engineer a premature end to Potter’s struggles this year. Or I could make everything far, far worse than it was originally going to be.

(I’d already checked Slytherin for orphans, and there were none. Unless you counted the children with imprisoned parents, but the Carrow twins couldn’t act as one Heir even if they got over being girls.)

I looked around the scarlet room, idly noting the Weasley twins laughing about how their friend’s tarantula kept jumping at the window. Their older brother kept glancing over, half-ruining the advice he was giving to some fifth years about exams. And tucked in a corner on the other side of the fireplace was the youngest Weasley, pushing through the stress set into her shoulders to struggle on with her homework.

Or...

Not homework. That was a book, not rolled parchment.

Huh.

I hadn’t seen many diaries in the wizarding world. But tired and pale girls without friends sending wistful looks towards the Hero were common across realities.

Ronald took my last knight triumphantly. I glanced down to confirm that I would still checkmate him in five moves. I moved to corner his final bishop.

Really, Ginevra Weasley fit all the criteria for a first year Heir of Slytherin. Except that she was a Weasley, and if any ancient bloodline was going to awaken in one of the Weasleys, it would awaken in Ronald. Being a sidekick with an inferiority complex was a rather large risk factor for ending up with some volatile and dangerous skill.

I looked away from Ginerva and her diary and checkmated Ronald with just enough humility to stoke his sense of lacking something special. After my goodbyes, and as I went to touch base with Lavender Brown on Hannah’s behalf, I heard Ronald challenge Potter to a chess game.

(Life was satisfying sometimes.)

But it was time to take a census of Hogwarts’ newest students. Harry Potter had gone from rags to riches, so it followed that the Heir would have the opposite relationship with wealth.

Hmm. A Ravenclaw?

The Heir would have to be intelligent. Otherwise, Hermione would serve no purpose as a sidekick.

<{   ҉   }>

I felt like an idiot.

Me. Missing something so obvious.

I’d had to tell my minions that I’d gotten a bad grade on an assignment to explain the string of Soninke swears I’d spat out.

I could articulate why I’d passed over the possibility in the moment. It was just... assumptions. Most of them half-conscious at best. I’d discarded possession as a possibility based solely on Quirrel’s example of it, and I’d been looking for potential anti-heroes to pad out Potter’s band of sidekicks. And – despite my conscious attempts to move away from treating Hogwarts like a Praesi institution – I'd probably assumed the Heir would end up my rival. That Fate was raising someone up to counter me.

I didn’t like going unrecognised.

But I hated being surprised.

There was a saying in Praes that the only deadly assassination attempt was the one you didn’t know about. And it was known that Villains died from their blind spots – even in this world, where no one had connected the dots (in public, anyway).

So I dug my nails into my palms and watched Ginevra Weasley walk down the halls of Hogwarts while hugging a plain black diary to her heart.

Now that’d I’d seen it, all the pieces were obvious. Fate liked to repeat itself, you see.

Possession.

The Villain moving closer towards some awful goal over the course of the year.

Something for the Hero to save. (Well, someone this time. But still.)

It was obvious.

The Heir wasn’t a first year, or anyone physically in the castle. The Heir was...

(Ugh.)

Of fucking course the Heir was another incorporeal remnant of the Dark Lord. Or even the same spirit as last year, seeking some way to regain life.

Potter was probably going to deal with the Dark Lord bothering him every year until that final confrontation.

(I did my best to breathe evenly on the walk to Potions. Hoping that today’s recipe would require a lot of dicing.)

Even as my frustration boiled, I couldn’t help but feel relieved. Literally missing the plot when it was in front of my nose was bad for my life expectancy, but spotting it now mitigated later disaster. Increasing my understanding of the Hero’s rivalry and future narrative was also a great benefit.

(But ugh.)

Well, no point investigating the rest of the first years. But how to change trajectory without wasting any groundwork?

The opportunity revealed itself when the cookie-cutter Hufflepuff first years returned to the common room after dinner.

“Hey girls, I don’t want to go over our assignments tonight. Do you think we should talk to the first years? Make sure they’re settling in and doing okay given the stuff that’s happening?”

(My minions thought that we should. They also thought that we should make sure that first years in the other houses felt looked after too.)

(Life was about the little things. Like having your implicit commands obeyed unquestioningly.)

<{   ҉   }>

A week passed.

Megan had a conversation with Tracey Davis after History. Nothing came of it. A note I passed to Daphne Greengrass the following day in Astronomy – requesting a little talk far more directly – was met with only a hastily-scribbled ‘later’.

I walked back to the dorms that night reflecting on the Scorpio constellation and young schemers who were so cautious that their schemes were entirely passive. It wasn’t Greengrass’ fault that no one had taught or shown her the importance and value of self-led disruption, but it still slowed things down unnecessarily.

But it didn’t bother me. Not now I’d found the Heir.

There is a particular kind of fire that Villains feel. Very different to the passion and verve of Heroes, because us Villains are proactive. While a Hero may struggle and strive and rise up, we have already clawed and climbed our way to the top.

Ambition, the muggles might call it. Freedom, they might say as a second guess. Eventually they’d refer someone feeling it to a psychologist and that psychologist would probably call it a personality disorder.

I felt that prickling feeling (different to the loose magic sparking throughout me) as the fire of life.

Anticipation.

Joy.

An immediacy and direction to my days that just couldn’t come from my long-term plans. Of course, tearing down the Ministry of Magic would be satisfying like nothing else, but one cannot live on delayed gratification alone.

Greengrass would inevitably fall into place anyway. There were always opportunities to sway schemers to your side. A little shock and awe was all she needed, and I was very ready to slice up her expectations – as soon as the chance fell into my lap.

The chance to help little Ginevra Weasley would arise the same way.

I didn’t rush, didn’t push. Simply let the quartz pendant stay tucked down the front of my shirt and kept that spare magic circulating around my skeleton while my minions and I took time between classes and before and after meals to talk to the first years.

It had taken a few days for the children outside of Hufflepuff to warm up to us, but we were Hufflepuffs too. Even if the youngest Gryffindors and Ravenclaws didn’t deeply trust us, we were Hufflepuffs. Harmless. And we just happened to be Hufflepuffs that could give tips on assignments no matter your current grades.

They didn’t need to trust us.

Just accept our presence. See us as normal. Let us become familiar.

<{   ҉   }>

Ginevra Weasley tripped over my foot on a Wednesday.

We’d been walking alongside each other out of the Great Hall on a day when the girl had, firstly, eaten lunch, and, secondly, put that plain black diary in her bag. It all seemed a great coincidence.

I’d taken the opportunity and engineered the outcome I needed.

The time I took to yelp, the unfortunate placement of my foot as I ‘lost balance’, and the way my knee pushed even more books out of her bag? Well, I shouldn’t need to spell out everything.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”

Tired eyes blinked under red hair in need of a brush. And better-quality conditioner.

“Oh, and your stuff!” I exclaimed before she could gather herself. “Let me collect your stuff! Gosh, I’m sorry I didn’t see you.”

My minions were very helpful in crowding around, picking the child up, and putting the furthest flung books back into her hands.

The diary hadn’t helpfully dumped itself at my feet. Which meant that either the possessing spirit didn’t want to leave Ginevra, or that she’d simply tucked it in with more care than anything else. Not that the difference mattered.

I collected some scrolls of homework and organised them neatly, crouching over the second-hand satchel.  Naturally, I'd been rummaging through my own bag when Ginevra tripped, so it was trivial to slip a thin black notebook in between the textbooks for transfiguration and charms.

It took a minute to get the smallest Weasley sorted, but I took another minute to apologise and offer help “to make up for taking up too much of the hallway.”

Ginevra had to admit to having a tutor already before I ‘gave up’. “An ol-older student. He’s... he knows so much. Very helpful.”

(Nodding repetitively was not a convincing tactic on anyone, though that never stopped the desperate from trying it.)

“Well, I’m glad,” I made sure to smile at her – squeeze a shoulder and then deliberately step back. “Your brother Percy, right? He does know a lot. I’m sure he tells you all about it.”

And the little girl snorted out half a laugh my sarcasm. Then blinked in shock that she’d actually felt a fragment of positive emotion. Poor thing would probably spend the rest of the day trying to remember the last time she’d laughed properly. Or – if she was capable of using her grey matter – trying to dissect her emotions and memories from the past few months.

Maybe she’d panic when she realised that little black book was missing. Wonder why it felt like something had been removed from her, not just from her bag.

Maybe she wouldn’t notice that a weight had fallen off her shoulders and just stress about someone reading her private thoughts.

Maybe she already suspected – or even knew – what was happening to her. Maybe things would get interesting.

Time would tell.

I didn’t need to rush. There was space for me to quietly revel in a small payoff. Refine my next preparations. Relax.

When we got to transfiguration, Megan positioned herself to take the seat next to me. I bumped her elbow with mine, gave her a smile for applying what she observed.

She opened her textbook and pointed to a passage unrelated to today’s class. “Percy Weasley doesn’t tutor anyone below fifth years, right?”

I hummed. “Not to my knowledge.”

“Anything you need me to do?” Megan couldn’t quite disguise her hope.

I reached over and closed the textbook. “Not yet. But that was nicely done. Soon, I think. Soon.”

Chapter Text

“It is true it would be safer, Chancellor, to refrain from gloating. But then why even bother? If I can’t crucify whoever speaks in accidental rhyme or throw heroes to three-headed snakes or feed a baby to another baby, then why should I even want to be Dread Emperor?”

• Dread Emperor Revenant (Who was not a Sahelian)
• Erraticerrata, Practical Guide to Evil

The diary held a compulsion. Presumably laid by one T.M. Riddle in 1943.

I’d run some tests. How long could I keep it in my trunk, out of sight, now that I’d lifted it off the youngest Weasley? How long – once the previous test failed – could I keep it in my bag without touching it, without writing anything down?

The diary had stayed tucked in my trunk in the dorms for a day, until I was sure the thoughts I was having about it weren’t just my natural anticipation at having the Heir exactly where I wanted them.

Not completely sure, of course. My tests hadn’t been rigorous, or even that scientific. But the stakes weren’t that high, unlike other tense conversations that would need to happen at the end of this year.

The lengths one must go should be proportional to one’s needs. The Fate of past Praesi tyrants – the unsuccessful ones – demonstrated how important it was to be considered at all times. Even when employing extreme violence.

Fortunately for this situation, I simply needed to check whether the possessing spirit inside could exert influence on the world even when the book was closed.

(The intrusive thoughts about how useful a quality new book would be came more often when I was carrying the diary around to classes. The tests were not solely on myself.)

In the end, I only resisted for a few days.

Not because I couldn’t wait longer. No, no. I just wanted the Heir to be annoyed that I was taking so long – and then to be suddenly eager at my ‘capitulation’.

Besides, I’d had everything needed to subvert a cursed magical object ready for months. Rather fortunate that Professor Snape brought forward the subject of stasis solutions in his spiteful vendetta against Potter.

Praes had patented (as much as that counted for, in the Dread Empire) multiple methods of disrupting possession. Because possession was a process, and all processes had weak points. I’d gathered my materials without this specific situation in mind, but one always had need for the blood of one’s fellows.

(Once I’d had the stasis solution, it was a simple matter to pair with another group in Herbology, slip with some shears, and then escort a bleeding Seamus Finnegan to the Hospital Wing. And I’d felt so guilty about the accident that I’d just had to use my handkerchief to stop the bleeding.)

The diary-bound Heir before me held a compulsion. It wanted to use me.

Whoever was in here could not measure up against my damned soul and all the awful history of Praes and its Dread Empire that I held in me. This diary wanted to use me? I wanted to use the whole fucking world.

So, in one of the dusty forgotten classrooms I had mapped out last year, I pulled a vial of stasis solution out of my robes. A bloody handkerchief drifted inside, Finnegan’s blood still red. Glistening.

I carefully drained the solution into a larger vessel and waited the optimal seventy-seven seconds for the handkerchief to return to the passage of normal time. Then I scraped a spare quill across the red and opened the black-bound book.

Dear Heir of Slytherin, you have three chances to prove to me you deserve your Name.

The words lay bright and bold on the blank page. Then they faded, from the outside in; inhaled into some metaphorical maw.

Loose magic was all but thrashing under my skin, around my bones. I stepped back. Further.

It took a minute for everything to calm down. Magically, anyway. The only shift visible in the room was the dust settling from my footsteps. When the magic I’d held inside myself for months stopped hurting, I figured that the Heir had stopped searching for me.

Or maybe they were truly impulsive enough to try and form a bond through the blood. In which case, good luck trying to form a sympathetic link with Seamus Finnegan through all the enchanted stone between here and Gryffindor Tower.

The diary lay open on the table. Unmoved.

It was from the non-magical world, interestingly.

I stepped forwards and leant over it again.

Dear Seamus, thank you for providing this forgotten book with some entertainment. I am the Heir of Slytherin because I hold the ancient secrets of his lineage. Are you interested in secrets?

Hmm.

A smooth operator. How long would he stay that way?

So, inheritance is passive? Disappointing.

And then – with the last of Finnegan’s quickly-drying blood – I drew a “1” and then crossed it out.

Then I stepped back again and levitated some rope I’d laid underneath the diary before this started. The rope followed my wand upward, and the book flapped shut.

(A charm Flitwick introduced last week – one intended for makings ribbons into bows – bound that thin black book in knots.)

I knew the Heir wasn’t passive. He had been possessing a little girl and somehow petrifying Hogwart’s denizens. But he’d tried to play the innocent, and there was enough of that in my life already.

Maybe all an ordinary heir needed to do was hold knowledge and ape their ancestor’s politics. But he was trying to be something greater. Hold a Name I’d owned for over half of my first life.

It was insulting.

(And, as Heiress of Praes, I had been very, very active.)

<{   ҉   }>

Twenty-six hours later – just to keep Mr Heir unbalanced – I was back in that dusty spare classroom.

My experiment for today was just how much I could do without physically touching the diary myself. Levitating the rope bindings, an untying spell, and applied levitation of a wooden ruler got me quite far.

Using wingardium leviosa to remotely write with a quill was challenging, even for me. The rest of my minions – I regularly ran little competitions on inventive uses of spells – could barely get through a sentence. But while I could struggle through, I wanted something even more emotionally distant.

(These things held weight, see.)

In the end, I sat at a different table and wrote onto an ordinary piece of parchment. Then tried a copying charm – magically reproducing the ink patterns into the diary.

It didn’t work. I’d expected as such. My magic wouldn’t mark or effect the diary, no matter if I was creating ink or bathing it in flames.

Fortunately, enchanting a quill to read and replicate text did work. The ink was still ink, gliding out from a nib. The charm also wrote in block letters, obscuring my handwriting – which the book I’d learnt it from hadn’t told me. Probably an anti-cheating measure, but useful in this instance.

I glanced over to the diary that the Heir’s spirit – or soul, or something – sat in. The ‘2?’ I’d written had faded, but I still had a useful record of the information I’d given on the parchment in front of me.

It took a minute before the Heir responded. Almost certainly because they liked petty power plays. But I wanted them irritated and petty. It drew focus away from more strategic emotions.

Slytherin was famous for speaking parsletongue. The Hogwarts crest holds a snake because he could speak to them, and they called him Master.

I don’t suppose you could demonstrate that for me now though? Should I go find a snake from the Forbidden Forest?

Two minutes later, they still hadn’t answered. My laughter finally broke free.

He – I was sure he was a he – was a book. He couldn’t hear. And he definitely couldn’t speak.

After my cackling wound down – dust muffling the echoes of my minor villainous triumph – I cast anew the enchantment and gave the Heir my verdict on his attempt:

2.

Pain lanced through me. The static that I consciously laced around my body lit up.

I fell off the table.

It didn’t stop.

“Ffffuck you t-t-too.” I bit out.

It didn’t stop.

Until it did.

I took a deep breath. Coughed on dust. Then pushed my dishevelled self to my feet. I was half painted in grey, where my spasms had flopped me across the dusty floor.

A minute of breathing. Of making sure I hadn’t lost any time. Of weighing the odds on whether the Heir was powerful enough to cast curses from his book, or whether the loose magic in me had merely had an... excited... reaction to an attempted possession.

I was pretty sure I was safe. I definitely hadn’t been possessed, regardless of the Heir’s intended action. And while that had been high on the pain scale, I was more used to ‘high on the pain scale’ than other people.

(Iron sharpens iron.)

A few charms removed the dust. Then I levitated implements to close the diary. Once again, it was bound in ropes, wrapped in some Ravenclaw’s lost shirt, and then dropped into my book bag.

A blood-soaked part of me wanted to deliver some kind of ultimatum to the room. To the world.

But while books couldn’t hear, Fate was always listening.

And I needed a bathroom to redo my poor, poor hair. A second insult from this imbecile.

<{   ҉   }>

“Susan, is that how duelling is meant to work?”

Susan took a moment to reply, staring in shock at where Gilderoy Lockhart was picking himself up off the floor where Snape had blasted him. To be fair to her, half of everyone else in the Great Hall had their mouths hanging open.

“No,” she recovered, “no, that’s... well, Snape did it right, but…”

Susan closed her eyes and looked like the world had personally disappointed her. She really shouldn’t have gotten excited by anything organised by Lockhart, but the girl was very invested in duelling. Had been even before I’d cultivated basic combat practices for our group at the start of the year. Susan might have been the person most passionate about duelling in our Hufflepuff cohort, really.

Apart from myself, of course. But my extensive experience with the practical applications of magical combat grounded my passion in necessity.

I refocused on the scene before us. The Great Halls’ ceiling showed only clouds and stars, the sun long since set, though it was only six pm. A moment of peace.

Then Gilderoy Lockhart climbed to his feet and proclaimed that he’d been blasted into the stonework on purpose.

(I admired the depths of viciousness Snape could impart with only facial expressions.)

“Enough demonstrating!” The demonstrated fool cried out. “I’m going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you’d like to help me–”

(Snape was going to help Lockhart to an early grave sooner or later. And I would pay to watch.)

Everyone was moving.

Grouping up by year level, and mostly by House. A few calculated movements through the crowd, and my minions and I were near enough to the second year Slytherins that Pansy Parkinson spotted me.

I pretended not to notice when Parkinson got Snape’s attention – just after he’d paired Potter with Malfoy, hilariously. I pretended not to see when she flounced back to Malfoy, or when most of that group started grinning. I pretended to be surprised and slightly worried when Snape assigned all my minions to duel the other Hufflepuffs.

“Parkinson, be gentle with Sahelian, mm?” Snape swept off without waiting for a reply.

“Akua!” Hannah grabbed my arm.

I straightened my back and made a show of cracking my knuckles. “It’s okay Hannah – secret weapon, remember? Still, any tips from your aunt, Susan?”

Hannah turned to grip Susan’s arm as well. Susan steeled herself, turning to stare at Parkinson. “Cast fast, cast once.”

I nodded, then started practicing the jab motion Snape had used.

(Instructions, area, power, anchor, catalyst.)

Expelliarmus felt like a typical spell. The instructions were almost all in the incantation, with the wand movement used to aim, I suspected. The power came from myself. And both anchor and catalyst were all in the wand.

But basic spells like this had... how to describe it. They had room. Advanced magic with its trickier casting processes was more defined within its instructions. But basic spells? Well, everything I’d done with wingardium leviosa was an example of how adding a little extra intent into the standard instructions opened up new avenues of utility.

I suspected that expelliarmus would have at least a little versatility. Snape’s spell had also acted like a knockback jinx, after all.

So, it was a question. Force or disarmament.

(I would achieve both later, but for my first casting of the spell, it was best to succeed utterly in one more restrained goal.)

My minions finally left me for their own opponents, shooting glances over their shoulders in various emotional flavours.

The Slytherins set themselves up in such a way that I had to walk past a number of raised stages and a pack of leering fourth years to meet Parkinson.

 Prickling raced under my skin as I climbed onto a duelling platform. Adrenaline and magic.

(Ahhh, Hogwarts should do this more often.)

“Face your partners!” Lockhart called from the centre of the room, where he could prevent no accidents.

(I started smiling.)

“And bow!”

I swept my leg back in a traditional Praesi crescent-moon curtsey, then rose to meet Parkinson’s sneer. She hadn’t even nodded her head. Petty girl.

“Wands at the ready!”

Oh, all of us going at once? And Snape hovering over Malfoy and the Gryffindors? It was enough to make one pity their opponent.

“When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponents – only to disarm them – we don’t want any accidents!”

(No Professor Lockhart, we don’t want any accidents when you have even fewer safety measures than my first mother used.)

