This whole thing was originally going to be the first scene of three in this chapter, but then, well...me happened, and it ballooned like crazy. No idea what I was thinking, that it would fit, past!me is clearly insane. Anyway, after delays from work being a bitch, it's finished, so...Imma just post this scene.
See author's note for a change to the update schedule.
The world suddenly snapped into existence, Hazel fully awake in an instant. It took her a moment, dark-adjusted eyes stinging from soft yellow light, to realise she wasn't in her room. Well, obviously, she couldn't be in her room — the light was the wrong colour for one thing, but she generally woke up, you know, in bed, and she appeared to be being levitated at the moment. She had no idea what was doing the levitating, but that was the only thing that made sense, given that she was hanging at an odd angle unsupported in the air, surrounded by a fluttering of magic. With the angle she was at, she could mostly just make out most of one nearby wall and a bit of ceiling, but she didn't recognise the room — by the colour and faint flickering painting every surface, it could be anywhere in the castle lit by a flamelight enchantment, which was most of it.
Her body might be fully awake already, but her brain hadn't quite caught up yet. All she could do was absently wonder what the fuck was going on.
I'm sorry, Hazel. Mum was there — of course she was, she was always there — feeling unusually tense. Like a spring compressed, wards crackling an instant from release. There was a faint tingling at the base of Hazel's neck, trailing a few inches across her shoulders and down her back, which she somehow knew was Mum holding back an inch from taking active control. Somehow, because that wasn't something Mum had actually done before, not sure exactly how she knew that.
But anyway, she had no idea what Mum was apologising for. What the hell was going on?
His concealment spells were too good, I didn't notice him coming until it was too late. And his stasis spell was far too powerful, fucking bastard...
Who was Mum talking ab—
'Quiet, good. If I'd had to deal with any screaming I would have been most annoyed.' Hazel frowned, turned toward the voice, and only frowned deeper when she found the figure, standing at a rather funny angle, with how she was floating. Because, well, if there were anyone she'd expect to snatch her out of her bed and drag her off somewhere in the middle of the night, Quirrell would have been pretty near the end of the list.
Of course, it wasn't Quirrell, not really. It did look like him...sort of. He was dressed rather differently than usual, his especially baggy robes substituted with simple black tunic and trousers, the infamous turban missing, but it was definitely the same lanky, thin, large-eared wisp of a man. He looked much worse than he had at the beginning of the year, face gaunt and eyes bloodshot, skin noticeably yellowed, angry red sores sprouting all over his bald head. Which was to be expected. This wasn't really Quirrell. It looked like him, it was his body, but Quirrell hadn't been home for about a half a year, since at least the beginning of classes in January.
Mum had explained that true possession was less than beneficial for the host's health. Hazel hadn't noticed any difficulties only because, due to a quirk of the magic binding Mum to her, this was her body as much as Hazel's — it didn't count as possession when Mum took over, technically speaking. Mum had tried to explain exactly how that worked, but it had gone way over Hazel's head, something about Mum supposedly being magically constructed and not a real person. (Which still bothered Hazel, the rare occasions Mum thought to bring up that stupid old argument, not important right now.) Point was, with how often Mum did things, if it were true possession Hazel would have died of multiple organ failure by now.
It looked like Quirrell was well on his way. She caught the thought from Mum that the yellowish tone to his skin and sclerae was probably an early sign of catastrophic liver damage — he could still walk around and do stuff, but whoever it was riding Quirrell around would need to find a new poor sod to fuck up pretty soon. Not that they had any idea who it was. Mum had come up with a few theories, but each was as likely as any other, and could easily be someone she'd never even heard of before.
But anyway, weird things were going on, and she'd been directly spoken to, Hazel should probably stop babbling away in her head and actually participate. This did seem like rather a serious deal going on here. It took her a short moment to figure out how to respond. 'Would screaming really accomplish anything?'
The patch of skin that would have been Quirrell's right eyebrow if the hair hadn't fallen out a month ago curled upward. 'No.'
'No real point in wasting the oxygen then, is there?'
