Ben was in the great hall eating dinner when Elaine came in with a group of Ravenclaws, her Quidditch teammates. In the meantime his own teammates came up beside him…
"You missed practice," they accused as they all sat down.
"I was busy. Don't worry, I've seen the competition," he nudged his head towards the Ravenclaw team at the other table. They all followed his glance, specifically toward Elaine…
"Girl after me own heart," the other beater smirked.
"She's tougher than you," Ben teased.
"My point exactly…" he said almost dreamily.
"She'll gut you and leave you bleeding if you touch her, I watched Ferral try durring his last year, and she was a first year then, she laid him flat out of his block before he even thought to reach for his wand."
"I'd like to be laid flat by her," he mused suggestively.
Ben shook his head, "Normally, I would pay to see you try David, but don't do anything too stupid with only a week before our match," he sighed, concentrating on his food now.
"You really think I can't take her," David sounded sincerely hurt.
"David you're a great beater, your aim is always on the mark, but you're slower than a befuddled muggle. She'd knock your block off and leave you in the infirmary for a least a month, and we don't have that long for you to recover…"
David scowled, "I just love your faith in me…"
"Whatever," Ben said dismissively, he finished eating and headed out, though he wasn't telling his team of course, that was because he wanted to catch Elaine as she left…
When she finally came out of the hall he pick up pace and came up beside her, "I loved what you did to the Gryffindor Keeper your last game."
She froze, but turned around and forced a neutral face. Noticing it was him again she outright frowned. "I guess what you did to their seeker the game before was almost as good."
He smiled, "Now that I have your attention, I wanted to let you know I was serious about offering to help, I can guarantee I have resources you've barely imagined, that will help in your book."
"I don't know how you learned it was an experiment, but I can assure you most of whatever else you've heard is wrong," she hissed.
"Neither of them knew it was potentially deadly, they found the research, or parts of it, when your grandfather found out, he was appalled, but your father-…" Ben grinned, "Oh your father thought he'd found a new solution- a way to become more famous than even Voldermort…"
She glared, she wanted to ask how he knew, but he wouldn't give him that much yet, "What do you want from me," she sneered and turned away to walk off again.
He matched her pace and kept up with her, "Aren't you Ravenclaw all about learning, I know I love to learn, I just hate to be taught, and one of my studies is about the experiment they did."
"Why," she practically snarled and turned on him, "You want to kill muggles too?"
"Please," he scoffed, "I'm half-blood myself, and actually, it wasn't supposed to kill muggles- it was supposed to make them like us…"
Elaine stopped, her jaw grinding with more questions… "How do you know this?"
"My family, the wizard side of course- collects memories, murderers, black practitioners, most of them stolen honestly, but our pensive is one of the most expansive on the planet. Between that and our library, there's almost too much to learn."
"You're a persistent little fucker aren't you?" She growled and moved on again.
"Let me help you, you said you wanted to let the world know the truth, not the nightmare, well it's not the fairy tale you comfort yourself at night with either," he called back to her before stopping breifly in the library before heading for Slytherin's dormitory.
He turned at the dungeons and stopped by a bare and damp stone wall.
"Asmodeus," he said as the password before stepping in.
"What took you so long," David said, coming up beside Ben.
"I needed to get back to the library, dropped my pencil." He wasn't lying; he had gone back because he'd accidently left one of his pencils there before.
"You and your muggle trinkets," he scoffed.
"I like sketching in graphite," he said plainly.
"Yet you never let anyone see your work, you ashamed," Yeisha, the only girl on the Slytherin team came up beside David.
"No I don't, they're my private notes and sketches, if I ever show anyone, it'll be an edited for disclosure version."
"The least awful you mean," Miguel and Klien joined in, two chasers in fifth year like him.
The team Captain and Seeker Largo reached for the notebook under his arm. Ben quickly took it in his own hand and smacked Largo's reaching hand. Largo reached for his wand, but Ben flicked his wrist and his came down from a sheath on his arm and into his hand where he could point it at Largo first. "I'll thank you to leave me be, my curtains will be shut tonight, and I'll have none of you bothering me."
"Oh calm down dear brother," a dreamy voice came from the girls' side of the dorm. Her hair was a pale brown, her eyes blue like his. She seemed to float down the stairs rather than walk. "If you keep antagonizing all the other Slytherins, you'll make life so much harder for Geene and Richie."
"They'll live, frankly I think you're friendly enough for all of us, and since Whitney graduated year before last, you've been insufferable…"
"Hardly, I think I've been very sufferable," she practically giggled.
Ben scowled and spun off to his bed, robes flailing out behind him. He sat down in his bed and closed the curtains around him with his wand. He reached down for a small chest under his bed and as he came up, there were shadows by his curtain.
"Ben," two small voices pestered as one, his younger brothers Richie and Geene. His whole family had been in Slytherin, and now his brothers were here to side with Brianna. "Whitney's graduated, Brianna will be graduating this year, that'll leave just us next year, and more importantly that'll leave you as the oldest here, the one people will look at to judge us by… why are you so hostile?"
"Pretenders… They're all false… Especially since Voldermort's-" he watched their shadow's wince- "VOLDERMORT IS DEAD," he emphasized, "Every wizard is still afraid he'll come back again, and nobody wants to risk any open dark magic, both afraid of the still shattered ministry, and of the possible return."
"Ben…"
"Go away, I've got research…"
"Ben…"
He flicked his wand and a light flashed, that was him dismissing them. He saw their shadows' slump in the shoulders and slip away. Once they were gone he unlocked the small chest in his lap. Chains dangled upward without any outside influenced. These chains were charmed to be animate. Ben raised his wand and the chains all flared up with spines and spikes and lots of general sharpness.
In the middle of the night Ben stumbled out of bed dragging bloody sheets, he dropped them down a shoot and summoned a house elf to fetch him new sheets…
AN:
I guess short chapters are going to be the norm for this fic… sorry…