“One… two… three!”

I swayed to the side, then actually had to bend down and away. A foolish mistake, to assume that Parkinson would cast quickly – or on target.

“Expelliarmus.” I stated.

Red light leaped like blood lashing across the stage.

“You missed!” Parkinson laughed a little too hard. An undertone of relief.

She raised her hand again…

…and I caught her wand on its downward arc. The girl hadn’t felt a thing.

Sweet, sweet success.

Parkinson blinked. Looked at her empty palm. Started turning a particularly blotchy kind of red.

Which was when the chaos hit.

Lockhart was screaming. A smoke-like haze filled the air; some of it green. Only half the room was standing, and a good portion of those off their feet were bleeding. To various extents.

Nothing bad, because these children were coddled. Softer than lambs. I met Parkinson’s eyes, then dropped her wand at my feet. Turned without a word and picked my way back through the crowd.

“Akua! Akua! You won, right?” Hannah actually found me first, dragging me sideways into my other minions. They waited eagerly for my answer.

“She cast first.” I looked down, then stopped bothering to hide my smirk. “But I cast once.”

Hannah started swatting at my arm for my ‘teasing’. Susan was grinning for once – wanting more of that tiny taste.

Megan got pressed against my side by the jostling crowd. “We all won.”

“MASH supreme!” I joked, and tugged lightly on each of their scarves.

(One day it wouldn’t be a joke.)

I would have continued building associations of us as a group with feelings of triumph if the two teachers managing half the damn school hadn’t decided to put the Hero and his pseudo-rival up on stage – and thus injected ice into my veins.

Now, the pressure of Fate is not something felt by Villains. Fate does not guide us, like it does Heroes. But with a bit of intelligence and keeping all our senses open to opportunity, we can recognise when things are about to become important.

It was evening. There was an audience. A pseudo-rivalry. Snape leant down to whisper in Malfoy’s ear. Potter had only Lockhart on his side.

“Don’t move.” I commanded. Then dove into the crowd.

“Akua?”

“Akua!”

The path of least resistance took me through the Hufflepuff boys of my year, and close enough to Snape and Malfoy to hear a final whisper of: “curl at the end, remember to curl at the end.”

“Three – two – one – go!” Lockhart shouted.

And Malfoy flicked, swept, and faintly curled his wand towards Potter. “Serpensortia!”

A snake exploded from his wand. There were screams.

My skin started buzzing.

The Professors – snide and incompetent – made it worse. So, of course, the Hero stepped forward and –

Fucking hissed at the snake.

Then both Hero and serpent stared at each other, cool as cucumbers.

(Opportunity was measured in seconds. I could not be showing my delight right now.)

I reached up.

(Justin Finch-Fletchley shouted at Potter and started storming out.)

Pulled Malfoy off the stage by his ironed robes.

(The Hall erupted in mutters.)

Put a few people between myself and Snape, who shouted at me.

“Sahelian!”

The crowd was too dense for the Professor aim his wand. Not too dense to stop me jumping up onto the stage.

“Harry Potter! Face me!”

The Hero shifted from his shamed slouching. Stared at my sudden appearance.

“Face me, Boy Who Lived!” Contempt dripped from my tone, but I kept my face blank. No sneers.

Harry Potter straightened, pulling away from where Ronald Weasley was tugging at his robes.

(Everyone went quiet again.)

I bowed in the wizarding fashion, then raised my wand directly at him. Waited until he did the same. Nodded.

And then immediately ducked and spun under the expelliarmus he launched at my chest.

(Never try to block a Hero, simply be where their attack isn’t.)

Potter was young, so I was able to rise up and flick-sweep-curl my wand without needing to dodge a second spell.

“Serpentortia.” I intoned. Declared. Heralded.

A twist in the air, and golden scales gleamed along the stage carpet. Twice as large as Malfoy’s serpent, a triangular head, fangs as long as my fingers.

(Gasps, again.)

I stood tall and pointed my wand at the floor as a snake that hadn’t evolved in this world hissed my triumph to the room.

“Tell it to stop, Potter. Tell it to lie down and wait.”

(His eyes were wide. Flickering over the crowd. But his hands weren’t shaking.)

The Great Hall was silent. Not even the rustle of clothing.

Harry Potter stepped forward and hissed in a way the human larynx couldn’t.

The most venomous snake of the Praesi wastes lowered itself to the stage and went still.

I walked towards it.

“I forfeit this duel. But this is the last time I’m going to say it: Slytherin’s monster. Is. A. Snake.” I hmphed at Anthony Goldstein for good measure.

Then – when I was standing halfway along the coils of my glorious conjuration – I pointed my wand just behind the scaled ridge at the back of its skull.

“Diffindo.”

The head slumped forward and turned to smoke. The long body followed, faintly glittering.

“You should apologise to Justin.” I told the Boy Who Lived, then bowed to end this ceremony and turned to hop back down to my minions.

Professor Snape stared me dead in the eyes. “Sahelian. Detention.”

In that last moment of silence, I raised my chin.

Hufflepuff House shouted at him as one.

<{   ҉   }>

Hufflepuff House had not swayed Professor Snape. As soon as he’d met their exclamations with death in his eyes, my evening was done for.

But not due to detention. No, my detention had been scheduled for the last day before the Christmas break.

Instead Hufflepuff House just had to spend the entire evening checking in. Being treated so unfairly by an adult of the school must have upset me, you see?

My actions must have been borne from loyal friendship to Harry Potter – who I did talk to occasionally, as my minions readily reported – in proving that he wasn’t the Heir. And, all Hufflepuff agreed, I had done a good bit of magic in replicating Malfoy’s spell.

(Everyone liked the genius on their side.)

Even Professor Sprout fussed over me – going beyond her common but brief appearances in the Hufflepuff common room and fussing over me in a way that was worried, proud, and just a bit vindicated.

So, yes, my evening was done for.

Fully booked. For other people.

(It galled, but I was still riding high. And being doted upon was nostalgic, really.)

Even when I retired early to my dorm, the second year Hufflepuff boys crowded around the door and kept hyping each other up. Even though their expressions when Potter first commanded Malfoy’s summoned snake made me wonder whether accidents had also been summoned in the seat of their pants.

Justin Finch-Fletchley was especially eager to hear all about the scene he’d missed by storming out of the Great Hall in obstinate fear. Though it had taken ten minutes for everyone else to convince him that Harry Potter wasn’t the Heir of Slytherin.

Harry Potter was friends with Hermione Granger, and she was a muggleborn, you see?

(There was no way that the school would ever turn on its Hero. That would never happen for only a few months so that Potter could experience some emotional turmoil before heroically redeeming himself.)

“I told you guys – and everyone else – that I overheard Snape telling Malfoy how to do the spell, alright?” I waved my hands in front of me. “I can talk about it more tomorrow, but I’m tired.”

“But–”

“She said she’s tired, you boys can go to your own dorm now.” Megan actually moved to stand in the doorway until they left.

Grumbling for three seconds, then chattering excitedly again in their own dorm. Megan closed the door, then leant against it.

Susan was standing against the wall.

Hannah was sitting against one of my bedposts, trying to twirl her wand through her fingers.

I was sitting on the edge of my bed.

They all looked at me.

(My evening was done for.)

“So why did you tell us not to move?” Hannah thankfully broke the ice before it truly set in. Saving me some effort.

But still. Had I taught her nothing?

“How did you know something was going to happen?” Susan, with a much better question.

I looked at the wooden beams across our dorm ceiling. How to answer? (How late were we going to stay up?)

“Let me start at the beginning. The Boy Who Lived defeated the Dark Lord when he was a baby, yeah? On Halloween.”

“Oh.” Susan said quietly.

“Yes, something is going to happen on Halloween. Every year.” I sighed. “But those things will be pretty minor. The big danger will happen towards the end of the year – it just will, okay? But you wonder why. Why did something happen last year, why is the Heir of Slytherin pulling their shit this year, when it could have happened at any other point?”

Hannah’s laugh at my swear was a little forced. None of them had an answer.

“When the Boy Who Lived defeated You-Know-Who, he was left with a scar. We’ve all seen it. Now, does it look healed? Or does it still look fresh?”

Susan closed her eyes. Megan was staring at me so intently that she should have generated friction.

Hannah shook her head. “That’s just a side effect of the killing curse though. Right?”

I let the silence after her question pull them each towards the dark abyss of revelation.

“Right guys?” Hannah asked again.

I looked down, stared at each of them in turn. “Harry Potter rubs his scar like it still hurts him.”

Susan sank down to the floor and slumped against the wall.

Hannah said “no” quite a lot of times.

Megan stood at the door and stared at me in wonder.

I fell back onto my bed. The quilt was soft. I gave them thirty seconds, then asked: “You-Know-Who was a parsletongue, wasn’t he?”

Susan’s faint, broken sounding “yes” was the only reply.

(Iron sharpens iron, my dears. You were always going to be hurt, so let me make these first cuts clean.)

<{   ҉   }>

It was night again, when my rope charms and enchanted quill opened the Heir’s diary-vessel. My originally planned third test was completely different to what I was going to write now. But this world’s evolution held at least one truth. Adapt, or die.

Dear Heir, did you know that you’re not the only speaker of Parsletongue in Britain? Looks like you have some competition for your title.

The reply was instant.

It’s not you. Who is it?

Harry Potter.

If anyone were to yank open the curtains on my bed and witness my grin, they would have no doubt that I was capable of murdering a small population. Too bad that the Heir couldn’t see my face. Being a book and all.

Who are you?

Call me Heiress.

I closed the book with a levitated ruler.

It looked so plain. No one would ever guess what lay within. Hilarious.

I put everything away, then rolled over and went to sleep.

Smiling.

Chapter Text

“I always say, keep a diary and someday it'll keep you.”

• Mae West, Every Day’s a Holiday (popularised, but likely originating with Margot Asquith, quoted in the Schenectady Gazette, 25^th May 1922.)

“Miss Sahelian.”

The candles had worn down their wicks, stretching shadows along the cluttered shelves of Snape’s office. The fireplace held only embers.

“Professor Snape.”

We sat across from each other at his desk. A stack of assignments lay next to a bottle of red ink. Three thick tomes, all open, filled most of the rest of the tabletop.

“Do you have any inkling why you are here, Miss Sahelian?” His forearms rested against the edge of the wood, hands emerging from billowing black sleeves to fold together in the space between us. His voice was smooth and low, promising consequences for an unsatisfactory answer.

He was good. Well, Evil, or good at appearing Evil, at the very least.

I smiled. “I subverted expectations, sir.”

Professor Snape’s face did not shift. Which made my smile a little more genuine.

“You are very welcome to spend this detention shelling snails, Miss Sahelian. Choose that now, if you wish, but if your next explanation is not sufficiently detailed, then I will make sure your time here is productive.”

My eyebrows went up. “But sir, that’s the only explanation I can think of. Lots of people did dangerous things that evening, but I’m the only person to get detention, even though Harry Potter displayed a clear skill associated with the Heir of Slytherin and Malfoy used that unauthorised spell first.”

The stare I received from that comment would have frozen the blood of another second year.

“Are you suggesting that Potter should be sitting next to you?”

“No sir, Potter’s detentions for dangerous things are always served with other professors.”

(Was I poking the bear? Yes. Was I having a bit too much fun? Sue me.)

“Did the Sorting Hat think you too daft even for Gryffindor, Miss Sahelian? An answer or you will be shelling those snails bare handed.”

I leant back in the hard wooden chair. Mirrored Snape’s folded hands. “Potter is a Hero. A pretty classical one, even if he’s not much for fighting yet. As such, he needs to face adversity. You are his adversity in the staff and Malfoy is his symbolic rival among the students. I’m sure there are a lot of real reasons for both of you to antagonise him, but Fate ties it all up in a semi-transparent bow. Potter won’t get detention unless Malfoy does, and you were never going to issue Malfoy a punishment. But I’m not Potter. If I jump on stage, I’m getting a detention.”

(Too daft for Gryffindor? Hah. I was simply too competent for Slytherin.)

We sat there for a minute. Two.

“You have not touched upon the senseless thought process that led to you trying to replicate a dangerous spell.”

Ugh.

Come on, you’re better than that.

“The entire duelling club was about replicating dangerous spells – even if expelliarmus is on the easier side. But fine.” I sat back up, hands flat on the desk. “Even at that supposed duelling club, all it took was one boy hissing for everyone to get scared. There is a saying, where I come from: iron sharpens iron.”

Snape still didn’t react, even as the truth of Praes passed my lips in Soninke.

“It means...” (I actually had to pause, consider how much of myself I was revealing to those dark, dark eyes.)

“It doesn’t translate well. ‘Hard times make hard men’ is a similar idiom. I confronted Harry Potter because he and everyone else is soft. Someone needed to show them a little backbone, because they can’t afford to be going round getting scared by a little parsletongue of all things.”

Another few minutes of staring. Snape did blink. Occasionally. It wasn’t that kind of staring contest. No, he was trying to pry open my mouth with the silence.

It didn’t work.

Eventually, he shook his head and reached for his wand. And noticed how my eyes flicked down to where it rested on the desk.

Professor Snape slowly brought his hand back to the middle of the desk. His mouth worked, like the words he was about to speak needed chewing. “Is your life at home hard, Miss Sahelian?”

I started laughing.

Couldn’t help it.

Just...

The flicker of genuine concern on his face.

(This man was going to end up sacrificing his life for one of the Slytherins in his care, or I’d eat my school-issue hat.)

“Don’t worry Professor,” I chuckled, “my home life is even softer than here at Hogwarts.”

And I was very ready to go home for Christmas and sheath the oh so sharp parts of me for two weeks.

Snape did pick up his wand this time. Banished the lid off a refrigerated barrel of snails. A series of jars came soaring over to rest on a table that appeared in the other half of the room.

He very pointedly did not provide any gloves.

I raised an eyebrow and very pointedly did not ask for them.

Fifteen minutes later, I was prickling with loose magic and boredom.

“Professor, last year you said to tell you if we cut ourselves when preparing a potion. I haven’t cut myself now, but would blood amplify the effect of these snails in a potion or cause an additional effect?”

The faintest change in breathing. I pushed further.

“Would these become blood-snails, or would the snails become contaminated with blood, is what I’m asking.”

Five slowly-thawing gastropods lost their shells before he answered.

“The blood of magical creatures has many effects, Miss Sahelian. If you do cause yourself an injury, I will supply you with a fresh barrel to work through.”

“So if my blood ended up in a slowing serum, would the serum become volatile or just end up with side effects?”

One snail.

Two snails.

A third, prettier-shelled snail.

“The blood of magical creatures disrupts the magical balance and intention of any recipe that does not specifically account for it. Any slowing serum with your blood in it would be an active danger to you and anyone who used it.”

(A pair of leather gloves drifted onto the table next to me. I ignored them, because dexterity was required to not break the shells. And my hands were already disgusting.)

I gave Snape ten minutes to settle.

“That means that potions can be blood magic, I knew Susan was wrong about that.”

“Miss Bones is – in this specific situation – not wrong, Miss Sahelian. Potion-making combines multiple disciplines of magic, but blood magic is not one of them.”

“But what about when–”

“Then it is illegal, Miss Sahelian.”

I looked over my shoulder and nodded slowly. Meaningfully.

(Professor Snape did not say another word to me, even after I ended up reaching with my whole arm to scoop warming snails off the bottom of the barrel.)

<{   ҉   }>

“I’ll try and get you an invite for next year, Akua.” Hannah twisted her fingers in her lap, eyes begging for forgiveness.

My minions were each feeling guilty, having realised that as we sat on the Hogwarts Express, I was going to be excluded from their usual Christmas gatherings and activities. Even Megan, who had been invited to the Abbott’s Yule celebration, was looking at me like she wanted to get last minute tickets to the Holyhead Harpies charity Quidditch match.

(They were all lovely sometimes. But I’d secretly scratched my name off the letters Hannah sent to her parents requesting invites on purpose.)

“Oh its okay. I’m not upset Hannah. There is plenty to do in the muggle world, you know.” I shrugged, then grinned at my minions. “I bet I’ll have more fun than you will at some boring formal party.”

Susan couldn’t stop her groan. “I’ve got to go with my Aunt to so many Ministry functions. Just standing around while all the adults talk about policy and get drunk.”

I made a face. The others would assume I was commiserating. I wasn’t. There was just no way to encourage Susan to pay attention to what she would overhear without being obvious enough that she (and the other two girls) would want to know why I wanted the information.

That they even had to wonder that was the problem. Why wouldn’t one want to know the policy discussions between the high ups of magical Britain?

Ugh.

Noble wizarding children were… like clay. Very good for moulding, yes. But without guidance, without a hand to shape them?

Maybe a few of them would manage to grow by themselves, but only into some sort of misshapen vase.

(Easily shattered.)

“Susan, maybe you can get some of the aurors at those parties talking about duelling or something. Books or spells to look up, even.”

It seemed like that resonated. Which was the best I could hope for, given that Hannah was excitable enough to distract the both of them from any tasks I assigned or lessons I wanted to impart.

Still, two weeks was just that. Two weeks.

My minions would simply have a break from the tension the Heir of Slytherin sparked throughout Hogwarts. Then we’d re-gather and they would’ve – usefully – missed me. And I would have stories of movie theatres and carnival rides and nothing else.

No important plans for me to enact away from the magical world. Nope. None at all.

When the trolley lady came round and Hannah ordered snacks for us to share, I used the commotion to reach into my bag and pull out a thin black diary.

I wasn’t wearing gloves, and I wasn’t testing the Trace by using magic. But touching the Heir’s vessel with my bare skin was another form of test. Sure enough, the compulsion to record my thoughts, to introspect and seek (or was it receive?) advice gripped my thoughts.

The Praesi approach to dealing with compulsions you couldn’t break came from Dread Emperor Traitorous himself, and was very simple. When an outside force compels you, you should either do what it asks, or what it wants; never both.

I cracked open the diary immediately, because that’s what it wanted. Then I did my best to reverse the roles. To make the soul inside the introspective one.

Dear Heir, have you ever enjoyed a Christmas?

Hello Heiress.

Yes, my last one was very relaxing. Though that was many years ago in your time.

What are your plans for the season?

I’m seeing my family.

Family is very important. Do you get on with your parents?

You are aware you made Harry Potter an orphan, aren’t you?

(It was hard not to snigger for the minute the Heir took to respond to that.)

I would have had a reason.

Wouldn’t you?

Oh yes. Lots and lots of reasons. But also, just one.

Just one?

Indeed. You get one guess.

Easy. Because you could.

Mm, close. Right recipe, but wrong cake.

I shut the diary. Put it back in the bottom of my bag. Smiled at my minions and inserted myself back into their conversation.

The Heir’s guess had been close. Probably due to how I’d finally interacted with the diary the way he wanted me to, allowing him to… glean a little of me. And he wasn’t wrong. I could make an orphan, for the pure sake of exercising my ability. That was what power granted a person.

Many Dread Emperors and Empresses of Praes had done essentially that. Whatever they wanted. And while power was the truth of all worlds, another truth congruent across Creation and Earth was that absolute power was only as grand as the person holding it.

Doing things ‘because you could’ was – despite what the Heir of Slytherin wrote – not a reason for action. It was… more of an enabler.

Take this train. Probably half of the students on the Express knew enough magic to kill their fellows. Maybe one tenth had actually thought about it (a horrifyingly low number). But none of them did. They could. But they didn’t.

‘Because you could’ wasn’t a source of motivation. And anyone who thought it was, was either insecure, short-sighted, or had never witnessed true Evil before. (I was starting to see how exactly the Heir was going to be defeated by Harry Potter before the school year was up.)

I didn’t do things ‘because I could’.

I looked at all of the options open to me. Looked at the great, wide, unsuspecting future. At the wizarding society that couldn’t see the target my ambition has painted upon it, or the web my plans were slowly weaving.

‘Because I could’. Hah.

Countless factors went into my decision making. Just as many countless hours went into honing my abilities – physical and magical – and building the networks I needed to usurp, conquer, and rule. I could do a lot of things.

I wouldn’t make an orphan unless I had to – best to avoid creating Heroes to contest you. But if some child was going to be left all alone in the world due to my hand and all my careful planning, it would be because their parents were in my way.

It is one thing to be able to do something. It’s another thing to want to.

(Lots of reasons. But also, just one.)

<{   ҉   }>

Eagerly running over to my parents played into multiple pretences that I needed for a few more years. It really was best if the school population saw me as a young child – especially after what I pulled in the Duelling Club.