For a long second, Quirrell simply stared at her. Hazel felt a faint pressure against the edge of her mind, but a diffuse one, apparently not an effort to reach inside. And, it could have been a trick of the light, but she thought Quirrell's irises had a peculiar reddish tint to them, it was weird. 'You are a very peculiar child.'
'Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you're a very peculiar man.' Hazel frowned to herself again. 'Woman? I suppose I don't know. You could be a bloody goblin in there, for all I know.'
Quirrell's face twisted into a grimace of distaste, but his voice still came out casual. Well, as casual as it could sound with the cracking hoarseness he'd apparently developed. 'You noticed that, then. I was wondering if you had — given your mother's talents, I'm not even particularly surprised.'
Hazel snorted. 'Okay, even without being able to feel it, I should think I should notice the physical signs of hostile possession, at least.' Speaking of which, why hadn't anyone else—
'You'd be surprised. The residents of the castle, with a few special exceptions, are all convinced Quirinus is dying of some obscure degenerative disease.' Oh, that almost made sense, okay. 'In any case, you were right the first time. My name in life was Thomas Gaunt.'
The anticipatory tension about Mum suddenly grew far harder, the tingling along her back so sharp it was painful. Hazel was confused, but only for a moment. Fuck. It's him. Of course it is. Why should I have believed for even a second it could possibly have been anyone else, fuck, fuck, fuck...
Oh. Well. Voldemort had been one of the possibilities on Mum's little list. This might get a little bad.
To put it lightly.
After a second to wet her lips — really, Hazel was just stalling, giving herself time to work the quiver out of her own throat — she said, 'Ah. Hello again, Mister Voldemort.'
The most feared Dark Lord in British history gave her an odd look only an inch short of dumbfounded. 'You know, I don't think anyone's ever called me that.'
Hazel shrugged. 'You're not my lord.'
Okay, she really hadn't expected that. That was definitely a smirk twitching at his lips, no matter that it had been almost entirely suppressed. She almost entirely missed his flatly-delivered, 'Quite,' she was thrown that hard.
He can be surprisingly affable when he's in one of his less unpleasant moods. He spent most of our second duel teasing and joking, it was surreal.
... Okay, then. Not really behaviour she'd anticipated, what with how people talked about him all the time, but sure.
'Now, Hazel — is it alright if I call you Hazel?'
She just shrugged again. Honestly, she still found the protocol British mages stuck to so religiously a bit absurd.
'I hope you'll not hold the methods I used to get you down here against me.' His voice had gone all smooth, somehow deep and expressive even through the cracking and wavering. She also caught a trace of magic in the air, tingly and warm and soft, but it was so faint she had to wonder if he was even doing that on purpose. 'I am swiftly running out of time, you see, and I had no way of knowing if I could convince you to cooperate swiftly enough to avoid making an inconvenient disturbance. This is what happens when you skip every single one of a professor's classes — I have to rely on second-hand information, not ideal.'
This was...odd, odd was a good word for it. Considering he had just a second ago confirmed he was the Dark Lord Voldemort, he was acting unsettlingly normal. She wouldn't say friendly, exactly — it was hard to come off as properly friendly when covered in those nasty-looking sores, not to mention the way he still had her magically trapped — but very far from actively malevolent. The smooth, slightly tongue-in-cheek way he had of talking was actually reminding her of Sev, but a bit warmer, which was an unnerving enough of a thought by itself. If Severus Snape was being warm and friendly, she'd check for polyjuice.
She was distracted enough just by the way he was saying what he was saying it took her rather longer to put it together than it should have. 'Are...you saying you're not going to be murdering me, then?'
That odd smile twitched at his lips again. 'I wasn't planning on it, no. At least not tonight.'
Hazel almost had to laugh at that last bit. She probably shouldn't find amusing the Dark Lord casually admitting to the desire to murder someone at some later date, especially when she was the potential victim, but it was just funny, she couldn't help it. 'Not that I'm trying to change your mind about that, but why the hell not? I mean, last time we were in a room alone together, you cast a blood-boiling curse on me.'
Surprise showed on his face for a second, but only for a second. A sardonic tilt to his lips, he said, 'Make no mistake, I do intend to kill you eventually. But I don't know what your mother did to you to make you...' He paused, the smile fading to be replaced with a thoughtful look, eyes narrowing not on Hazel but the air around her. '...well, the way you are. Whatever she did left echoes that linger in your blood and soul to this day, and I am unsure what would happen were I to try to harm you. Until I fully understand what happened that night, I will not be casting any harmful magic on you. Or even touching you, just to be safe.'
Hmm. 'Okay, can I ask a possibly stupid question?'
Voldemort didn't say anything, just ticked a non-eyebrow up again.
'Why do you intend to kill me eventually? I never really did get an explanation for why you wanted to kill me so bad the first time, either.' You don't use blood-boiling curses to kill people you don't give a fuck about, after all.
Again, she'd managed to surprise the bloody Dark Lord, and this time the expression stayed on his face, his shock apparently strong enough he couldn't immediately wipe it away. 'You don't know.'
'Know about what?'
This is going to be about the prophecy, isn't it.
What prophecy?
With a sense of forced casualness, he said, 'There is a prophecy.'
'What prophecy?'
'I'm surprised. I'd assumed Dumbledore would have informed you. You are meant to be his little champion, after all.' Under the guise of civility, under the cracking weakness, there was a distinct note of derision on his voice.
Hazel snorted. 'Me and Dumbledore aren't exactly buddies. We've had one conversation in our entire life, during which he implied I was a liar, argued for sending me back to my shite relatives, and then tried to read my mind without permission. Fucking hurt, too. So, yeah, he hasn't told me much of anything about anything.'
'Curious.' And it did seem Voldemort thought it was curious: his reddish eyes had narrowed slightly, taking her in with an intense, thoughtful focus. He was clearly thinking, reevaluating something he'd thought he'd known. For a long moment, he stared, before finally shaking himself and moving on. 'I don't know the entire body of the prophecy, you understand, but the portion I do is damning enough. It said the one person with the power to defeat me would be born at the end of July to those who had three times defied me. After some deliberation, I decided it meant you. You can't expect me to allow a threat to my existence remain unaccounted, do you?'
Huh. That was...interesting. Why hadn't Mum ever brought this up before?
Because it's over already.
What?
The prophecy, it's fulfilled. It was fulfilled that Hallowe'en. I didn't think there was any reason to mention it.
Oh. So the power to defeat the Dark Lord Hazel was supposedly going to have—
—was the protection I gave you with my ritual, yes. Arguably, one could make the case it's still in effect, and the "Power He knows not" is myself. That is stretching it a bit, though. I think it's more likely it was meant to refer to his quasi-death ten years ago.
Right. Anyway, Hazel just had a thought. Couldn't she—?
Oh, yes, that might work. He did say he needed your cooperation for some reason anyway. Go ahead and give it a try.
'It says I can defeat you.' She returned Voldemort's raised lack of eyebrow with one of her own. Er, an actual eyebrow of her own, she meant. 'Not that I will, but that I could.'
The questioning look collapsed into a faintly confused sort of frown. 'So far as I am aware? Yes.'
'So, I could just choose to...not.'
The frown only grew more intense. 'Theoretically.'
'Well, that seems the reasonable thing for me to do.' When he gave her another disbelieving look, Hazel shrugged — or, she tried to shrug, at least, the magic holding her in the air was a little restrictive. 'I mean, let's be honest here, you're almost certainly going to make it back to life eventually. And you have far more experience, know way more magic than I do. And, even if I do manage to beat the odds and win, that you survived dying the first time means you have something keeping you here, which means I'm doubly fucked if I'm your enemy. A truce seems the smart thing.'
Again, he just stared at her for long seconds, frowning at her as though she were the most absurd, confusing alien creature he had ever seen. 'You are a very peculiar child.'
'I've been told.'