Assaita and Jamaldine smiled wide when they saw me.

(Laughed. About how tight I was hugging them.)

“We’ve missed you too, little hawk.”

<{   ҉   }>

My house was the same. I’d confirmed that.

Manually. At the cost of very little sleep, that first night back in the suburbs. Back in my house, with all those bookshelves, and back in my room, with the faint lines of my warding that made the loose magic in me hum (and more bookshelves).

Books were the way to track changes in the Sahelian household. In Praes, those books were the secret ledgers of our knowledge, artifacts, and bound devils – and the even more secret ledger of those ledgers. The Praesi Sahelians had accumulated a lot.

The Earth Sahelians had accumulated a lot of books. By Earth standards.

So, I’d scanned the house. Which books were being read? Which were new? Were any missing?

The only notable thing was the new stack in Baba’s office focused on British history at the turn of the 17^th and 18^th centuries. (The Statute of Secrecy was implemented in 1692. A coincidence, surely.)

When I woke up the next morning, the wards in my bedroom still seemed stable, visible out of the corner of my eye.

My house was the same. Safe.

<{   ҉   }>

The faded green couch with its small tea-stains became the place we all curled up on after dinner. Baba had gotten a new TV.

“The newspapers have gone down the drain. And if I’m watching the BBC every day, I want to see it in quality!” Baba justified.

Assaita leant closer as I stirred chickpeas into our bubbling soup. “He bought some new DVDs that wouldn’t play on our old one and spent a whole month trying to convince me to upgrade.”

We added commentary over the news or watched movies for the first few days. Then I demanded they spend the evenings reading to me. I didn’t care what. So long as I could curl up and put my head in someone’s lap.

<{   ҉   }>

Aissata and I went to the hairdresser on Saturday. Then out to buy presents for Baba. Then to a local café that had become a regular spot for us. Before Hogwarts.

Even after our pastries arrived, she kept brushing my hair back behind my ears, feeling the smooth ends, and saying how glad she was that I got the best of her looks.

(I didn’t tell her that she was one of two people alive with free permission to touch my hair.)

 “Can I get you anything else?” The waitress asked.

I shook my head.

My mother smiled.

<{   ҉   }>

“You want me to read from a journal?”

“You have to do it for work anyway.” I looked up at Baba. Innocent as can be.

He sighed.

“Dearest, this is definitely still our daughter.”

“You know this is your fault!” Aissata called back from where she was pouring tea in the kitchen.

She was right. Baba was the reason that academic journals were semi-regularly included in what they read to me. I’d had absolutely nothing to do with it.

While that parental exchange had happened, I’d jumped up and grabbed a journal off one of the shelves. So, when Baba turned back to me, I was sliding back onto the couch with a far less innocent expression.

He rolled his eyes. The fondness was almost tangible, enough to ache. Magic loosened under my skin, prickling, but settled when I leant against his side.

“Okay, what was in this issue again.” Baba scanned the contents page, humming. “Oh that was good. That one was… well argued, at least. Okay, okay.”

He chuckled. “Do you want a review of the first commercially released feature-length film written, directed, and produced by an African American woman? Or analysis of Jamaican tourism?”

I raised an eyebrow. The chuckles got louder.

“Right, right. ‘Daughters of the Dust’ it is.”

<{   ҉   }>

Dear Heir, did you know that Harry Potter was attacked last year?

Heiress, I know you’re trying to bait me.

Well good, I was being rather obvious about it.

Yes. But do go on.

The story goes that the Dark Lord, wounded and recuperating after failing to murder a child, has gathered enough strength to possess one of his hapless followers. No one individually important, apart from the fact that they held a teaching position at Hogwarts. But the Dark Lord spends the year hiding on the back of this Professor’s head, forcing his follower to drink unicorn blood as they together tried to reach the Philosopher’s Stone – hidden somewhere in the castle.

Very good scene setting.

What happened to Potter?

I can tell you’re still there, you know.

I knew. I was waiting on purpose. I gave it another few minutes.

Just had to talk with my parents. But please, stay eager for my storytelling.

Of course.

(He definitely knew I was lying.)

A number of things happened to Harry Potter. Cursed broom during a Quidditch match, attacked in the Forbidden Forest, spent the last days of the academic year in the hospital wing.

Must have been eventful. I can only imagine the rumour mill.

Nothing compared to what you’re causing, but yes. A haystack of theories around a needle of truth.

You’re also very obvious about your flattery.

The Dark Lord didn’t get the Philosopher’s Stone. Foiled by a child. Again.

<{   ҉   }>

Breakfast on Christmas morning was a bigger thing here than in other households. This was because I – conscious and rational in a way even most adults weren’t – had deliberately engineered our holiday traditions. Back when I thought poisonings were something done in this culture, it had made more sense to have a fresh meal in the morning before any candy-related tests.

Now, I just enjoyed cooking with my mother. We’d baked the night before, too. Brioutate and two trays of feqqa – baked twice yesterday alongside everything else, now taking up bench space before the third bake once presents were opened.

Cooking was not something I’d expected to enjoy. The act of it was beneath me, really. But there were only so many ways a young girl could have practical access to knives, flame, and other implements. In the end, pushing against the cultural expectation that I would learn and help cook wasn’t worth it. Chopping vegetables and slicing meat were skills far too useful (transferable) to not practice.

I hadn’t expected to enjoy Christmas either. Even before I’d figured out the right blend of authenticity and pretence required to keep my parent’s love and affection, Christmas had been intellectually stimulating.

(Will they trap the box this year? Am I old enough for contact poisons? Is this the year they give me a weapon and I can finally practice openly?)

I felt unobservant and half-blind in hindsight, but – honestly – who would have guessed that these people valued softness?

Even Catherine’s kingdom raised its children with more rigour than Britain. And the Kingdom of Callow was filled with peasants.

But I digress.

The msemmen was on the table, buttery and warm. Eggs scrambled. Fruit cut artfully, and yoghurt in a bowl. Three Sahelians sat around a medium-sized table in a medium-sized house.

One day I would offer them a mansion – if not a floor of my own grand tower. For now, we ate good food and smiled.

<{   ҉   }>

Everyone had gotten me books. Everyone. My parents had chuckled about it with a confidence implying they had thought of a more original, better gift. I purposefully opened their gifts last.

“Here,” Baba passed me a wide rectangle too flat to be a book, “now that you’re finally ready.”

Aissata elbowed him, then snuggled in closer. They’d claimed the couch to share a blanket even though we had a fire going. The paper of Baba’s gift tore quickly. I bundled it all up, then threw it at them.

The gasps and mock shock were a good distraction for the seconds it took me to take in Baba’s gift – a fancy flat box – and open the lid to find…

Oh.

Well, I didn’t need to put on a different expression. (Unlike 1987 and the Barbie doll.) No, this was…

Very useful.

I was holding a box-sleeve of fine quality paper. Personalised. Hawk feathers framing the corners, my name in flowing gold calligraphy as a letterhead.

“For letters to your friends.” Baba said, fond and proud. “It’s not an owl, but just because your friends are some sort of wizardly nobility, doesn’t mean you can’t impress them, hmm?”

“Impress them even more, you mean?” I could feel my face smirking.

Aissata picked up the scrunched wrapping paper from the couch and threw it back at me. “Letters to your friends and anyone else important to you.” She waggled her eyebrows.

“You aren’t subtle,” I observed, “but I suppose I can use this for family too.”

(Deliberate misunderstanding. The best way to avoid romantic suggestions.)

Aissata just smiled and gestured at the final still-wrapped rectangle on the pile. I carefully put the lid back on Baba’s gift and set it down atop the various books my minions, Hermione, and a few others gave me.

“Mum, this looks like a book.” I picked it up. “It feels like a book.”

“Does it sound like a book?” It was her turn to smirk.

I scrunched up the wrapping paper and lobbed it at her. Then looked down to find a brown hardback…

Notebook?

I had many notebooks. None with my initials embossed in gold on the front, nor any that had a locking clasp, but this was why I made distractions by throwing the wrapping paper.

“Oh! I just filled my last notebook!” I lied. “I was going to take a basic one from my room back to school, but this is beautiful!”

My mother blinked at me. Confused.

She shouldn’t be confused. She should be smiling back at me.

But…

“Use it as a notebook if you want darling,” she was smiling now, but shaking her head slightly. “I meant it as a diary. You write so much in your letters to us, but there comes a point where every girl needs to write about more personal things.”

She shrugged against Baba’s side. “I thought I’d give you a place to keep your thoughts that was just yours.”

The restless magic residing in me coiled around my heart until it ached, then spread out to make my lungs prickle. But there were two kinds of ache in my chest.

I looked down at the…

At the diary.

“Thanks mum.” I said very honestly. Reached out, until she reached back and grabbed my hand.

Fuck you, Fate.

<{   ҉   }>

“Just heading to the park!” I called out, pausing long enough for Aissata to nod – and for her to see the diary she gifted me sticking out of my bag.

Then I was out the door. Unsupervised.

There had been a snow flurry this morning, and the lingering chill meant the road was still frosted over. It made my steps brisk – only a five-minute walk, instead of the usual meandering ten. Anger also leant me swiftness.

(I spent the whole journey fuming about the Trace preventing the application of a harmless warming charm.)

I may have spent my free time this year establishing a new social identity, carefully engaging with the Boy Who Lived’s narrative, and researching all the rituals I could find mention of, but sometimes I wanted to forget logic and fore planning.

Sometimes I had the urge to simply walk into the Ministry of Magic and see how much damage I could do. In terms of sowing chaos and subverting bureaucracy. Not physical damage – causing that wouldn’t be new or engaging.

If only I’d been born with some societal or historical weight behind me. Alas, I had instead gained an understanding of the lottery of birth.

For all my efforts, I still needed to build a narrative. Muggleborn revolution or anti-corruption or just anti-bureaucracy – anything.

There were many options, given the state of the Ministry for Magic. But without something real – something that was Good, when you looked at it right – my plans would run smoothly right up until I was about to claim the throne. Then the heroes or some mob would take the crown from my head. Or just take everything from the neck up.

I needed to do a lot of things. Too bad most of them were dependent on other steps; like escaping the Trace.

(And too bad that I remembered dying too clearly to tempt Fate with any rituals after the warning I got in the summer.)

My feet turned the corner quickly to find the park ahead. I pulled my coat tighter around my knees. I didn’t like this bulk, but I really had been bred for arid wastes. Still, just as comfort must often be sacrificed for success, some things could be sacrificed for comfort.

(Even though I couldn’t effectively kill anyone with the range of movement afforded by this rain jacket. Unless they’d already grabbed me. Hmm.)

The local park was as averagely pleasant as the rest of the suburb. Bit muddy today, given the morning’s faint snow, but I found a bench under a tree that was... dry enough.

Once I was settled with my bag beside me, I pulled out a thin black diary and a glorious, innovative, oh-so-superior muggle pen.

(If I was going to do this, I was going to do it with my nicest handwriting.)

Dear Heir, it snowed this morning.

Good morning Heiress, that must have been delightful.

It was. When was the last time you saw the snow?

Oh quite a while. A very long time, in fact.

Don’t get stingy on me, it’s just been Christmas and the new year is round the corner.

Where’s your generosity?

Thank you.

You know of war, then?

I know much of war. Your time seems much more…

The next word took a few seconds to appear.

Relaxed.

I laughed, alone in the park on December 27^th.

Say it for what it is. No need to pretend softness with me.

Softness? Don’t mistake smooth polished stone for a pillow.

Mm, yes. Hard times make hard men, I suppose.

But soft times made Dumbledore, even before Grindlewald.

Great wizards are always exceptions to the rule.

Then will you tell me of your greatness, dear Heir?

Will you tell me of your past, dear Heiress?

You may think me blind, existing as a book, but there are other ways of seeing the world.

No need to pretend youth with me.

Oh very nice. Well done on the riposte.

What will it be then – story for story?

The conversation was where I wanted it, and I had chosen quite the meaningful tale to share with the Heir of Slytherin.

Why settle with words?

Which was when the magic under my skin started fizzing. Like one of those volcano science experiments. But, you know, in my muscle fibres.

It hurt.

It fucking hurt a fucking lot.

Words appeared on the page as I fought not to scream. It took a second to focus enough for the pain-induced blur to fade.

Let me in and it’ll be smooth. I promise not to poke around where I’m not wanted.

“Liar. Asshole.” I groaned. “Fine, you needlessly sadistic hack, but we’re only doing this because you can’t write anything with real emotion.”

Then I opened the first layer of my mental defences. Closed my eyes.

It took ten deep breaths to tame the loose magic and another seven to settle my mind.

Another breath in and I ‘heard’ footsteps – boots on stone. The steps I ‘saw’ before me were nearly black, that particular Praesi granite carved into sculptures of all the weeping victims whose blood had built this monument.

Through multiple senses, I was aware of the Heir walking closer. He was tall, handsome – even in green-edged Hogwarts robes. Jet black hair, carefully combed, and dark eyes that kept flicking upwards at the unnatural storm clouds above us.

“Welcome, Heir of Slytherin.” I spread my arms at the top of the stairs. “You ask for my past, now witness my inheritance.”

The tall boy tried to hide the widening of his eyes. Tried not to show how the few things he spotted through the windows of the Black Tower hinted at power he had never known. I grinned.

“I do believe I understand you better now, Heiress. A true princess of magical Africa, hiding far from home.” He recovered smoothly. A smile crept onto his face; slow, like he couldn’t help it. Then his eyes flicked up to meet mine, just as the corner of that handsome mouth pulled up.

(The effect was masterful. What a charmer, promising the barest hint of something dangerous, just to make me think ‘real’.)

“And I must say,” he continued, “you still look the very vision of youth.”

I didn’t look down to check myself. My eyes were still closed, out in the park. And in my mind? I observed what I wanted to. I also looked how I wanted to. Which was the me I’d been before Catherine ripped my heart out, at the height of my power as the Diabolist.

(Although… the wrong eye colour. I guess looking in a mirror and not seeing gold for the past twelve years would influence even my self-identity.)

“What can I say,” I gave him my own smile – much more coy – “competent people rise quickly, no matter the society.”

We stared at each other for a moment. Assessing.

“Ask your question.” I ‘gave in’ to the silence, turning aside and beckoning him up to the great doors that led to the first of over two hundred stories (each a nightmare).

The Heir of Slytherin quickened his pace to draw equal with me, looking out at the terrified carvings and the sand that surrounded us. He would have been caught in a sandstorm when he first arrived – until I let him in.

“I suppose the core of it is why you haven’t handed me over to Dumbledore.” He mused, cheekbones sharp. “Even if you’re personally against the old man, you can’t deny the value in getting rid of me. Stability is useful for setting up plans.”

I stopped. Turned to point at a sewer grate where the steps of the Black Tower transitioned into the ten metres of road I remembered enough of to keep in my mindscape. “See that?”

He nodded. “I noticed the warding.”

“Sometimes you can hear screams from the basement. But sometimes you can hear screams from the windows, so...” I shrugged. “The warding isn’t for sound. It’s for spiders. Other people have ascended this tower before me. One of them moved the throne room into the deepest basement, then ended up turning himself into a giant spider. The brood sometimes crawls up, hungry.”

Something about that seemed funny to him.

“Stability is relative. I don’t mind Hogwarts being in a little chaos. I definitely don’t mind how Dumbledore can’t find you.”

He turned to stare at me. “Dumbledore was the only one who ever thought ill of me, you know?”

“Before you started a civil war, you mean.” I kept looking out at the sand, let his dark eyes burn into my temple.

He laughed. “Yes, yes. It is interesting to hear about all my exploits – though the Weasley girl was less forthright about them.”

Another smooth chuckle. “It’s funny you mentioned spiders. I opened the Chamber when I was a student, you see. Never meant to tip my hand so quickly, but if anyone had to die? Well, Myrtle wasn’t missed. But Dumbledore always thought ill of me, and I didn’t need him finding any real evidence. It was easy, to frame another boy – a half-giant brute. Right fool, taking care of a giant spider, keeping it inside the castle. A baby acromantula. Could fit in a box when it was that young, but, as you said. Spiders. Hungry.”

He spread his hands, palms up.

“Dumbledore really should have thanked me, disposing of such a dangerous creature. Still, old Headmaster Dippet did award me for Services to the School.” A grin. “It’s nice to be recognised.”

(He flexed something unseen. The loose magic in me roiled. Ugh. It was hard enough to keep a straight face when the conversation was so unoriginal. Still, at least he was trying to stab me in the back.)

I finally turned my head.

“I haven’t given Dumbledore the book you reside in because I have questions for you. Questions that Dumbledore can’t answer.”

“You are very obvious about your flattery.” Another charming, charming smile.

I arched my neck in the way that made people look at my collarbones and imagine things lower. “Truth is sweeter than the silver-most tongue, my people say.”

“So, you come to me for knowledge.” He smirked. “I do have a lot of it. But what other sweet truths would you tell me in trade?”

(I knew he was a narcissist. But gods below. Be interesting about it, at least.)

“What truths would you ask for, if my question was about the killing curse?” I paused, ran my tongue along my teeth. “About… surviving it?”

His eyes brightened.

Hook, line, and sinker. Easy. Slightly disappointing, honestly.

“I would ask you about where you come from, Heiress. What is this place that you call your inheritance?”

My smile grew more genuine. It was so nice when your plans needed less adaptation than you first thought. It would have been best to write this, of course, but I was no less adept at verbal performance.

“You stand before the Black Tower of the Dread Empire of Praes.” I declared.

He raised an eyebrow, nodding thoughtfully.

“You won’t have heard of it.” I punctured his pretence quickly. “The Age of Wonders faded long ago, and Praes has fallen from its great and terrible heights. Africa is large, and history long.”

(Truth was always the best deception.)

“It would take far, far too long to tell you all of Praes. The rise, the crumbling, the crusades and civil wars. Today I will speak of only one portion of our history. But know, Heir of Slytherin, know that every tyrant who claims the Dread Throne has deposed the one that came before. The Tower means power, you see? And to sit the throne – to sit above the world and rule – first, you must climb.”

He looked up. And up.

“These stones were mined by man, mortared with blood, and laid by devils. A demon guards the door. This tower is Praes.”

The Heir looked back down. “Then… why Hogwarts?”

I sighed. A little too revealingly. But emptiness in one’s soul was not easily hidden. “You have not heard of Praes. History is long. The Age of Wonders passed a millennia ago, and I am all that is left of Praes and our Empire.”

The look I got was… not pitying. Nothing like empathy. Searching, yes, but… for a point. He wanted me to impress him. I had started to, then shown the ugly truth of time.

“Do not doubt me, Heir of Slytherin. There may be no Black Tower, and there may be no stories told of our might, but I am all that is needed.”

“You aim to rebuild your… Dread Empire?”

I tilted my head back. Watched those angry clouds circle the metaphorical centre of my being. “Oh, more than that. Yes, I will raise legions. Yes, I will rule. But I will not settle for an Empire. I will drag the ancient wonders of magic back into this age, or I will die doing so.”

“Die?” The Heir of Slytherin scoffed. “If it is wonders of magic that you seek, then know that I am already beyond death.”

Looking back down, I decided it was time for some progress.

“So, you can survive the killing curse?” I asked. Waited. (One… two… three…) “It's not just Harry Potter?”

His smile didn’t shift, but his eyes. Oh, his eyes went flat. Then he laughed again, to cover the slip. “Am I not here, talking to you? Am I not unleashing Slytherin’s monster once again?”

I blinked, wide eyed. (No, my god, I’d never ever thought about the reality in front of me. Look at me, so silly as to miss the bleeding fucking obvious.)

“Well then, tell me of your greatness, oh Heir of Slytherin.”

He gestured to the Black Tower, stretching above. “You speak of Praes being in the past. You want to reclaim your greatness.” Fingers curled into fists, held before him.

“I am my greatness, Heiress. I stand here before you – mere steps from living once again. All think me defeated. But before the year is up, I will have another body. And there are many, many plans I have perfected in my long wait.”

The Heir of Slytherin stood before me at the base of the Black Tower. He drew his wand. Burning letters traced themselves in air, following flicks of his wrist.

“You wrote of softness, and Ginevra told me all about the war my other self waged against the wizarding world. This time, I will not be so foolish as to lose to a child. Harry Potter will die to my monster and the Chamber of Secrets will be the foundation of my infiltration of the Ministry! The world will once again fear to speak my true name!”

A grand flourish, and all the letters of ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’ rearranged themselves into ‘I am Lord Voldemort’.