'I'm sure.' And he continued staring at her, which she really rather wished he wouldn't. If they were talking, there were things to distract her — from those gross-looking sores all over his visible skin, from that inhuman reddish tint to his eyes, from the fact that she was calmly talking with the genocidal maniac who had murdered her parents, that constant tension that was Mum holding herself an instant from violence. In the silence, she couldn't help being all too aware of them, and that was bad, it wouldn't exactly make her attempt at a ceasefire here easier if she seemed too hateful or disgusted. Finally, he was speaking again. 'And I should take you at your word, of course.'
'Of course.' He pinned her with a flat, humourless look, so she said, 'Well, then, just assume I'm not an idiot. There's no way I could possibly win against you. At least not before you could kill me first — which you definitely just proved, with the stealing me out of my bed in my sleep bit. So, why would I want to fight you? Seems rather suicidal to me. If there's any way I can get myself established as a neutral party in this whole Dark Revolution gig you got going, that's what I'm doing.'
'And that wouldn't bother you? Cooperating with the man who murdered your parents in cold blood?' Well, couldn't fault Voldemort for a lack of self-awareness — wording it like that, to Hazel's face and delivered so casually, he knew exactly what he was.
Hazel attempted another shrug. 'A little bit, I suppose. But, honestly, I can't work up that much rage over that. I mean, it's not like I even remember them, is it?' And she wasn't even lying about that part. It'd occurred to her before, when she'd realised Voldemort was certainly still out there somewhere, and they'd probably run into each other eventually, that she couldn't summon up much personal outrage on the subject at all. Sure, he was definitely a horrible terrible person, and it would be better for everyone in general if he didn't exist, and if an opportunity to knock him off without too much personal risk came up she'd take it, but she just wasn't that emotionally invested in the whole Voldemort thing. For a moment, she'd been wondering if that meant she was just a shite person.
But, when she thought about it, it'd be a bit silly for her to be. She meant, sure, wanting vengeance against someone who'd murdered someone close to you was perfectly understandable. But she hadn't been close to her father. (She meant, she understood James Potter wasn't her father, not biologically speaking, but she still thought of him as her father and, since he still was legally, she didn't see a reason why she should make the effort to stop.) Anyway, point was, she didn't even remember her father. It all felt too far away, too abstract, it was hard to take personally. And, yes, he'd killed Mum too, but Hazel had only ever known Mum post-death. It was all she'd known, and it was honestly a little hard to imagine what life would be like if Mum weren't in her head, if her parents were still alive.
Yes, it was wrong that he'd killed them, she and Voldemort would never be buddies, and she wouldn't say no to making him pay for it, if the opportunity presented itself. But, if the opportunity didn't present itself? It wasn't that she didn't care. She just didn't care enough to risk her life over it. And, honestly, it seemed a little absurd to her that someone would expect otherwise.
Though, she still had felt a little guilty about it, until Mum had said she'd rather Hazel keep her head down. The whole point to their sacrifice was to ensure she lived, Mum didn't want Hazel to put her life on the line fighting Voldemort. And Mum was sure her father would agree. Seeking vengeance for their deaths wasn't worth Hazel's life.
And she'd apparently meant it, since she had signed off on Hazel's plan to try for a truce just a minute ago.
Anyway, Voldemort was giving her another long, analysing look, broken only by the slight wheeze of his dying lungs. Finally, his lips pulled into an odd, sardonic smile. 'I suppose I should have expected something like this. I'd occurred to me to wonder if Dumbledore had maneuvered you into Slytherin as part of some asinine plot to redeem my old house, but that you would belong there makes far more sense.'
Hazel nodded. 'The simplest explanation, and all that.'
The smile twitched wider. 'Quite. At some level, I anticipated the usual self-righteous, moralistic theatrics. I should have given you more credit, my mistake.' With a casual wave, the magic holding her in the air was dismissed; he cancelled it gradually, moving bottom to top, so her feet had time to swing back and catch her before she fell all the way. She still teetered a bit, but she managed not to fall over at least. While she idly straightened her nightdress, he started talking again. 'So, I offer you a truce, Hazel Potter. To the best of your ability, help me acquire what I seek today and, in future, do not act against me or oppose me in my efforts, and I shall guarantee your safety from me and mine. Do nothing to make yourself my enemy, and you shall not be harmed.'