(Pretending to be impressed had never been harder. Not even when Hannah was trying to learn Quidditch moves from Megan. This was… hells. ‘Voldemort’?)

(No fucking wonder he lost to a baby.)

“Force is far from the only way to conquer.” This young Dark Lord continued, voice lower, entreating. “We could work together, you know. You would shine so bright, a glorious mirror to my shadows. We could plunge this soft society into chaos and reshape the world. From the highest tower of Hogwarts and from the depths of the Chamber of Secrets, we could rule. Imagine it…”

Involuntary mental processes meant I did imagine it.

The image of myself staring down from the peak of Hogwarts, watching wizarding society send its children to me as I shaped the generations into something befitting a new empire was… occupying. The Black Tower may be gone, but I could make Hogwarts mine. If I wanted.

So, yes. I imagined it. And watched Tom Marvolo Riddle’s grin widen. He held his hand out, flat and open, like he was balancing some invisible cake.

The cake was a lie, of course.

I looked down at his hand. Truth was the greatest deception. He’d given his truth for mine. Voldemort had died, and yet there was a smooth-shaven boy before me – still in a Hogwarts uniform.

If this was considered a wonder on Earth, I wanted none of it.

(Villains died. Always.)

The Heir of Slytherin stared at me. I didn’t reach for his hand. He straightened. Took a step back.

“You’re confused. Repulsed. Not the emotions I’d expected, I’d admit, but is having two thrones – the shining and the shadow – such an unappealing prospect?”

Well.

How to answer?

(Merely offering that is insulting to me and the Tower behind me, you shallow prick.)

Hmm. No. I had to focus on the revelation of his words.

“How did you do it?” I jabbed a finger towards him. “Cloning? Implanting memories into an object? You feel too real to be an enchantment, but the real Dark Lord evidently has the soul.”

Honestly, what the fuck was wrong with… Voldemort? What kind of Villain duplicated themselves? It was basically asking to be betrayed by another version of you! Merely referencing different versions of himself cast a lot of doubt on the mental stability of – hmm – of any Voldemort.

(And for this version of the Dark Lord to have last seen snow in 1943?)

“There’s no mention of you creating an army of yourself, but I can’t think how else the populace would fear to speak your name. Honestly, did you – this you – survive the killing curse or not?”

Those dark eyes and that suave grin froze.

“It’s my soul.” Was all he could say.

Hells. I started to understand the tiger pit obsession held by some previous Dread Emperors.

“Is it?”

Riddle flicked his wand, making those stupid burning letters surge together in a ball of fire, then explode.

My face felt sunburnt. My hair was in dire straits. I hadn’t flinched.

“I have all my magic. With a body, I will be able to do all I could before and more.” He spoke it like a promise.

“You don’t even know, do you?” I taunted. “You try to offer me knowledge, and you don’t even know.”

I laughed, even as he pointed his wand at my heart.

“Shall we test whether you can survive the killing curse?” He asked quietly.

I shook my head. Let my chuckles die. “No, no need for that. It’s just that last year, the Philosopher’s Stone was hidden in Hogwarts. Dumbledore used it as bait for the you that failed to kill Harry Potter.”

“You told me this.” He didn’t blink. Just threw more of the unseen parts of himself at me. Magic raged within the Tower. I could feel the pain physically too, but the sense of invasion – infection – was harder to keep from my expression.

“So, if there are two of you seeking to return to life, is it your soul or not, Heir of Slytherin?”

Dark eyes scowled.

“Do you even know, I wonder? Praes had a period like that. We waged a war against the Dead King. Or three wars – it’s hard to know. Tried to invade his secluded kingdom. Dread Emperor Heinous didn’t last long, after such vainglory, but his fundamental purpose was true. We of Praes, we war and scheme and murder. Because we are the rulers of devils and the dead. We could not suffer another to call himself King!” I declared. Then tipped my face to the cloud-covered heavens. “But be it one war or three, we lost!”

I laughed again, spreading my arms wide. The Heir’s wand stayed trained on my heart. (Just one more minute, was all my monologue needed.)

“We lost. It was a disaster. History doesn’t even remember it!” My fists went into the sky. “Maleficent II stopped a hells-damned counter-invasion by releasing absence demons in our capital fucking city.”

Riddle waited. Until the anti-climax got to him. “You lost. You should not be proud.”

My grin was sharp. “Oh, we lost. The re-building took a decade. Those absence demons are comprehensive. Where they went – for as long as they went – there was nothing. Absence, warped and twisted and imposed upon the world. Demons are a favourite tool of us Praesi.”

His eyes flickered.

(Yes, little Lord. Be afraid.)

“I tell you this, because of what it took for the Dread Empire to lose. We’d just come from the Sixty Years War. Our farms were bare, the Legions decimated. Yet even so, we forced the Dead King to take to the field himself! He has not done that before or since – not even during the crusades.”

And now I whispered. “Now, you can try to take my body. To make my flesh yours. I might even lose the contest. But even my loss will cost you more than you can possibly suffer.”

Then I smiled. Like we were friends. “But I reckon we can work something out. Dumbledore is both my biggest threat and yours. Hells, I’ll slip you into Potter’s book bag when we get back to Hogwarts. I’m sure his body would work much better for you.”

For a second, I had him. Even though his sole intention here was to steal everything that made me me for himself.

But Tom Riddle – and the older Voldemort – was a Villain. We’d both aimed our insults too well over the conversation. And us Villains had rather typical responses to offense.

“You spurn my offer only to offer your own? Bah. You speak of demons and darkness?” He smiled. Wide. It was no longer handsome.

“It is no matter. I will be the greatest dark wizard to walk the Earth. All the creatures of night and shadow will answer to my name.”

They probably would. Unless I claimed them first.

(But that was a later competition. And we were having a far more immediate conflict.)

He flicked his wand.

I turned. Dived for the great black doors.

A spell flayed the skin from my arm.

My fingers grazed the doorknocker. My lips whispered the true name of the demon that was bound to the doors of the real Tower, back in Creation.

Nothing.

Another spell shattered the bones in one leg.

I fell against the door, turned to slump with my back against the harsh stone. Swept my flayed arm along the stair before me. A semi-circle of blood and bits of palm.

The Heir of Slytherin – he who would become He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named – levelled his wand at me. That handsome face was so cruel when he wasn’t hiding himself.

“Any final words?”

I laughed long and loud. Held up a bloody, skinless hand.

“All that is outside the tower and this line is your playground,” I reached up at slapped my bloody palm against the door knocker, “that enough of me? Good. Go play.”

Tom Marvolo Riddle took a second too long to realise I wasn’t speaking to him.

Then he tried to possess me. Just as I’d planned.

(I wouldn’t have been able to give him such an empirical experience with my memories of demons if he’d waited. Or tried to kill me more simply. But instead, he got a first-hand account of how a demon of order could rewrite reality so that light was a liquid and electrical charge didn’t need positive or negative ions to gather.)

(Then there was wrongness and pain.)

<{   ҉   }>

I opened my eyes. The last snow on the ground had turned to slush during a slight drizzle. The tree above this park bench had mostly protected me, but I should get home. My parents were probably worrying, given the position of the sun.

My body ached when I stood. But it was mine. I stood anyway.

The Heir’s book was on the ground. I must have thrashed it away during the… prolonged possession attempt.

“You’re a poor excuse for a Villain. I bet Potter won’t even cast spells to beat you.”

Ow. My jaw.

(Not screaming had taken some effort.)

I broke a stick off the tree and poked the thin black book closed. Put my bag on the damp dirt and prodded the diary inside. I’d have to make sure the other diary – which I actually valued – got wiped clean of any mud.

My parents fussed when I got home. But about the rain, not the bloody tears the rain had washed away.

<{   ҉   }>

The next day, I dropped the Heir’s diary behind the garden shed. Used the edge of a rake to open it. Grabbed a more disposable stick to poke a dead rat I’d poisoned on top of those pristine, blank pages.

I ground that stick into the corpse until fetid blood covered it all. Pushed the rat off. Used that stick to write a vicious Soninke insult across both pages in that rotten-red ink. Its best translation was ‘failure’.

Chapter Text

“You cannot all abandon your possessions, but at least you can change your attitude about them. All getting separates you from others; all giving unites to others.”

• Saint Francis of Assisi, or Francesco d’Assisi – who founded the Franciscan Order, with its three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

“So did anyone tell their parents what’s happening?” I asked my minions.

We’d already gone through the sharing of Christmas presents, and they’d teased me for finishing all but one of the books the three of them had got me. And for how many books I received in general. We’d also already got talk of homework and the (stuffy-sounding) Abbott Yule Gala out of the way.

Now it was time to address how there were a lot less students boarding the Express than had left the castle at the start of break.

“Yeah.” Hannah nodded at my question. “Talking about it in letters is one thing, but actually talking is much better. Though I did have to convince Mum to let me come back.”

Megan tilted her hand from side to side. “I told mine a bit. Like the petrifications and the Slytherins being awful. But not the... blood on the wall stuff.”

I nodded at that, with some actual sympathy. Aissata and Jamaldine knew that Parkinson had a vendetta against me, but aside from what had happened during the Duelling Club, I’d just talked about the vandalism. Omitted all the actual action.

(The end of the year, I promised myself. Self-preservation required I tell all eventually, but truth was to relationships what poison was to medicine. All about the dosage.)

Susan shifted in her seat. I let the other two apply the unspoken social squeeze of sharing equally.

“My Aunt... basically interrogated me.” She gave in. “The Ministry is hearing lots of things from lots of places, but there’s so much rumour around the Chamber of Secrets to begin with that, the Minister doesn’t want to cause panic.”

(Politicians: universally useless. Hilarious.)

“She tried to keep me home for the rest of the year as well,” Susan said to Hannah, then straightened her back. “But I said I had to look out for my friends and the first years. And the muggleborn.”

Well. That deserved a hug.

“Susan, you get first use of the hair voucher.” I declared, then sat back in my seat next to Megan. Who was doing her best not to pout.

“Actually, something else I wanted to ask about,” I blatantly changed the subject, “I saw a movie over the break that had this weird mind control, and even though muggles don’t know anything about how magic really works, the obliviators use mind magic to hide everyone right? That’s not the only mind magic, surely.”

Hannah nodded to my question. Susan nodded slower. Wary.

(Mind control was one way ticket to an early grave for a Villain. But then again, we had lots of one way tickets like that.)

“Yeah, there’s legilimency to like read memories and stuff. Sometimes the Aurors do that, don’t they Susan?” Hannah was such an innocent girl.

“Sometimes.” Susan said. “Most dark wizards know occlumency though, and the Aurors who know legilimency need approval to use it.”

“What about that unforgiveable? That’s mind control.” (Oh Megan, so helpful.)

Susan crossed her arms. Looked down a little.

“The one that You-Know-Who used on all his followers?” I asked (pushed).

“Allegedly.” The red-haired girl muttered under her breath. “Yeah. That’s the closest to, like, mind control. But anyone who uses it goes straight to Azkaban.”

I hummed. “That’s the Ministry’s prison, yeah?”

And Hannah jumped back in, because she liked telling me about the wizarding world and generally being helpful. “Yeah, out on an island. It’s far far north and super rainy.”

I hummed. Debated where to steer the conversation. Not to the Heir of Slytherin, Potter was going to take care of that. Not Azkaban either. No, I needed just a bit more knowledge about legilimency.

“Wait, so if dark wizards know occlumency to defend against legilimency, is that the bad one?”

<{   ҉   }>

It turned out that occlumency (read: having any mental defences at all) was the ‘good one’. But because this was a Good society, they praised the hard-to-learn defensive skill and then made no effort to teach it to anyone outside law enforcement.

Just in case law enforcement would be obstructed by the populace having mental defences, you know. Don’t want to accidentally strengthen criminal elements, you see.

It also turned out that while the ‘unforgiveable curses’ made Susan withdraw like a snail into its shell, even the barest questioning of the Aurors started a long explanation of why they were Good and needed and important that lasted until we got back to the castle.

<{   ҉   }>

Hogwarts retained the Christmas cheer of the break for exactly one day.

The student population (who returned) had done a good job of ignoring that Dumbledore had not fixed the Chamber of Secrets problem over Christmas. But when everyone walked into their classes and was met with a sharp increase in the number of empty seats, the mood started falling.

The Slytherins had all come back, of course. A scattering of the shyer Ravenclaws were no longer lingering in the library, but most took too much pride in rationality or were the type to love school more than their families.

Hufflepuff lost the most to fear. But then again, we had the most muggleborn. So many students that, while bravely facing a new world or excited to learn about magic, fundamentally just wanted to have friends. But friends weren’t worth your life. Or life-suspending petrification.

(It was very amusing how no one at all mentioned that Gryffindor had the second largest missing cohort. Minus Hermione Granger, who had stayed over Christmas but ended up in the hospital wing not petrified, so some adventure must have backfired.)

After a week, most people had adjusted to the situation. Helped by the fact that nothing had happened. My minions even gave up on always walking around in pairs. Which was very useful, because I needed my private library trips back.

Pouring over the Ancient Arts of Blood and Binding over Christmas had let me pull together almost all of a warding system to stop Tom Riddle from trying to absorb my soul and use my body like a puppet. Almost all.

Shoving us both into the not-memory of an Absence Demon had worked quite effectively to firmly stop the possession attempt he’d attempted after I invited him into my mindscape during the break. The bloody nose and general feeling of being scoured after that ten-minute gap in my memory made me confident that he hadn’t been able to leave any scraps of himself or workings of Legilimency. But Tom would try again.

(The pain of that memory had tipped me over into ‘losing’ our first confrontation. Now I was designing a method to make us very firmly ‘draw’.)

To gather the last of what I needed, I researched the magical mechanics of spirits possessing inanimate objects. This confirmed that trying to ward the diary itself would either fail or invite a direct test of strength – which I had assumed, and definitely didn’t want – as well as uncovering the fascinating detail that sympathetic links was how most spirits reached out of their vessels to interact with the living.

Great-great-great-great grand-mama’s ghost won’t do a thing unless you pray in front of her funeral urn. Pour a little emotion in, let a little energy stretch back out.

(Tom Riddle had acted like a confidant, until I’d told him of Praes. Given him something real. Allowed him some reality in return.)

For my second private trip to the library, I didn’t go to the library.

The abandoned classroom that had facilitated my first interactions with the Heir of Slytherin was still abandoned. It meant I had to sweep up, but that was what practicing my own inanimate object enchanting was for. Once my quickly-transfigured broom had cleaned enough of the floor, I traced out my ritual.

No runes, no catalyst, and definitely no blood. Just an older Hufflepuff’s missing silver dust, trailed across the floor. Looping lines, circling currents, clear channels.

My gloved hands placed the Heir’s diary in the empty circle I deemed ‘source’. Then my bare hands placed the new diary my mother gave me in the ‘receptacle’. I sat in a larger empty spot, surrounded by lines that flowed towards me then bent away – towards the ‘receptacle’.

Two charms set up a transcription quill above the Heir’s thin black diary, and all was ready.

(I was a Villain. Fate provided me with everything I needed, whether I liked it or not. It was just that only Heroes were given the instructions.)

Dear Voldemort, were the first english words I wrote in my diary. The one Assaita gave me.

You could have compromised, you know. Force is far from the only way to conquer.

Throwing my own words back at me?

Maybe I influenced you more than I thought.

Did you enjoy the present I left for you?

The honesty, at least. You didn’t mince words.

No. Just the rat.

As rotten as the ruins of Praes, that was.

(I had to lean over to read Riddle’s words from his thin black diary. Once again, the prick had a knack for making me want to… cut to the chase.)

Bold, but incorrect.

Then show me where your Black Tower stands.

It’s fallen before. Still, someone always climbs.

Why do you even care, Heiress?

Your inheritance is naught but stories and dust.

Do you want to know the last words of Dread Empress Triumphant – (“May she never return,” I muttered) – the First and Only of Her Name? The worst of us, she was. When they took back all she conquered and tore the Tower down around her, do you want to know what she said?

It certainly wasn’t about living up to her name.

She said: “Why not?”

And she lived up to her Name. Was her Name. Utterly.

Because here is another truth, Dark Lord Voldemort.

Villains always die.

His response to that was not in words. But the loose magic threaded around my veins didn’t spike and surge in response to invasion. No, it wove itself up and buzzed against my skin. Wanting out.

Because Tom Riddle tried to possess me, and instead followed that lovely sympathetic link – guided by my beautiful silver trails – to the diary my mother bought me. The diary I’d spent a good few days filling with a recounting of the Dread Empire and its Tyrants. All written in a secret Sahelian code that I would have to properly blood-bind when this year was up.

I didn’t like using this diary as a shield. Bait. Deflection. However you looked at it, it didn’t sit right.

This was a gift I cared about. From someone I cared about.

(Fate gave Villains everything we needed.)

Fortunately, the electrical humming in my muscles faded. Riddle had… conceded. Withdrawn.

I relaxed too, having committed no energy to the pseudo-fight. Riddle had used his one last chance to overpower me, but I’d already prepared the entire battlefield.

Thankfully, my diary had survived. It looked a bit beaten up, but the cover wasn’t the part that I cared about.

“First I lost, now it’s a draw. What comes next in the pattern of three, you idiot?” I laughed. Long and loud.

“Honestly, why you think you’ll win against Potter is beyond me.” I told a potentially-cloned spirit who couldn’t hear anything. “But go ahead and die quickly so I can use my Christmas gift again, would you?”

<{   ҉   }>

For my third private trip to the library, I left my minions to wander around Gryffindor Tower. Asking if anyone had seen the youngest Weasley.

They had – she was in that incredibly red common room. As a polite Hufflepuff, I told some barely helpful fourth years that I would wait outside, then let them go back to insulting each other in the name of… something close enough to friendship.

When Ginevra Weasley poked her head out from behind the Fat Lady’s portrait and saw me, the healthy colour she’d put on over the break drained from her face. Her heart might have even skipped a beat. But, Gryffindor through and through, she stepped into the corridor and walked to meet me.

“Good morning!” I smiled bright. “Sorry to bother you on a Saturday, but when I came back from break and sorted my books for classes, I found this diary?”

The little girl’s tentative smile froze.

“I think I might have picked it up when I ran into you before break; sorry again about that, by the way.”

Very slowly, she nodded. Her hands were shaking, face paling and eye-bags practically darkening as I watched.

I waited a moment.

“Yeah. Yes. That’s… that’s mine.”

I tilted my head.

“I can take him – it! – off you. Tha-thanks for… finding my diary.” She held out a hand. Glared down at her own palm until said hand stopped shaking.

So very Gryffindor of her. Sacrificing herself for a stranger, facing that fear. Such a heroic disposition – holding out her hand to accept the darkness.

(But what if she did accept the darkness?)

I dropped my smile. “Why?”

She blinked.

“Why lie to me? This is Tom’s diary, and he’s an awful narcissist. Why take him back?”

Ginevra’s mouth had dropped open. She closed it. Started shivering, then stared me dead in the eyes.

“Ugh, he’s not possessing me.” I rolled my eyes. “He did try it, but he’s mostly ego. And mostly just a book.”

“…how?” She whispered.

“Magic is more than just wand-work.” I put my hands together, focused until the loose magic was in my legs and my magic glowed under my skin – veins gold under my dark palms. “How does accidental magic work?”

She was staring. “Emotions?”

“Emotions.” I confirmed. “So when you put all your emotions into the diary…”

Her head snapped up. The shaking stopped. “He was stealing my magic!”

“Probably.” I shrugged. Then I reached into my bag and pulled on my potion gloves. Reached back in and pulled out the source of all this mess.

Ginevra Weasley looked down at my gloved hands. Then back up to meet my gaze. Back down. Up. Down.

“Tom doesn’t like me. I don’t like him either.” I snapped my fingers, then continued when she made eye contact. “Whether you like him or not, I suggest… oh, bury him in the Forbidden Forest or throw him in the lake.”

The little girl now had a little fire in her eyes. “I’m going to flush him down the toilet.” Then she gathered part of her robe in her hands and held it out to take Tom Riddle’s vessel.

I laughed. Just a little.

“He definitely deserves that.”

She took the diary and ran off immediately. Poor thing. Still, being saved by Potter was only abhorrent when you understood the ongoing narrative consequences.

<{   ҉   }>

“Come in, come in.” I welcomed, holding the door open to a rarely used potions lab. (Snape liked operating closer to his office, and Hufflepuffs didn’t tend to practice his subject. Not voluntarily.)

Daphne Greengrass glanced around with minimal movement of her facial muscles, then drifted gracefully inside. Robes undisturbed, blonde hair charmed flat. Subtle touches of mascara and lipstick. Not too bold.

(No guesses what her mother gave her for Christmas – hmm, no, they were probably a Yule family.)

Greengrass’ own minion, the not-that-mousey Tracey Davis, slipped in behind. She ended up opposite Megan, leaning against the wall with her hands in her robe pockets.

Megan stood straight, of course. She’d done her hair today, diligently practicing what I’d taught her last week. The braid crown was a little ironic, given her general subservience, but I certainly wasn’t going to stop her from building a personality so dependent on me.

“So,” Greengrass started, spinning on her heel to face me. Her hair stayed flat. “You wanted to talk?”

I smiled. “Yes, I did. I wanted to talk about what everyone’s families were saying over the Christmas break. I wanted to talk about what people in Slytherin are saying, now that it’s been quiet for a while. And I wanted to talk about what you, Daphne Greengrass, think is going on.”

Her preening at that was subtle. Very subtle. But still preening.

“We can talk about that,” the corner of her mouth quirked up, “if we first talk about what I get in return.”

(One day, she would figure out that that statement revealed her willingness to negotiate. One day, we might be able to have an actually challenging conversation.)

“What do you want in return? To know that the Chamber of Secrets was opened before?”

Greengrass shook her head. “Malfoy shared that around as soon as his father told him.”

I laughed at that. Of course he had.

“1943?” I dropped casually. “By You-Know-Who, when he was at Hogwarts?”

Everyone in the room stared at me.

I let the nonchalant expression fall from my face. “I wanted to talk to you, Greengrass, because everything that will happen so long as Harry Potter is at Hogwarts is part of a much larger story. Fate likes its Heroes. Fate likes its patterns. You have information from Slytherin House that I want, and I have information about all the other Houses – and Harry Potter – that you need.”

The beautiful blonde girl kept a blank, blank mask over her face. It didn’t quite hide the uncertainty in her eyes.

“Fate has patterns.” I repeated. “It’s really quite predictable, for all that there’s very little one can do to change it.”

I sighed, just for effect. “I’m telling you now, the Heir of Slytherin is going to kidnap someone from Gryffindor. Then Harry Potter will be the person to discover the Chamber of Secrets – probably because he’s a parsletongue. Then, Potter will defeat the monster and kill or trap the Heir in some desperate struggle where he heroically wins against all odds.”

Tracey Davis was frowning at the back of the room. Megan was quivering despite all efforts to stand still. And Greengrass was... wavering.

Time for the kicker.

“In fact,” I gestured grandly, “I bet you one secret that Gryffindor will get a bunch of last-minute points and win the House Cup.”

Greengrass’ eyes flashed. (You had to poke these Slytherin types in the pride. They were close enough to Villains for it to make them... react.)

“There’s a rumour that the Heir of Slytherin is fake. That it’s all some plan to get Dumbledore removed as Headmaster.” She stared me down.

I smiled. let the thoughts racing through my head show in my grin and darting eyes. “Lucius Malfoy?”

Daphne hesitated. Gave herself away. Realised it.

“You really don’t act like a muggleborn.” A dare. A test.

(I wanted to show her – for just a second – who she was challenging. I wanted to... and that really was reason enough, wasn’t it?)

“I act like the rightful Heiress of Praes. I act like Diabolist of the Dread Empire. I act like Akua Sahelian, reborn and ruinous.” The Soninke words felt warm on my tongue, smooth on my lips and burning – just a little – at the back of my throat. “I am iron, sharpened by iron. One day you will fear me, and the day after that, you will kneel.”

My Praesi court bow was... performative. My words were over the top – no one needed to understand them to know that.

It felt like monologuing. Indulgent, and so... so good. (Evil. Whatever.)

“Do you take my bet, Daphne Greengrass?” I asked openly in English. Keeping her unbalanced. “One secret, from loser to winner, depending on whether Dumbledore awards enough points that Gryffindor wins the House Cup.”

She tilted up her nose. “Better have something good to tell me, Sahelian.”

I smiled. Nodded once.

“Not that I believe you,” Greengrass added, “Tracey, tell me how ridiculous it is for a second year to find the Chamber of Secrets when none of the Professors can.”

“It’s ludicrous.” Davis emphasised.

“Well, if the Professors haven’t found it yet, and no Ministry investigators or Aurors found the Chamber after last time, then why not Harry Potter?”

Everyone stared at me again.

“Aurors? In Hogwarts?” Greengrass sounded confused. She shook her head. “Maybe you are a muggleborn. Aurors never come to Hogwarts.”

(I breathed evenly instead of bristling. This was good to know. And entirely cultural, nothing I could have discovered myself.)

“You don’t have to believe me now, because you will believe me later.” I shrugged. “I’m even happy to put this tentative partnership on pause, if you’re uncomfortable. There will be more value in exchanging information next year anyway.”

Daphne tilted her head. Scanned me, head to toe. “We’ll see next year. After you tell me a juicy secret when Slytherin wins the House Cup.”

I laughed again. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

The schemer-in-training did her very best not to respond, smoothly stepping out of the room. Tracey Davis held the door for her, nodding at us both before she left.

After a minute, I let out a performative sigh, then opened the door myself and beckoned Megan out.

“Did... did that go well?” She asked.

“Oh, well enough. I’m very rarely wrong, so Greengrass is going to eat her words. Still, that’s just a diversion – a little competition to get us on the same page. Next year is when what she knows will be useful. I can wait.”

Megan hummed.

We walked back to the Hufflepuff common room in silence. Then I remembered something small, but rather critical.

“And thanks for your help, dear thing. That would have been much harder if I’d been outnumbered.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 15: Disputes and Discrepancies

“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”

• Benjamin Franklin, The Art of Virtue: Ben Franklin's Formula for Successful Living (ed. 2013)

On the fourteenth of February 1992, I declared war.

The Great Hall, breakfast. I had casus belli, of course. Everyone agreed I had righteous cause. Or they would by lunch.

(Really, what was happening was awful. Criminal, if the law were more than just a tool of the powerful.)

The walls were pink. Covered in comically large flowers, also pink. It wasn’t raining outside – no, quite a nice clear day – but from the magical ceiling, heart-shaped confetti showered us all. This had been happening for a while, and was ultimately tolerable.

I’d had to pick far worse things than confetti out of my food (a favoured servant’s shattered finger bones, for one).

My main problem – aside from the pink – was that most everyone else was responding... well, normally. Susan and Hannah were outright giggling together. Megan was intently studying all of the boys in our year.

“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Shouted Gilderoy Lockhart, ignorant victim of my ire. “And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all – and it doesn’t end here!”

He clapped, luridly pink robe fluttering dramatically.

A dozen dwarves marched in.  Wearing golden wings. Carrying harps.

“My friendly, card-carrying cupids!” Lockhart beamed.

(Confetti landed right in the runniest part of my poached eggs.)

“They will be roving around the school today delivering your Valentines!” The fool continued, then suggesting Snape and Flitwick would teach students how to magically bypass consent. (Good societies, hypocritical to the bone.)

I turned around to see the dwarves – frowning one and all – begrudgingly distributing themselves along the tables. I watched for a moment, then stared at the surliest one until he met my eyes. Then I waved him over.

When you want to make someone’s day hell, you can never start too early.

The dwarf marched forward. My minions and the surrounding table descended into immaturity.

“You ‘ave a card?” Was grunted up at me.

“I want to whisper it!” I waved at the shrieking of my minions and the general giggling and hooting across the hall. I leaned towards him, beckoned again.

The suffering dwarf stepped closer, then stepped again – then froze. Because I was holding a knife to his kidney.

“This is beneath you.” I whispered with a vicious smile. “What are your ancestors saying, watching you demean yourself for that wizard, of all wizards?”

The fear in his eyes was sparking rapidly into anger.

“Ruin this,” I told him, letting cruelty etch itself across my face, only an inch from his crowded features. “Punish he who would insult you. Undermine all this naive weakness.”

The dwarf’s smile was ugly. I felt my shoulders relax, just a little.

Then I slipped the knife back into my robes and turned back across the bench. My minions were staring at me expectantly.

“What?” I asked. “If he’s delivering a valentine for me, then I don’t want anybody else to read it.”

Hannah cooed. Susan shook her head, but her smile told me she bought it as just one of my eccentricities. Megan nodded a little rigidly.

More confetti landed on my breakfast. I stared at the paper hearts covering a plate of good food.

(Remembered having my own heart ripped out.)

The plate disappeared, then was quickly replaced with a fresh one. I didn’t thank the House Elves, just pulled a textbook out of my bag and levitated it above my plate – even though all the platters of food were covered in confetti anyway.

It was the principle of the thing, and it wasn’t like I was allowed to wave an incendio above me to clear the air, so I made do.

<{   ҉   }>

Lockhart was right about one thing: the mood of the school. Morale had been low. Very low.

Subverting his planned activities would require channelling – redirecting – the same original intention.

“Hey,” I caught the Weasley twins, “has anyone thought of pranking the school by mixing up which Valentines get given to people?”

They turned to each other, and I took the chance to slip away. But as I left, I did hear a victorious hiss of: “we could bribe the dwarves!”

<{   ҉   }>

“Good morning,” I walked straight up to an group of older Slytherin girls, “I found a dwarf earlier who just let me read the stack he was carrying – no questions asked.”

They stared at me, three different kinds of shocked.

“Is anyone’s last name Rosier, by the way?

<{   ҉   }>

“Hey everyone!” I called to the Hufflepuff common room. “Professor Lockhart put in a lot of effort to organise today, and we thought about getting the dwarves to send him thank you notes – hopefully that will mean more because he’s already got so many Valentines.”

<{   ҉   }>

“You guys saw what happened to Potter?” I asked some random Gryffindor boys. “You think you can get a dwarf to tackle Lockhart like that and read even worse poetry?”

<{   ҉   }>

“Ugh, I hate how lessons keep getting interrupted. I wish the dwarves would focus on Lockhart’s class, or History or something. This is supposed to be a school, after all. Maybe Lockhart should get sent all the letters himself so he can feel what it's like.”

My minions glanced at me oddly for raising my voice, but the Ravenclaws gathered around us in the hall – half of whom had been given the wrong Valentine – paused and looked at each other.

Petty crows, all of them.

<{   ҉   }>

Lockhart was looking a little haggard by dinner. But the rest of the staff table was looking rather happier than they did this morning. The student body was similarly amused, minus the few suckers worrying that today had gone ‘wrong’.

(Today had gone Evil, thank you very much. And just the barest taste, at that.)

But the fame-focused fop had pushed on and thanked the school for their dedication to love and appreciation of his efforts.

Unfortunately for him, escalation must be met with escalation.

After dinner I set my minions to doing homework, then locked myself in the dorm bathroom. With a white rose, five candles, and some chalk. Oh, and a quill.

Setting up this impromptu ritual was simple.

Instructions: carefully written on the rose petals with blood, the quill dipping into a cut on my forearm made by the rose’s single thorn.

Area: defined by a chalk pentagram.

Power source: the candle flames, just for this first step.

Anchor: the quill I no longer needed.

Catalyst:

...did I really have to spell it out?

Ugh, fine.

Catalyst: blood, dripped directly from my arm into the stamen of this stained flower.

The air snapped as this spell sucked at the candle flames and took all residual heat with it. The quill-anchor froze, then shattered. And the rose – in the middle of the pentagram – turned a lovely, lovely red.

I wiped down the bathroom floor, flushed any evidence, then put the rose away and went back to the dorm proper to distract my minions for the rest of the evening.

<{   ҉   }>

On the morning of the fifteenth of February, Lockhart once again stood up at the staff table.

“Dear Hogwarts,” he began, “while my assistants yesterday may have been... overly helpful... I have one final act of love to carry out.”

A dramatic flourish produced a deep red rose, held aloft above his head. Then the man – in pale pink robes today – walked down from the staff table. To the long table that Hufflepuff had claimed as its own.

The entire school watched as he – grinning – walked slowly down the table.

“Some earnest soul left this rose and the most darling note outside my office last night. You see,” he narrated, “giving a token of your love to someone can be daunting. Especially so for those first feeling the passions of the heart! This secret admirer was too nervous to deliver their gift directly, so asked for me – Gilderoy Lockart – to deliver their affections! And while this task may not be as daring as the dangers I faced to receive the Order of Merlin, I will face it all the same!”

Lockhart had gotten further and further down the Hufflepuff table, to the disappointment of the older girls and increasing anxiety of everyone down my end. The tension peaked when he stopped. Took a few extra steps. Looked back, looked forward, rubbed his chin.

“This rose was sent by the secret admirer of one... Akua Sahelian!”

Everyone in the Great Hall was staring at me. Whispers rising and rising.

The energy... I...

Well, I didn’t have to fake a blush. Nor did I have to fake my eagerness, when Lockhart held the rose out towards me.

I sat up straighter, tried to block out how Hannah and Susan were shaking each other in excitement. Then reached out, took the rose, and pressed my thumb into that lone thorn.

(Catalyst.)

The red petals brightened. Glowed.

“FILTHY MUDBLOOD!!!” The rose screamed.

Then it set itself on fire. Burned up in a flash.

Everyone in the Great Hall was staring at me. Silent.

The noise had been painful. I held that expression, let a tear leak from one eye. Stared at the ash on my hand, then up to Lockhart.

“Why?” I asked him.

His mouth opened. Closed again. His eye twitched.

“How could you!” Megan shouted at him.

And, really, it all came together after that. For me anyway. For Lockhart, things quite fell apart. He didn’t even show up to half of his classes with Hufflepuffs.

(A successful first test of my handmade Howler, I thought. The official ones definitely involved blood magic, by the way.)

<{   ҉   }>

Someone went through Harry Potter’s dorm. Trashed the place.

He hadn’t reported it to the teachers, so naturally the entire school knew it had happened. But no one could guess who had done it – though there were plenty of motives rolling round the rumour mill.

On a completely unrelated note, Ginevra Weasley was more withdrawn than ever.

The Heir of Slytherin was a barely competent prick. Occasionally hilarious though.

I went back to reading up on self-anchored rituals. My semi-success back in summer (the magic still coiling under my skin) suggested that the Animagus Transformation was merely one possible application of giving yourself innate magical abilities.

<{   ҉   }>

The Heir struck again. Whether through Ginevra Weasley or some other gullible sap, I didn’t care.

What I did care about was who ‘got got’, as Hannah... articulated.

Anthony Goldstien had been found, frozen in place. Hands raised and wand out in a way that made people think him brave for fighting back. Until it was deduced that he was trying to ward off Peeves. Who had also been petrified.

A spirit. Resting on the floor. Frozen in terror, but having lost so much tangibility even Dumbledore struggled to move the little irritant to the Hospital Wing.

Now, spirits couldn’t be petrified. I double checked this, of course, but the fundamental fact that spirits weren’t made of flesh and blood meant that petrification could not have caused this. For Peeves to be so frozen in place, he must have been bound, cursed, or otherwise drained of energy. Maybe all three.

I gave up on arguing over this fact with the Hufflepuff common room after five minutes.

All my minions stopped talking about the recent attack (‘petrification’, my arse) when I finally showed some of the annoyance I felt about it all. Could Tom Riddle hurry up and conclude this narrative? I wanted to see what kind of snake was doing all of this.

(Susan and Hannah were starting to mutter about seeing if Madame Pomfrey had any potions for my bleeding. Megan kept standing too close.)

I got up and declared that I wanted to walk around the lake. A good chunk of the common room followed along – more than I expected. Still, it gave me an excuse to hide my frustration.

And to shape the futures of these sheep.

“What’s everybody thinking about their subjects for third year?” I asked innocently.

(Strangely, that was what made my minions think I’d calmed down.)

<{   ҉   }>

Harry Potter was standing at the very base of the moving staircase with Ron Weasley. By habit, I shifted closer, through the front of the Quidditch-hungry crowd.

Megan turned to pull me back towards the doors – towards the pitch – but not before I overheard Ronald Weasley saying:

“Because that’s what Hermione does. When in doubt, go to the library.”

Megan tugged me. I took two steps, then looked back to see Harry Potter…

…listening.

My skin prickled. Spine tingled. Eyes widened.

Adrenaline. And a spike of pain, from that ever-reactive loose magic.

(There were times, when Fate did nudge a Villain. Usually, it was in the Hero’s favour – away from the one cupboard they were hiding in, to not check their pockets before dumping them in a cell, or to leave before the death trap actually kills them.)

(But sometimes – just sometimes – the Gods Below nudged a Villain in the back of their mind and said: notice this. That’s all they ever did, really. Us Villains, we were Evil. We didn’t deserve help, but neither did we want it.)

Hermione Granger had ran away from her friends at the start of a Quidditch match to go to the library. Because she was in doubt. Or... because she wasn’t.

Megan tugged me again.

I turned to her, used the third tug to pull her towards me. She tripped over someone’s foot in the crowd. I caught her round the waist.

“I have to go, dear thing,” I whispered in her ear. “Cover for me, and I’ll join you later. You’re doing good.”

Then I steadied her. Slipped away. Left the girl to breathe shakily.

Pushed my way through the crowd, staring the sheep down. They parted before me. And then the crowd disappeared and the library was before me.

Where to find Hermione Granger?

(No further nudges guided me. I didn’t expect them.)

Not in the history section – so she’d found the monster, not the Chamber.

Deep in the magical creatures section, I found her. Bushy hair buried in a book, pages more visible than her nose.

“Hi Hermione, have you figured out which snake it is?”

She jumped a foot in the air. Dropped the book.

I caught it with a windgardium leviosa. Smiled – apologetically. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Did you figure out what Slytherin’s monster is?”

She stared at me, blinking. And I wondered if this was what she had seen at the start of the year, when we cast a small joint ritual in her living room.

But then her brain clicked back into gear, and my guess proved unfounded. “Yes! Akua! It’s a basilisk! King of Serpents. Look!”

Hermione shoved the book towards me, finger jabbing at the page. I started reading, then looked back up to focus on Hermione’s triumphant ramble.

“They live for hundreds of years, so Slytherin could have hatched one when Hogwarts was founded. It’s weak to roosters, and Hagrid was saying that all his roosters got killed at the start of the year – then again when he ordered some more.” A rapid breath. “I haven’t checked the spiders, but if we bring a spider in from the grounds and it tries to flee the castle, that’ll confirm it’s a basilisk!”

I gently lifted the book from her hands. Most Macabre Monstrosities. Yes. I had looked through this one.

“What about the apparently literal death stare?” I asked her.

The grin I got back was manic. “That’s what I figured out! No one saw the basilisk’s eyes directly! The hallway where they found Mrs Norris was flooded, so she would have seen the reflection in the water. Colin Creevy saw it through his camera – and Harry said the camera was completely burnt out. And then Anthony and Peeves!”

She then shut her mouth and stared at me. All but biting her lip in anticipation.

“Anthony saw the basilisk through Peeves, you’re saying? And Peeves is a poltergeist, so... ah, but to render comatose a spirit, the basilisk’s eyes can’t be death magic. Death magic empowers spirits, more often than not.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. “Where did you read that?”

(In the Sahelian ancestral library of Wolof. And I’d recreated the experiments myself, thank you.)

“Maybe there’s some sympathetic nerve toxin – eye contact allowing the bite to impart the venom from a distance. No, that wouldn’t have gotten Peeves either.” I wondered, utterly ignoring her question. “Oh! Is the basilisk draining magic through eye contact? That makes more sense than some death stare, which wouldn’t need eye contact to work.”

(I hadn’t bothered recreating those experiments. Dread Emperor Revenant may have been successful by some metrics, but he’d also proved that undead rulers rather limited a nation’s ability to adapt to external pressure. Not just because of the mass murder.)

“And,” I continued, “that explains why the basilisk hasn’t eaten any of the petrified people, if it absorbed some of their magic. Maybe Slytherin even designed the Chamber so that the basilisk was fed by the magic of Hogwarts? It’d have to grow big somehow.”

Hermione’s eyes were wide with another emotion now. She reached forward for the book, which I relinquished. Silently, her internal conflict boiled over, and she tore the basilisk’s page out.

Then quickly glanced up – to see my reaction.

Oh. This was hilarious.

“Hermione, I’m not the Heir of Slytherin.”

She didn’t untense.

“Yes, I know that's what the Heir would say, but come on. My parents are from Morocco. I’m muggleborn.”

I sighed. “I made a joke about the basilisk being big because anything called the King of Serpents and hatched by Slytherin himself is going to be absolutely massive by now. I wasn’t tracking you down to silence you, I was following you because anything that makes you risk not supporting Harry at a Quidditch game is going to be important.”