'Extend that protection to my family and friends, and we have a deal.' His eyes narrowed a touch, so she went on before he could say anything. 'Hey, that's only fair. You can't expect me to do nothing if you and your little peons are going around hurting people I care about. And that's really not that many people, when it comes down to it.'
He was still frowning a bit, but by the hesitation Hazel was sure he was considering it. 'That would be acceptable, with a few additional caveats. It is not inconceivable your people might choose to take action against mine. Your cousin Nymphadora in particular — I have it on good authority she wishes to become an Auror, and her chances at succeeding are rather high. I cannot promise none of them will be harmed if they choose to involve themselves. However, I can tentatively agree not to target any of them specifically. Should one of my people harm one of yours of their own volition, and should you seek retribution against only the perpetrator, I would not consider our accord broken.'
Mum?
Take it. It's only a verbal agreement, so we'll still be watching our backs, but you're not going to get any better.
Right. 'Deal. So,' she said, drawing the word out with a glance around the empty stone room, 'what exactly was it you wanted my help with?'
'Behind you— Don't look yet,' he snapped as she started to turn. She abandoned the half-started glance over her shoulder, trying to look appropriately sheepish. 'Behind you is a mirror. It was enchanted some two hundred years ago to show he who looks into it what he most desires. Over the winter holidays, Dumbledore modified it, and is using it to hide something I need. After months of examining the cursed thing, I finally discovered how it works: it will release the object only to someone who wants to retrieve it, but not use it. Quirinus is deteriorating rather more quickly than I had hoped, and I do not have time to devise a method to break the enchantment. Instead, Miss Potter, I would like you to retrieve it for me.'
Seemed reasonable enough. And, better yet, it wouldn't cost her anything, all she had to do was look in a damn mirror. 'What is this object, anyway?' Voldemort's borrowed face started sinking into a glare, so she said, 'Hey, now, none of that. I don't really care. I'm just curious what's worth all this effort.'
He frowned at her for a moment, as though searching for some sign she was lying — be quite a feat if he found one, considering she wasn't. Finally, his expression faded back to a pleasant sort of blankness, and he gave a little shrug. 'I can't imagine you would find it that interesting. Suffice to say, it is a singularly rare magical device the Headmaster agreed to keep safe for an old teacher of his. I will say no more.'
Though, apparently, he'd said enough. Mum was suddenly hot and intense in the back of her mind, writhing with such a powerful frustration it could only be expressed with a simple, God fucking dammit!
Okay. Mum was going to have to explain that one.
I think I know what it is. And of course, of course, it was going to be something like this! The universe and its old habit of bloody taunting me, I should have expected it.
Oh. Er. What was it, then?
It's an artefact, gifted to the Green Lady thousands of years ago. Alchemists have spent all of history trying to replicate it, and none have succeeded — even the Green Lady herself only managed to split the original one into seven.
Hazel had no idea who the hell this Green Lady person was, but that wasn't important right now. So, Voldemort was after an artefact. Why was this a big deal?
Because, I want this artefact. If I'm reading that hint correctly, it's Flamel's philosopher's stone — he ended up with one of the seven pieces ages ago, that's what Europeans call it.
Okay. And what was the philosopher's stone?
It's a magical device that can make any transfiguration or conjuration performed by the bearer permanent.
Oh. Right, that did sound neat. But why was that—?
I want it for the same reason he wants it! Hazel, if I have the stone, I can make a new body for myself in ten seconds! Half the problem would be solved, just like that!
Oh. Fuck.
Fuck is right!
So, they were going to have to fight him for it, was what Mum was saying.
I don't know. I don't know if we can win. I just have to push him hard enough he burns Quirrell out, but I'm not exactly at my best either.