Hermione’s shoulders went down, but her face just twisted into a different frown.

I waited.

“We should take this to Professor McGonagall – or Dumbledore.” She eventually came out with. “Harry would understand if I missed the game to tell the teachers about this.”

“He would,” I nodded. She kept staring into the middle distance. I offered another thought: “We have a proper hypothesis about the petrifications now.”

Her eyes lit up, but… again, more manic than focused.

“Hypothesis! References! We need something on... not death magic, you said, so, uh... magic siphons? I know that exists in runes or arithmancy, but we’d need a source for magic creatures.” And she kept muttering, quieter and faster, turning back to the stacks.

“Hermione, all of that stuff would be in the Restricted Section.” I walked round, stepped between her and the books. “We'd be better off telling the teachers quickly, then letting them find the information they needed to back it up. You’re the one who made the important discovery. And it’s not like they have any other theories about what’s happening anyway.”

“Their first priority is keeping us safe.” She defended. “But you’re right. I figured out it was a basilisk. That’ll let them get some roosters in, at least. Okay, let’s go, then we can still catch most of Harry’s game.

(This girl had ten emotional levers at most. It was always fun to see how many I could pull at once.)

<{   ҉   }>

“Wait!” Hermione shouted. Then immediately cringed, as if Madame Pince would appear next to us at the doors of the library. I raised an eyebrow.

“We need…” She rummaged around in her bag. Which seemed to contain the material for all her classes, despite it being a weekend. A quidditch weekend.

“Ahah!” Hermione whisper-hissed, then held up a pocket mirror. “If we check our corners with this–”

“No! Stop!”

“– then the basilisk won’t kill us!”

And then my shout registered. She flinched. A full second too late.

Fuck.

“Sorry, I…” I sighed. Again, to really empty my lungs. “I shouldn’t have shouted. But you know that we’re definitely going to run into the basilisk now, right?”

I sighed a third time, then pulled open the library doors and waved Hermione through.

It took a whole corridor of side glances before she finally said: “I don’t know, actually.”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t know that we’re going to run into the basilisk. There’s nothing to say that the Heir will strike today. If they’re looking to spread terror, then moving about on a day when everyone is out at the quidditch pitch doesn’t make much sense.” Prim and proper, her tone was.

A bit upset at my outburst. Maybe even a bit upset that I was participating in this discovery in the first place?

“Hermione,” I started, “you are literally checking to make sure the basilisk isn’t around that corner. And there are many reasons for a Villain to sneak around while everyone else is distracted.”

“I am checking because I’m not interested in laying in a hospital bed when I could be studying for exams. Our marks are going to be important when teachers decide which subjects we get to study next year.”

She then stood up and strode round the corner. Walking just a bit brisker than I was, even with the lengthy stride my height offered me.

“Okay, but you’re friends with Harry Potter. If they haven’t given the three of you a name, they will. You’re tied to a Hero, Hermione.”

“Harry is just a normal boy, and I’ve told you that he hates being called a hero.” She huffed.

“Harry is going to run into trouble every single year whether he likes it or not. And – every single year – he’s going to try to fix the problem or save anyone who even gets close to danger. It’s not about labels,” except it also was, “it’s just a fact that trouble will find Harry.”

She couldn’t deny that. But she did spend less time checking this corner, and strode ahead indignantly.

“If trouble finds Harry, and you’re close to him, then it follows that trouble will find you.”

Hermione stopped still. Turned around. Glared at me.

“I’m not leaving him. You have friends who aren’t muggleborn. Don’t try to convince me to abandon Harry just because… just…” She fumed. “I’m his friend.”

(Oh, how I wanted to decapitate something.)

“I didn’t mean that at all, Hermione.” Waited, until the lack of anything to work herself up over meant she let out a long breath.

“I should have been clear from the start. Because big and important things happen to Harry, magic sometimes like to shape events in a certain way. You know the saying ‘speak of the Devil?’ It’s like that. Harry got some hint about the basilisk earlier, didn’t he?”

She nodded slowly. Then paled. “He heard it, which means it’s moving about!”

I gentled my words. “We’d be in danger anyway, of course. But – and I know it sounds wrong – we’d be safer running as fast as we could to find a teacher. That would guarantee a chase, and maybe the teacher would be petrified, but we’d get away. However, declaring that we have a way to avoid the death part of the basilisk’s stare…?”

Hermione stared at me blankly. “Why would running guarantee a chase? I think that would guarantee us charging straight into its mouth.”

(Ugh. Never mind.)

“You’re probably right,” I forced a laugh, “but that’s a topic for Divination next year, anyway.”

“Oh, what classes did you pick?” Hermione’s mood immediately shifted, and we went back to checking the corners of the castle corridors.

“Divination, Arithmancy, and Runes. I still need to convince Sprout that I can pick up a fourth, but I’m not sure if fighting with academic schedules is worth picking up Magical Creatures.” I shrugged. “I can always read Hannah’s notes about that, after all.”

(I was honestly leaning towards ‘not’. Free time was far more valuable than learning how to ‘care’ for creatures. Like in Herbology, living things tended to recognise I was far more interested in their component parts than their value as whole organisms.)

“Huh,” Hermione said, approaching another bend. “I just ticked all of them, and Professor McGonagall just said she’d see what she could do.”

I stopped. Stared, as she walked on.

First, Fate causes her to misinterpret my – perfectly objective – words, then she rejects the existence of Fate, and then, she admits to this?

Ridiculous. I was going to have to really focus on taking the top spot in classes from her this year, before the sheer workload provided her with an irrefutable excuse.

(And even if I got first place, Hermione is taking more classes, so she’s obviously the smartest person in the school – blah blah blah.)

I pulled out my wand and toyed with the idea of sending a few innocent charms at her back. Just to give her some more life experience. A bit of perspective.

Gods Below, sometimes I wished that it were acceptable for me to carry my sword around. Robes were horribly impractical for physical combat, but people really needed to respect me a bit more. And swords were fantastic for gaining that basic foundation of power.

I finally started walking after Hermione, who was frozen at the end of the…

Frozen.

Petrified.

I fucking told her so.

Chapter Text

“The meaning of the exercise of war is the destruction of your foe’s ability to wage it. ‘Victory’ does not exist as an independent entity; it is merely the manifestation of the enemy’s defeat.”

• Marshal Grem One-Eye, Considerations on Warfare

A faint hiss.

Scraping; scales against stone. Faint, but it would get louder.

Hermione didn’t move.

(The quartz amulet I wore was shining red, when I pulled it from beneath my robes.)

I was already reaching into my boot and pulling out a switchblade. Pulling it across my palm, then kneeling to the stone floor and smearing the red all in front of me.

This was a dangerous fucking gamble.

I’d tried to lay some groundwork – some just in case. But even when acting impulsively, there were ways to weasel out a victory. Frameworks to fend off failure.

(And raw fucking talent, of which I was going to rely upon heavily.)

So. I didn’t want to die, or spend months immobilised in my own flesh. What next?

Understand the problem, articulate the risks, and then the complicated bit: win.

Problem. Tom Riddle, likely possessing the body of one tiny red-haired girl, was going to confront me.

No. Actual problem. I hadn’t planned for this to happen today. I hadn’t prepared the field.

(I started laughing. Cackling, really.)

There were so many risks. The loose magic in me was fighting to get out. I kept laughing.

Okay. The biggest risk: death by basilisk.

Break it down. Risk of accidental direct eyesight. Risk of the patterns I was tracing in the smeared blood before me not countering the basilisk’s... delivery method. Risk of failure – or getting petrified, anyway.

Mitigation and reduction. Every risk can either be avoided or reduced. Hells, my very life was proof enough of that.

So, close my eyes as soon as possible. Draw a few more runes of refinement and containment. And engage Tom Riddle in conversation.

Second biggest risk: Tom Riddle cursing me halfway through my work. Mitigation: get him monologuing, focus the contest between us.

(Give the moment some weight, and Fate would shape things to its patterns.)

Third biggest risk: the snake was hungry. Mitigation: well, I was smearing more blood on the floor. Some risks just had to be taken.

Then I heard soft footsteps. And a looooong scrape. I closed my eyes.

A hiss, flickering as the basilisk tasted the air.

I shuffled on my knees, careful to keep my robes away from my visual memory of the smeared red circle. Another drag of my opened palm across the rough floor-stones meant that I felt quickly-cooling wet on both sides of my hand. Circle complete.

“You’re too late, Tom.”

The footsteps stopped.

“So you’re tracing runes in your own blood... because you’ve already won?” Sneered a young girl’s voice. “I quite doubt your sense of timing.”

I laughed again. “You’re not very learned, are you Tom? We’re in a pattern of three. I lost, then we drew, so now I win.”

(True, but also that hadn’t saved me last time.)

“I could force your eyes open, you know?” He hummed, weird and high pitched in Ginevra’s voice. “Give Dumbledore another death on his conscience. That might be the most influence you’ll ever have on this castle, I think.”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you to beware a Villain on their knees?”

“Didn’t anyone tell you that people knelt to power?” He bit back.

“Well go on then,” I ordered. “Show me the respect I’m due.”

The basilisk made more noise. Scales against floor and wall. It’s breath – hot and rotten – wafted from above.

(Just by hearing, I could tell it was massive. Another point for logical fucking deduction, Hermione.)

“Do you... want me to kill you?” Tom Riddle asked, that little girl’s voice sounding so confused.

“That’s a rhetorical question, right? You can’t be so shallow as to think that there’s only one layer to my actions.” I sighed theatrically. “Tell me that you’ve at least tried to figure out what runes I’m tracing in the blood.”

“You’re a fool.” He spat. “You can’t even see what you’re doing, there’s nothing to keep these runes stable. Tracing patterns over each other will do nothing but make things blow up in your face.”

I nearly paused. Nearly stopped and opened my eyes just to stare at him in incredulity. But I didn’t. Keeping momentum meant he didn’t have time to think.

“Do wizards not imbue liquids?”

A sharp inhale. Footsteps – stepping backward.

I laughed again. “Just realised that I do, in fact, know what I’m doing?”

(My fingers shifted from tracing runes to writing out the process of osmosis. Blood transfusions. The process by which haemoglobin carried oxygen to cells. Electrolysis. Transference and separation.)

Sibilant hissing – from the little girl Tom Riddle was wearing like clothes. Then a long, loud, rasping response from above me.

“Oh, but wait, what's this?" I asked no one in particular. Then my bloody (uncut) hand hooked into my robes and pulled out my quartz snake charm.

Red light was strange when it was bright. Especially through my eyelids. I could only imagine how my face would be plunged into stark contrast. Would the shadows blend in with my skin? Would the red light make the blood circling me simply look like water?

(The loose magic under my skin was too much power to be held in so small of a crystal. Oh, but it was such a relief not to itch.)

“Why is Dumbledore just letting you carry blood magic around?” Riddle sounded rather whiny, using Ginevra’s mouth.

“Because it’s not blood magic. It’s just blood and magic.”

I could feel the indignation in his expression.

“No, no. Think about it.” I told him. “If blood isn’t the catalyst, just a passive power source, then the magic is...”

“Just magic,” Tom Riddle breathed.

Then he snatched the amulet from my grip. The only reason I didn’t pitch forward into the messy red circle before me was because I’d planned this. I’d already been bracing my neck. The amulet’s cord broke. Tore some hairs out when it went.

“If that messed up my hair, I shall have to flay you. No matter whose body you’re in.” I informed Riddle.

“You dare to threaten me, when I’m holding something that contains your blood!?” He laughed. It was half giggles, not that he appeared aware of the dichotomy. “Arrogant bitch! Keep imbuing that circle with all the protection you like, I’ll just drain the life out of you until your desiccated corpse tips over into all that remains of your hopes and dreams.”

He laughed, but was almost immediately interrupted by a great hissing. The King of Serpents didn’t like someone else eating its meals, apparently.

Riddle snapped – well, hissed – at the giant creature. Which immediately went quiet. As if ordered. As if utterly obedient.

(Damn. Well. I would just have to time this perfectly.)

“Where is your passion, Tom? You need to want power for more reasons than fear.” I baited him. “Real sociopaths never get very far, because you care for nothing but yourself, and therefore risks to yourself are risks to everything.”

“As if anything else matters.” He replied. “I am Lord Voldemort, and all will bow before me.”

“Sure,” I scoffed, “but why?”

“Why? Because they are all beneath me, whether they know it or not. Lord Voldemort will rule Britain, and the wizards shall worship me as their saviour. Magic is mine to command, and people are there to heed me.” He laughed. “You ask why, but you’re already kneeling.”

I heard footsteps. Back and forth – he was pacing. Excellent.

“You talked about being a Villain, the Heiress of Praes. You wrote of having only one reason for doing anything. I think you understand exactly why I care for no one.” He said, in the voice of Ginevra Weasley.

I shook my head. “You misunderstand our similarities and ignore our differences, Riddle.”

“Oh no,” he pitied, “I understand perfectly. You cling so desperately to a past you will never return to. You spend so much time around these stupid little children, wanting to teach them what life is really like.”

(Well, you can just say you’re lashing out at your childhood bullies, Riddle.)

“And our differences? I don’t ignore that I’m the one standing over you, commanding the ancient basilisk of Salazar Slytherin himself. I certainly don’t ignore how you tie your entire identity – your very mindscape – to a so called ‘empire’ found in none of Hogwarts’ history books.” He was sneering so much I could hear it. Like an accent.

“I am the Heir of Slytherin, but more than that, I am Lord Voldemort. People still fear to speak my name because of my actions. I need no Black Tower to threaten anyone – or to hide behind. You ask me why? I say, that if the whole world falls so naturally before me, then why should I care what anyone does beyond that. It is as according to nature.”

I kept tracing runes in the blood around me. Letting more red drip from my twinging palm all the while.

There was silence. One could only assume he was making some dramatic gesture. In the body of an elven year-old girl.

“If you are the only one to rise, then you are the only one who needs to fall. If all you care about is your life, then all you fear must be your death.” I told Tom.

Then I lowered my voice, as if in confession. “But I care about something far greater than just life. I don’t put all my fear in one basket.”

“Oh really? Some kind of hero, are you?” (Tom Riddle made a terrible priest.)

I finally – finally – sneered back. “You think a Hero would bleed all over the floor intentionally? Don’t insult me.”

“We’ll see if you care about all your life then. Or I will, since your fears control you so thoroughly you won’t open your eyes even when you know where my basilisk is.” He chuckled, as dark and low as Ginevra Weasley could go. “I only need one life to re-create my body, but I’ll never say no to some extra power. And… don’t worry, I’ll make it hurt so much worse than last time.” 

“You’ve just completely ignored what I’ve been doing this entire time, haven’t you?” I asked.

Then, in the pause where he either reconsidered or he glanced down at where my fingers were writing down the refraction levels of different colours of light, I pulled my knife back out of my boot and cut careful lines into my eyelids.

It was very hard not to flinch. Even harder not to blink. Heavy warmth quickly ran over my eyelashes. Then traced red tear tracks, down my cheeks.

And when Riddle was distracted by that, I pulled the diary my mother gave me out of my book bag. Dropped it on the floor, opened it to the ribbon-marked page that I’d used to link writing into Riddle’s own diary.

Then placed my bloody palm in the middle of the page and plunged my knife through the back of my hand.

My breathing immediately turned shaky. I even gasped. But at least I couldn’t feel the pain in my eyelids.

And I did not open my eyes.

(The timing had to be perfect. Perfect.)

“Well... if you really want to kill yourself, go about it a bit quicker, would you?” Tom Riddle drawled over the sound of my ragged breathing. “Or were you trying to do actual blood magic this time? Alert Dumbledore to where I was in the castle? Desperately delay me with your pathetic little protection circle? Well, you won’t live long enough to find out!”

There was a moment of silence.

A moment when – even through the pain – I felt the loose magic inside me go quiet. Drain away.

The basilisk was still following its last order. Not moving.

I couldn’t help but hold my breath.

(Was this how Heroes lived? In such constant tension? No wonder they never got old.)

Nothing happened.

Part of me prepared for death. A true end, this time.

Then that small piece of quartz in Ginevra Weasley’s hand shattered.

(My grin felt Evil, even to me.)

“You utter fool. This circle isn’t for protection, it’s a filter. You gormless parasite. How does it feel to be choking on wild fucking magic? You fear-filled ghost. Thank you, for talking yourself straight into my trap.”

He snarled. Prepubescent and furious.

(Timing. Timing.)

“You, Heir of Slytherin,” I spat, “here you are, with your greatest inheritance – a great big swollen snake.”

The snarls turned to hisses. Scales scraped against stone.

“I am Heiress to the Dread Empire of Praes. That magic you’re choking on is mine.” My body started burning. Hot breath bathed my face as I leant back and looked upwards.

“Iron sharpens iron. One Villain to another, I meet you eye to bloody eye.”

The cuts on my eyelids protested, when I snapped my eyes open.

I saw yellow. Deep, deep yellow.

The basilisk pulled at me.

I moved my hand – still pinned to my diary – and let fresh blood flow. Calling on a conduit I made the last time Riddle and I interacted.

Tom Riddle started screaming. Like a little girl.

The basilisk stared down at me. A mountain of scales. A tongue flickered – hit me in the chin.

My neck hurt.

My everything hurt.

I kept staring into the basilisk’s eyes and felt the loose magic I’d corralled and controlled for most of a year return to the home it had learnt. Then that magic tore through me, wanting out again. My muscles spasmed, veins burned, tendons jerked.

I kept eye contact.

Yellow. Big. Pulling as everything greyed round the edges.

Then the loose magic ruining me hit the runes I’d traced on my eyelids. And stopped.

(Victory.)

After eight months, that magic finally got some direct instructions. A symbol of High Arcana, from the world of my first life, carved on each of my eyelids. It had multiple meanings.

Contain.

Capture.

Claim.

A new red glow lit up around me, and the basilisk flinched back.

I could barely hear Tom Riddle gasping and shaking – at war with the little girl inside him – past the screeching hisses from the King of Serpents.

My eyeballs disintegrated.

I laughed. Madly.

There was shouting in the distance.

Scales against stone.

A little girl’s shoes – sprinting away.

Yellow was no longer filling my vision. I couldn’t tell whether my ritual was glowing.

I kept laughing. In victory.

(By the time they found me, the only sounds coming out of my mouth were screams.)

Chapter Text

“It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”

• Gaius Julius Caeser – who did the whole dictator thing nearly perfectly and still got shanked by Fate.

Consciousness was... hard.

Fleeting.

During my first day of captivity in the Hogwarts hospital wing, I kept trying to open my eyes. Every attempt, it took a minute too long for me to remember that I didn’t have any.

<{   ҉   }>

I had no memory of being dead.

What happened in the time after my brain ran out of oxygen – due to Catherine ripping my heart out – and being born anew was... unknown.

I would like to know it, one day. Knowledge was a very large part of power, after all.

Maybe it had been hell.

Maybe there hadn’t been enough of me to from memories.

Maybe I simply couldn’t comprehend that unreality.

I could comprehend my current surroundings. The feel of hospital sheets. Air moving – as if we were outside. A bandage wrapped tight around my face. Occasional warmth. Touch – rarer than the warmth.

Fortunately, my minions had learnt not to touch me without announcing themselves. And I hadn’t even made it a direct instruction!

(I’d been too busy flinching and trying not to show that I fucking hated the surprise. That they started announcing themselves technically meant I failed at that last part. Maybe I would have cared, if a certain ophthalmological failure wasn’t a little bit more occupying.)

<{   ҉   }>

“And Dumbledore was removed as Headmaster! McGonagall is acting headmistress for now, but everyone’s just freaking out!” Hannah exclaimed.

“Except Malfoy,” Megan added.

“Malfoy!” Hannah growled. “He’s been crowing around like a stupid chicken! He even made jokes about you, and… argh!”

“Lucius Malfoy led the vote to remove Dumbledore,” Susan illuminated. Except I still couldn’t see anything. “Oh, and the Minister for Magic arrested the groundskeeper.”

That made me sit up, despite how much my head throbbed. The action was made more awkward due to the three other girls on my bed.

Megan immediately used the excuse of making room to press into my side. I supported her weight easily, because one thing that wizarding magic appeared adept at healing were pierced palms. Hannah made an excited noise, and there was a general shifting of robes from where her and Susan sat.

“Well, if you’re interested in that,” Susan’s voice again, “then someone heard Harry Potter and Weasley talking about Hagrid having a dragon on school grounds and raising some kind of giant spider... wait, what? The dragon thing was real? You knew about that?”