Half of her concentration on her conversation with Mum, she couldn't pick out exactly what Voldemort was saying to her at the moment. It was clear, though, that she was being told to turn around, and get a look at that magic mirror this was all about. So, keeping in mind she did want to use the thing that was in it, which should prevent the magic from doing anything and forcing the issue, Hazel turned around. It was a rather pretty mirror, taller than her head, the frame all intricately carved with little swirly things accented with gold filigree, kept in good enough condition it was only slightly tarnished, the image in the mirror surface itself only slightly washed out. Considering how old it supposedly was, that actually wasn't bad at all — she'd learned enchantments to preserve things like this only worked so well. Well, unless it was goblin-made, they had some way of cheating and making things seem as good as new basically forever, but they'd never shared it with humanity. There was a slight delay, a faint whiff of foreign magic blowing through Hazel's mind, and her image on the mirror wavered, the room around her blurring.
You'll have to convince him somehow that the mirror won't give it to you. Which, now that we want it, I suppose it won't. We can— Hazel, what the hell is this?
Hazel frowned — apparently, this was what she most desired.
Well, yes, obviously, I just...
What?
I mean, I just...
She wasn't entirely sure what was making Mum so uncomfortable. And she did seem uncomfortable, that intense focus she'd had ever since Hazel had woken up blunted somewhat by something shifting and awkward. It didn't seem that big a thing to her. That was Hazel right there, and that was Mum right there — she recognised her because she looked just like she did in those pictures Andi had tracked down, if a little older. And Andi and Ted were there too, of course, and Dora, identifiable mostly by the eye-watering pink of her hair. There a few more kids bunched around Hazel and Dora she didn't recognise, most obviously younger than Hazel. She didn't recognise any of them because, of course, they didn't exist, but it was pretty obvious who they were supposed to be. That boy right there had Mum's eyes, that one had Andi's pointy nose, that little girl — clutching at the hem of Hazel's dress, tiny little thing, maybe three years old — that one had a familiar head of hair, an asymmetrical mess of night black, the tiny one Ted was holding seemed to have hair that couldn't pick a colour, randomly fading from a blondish-brown similar to Ted's, to red, to blue, to black, and back again. All crowded together, not enough space for a finger between them, giggling at some silent joke.
But anyway, she didn't seem what was so weird about this. It seemed...nice, it seemed nice.
Well, sure, it's just... I mean, we, er...
Suddenly, Andi, standing between Mum and Ted, jumped, her eyes going wide. And, Hazel noticed much as had happened any time Ted did something she considered inappropriate in front of Hazel and Dora, her cheeks even noticeably pinked. It was hard to tell, with all the kids in the way, but it looked like Andi stomped down with a foot. Her robes shifted in a way they shouldn't, and then she was jerking an elbow backward, which made her robes shift even more. An easy flick of Mum's fingers, and there was Dad, hair even messier than usual from the Cloak being dragged over his head, face scrunched in a pained look — probably from getting an elbow in the stomach.
Hazel wasn't at all surprised by him suddenly appearing, she'd expected it. Her little sister had his hair, after all.
It's just, I get the feeling that, er...
The scene in the mirror kept moving, as Dad darted away from a furious-looking Andi, ducking behind Ted — more particularly, she expected, the baby he was holding. And then Andi was ranting at him, punctuated in the middle with Ted shooting Dad a quick high-five over his shoulder, which only made Andi even angrier, the kids giggling at another silent joke, Dora whispering something to Hazel that had her and the boy next to her nearly bent double from laughter. Mum slipped against Andi's back, barely enough room between kids to guess her arm had gone around Andi's waist, and leaned in toward her ear, whispering something. Whatever it was, Andi smirked, Dad visibly paled, and Ted broke out into cackling.
Yeah, see, that. Are all of us, me and James and Andi and Ted, supposed to be, you know...
Yes?
Was that asking to clarify what I mean, or a confused acknowledgement?
The second one. She meant, yes, it was obvious that's what was going on here. See, the boy with Mum's eyes had brownish hair like Ted's, and the girl with Dad's hair looked like she'd have Andi's glare down when she was older, the way her face was.
Well, yes, I did notice that. I just mean, er...
What?
Nothing. I just, I wouldn't have thought of, you know. This.