I nodded again, then gestured with my hands until Megan said, “oh! Last year?”

A moment of silence. I didn’t nod this time.

(Wasn’t worth the crushing burning sensation where my eyes used to be.)

“What is wrong with this school?” Hannah, utterly confounded.

It was hard to laugh without making too much noise.

(But keeping up the act was… vital.)

“I’m glad you’re awake,” Megan whispered. A little too loud, because Hannah cooed at her.

I scoffed under my breath and carefully looped one arm around my smallest minion. Then raised my hand and made grabbing motions until Hannah and Susan hooked their fingers in mine.

“I know you promised not to get petrified, but this doesn’t count." Hannah quietly complained.

I turned towards her voice and felt the urge to curse her until she felt as hurt as I was. But I kept my mouth shut, and just squeezed her fingers. Tightly.

We stayed like that until visiting hours ended. They left, promising to come back tomorrow. Hannah also promised to bring her class notes, which made me carefully not-laugh and Hannah flee awkwardly when Megan hissed to her something about my missing eyes.

(One day and a taste of real crisis, and they were that needy? At least that was going well.)

<{   ҉   }>

“Absolutely not! You get back in bed this instant, young lady!” Madame Pomfrey’s aprons made a distinctive swishing whenever she was walking with particular speed.

I straightened out of my stretches and turned towards her voice.

“How broad is your conception of wellbeing, Madame Pomfrey?”

She skidded to a halt. Because those were the first words I’d said in a week.

(My minion had pleaded with me to speak – to tell them all was okay – until I took off the head bandages and opened my eyelids to reveal the holes where my eyes used to be. Since then, they’d simply resolved to tell me all about their days and how everything was awful now.)

(I’d saved my words for when they would be useful.)

After another moment’s silence, the hospital matron very flatly asked, “I suppose you think the rest of you is fine, now that your voice is working?”

“Oh no,” I replied, “you told me yesterday that my corneas had only just re-grown. I believe I’m staying here for quite a while longer.”

The rationality drew out our little showdown for another minute. But – to extend the American cowboy metaphor – Pomfrey was the only one with a gun.

“Well, that’s good,” she started, “but you shouldn’t be out of bed – we hardly know what the Heir of Slytherin did to you, and I don’t want to replace another quarter of your blood.”

I shook my head. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“And I suppose the answer you’re looking for justifies your wandering about against medical advice?” She stepped closer. “I’ve treated more Ravenclaws and Slytherins than you can shake a stick at, girl. I’m not playing games with your health – and I’ve no idea why any of you students like doing so.”

I let her hands move me closer to the hospital bed, but climbed back on myself. I was fully capable of course, having come to know this small section of the infirmary rather well. And, honestly, I’d only screamed while drifting in and out of consciousness for two weeks. Apart from the blindness, I was fine.

Sheets were pulled back over me, then Madame Pomfrey muttered her diagnostic spells.

Now, I must admit that a small part of me had gotten up to stretch for precisely this outcome. I’d spent so long having magic coiling through me that I now felt a little bit empty. Or as if there was some phantom rash, but on my bones.

Of course, the fact that her spells were the only thing my eyes had registered in days helped too.

“At least the numbing charm is holding,” Pomfrey griped.

(Was it? I wanted to ask. Are you sure? Because I would beg to fucking differ.)

“Okay.” A firmer tone. Something I was meant to hear. “You haven’t done any damage, but don’t you dare think of going through whatever muggle exercise that was. Not before you’re out of here.”

“Madame Pomfrey?” I asked calmly. Always calm. (Pomfrey’s current standard of ‘good patient’ was quite heavily skewed, given that everyone else in the beds around me were petrified.)

A grumble.

“Will you tell me when I’m allowed to get up? I know I have to stay in the Hospital Wing until the Mandrake draught is ready, but I keep feeling stiff and I miss being able to walk round the lake. Will you tell me when I can move around a bit, just so I can imagine the lake easier?”

Her sigh softened her. “Okay dear. But only once I clear it, hmm?”

“Yes, Madame Pomfrey.”

A grunt. Approving.

(Appeasing authority was so very easy. And so utterly demeaning.)

“Anything else, girl?"

“Um, what time is it?”

“Afternoon. Nearly two thirty.” Again, softening. “I’ll let your friends in when they come by.”

Her shoes stepped away. Apron quieter than that initial hustle and bustle.

Two thirty. No wonder I’d been caught – Pomfrey’s digestive system dulled her at three pm and no earlier. Still a useful exercise.

I’d just have to keep going through my routine at night.

<{   ҉   }>

“How are you feeling, Miss Sahelian?” Acting Headmistress McGonagall asked.

I had to think about that one. The whole ‘re-growing my eyes’ experience was remarkably fucking awful. But it was quite possible that Pomfrey’s earlier comment about the numbing charm was more accurate than I’d first thought.

There had been a few reasons why I hadn’t been talking. But yesterday, I’d woken up bored, then reacted to a challenge like any self-respecting person would – and forgotten what talking would result in.

Interrogation.

Sure enough, my dinner tonight came with a side of Hogwarts leadership.

(They’d tried to tell me it was okay, just a few questions, that I could stay lying down and it wouldn’t take long. I’d just sat up and ignored their platitudes.)

“I’m… better than I thought I would be,” I admitted. Ritual backlash was bad business. Not that I hadn’t succeeded, just that things were… a little unfinished.

“That’s good.” McGonagall again, not soft but not so stern either.

“Very glad to hear that, girlie.” Sprout. My Head of House. Remarkably absent this year – secretly glad that none of her students had been petrified and focusing on growing those mandrakes to make up for it, maybe?

I let it be. Waited for the next question. It was… unexpected, how much of my skills relied on sight. But I still knew what to look out for – or notice in other ways – in a conversation.

“Miss Sahelian,” McGonagall, “we were wondering if you could tell us anything about what happened. Do you remember anything?”

(See, interrogation.)

I nodded, head-bandage shifting slightly. “Slytherin’s monster is a basilisk.”

Gasps.

I rolled my eyes. Which really fucking hurt, because they were only half there.

“Hermione figured it out first,” I spoke through their disbelief, “I mean, I knew it was a snake of some kind, but she figured out that everyone saw the basilisk’s eyes through a reflection.”

A shaky exhale.

“Oh, you poor girls.” Sprout, with the weight of the world on her shoulders. (Even though both her fucking eyes were where they were supposed to be.)

A snide hum, from the other side. I turned towards it, which made it immediately cut off. Snape?

Hah. Maybe there was some fun to be had here.

“We were trying to go straight to Dumbledore’s office to let people know, but I guess the Heir of Slytherin wanted to ambush some people.”

Another set of various inhales. Four, this time. Ah, Pomfrey had come over to listen too.

“And… well, Miss Sahelian,” McGonagall started – paused. Mustered some of that Gryffindor courage to get what she wanted out of the situation while setting aside her own failings to figure out what Hermione and I had done. “Did you manage to see the Heir – or hear their voice? Any hints as to who it was?”

I’d started shaking my head even before she finished asking the first question. “As soon as Hermione stopped moving or responding to me, I closed my eyes. Didn’t want to… risk…”

I swallowed.

Someone else’s breath went shaky.

“But I did hear them. It was really confusing. They sounded like a girl. Like, my age? But the words and tone and stuff was all adult.”

Shifting – of robes and hair. Faint mutters.

“Did the Heir say anything in particular?” Snape asked. Someone tried to shush him, but stopped themselves.

“Yeah.” I ducked my head. Threaded my fingers together. “They said stuff about finding a better body and, uh, trying to take mine? It felt like they were really angry that Hermione and I figured out what the basilisk was – but also angry that everyone kept getting petrified?”

“…trying to take your body?” The Acting Headmistress asked faintly.

I nodded. Kept quiet.

Sprout muttered an oath under her breath.

Snape brooded so deeply that I managed to feel it, like the air before a storm. Or maybe that was just the predictive nature of the brain making assumptions from what I knew of the man.

“What happened after that?” McGonagall rallied, then compromised. “If you can tell us.”

(What an ineffective interrogation.)

“The Heir said some things about me. Things that people who hate muggleborn would say, but really personal. And…” I stopped. Clutched at the blankets a little. Worried my lower lip. Hunched my shoulders.

Generally, I made up for the fact that I couldn’t show discomfort through the micro-expressions hidden by the massive bandage round my face. I still adopted those micro-expressions. Half-assing now would lead to letting things slip later, and I was just better than that.

Only once every one of them had inhaled did I continue.

“The books on possession don’t talk about how much it hurts.” I whispered.

Two exhales sounded a bit shattered. Sprout and McGonagall, I’d bet.

Pomfrey started muttering under her breath like the state of my health suddenly made sense. Then footsteps, and a rustle of fabric as her wand started waving over my back.

Snape might not have been breathing at all.

“My body was just doing stuff!” I blurted out. “There was a knife and then my blood was everywhere and I just couldn’t think about anything except this laughter and the hissing of the basilisk and I suddenly remembered that Hermione and I were debating whether the basilisk drains magic or uses sympathetic links to transfer venom at a distance and it was really, really scary but it felt like the Heir was in me so I looked straight at the basilisk and opened my eyes and…”

I bit my lip. Held my breath. Waited until my lungs protested, then used that biological reaction to keep my voice and smile shaky. “It worked. Mostly.”

The adults were silent for a while.

Quite a while.

The door clunked. Snape actually snarled at the noise, then stalked – boots clacking – over to investigate.

Pomfrey kept waving her wand over me. The spells didn’t prickle. Was it strange that I wanted them to?

(Frustrating, that I couldn’t turn my head enough just to see some light in this... nothingness.)

“Nothing.” Snape reported.

The solemnity broke, with that. Each authority figure except Snape made slightly more personalised versions of the promises they had already made this year. I expected them all to fail once again. Fate demanded it, of course.

Part of me wanted to smile at Snape as he lingered. But I couldn’t figure out exactly where he was. Better to wait. Poke him later, once the existing tension had faded.

Besides, Potter and Weasley had been in earlier, talking quietly to Hermione’s frozen form. I would swear that none of the staff had told the boys to leave. Or even registered their presence.

Which meant that the Hero and his sidekick had stayed in the room until after I’d said everything. The clunk of the door must have been them leaving. Therefore, Harry Potter’s method of invisibility could be shared with others. Ugh.

The kid had done nothing but be born, to survive the killing curse. I’d figured out a real way to cheat certain death, by myself. On the fucking fly. And what did I get?

To re-grow my eyeballs.

Slowly.

<{   ҉   }>

I was going about one of my medically-approved daily walks when Megan snuck into the hospital wing.

The exact chain of events involved me hearing the door creak open quietly, then some quick footsteps going over to where my bed was. Then a sharp inhale, and a worried, “Akua?”

My walks went round the middle of the ward, my left hand reached out so that I could trace a finger along the beds of each of the petrified students. It had helped establish my sense of the space, and build enough trust with Pomfrey that she now returned to her office after making sure I was steady on my feet. Which I was. Always.

“Megan,” I called back – at normal speaking volume, “it’s good to... well, hear you. No Susan and Hannah today?”

Muffled surprise. Footsteps and swishing robes. Coming closer, then next to me.

“You’re up. The bandages are off.” Megan sounded delighted by this.

(So was I, really. A blindfold was far easier to manage than the bandages commonly used for skull fractures.)

“I am up. Pomfrey agreed that movement would be good for me. Not that I can practice anything proper in here, but it’s all progress.”

My shortest minion fidgeted a little, then tentatively reached out and grasped my hand between hers. Squeezed gently.

“Is there anything I can do, Akua? O-or... anything I should know?”

A slow, satisfied smile crept across my face. “Sneaking out of class, just for me?”

I twisted my hand out of her grip, then brought my fingers up her arm. Down her collarbone. Her heart was racing. I pressed my palm against it. “You have such a good heart, dear thing. Loyal and strong. Tell me what Hogwarts has been thinking this past week.”

She shivered. “Most people are scared. Half the school is trying to focus on exams and forget it all, but the other half keep saying that exams won’t even matter this year because even more people didn’t come back from Easter break.”

My fingers went back to her shoulder. Megan hesitantly responded to the shift of my wrist and slight push from behind, but quickly gained confidence in leading me around the ward.

(I was only allowed to walk for twenty minutes every two hours. I wasn’t giving that up.)

“When we told people that you weren’t petrified – when Professor Sprout confirmed it – then... people got a little bit of hope. Or... not hope, but like they could think a bit clearer about things. Like, everyone here is just petrified. The mandrakes will be ready soon.” Megan hummed under her breath. “Maybe it’s that you told the Professors that the monster is a basilisk. Now everyone keeps walking round with mirrors. Some of the Gryffindors were even joking about trying to find it to, uh, ‘take a nap and skip exams.’”

I chuckled. Squeezed her shoulder when she laughed lightly with me.

“Knowledge is the first step to power. And a fundamental requirement for confidence. People can’t be confident if they don’t know what’s happening. That includes the Heir of Slytherin, dear thing.”

We walked past three beds before she got it.

“Oh! They don’t know what you've told the Professors! So even though Dumbledore is gone, the Heir of Slytherin can’t be confident that they’ll...” Megan hummed again. “Um, what do they want, Akua?”

“It’s becoming a common theme, honestly. Everyone trying to kill Harry Potter wants a new body.”

Megan nearly tripped over her own feet. “You-Know-Who,” she whispered.

“Or his ghost. Ghosts? The exact situation is complicated, but do read up on possession when you have a bit of spare time.” I tapped my thumb against her spine. “And speaking of your time, I hope you’re still treating the exams seriously.”

She was. She told me all about it. Until Pomfrey kicked her out for skipping class, then tried to fault me for something. I lay back on the bed and tolerated her fuss.

My orbital bones may be melting, but there was something truly satisfying about being treated with proper respect.

(Megan was growing so wonderfully.)

<{   ҉   }>

After two weeks of soft but definite incarceration, Acting Headmistress McGonagall and Professor Snape informed Madame Pomfrey that the Mandrakes were ready for cutting.

“Pomona is preparing them now, but wanted to double check your estimates for how much restorative we need.” McGonagall told Pomfrey, who answered promptly and precisely. The same answer she’d given two days ago.

I sat up in bed.

“And Severus, you said three hours for proper extraction?”

A short hum. The barest affirmation.

(Whatever. I needed information. This self-comforting could wait.)

“Professors?” I interrupted.

“Ah, Miss Sahelian.” McGonagall sounded relieved to be able to focus on something. “You wouldn’t have heard at breakfast, of course, but we have some excellent news. The mandrakes are finally ready, and your Head of House is getting everything ready for Professor Snape now. Everyone here will be waking up in time for dinner, hopefully.”

I could hear the smile. How eager she was to release all the tension from this especially disrupted school year.

It would be bad form to laugh in her face. Instead, I smiled, then let that expression slowly drop into a frown.

“Miss Sahelian?”

“At breakfast,” I paused, let my mouth form different hesitant shapes, “you told everyone that the mandrakes were ready?”

“Yes, of course.” Scottish confusion. “I imagine everyone is excited to put this year behind us.”

A clock ticked twice, in the ensuing silence.

“Have... you found the Heir yet?” I asked.

Severus Snape swore explosively. He ran – boots ringing on tile – straight out of the hospital wing.

“Severus! Oh. Shite. Oh dear. Bullocks.” McGonagall’s shoes were a second behind Snape’s. “Pomfrey, we’ll... be back!”

The door slammed shut.

It was very hard, to hold in my laughter. But the pain still wasn’t worth it.

(What wouldn’t I have given, to have seen their faces.)

<{   ҉   }>

Sprout and Snape had spent all day turning mandrakes from screaming toddlers of death into some holistic restorative. All day had passed, and my minions were now crowded around my bed – barely tolerated by Madame Pomfrey.

According to my minions, who could actually see, Pomfrey was walking around all the silent beds. Dripping ‘mandrake juice’ into people’s mouths.

Argus Filch had started the noise, quickly carrying off his hissing cat.

Colin Creevey was next. Almost immediately bouncing around and exclaiming how cool it was to be a victim of happenstance. Thankfully, he shut up when they showed him his ruined camera.

Peeves fled the hospital wing immediately upon waking. Hannah couldn’t stop herself from laughing at whatever contraption was used to administer a restorative to a spirit. (I wasn’t sure why they revived the irritant in the first place, honestly.)

Anthony Goldstein got up yawning and was gently guided back to his dorm by a Ravenclaw prefect.

It was when Madame Pomfrey was walking over to Hermione’s bed that the doors flew open and things got loud.

“The Weasleys?” Susan wondered. “Why are their parents – oh. Wait."

“Professor Lockhart?” Hannah jumped up from my bed. “Professor, did you save everyone?”

I had to focus past my itching eye sockets to sort through all the noise.

A girl, crying. A man, muttering - the father.

“Didn’t your father tell you not to talk to strange objects? I know he talked all about the cursed objects he deals with at work, why oh why did you spend all year writing in that diary?”

The crying gained more sobs. The mother switched from scolding to comfort.

In the background, Lockhart’s voice asked: “Professor? That's me, right? Is saving everyone something else I do?”

“Nah, you just smile a lot and talk about your books.” Ronald Weasley replied.

“I have books?” Lockhart sounded confused, but delighted by this apparently new fact.

I took a moment to take in the whole commotion.

Then Pomfrey rustled her way over. “Right. You three, out. You can see Miss Sahelian tomorrow morning at breakfast, and hopefully she’ll be able to see you back. Nope. No. Out.”

And – like chickens – my minions were shoved out the hospital wing. Which gave me space, but removed my only visual interpretation of events.

I did the only thing I could. Listened. Forgotten, on the sidelines. (A fantastic place to be.)

Pomfrey gave Ginevra Weasley a calming draught, then uncovered a story I’d known for months as the girl’s voice – thick and teary – went airy and faintly slurred. Mr and Mrs Weasley did cry themselves, interspersed with threats from Mrs Weasley that “you’ve never spending another Christmas away from home!”

I waited for them to get it all over with. Sure enough, Pomfrey confirmed that Ginevra was both physically and magically exhausted. Her parents and brother were allowed to stay.

Hermione woke up flailing. Or maybe Ronald had been right next to the bed and she’d tackled him to the floor. The sounds weren’t exactly clear, but Pomfrey was huffing and the two friends were laughing. Hermione spewed questions almost faster than she could breathe, but Ronald managed to start telling the story.

It all went roughly how I expected.

Lockhart being mildly Evil as well as useless was interesting. Probably going to turn Harry Potter off fame seeking even more than he already was.

(The comeuppance was satisfying. And a clear example of why I had to be so careful around the Boy Who Lived.)

That Dumbledore’s phoenix turned up was... well. Just… fucking heroes. It might have been my practice this year that resulted in Potter being given a magical sword, but then again, the Sorting Hat had been a macguffin waiting to happen.

I sat there, straight backed and cross legged in a hospital bed. A bandage wrapped round my head like a blindfold. There were faint lights in the room – not corresponding to where I knew the torches were around the room.

No, the lights I saw swirled through the floor and up the walls. Pomfrey’s vials of mandrake extract had twinkled, when I’d focused and strained. Like stars when the sun was still setting. All of it so faint – yet still stabbing into my brain, even through the bandage.

After a few more minutes, the conversation all died down.

Footsteps. Not Pomfrey’s.

“Akua?” Hermione asked – closer than I’d thought she was.

“Hello Hermione, I’m glad I stayed up to see you wake up.” I smiled towards her voice. Let some of the day’s waiting loosen my posture.

“Were…” Hermione trailed off.

Ronald whispered something to her.

“No, I wasn’t petrified.” I slammed my metaphorical boot through the conversational ice.

“How? You didn’t take my mirror?”

I shook my head.

“I shut my eyes and then… didn’t really have a safe way to find a reflection. The Heir was very interested in having another body to possess, you see?” I made sure to project my voice, regardless of Ginevra’s current capacity to pay attention. “But he tried it and, well, it’s not an accurate metaphor, but if your mirror let you dodge the basilisk’s eyes, I used the Heir’s possession to… block.”

There was silence.

(Apart from Lockhart’s background babble in response to Pomfrey’s increasingly direct questions.)

I shrugged. “Not that it worked completely.”

“So, you’re…”

“For now,” I nodded, “I can see light, in a weird way, but nothing else.”

A rustling. Then a hissed: “Ronald! Don’t wave your hand in front of her – ugh.”

I pushed my anger back down. Smiled in the direction of their voices. “You should go back to Gryffindor tower. Get some proper sleep, instead of whatever coma you were in.”

A hand placed itself on mine. I very carefully didn’t flinch, instead placing my other hand on top. Patted twice.

“Goodnight Akua.”

“Goodnight Hermione. Ronald.”

They stepped away. A quiet conversation with the parental Weasleys.

Some bustling from Madame Pomfrey, who finally pushed everyone out of the hospital wing – now that midnight had passed. I lay back down, waited for Pomfrey to go back to her bed. Five hours later than usual.

Eventually the only noise was Ginevra’s troubled breathing. I got out of bed and started my stretches.

(My muscles were stiff. My eyes burned.)

Chapter Text

“If pain could have cured us we should long ago have been saved.”

• George Santayana, Dominations and powers: reflections on liberty, safety, and government.
• George Santayana is better known for the aphorism “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – Akua laughed at this, because the past repeats no matter what anyone does.

They cancelled exams. Two days after Dumbledore was reinstated as Headmaster.

One day after my eyes had fully re-grown. Or so they told me. It wasn’t like I could peer into a mirror and examine whatever made Madame Pomfrey refuse to let me out of the Hospital Wing. I was still fucking blind, see?

And in terrible pain. But I wasn’t telling anyone that.

So, the exams.

My eyesight was probably not the main causal factor in that decision, of course. Dumbledore hadn’t even come to speak with me, after all – which had implications.

A few other things, arising in the past forty-eight hours, also had implications. Not the gossip about Lucius Malfoy being removed as Chair of the school governors. Not Lockhart being moved to a proper hospital and definitely being a fraud (duh). Not even Gryffindor winning the damn House Cup again (called it).

The events I cared about had implications both immediate, and far longer reaching.

One. Madame Pomfrey’s comment about how my magic guided the failed re-growth – that my body thought the eyes it was growing were correct, even if I was still blind and she tutted whenever I pulled down my blindfold.

“Riddle must have cursed you,” she concluded.

(Untrue, of course. Nothing happened to me that wasn’t a consequence of my own actions, and this was as deliberate as it got. I still didn’t tell anyone about how I could see magic –  or the barest presence of it. I also didn’t say that it felt like there were hot coals in my eye sockets.)

Two. The way that all the students who had missed half of the school year had turned up again, right at the end. A brief word from Dumbledore that the monster was vanquished all was fine was all they needed, apparently.

(This society trusted its idols so, so much.)

Three. How Megan had talked to Hermione and picked up more details about how I had ‘blocked’ the basilisk’s stare. My minions had been very hesitant to bring that up, and my damn eyes meant I couldn’t tell if they were worried for me or for themselves.

(I would have to send Megan many letters over the summer, if her reaction to worry was always this desperate.)

And four. The way that Ginevra Weasley only spent a single night in the hospital wing after being possessed for quite a chunk of the year. But she’d been saved by the Hero, I suppose. There would be absolutely no ongoing consequences or harm, because Harry Potter had got there just in time.

Yet again, Good showing its colours.

<{   ҉   }>

The door creaked open. I turned, but kept walking along my route. I was appreciating the quiet moments, in between the meals my minions would bring me – or the performance they so desperately needed me to put on each time.

My world of light shifted, swirled.

I heard three pairs of footsteps, then saw three shifts in the constant movement of magic throughout the castle stones. Or maybe my brain was finding patterns where there were none. Even as the footsteps got closer, I couldn’t… see.

(I’d been… frustrated, today.)

“Ugh, Fred, George, I’m fine. I just need to talk to her, okay?”

Twin mumbles followed the whispered demand of Ginevra Weasley. Who then walked towards me alone – only one set of footsteps.

I turned and smiled in what seemed to be a more correct direction.

“Akua,” Ginevra gulped, “you’re… ah, walking?”

“Yes, I’m managing to learn the layout around here.” I let my smile twist down at the edges. “Though I imagine I’ll have a bit more trouble with the rest of Hogwarts.”

“Um.”

Then silence.

It stretched.

Fred – or George – coughed.

“I’m really sorry,” the shapeless light in front of me said, “for lots of things, but I remember what you said when you gave the diary back and I think he remembered you and sent that Howler-rose after Valentines.”

I had to smother my expression. Reach out to hold something before I fell over. My right hand closed around a metal bedframe.

And my left was grabbed by a very apologetic girl.

I still felt dizzy. The sheer opportunity in front of me.

(Focus. Breathe. Act.)

“Tom wasn’t very nice, was he?” I commented.

Ginevra laughed. Then a sob choked her.

“I didn’t blame you for that. I don’t blame you for my eyes – that was my own damn fault. Hermione had a perfectly serviceable mirror right there. Or… no. It wasn’t my fault. It was his. You know nothing was your fault either, Ginevra?”

Another laugh. “Ginny. Please. Never… ugh.”

(Dodging the question, but I would allow it for now.)

“Ginny.” I gripped her hand tighter. “Did you actually flush him down a toilet?”

“Yes.” She said fiercely. “And I’d do it again.”

I took a long breath.

“Piss on him before you flush, hmm?”

The girl laughed. At vengeance. At humiliating a rival.

(What an opportunity she was.)

“Thank you, Ginny, for coming to see me.”

Shifting robes. Did those particular swirls in her shape tilt downwards? Was she bashful?

“No problem.” She was bashful. But I only knew that from her voice.

(I had to take the chance.)

“Also, if it’s okay, I need you to do something for me, Ginny.” I leaned closer. “I’ve been stuck in here for too long, and I need to go get something. Can you come back at lunch?”

“Of course,” she promised, “what is it?”

I tugged at my blindfold. “I need to go for a walk. Get some sun, or something else that will finally help. Can you help me?”

“I will.” She promised. Properly, this time.

<{   ҉   }>

“Sorry, I couldn’t get away from the Twins at lunch.” Ginevra – no, Ginny – puffed. “Hope that’s okay.”

Had she really run here?

(Keeping me waiting wasn’t okay, even if she’d sprinted just now. Four unnecessary hours of pain.)

“Are you alright to head off again right now?” I asked. “Pomfrey forgot to specify whether I could be escorted around by a teacher or a student, and I don’t want to give her any chance to fix that.”

My words were calm. As if I hadn’t spent the entire afternoon casting different charms upon my bedsheets and trying – trying – to spot a difference in how magic moved before me.

(Success was... staying out of reach.)

Ginny’s next breath was half laughter. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, coast is clear. Let’s go.”

She had to reach up slightly to take my arm. I made sure my grip was tight.

Then we walked out – simple as anything.

I leaned in to whisper. “Just the second floor, to start with.”

Of course, this was my first ‘escape’ from the hospital wing. If I was going to get caught or interrupted, it would happen just before Ginny got me where I needed. Besides, this was only the first step of my plan.

Fate wouldn’t get in my way until I was... hmm. Committed.

(Praesi villains responded to the reality of how the first step of a Villain’s plan always succeeded in one of two ways. Creating convoluted webs of schemes so any given action was always the first step towards something, or having one overarching plan and ensuring that the first step of that set you up very well indeed.)

(I’d valued the second approach, in my past life. Not that Fate had given me any help in re-creating some of the greatest feats of ritual magic in Praesi history. It just… hadn’t got in my way. Until it fucking did.)

“So what hair charms do you use?” Ginny asked, gently tugging me through half-visible corridors of shining swirls.

“No charms,” and I allowed myself to preen a little, because I’d had to adjust my hair quite a lot to work with this damn blindfold, “just effort and time.”

“...Wow.”

I laughed. “Thank you. I care about it a lot, and looking nice is always a bonus. I did teach Hannah, Susan, and Megan some of the styles I know actually. Have they been keeping up the practice?”

A moment of silence, apart from our shoes on the stone.

“Yes. Well, I think so? I wasn’t really paying attention for most of the year, cause... you know, and then I haven’t really been away from Gryffindors much.”

It was strange, hearing us walking through stone corridors while my eyes told me we were surrounded by mist. But I gently squeezed Ginny’s arm and waited for her to succumb to the gap in conversation.

(I breathed evenly, even though every step sent hot needles into my cheekbones.)

“Well, yeah.” She coughed. “But your hair looks great. especially since you... well... without a mirror. Sorry.”

I laughed. “Yes, even without a mirror. But like I said, it means a lot to me. And I’ve liked sharing it with others. People I care about. Or have a connection with.”

Ginny’s posture shifted – unsure how to respond?

Hmm. I thought I’d been extremely fucking obvious.

Our footsteps clacked for five metres before she quietly told me to turn left – and then loudly warned me about the staircase. Which I couldn’t tell apart from the rest of the floor. 

It was easier to navigate the stairs with my eyes shut, than try to interpret the magic suffusing Hogwarts.

But shutting my eyes didn’t stop the pain. And shutting my eyes to the world was against my personal philosophy, no matter how indecipherable the world was.

“Okay, second floor. Is... your common room around here somewhere? I can turn away when you say the password or something.”

I was already shaking my head. “Our common room is near the kitchens. I need to go to Moaning Myrtle’s Bathroom.”

Ginny – still clasping my forearm – froze.

I continued like I hadn’t noticed. “She’s the only other person – or ghost, anyway – that can remember seeing the basilisk’s eyes.”

“...Yes.” Ginny swallowed. “Of course.”

We didn’t move. I turned to face her, reached out with my spare hand to grasp her shoulder.

“Ginny. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. This is something I have to do, for me. I thought it might tie into something you might need to do, for you.” I squeezed gently, with both hands. “I share something with Myrtle, but I also share something with you. And, well, you’re alive. Ginny, I will pick you over Myrtle if you need me to. And I can always talk to her later, if you need more time.”

The grand staircase of Hogwarts wasn’t quiet – other students and the stone-on-stone turning of the stairs themselves echoed faintly up and down. But Ginevra Weasley was silent for a full minute.

Then, in a fragile voice, she said, “You talked to him, but he didn’t use you.”

Alright. Time to stop pretending I wasn’t in charge here.

I turned towards the general direction of Myrtle’s bathroom was. Pulled Ginny along.

“He tried. That’s why I’m only missing my eyes, and not my soul.”

“He…” She sounded lost. “He possessed you?”

I hummed. “They found me surrounded in my own blood, a knife through my hand, and runes cut into my skin. I certainly hope he didn’t use your hands to do that when he tried to take your soul.”

(Truths. All truth. Just letting her interpret a false story.)

She was holding on to me very tightly, now. “But how are you…”

“Alive?”

“Yes. Sorry. Merlin, you can’t even see me nod.”

“Shh. You’re okay.” I shifted my hands around until I had one arm around her shoulders, the other reaching in front of me to grip her hand.

(At least if I walked into a wall, both our knuckles would bruise. Not that I would notice, with my eyes constantly screaming at me.)

“Everyone thinks Hufflepuffs aren’t very special. No, don’t deny it. We know. The secret is, while all you other Houses try to be special yourselves, Hufflepuff draws its strength from the house as a whole. Being brave, being smart, being cunning? That’s all individual. Hufflepuffs are loyal. And loyalty requires another person.”

“So, I’m not brave like Harry Potter.” I laughed, nudged Ginny until she chuckled with me. “I’m never going to go rescuing people. But when the basilisk cornered me, and I’d closed my eyes instead of using Hermione’s mirror? Well, I’d closed my eyes. That’s not brave, and probably wasn’t very smart.”

She chuckled again. I breathed through the winces my body wanted to make.

“Ginny, I know you think that you’re weak, but there were runes cut into me. When Tom was hurting me and only me, I did nothing. But when he was going to use my body to do the same thing to Hermione? To other people? Well, Hufflepuffs are loyal, not brave. I didn’t fight him, I just chose the basilisk.”

We walked on. I let Ginny absorb all of that. Until she stopped.

(My skull felt too tight. I wanted to punch her. Blow up the wall – whichever one I was facing. I had to focus.)

I let go of her hand, stepped us to the side of the corridor, and pulled her into a hug.

“I didn’t fight him at all.” Ginny confessed. “I’m not brave.”

I shook my head – making sure she felt my chin brushing the top of her skull. “No. I don’t know if you can remember anything while he was using you, but you fought him. I could hear it. He spoke with your voice, but it didn’t sound like you – so arrogant. Uncaring. And when he was working his possession over me, I could feel you.”

“Really?”

My arms tightened around her. “You were fighting, Ginny. You were.”

(Truth. Just enough of it, anyway.)

She bumped her forehead into my collarbone, then stepped back. I let her go, then tried to figure out whether she was wiping her eyes or straightening her robes from the sound of shifting fabric.

What little my eyes could see wasn’t useful.

“Okay,” Ginny said, croaky, “it’s just up here.”

 I held out my arm. She gripped it tight again.

We walked. Turned. Entered a room? Ah, the bathroom. There was water on the floor.

I looked around the room. Nothing really registered but… magic. Everywhere and in everything. Maybe away from Hogwarts I might be able to slowly train myself. Adjust.

(‘Maybe’ wasn’t fucking good enough.)

“Oh, hi Myrtle,” Ginny said.

There was a wailing gasp. “You! You flushed a book down my toilet.”

I turned around and… oh.

Moaning Myrtle the ghost looked like a storm cloud. Floating over the shapeless toilet stalls, reaching through and touching the swirls of magic directly.

I tore the bandage away from my eyes. Let it hang round my neck and walked towards the ghost.

“Oh Merlin, Akua, your eyes.” Ginny had stopped breathing.

My own breaths were too loud. I forced myself to calm down.

“What about them?” (My voice did not sound calm.)

“They’re… all white. Completely white.”

“Huh?” The ghost storm spilled into view. “What? No they’re not. They’re yellow.”

Oh.

I straightened up.

It all made sense now.

“What? Her eyes aren’t yellow, Myrtle.”

“Hmph. Yes, they areeee. But I don’t like them. They remind me of…” The crackling overlay in my vision made some grumbling noises, then spread like a web to the ceiling before plunging down and… behind something?

The ghost was still in the room. Tied to the place of its death.

Hmm.

“Ginny?” I held out a hand.

Water splashed. Then my hand was grabbed. “Yeah?”

“This is the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, isn’t it?”

Fingers spasmed in my grip.

“Oh, yes it is!” The ghost crooned. “Harry Potter went down there last week. And then you all came back up by bird.”

“Well. Thank you, Myrtle. And thank you Ginny. Being here might not have magically fixed my eyes, but I did get something else out of it. I hope you did too.”

The girl of tarnished innocence obviously wanted more information, but she let me lead her out of the bathroom anyway. Calmed down on the cautious walk back.

We were halfway back to the Hospital Wing when Ginny spoke up. “Thanks, Akua. For telling me that I wasn’t just… helpless.”

I laughed softly. “You’re welcome, for the truths. But if you could fight Madame Pomfrey for me as well when we get back, then I would definitely owe you.”

<{   ҉   }>

“Spirit, face me.”

“What? Why?” The storm-cloud called Moaning Mrytle whined. “Who are you? Why are you back here at night?”

I ignored the questions. Getting here had been too careful a journey, and I wanted the red-hot pressure in my eye sockets to end.

“You are too dispersed,” I told it. “Consolidate.”

More whining, which I ignored. Instead, I pushed magic down to my palm until it just barely stood out against the rest of the world.

Then I plunged my hand into a storm only my eyes could see. It mattered not if others could see a glow from my hand – I was going to take from the basilisk a sight far greater than what I had lost.

“Consolidate.” I told the ghost as it churned around my hand.

It did.

“I… I didn’t know I could do this.” It sounded confused. Human, just… underwater. But it wasn’t.

“What do my eyes make you remember?”

Water frothed and pipes groaned. But the ghost had pulled its energy into its form.

“My… death!” It wailed.

“Remember your death.” I ordered.

“…no. No! I don’t want to.”

I formed a magic-filled fist in the compressed clouds of the spirit, and my will was imposed.

The storm flickered back into being, lightning striking in reverse. Still the same unspeakable colour as all the rest of the magic, but at least it was movement. Distinct.

That had been the death of this soul-remnant. The basilisk had been… there, when their eyes met.

My footsteps splashed on the floor. My hands bumped into a sink.

Porcelain. Taps. A mirror.

Nothing on the mirror. Or the frame.

I tried to see. Leaned in. Nothing.

The ghost wailed again and made a few toilets explode. The water level crept up my shoes. I paid it no further attention.

After another minute, the only thing I had found was that the taps on this sink didn’t work.

After ten minutes, my fingers found a small ‘S’ on the base of one of the taps.

Nothing stood out in my vision. In fact, I moved too close and poked myself in the eyebrow with a tap handle.

The ghost was still making a commotion.

I screamed back. Pushed my pain and rage out.

(Until my throat hurt.)

Then, when I finally had some peace and quiet, I stepped back and cast serpensortia. And after only four minutes of careful recasting and deliberate intent, my summoned snake hissed what I needed it to.

<{   ҉   }>

There was a slide. Into bones. Not enough for the basilisk to have been eating physical meals for centuries. An aesthetic decision.

Therefore, an Evil lair.

The slide and bone-pile landing had given me new aches. Which were almost a welcome relief, honestly. Other pains to focus on, rather than my damn eyes.

Then aother door, big and circular. My hands felt more carved snakes. Serpensortia worked quicker this time.

I walked on, tapping an ancient femur before me. Stone moved against stone. Water dripped.

Eventually, I got to the basilisk.

My hands were very careful, feeling over cold scales until my fingers skated across congealed eye-matter.

The eyes were ruined. I had to dig each one out with my fingers. Hard to cut out delicate parts when you can’t see.

But I didn’t need my eyes to cut runes. Just a smooth enough section on the basilisk’s eyes. And a scalpel, stolen from the Hospital Wing.

There was a risk of infection, marking runes in the basilisk first. But I would rather infection than this ever-bright blindness.

Next, the scalpel reopened the small scars on my eyelids. The ones that Pomfrey hadn’t managed to remove, talking about “lingering malignant magic” and “sure signs of a curse.”

(Technically, she was correct. But I’d done this to myself, and worked very hard to make sure she couldn’t cure it.)

The basilisk’s eyes were marked. Blood slowly ran down the slopes of my nose. Everything was ready.

A ritual, started back when I stared into the yellow eyes of the King of Serpents. A ritual that had had instructions, a very clear area, power taken from Tom Riddle, and no god damn catalyst. Until now, anyway.

I ate the cold, congealed eye matter. It tasted terrible.

<{   ҉   }>

Hannah carefully pushed open the doors to the Hospital Wing. She knew that Madame Pomfrey didn’t want Akua disturbed too much, but there were only a few days of school left!

Susan and Megan had agreed that they should bring Akua some breakfast. Make up for her missing the end of year feast.

Breakfast would help her heal anyway.

(Hannah always felt better after a good breakfast.)

The three friends – the ‘M’, ‘S’, and ‘H’ of MASH – quietly slipped inside and made their way over to Akua’s bed.

“Akua!” Hannah whisper-shouted. “Breakfast!”

And Akua did that thing where she went very still, then started breathing normally again and stretching in a way that Hannah only did when she wanted to go back to sleep. One of a few weird things Akua did – but she also did so many cool things that Hannah just chalked it up to Akua being Akua.

Then the ‘A’ in MASH sat up, and Megan nearly dropped the platter of food.

(Hannah was too busy staring at her friend to notice that, though.)

“You’re… you’re healed?” Megan asked carefully.

Hannah felt happiness bubbling up in her like a volcano. “You can see?! They fixed it?! Ahhh!”

Akua smiled. And, like, Akua had lots of different smiles. Lots.

This one looked like the sun rising. Probably because –

“Your eyes are gold!” Hannah burst out.

Akua Sahelian blinked slowly – like a cat. Long black eyelashes fluttering.

“Yes, I can see again. In fact,” she paused, breathed in, “I can see many things.”

Megan did drop the food then. Hannah didn’t blame her, barely even noticed – too busy grabbing Susan’s arm and shaking it in glee.

Akua’s golden irises were glowing. And when they were turned on Hannah, it felt like the friend that brought their small group together and propelled them to the top of their classes was looking into her.

“I can see the magic in each of you.” Akua spoke like she was casting a spell, or possessed by some ancient queen. “You are each… so beautiful.”

Hannah maybe might’ve squealed then.

Which maybe might’ve caused Madame Pomfrey to come stomping out. And that maybe might’ve started a whole big thing.

But ahh! Merlin! Akua could see magic!

(By lunch, Hannah maybe might’ve told half the school that her friend was so awesome that she’d stolen the power of Slytherin’s monster.)

On the final day of school, once she was free to roam, Akua smiled like the sun. And Hannah kept cooing over how Akua’s hair was in a perfect crown of braids.