Why not? She meant, obviously she wanted the Tonkses around, this seemed the best solution. Also, more brothers and sisters, yay. Why, was this, she didn't know, bad?
No, I'm not, I don't know, annoyed at you for wanting this or anything. It's just... It would never happen. You know it would never happen.
Yeah, she knew that, her eyes flicking to where her father was still hiding behind Ted. He was dead, after all, and unlike Mum he wasn't coming back.
Well, there's that. Also, James and Andi are cousins.
So?
I get that you really don't care about that but, Hazel, other people do. Not to mention, er, this sort of thing is not at all accepted in magical Britain. Or, in the Noble Houses, at least. Getting James and Andi to go along with it would be problematic. Not to mention that, since we're lilin, and some of these kids are supposed to be mine, it's biologically impossible. And James and Ted didn't exactly get along.
Oh, really? She hadn't known that.
Yeah. This is just...completely impossible.
Hazel knew that. It seemed nice, though. She would like a big family, she thought, with baby sisters and brothers and all. And, well, two parents weren't really enough, were they? If there were gonna be this many kids.
The uncomfortable feeling coming from Mum's part of her head broke somewhat, split with a warm kind of amusement. You're not wrong there. And, well, even if I do kinda hate that I can't... I mean, it would be okay if, er...
Mum was going to remember how thoughts worked any second here, of course.
I just mean, I wouldn't be angry. If you wanted to start calling Andi and Ted mum and dad, or something. I'd, well, I wouldn't be ecstatic about it, but I would understand. You can do that if you want, it's fine.
Oh. Well...no, she didn't think she'd be doing that. It would just be kinda weird, wouldn't it? She guessed it wasn't outside the realm of possibility she might change her mind at some point in the future, but no, that'd be weird.
Anyway. With some effort, Hazel pulled herself from the pleasant fantasy in the mirror, the effort almost painful, something deep inside jarring as she tried to bring herself back to this whole life-or-death-situation thing. A last deep breath, and she forced her face into a stern stare, fixed on the silver choker Mum was wearing, a gleaming red-purple gemstone held close to her throat, and tried to think serious thoughts. Okay. Okay. What was the plan?
You're adorable, Hazel.
That wasn't helping. She was trying to be very serious.
Yes, I'm sorry. Anyway, the plan. We don't want to get the stone out right now. What we should do, is try to convince him it isn't working for some reason, do whatever we have to get out of this without him going into one of his homicidal rages. We can come back for it later — this must be what's in that corridor on the third floor, I've been wondering.
Right. So, they actually didn't want to get it out. It could stay there.
Well, it's not like we want to have to fight him for it or any— Oh come on!
Just as the Mum in her head was articulating exactly why they didn't want it right now, the Mum in the mirror was reaching for the stone at her throat, removing it from her choker, and, with a bright wink at Hazel, put it in mirror-Hazel's waiting hand. Hazel felt something in her real fingers, clenched around it reflexively, knew without looking down what she would find there.
You've got to be fucking kidding me! It was that easy to fool? I mean, I know intent-detecting spells are a crapshoot, but come on!
Yeah, okay, that was bloody stupid. So...they were gonna have to fight Voldemort for it?
Mum didn't even answer. Instead, there was a sudden flash of numbness running from head to toe, Hazel forcefully ripped from her own body. Mum spun on her heel and, with the hand that wasn't holding the stone, flung a banishing charm out into the air. Voldemort was quick enough to react, turning his wand down to the floor, somehow anchoring himself, patchy face pulling into an enraged snarl. But Mum kept going, drawing out a few cutting curses, one after the other, glowing a faint blue in the air as they winged out to meet the odd, reddish shield charm Voldemort scrambled to cast.
While Mum cast the cutting curses, Hazel noticed a bit of magic pulled to the hand with the stone, a slippery chord she didn't recognise. A flick of her wrist, a wiggle of her fingers, and the stone disappeared.
As soon as she had it hidden away, however she'd done that, Mum stopped. She stood there, staring at Voldemort, the red in his eyes far more obvious than it'd been a second ago, almost glowing. And she held her hands out, open, probably just to prove they were empty. He glanced down at them, blinked, and, oddly, the rage on his face broke, replaced with an almost contemplative frown. He looked up at Mum, meeting her eyes, still frowning. After a short pause, Quirrell's wand held loosely toward the floor, he muttered, 'You are not Hazel Potter.'
Mum cocked her head slightly. Magic was still hot in her veins, singing held just an instant from release, but Hazel's voice, speaking with Mum's accent, somehow sounded perfectly casual. 'You are not Quirinus Quirrell.'
The frown intensified a few notches at that, and Voldemort opened his mouth to speak. He never did get out whatever that was going to be — he was rather busy dealing with the column of blue-white flame rushing for his face.
The duel went almost too fast for Hazel to follow it, which was damn impressive, when she thought about it. Hazel was still young, her ability to properly channel magic still incompletely developed, and her wand was still in her room, Mum wouldn't be able to use her best magic. But still curses were flying from her fingers one after the other, some with a slight hesitation, a glowing rune drawn in the air, but others as easy as anything, power flowing through Hazel's blood in an unbroken melody. As quick as they were, as much as the air crackled with the force of them as they passed, none of them landed, some turned aside with an easy flick of a wand, others blocked with flickering technicolour shields, others simply avoided, continuing to dig furrows in the floor, stone scorched black.
Not that Voldemort was just sitting there taking it — he was returning the flood of curses with equal speed, any instant he wasn't defending filled with curses spat from the tip of his borrowed wand. The few that Hazel recognised, which weren't many, were nonlethal, which she thought was curious, until she caught a thought from Mum. She'd tucked the stone away with a shadow magic trick, bound to her person: only she could get it out, Voldemort needed her alive. Though he wasn't known to use it much, Voldemort was certainly familiar with the idea of shadow magic, he certainly knew what she'd done and how it worked, he had to be careful.
However, Voldemort clearly had something of a temper problem. With every curse falling on him, with every one of his spells Mum evaded, every time she jumped through blackness to his back with another curse already flying, those fleeting glimpses Hazel got of his face showed clearer and clearer rage. Until, finally, with a growling snarl, his return fire wasn't so friendly. That was a torture curse, that was an incendiary curse, could tell by the flaming hole it tore into half the wall, that was a rotting curse, that was another torture curse. These Mum couldn't block at all — even at her best, most were simply unblockable, Hazel knew — so she kept dipping into shadows.
Everything went black, then the room was back, standing somewhere completely different, curse, curse, then as he turned black again.
Back again, a few runes drawn in the air, a flash of red-black flame rising, but Voldemort's wand was coming around, and black.
Back again, a noticeable hesitation, Mum's mind focused with a serrated sort of intensity, the magic flowing through her taking a discordant, eerie harmony, and painfully keen emerald light sprang from Hazel's fingertips, spreading as fire and sharp as lightning, but Hazel didn't even make out if the first casting of the Green Death she'd ever personally witnessed landed or not, black consumed everything again.
And Voldemort was screaming something incoherent, and the air around him was twisting orange and vibrant black, and Mum planted a knee on the floor, foreign script springing into existence before the fingers of both hands, more lines appearing than strokes Mum drew, and a wave of angry black lightning was crawling across the floor, Mum touched the tile with glowing fingertips, drew her hands up and around, and blue-green crystal followed, softly shimmering, spreading to encase them in a tight dome. It shook as the lightning struck, the glow of the stuff turning almost purple, a low keening that made Hazel cringe, but it held. Mum was holding her hands out, yellow-orange flames crackling to life, a clench of her fingers and it contorted, tongues of plasma almost seeming to freeze like fire made ice. And the crystal shielding them let out a low peal like a gong, cracks snapping across the surface, again, again—
Mum stepped out of blackness, deadly sharp daggers of frozen fire wreathing her left arm, and she flung half of them toward Voldemort's back, slicing across the air faster than Hazel could follow, and Voldemort was whirling around to face them, but Mum was dipping into shadows again, and she tossed the rest of them above her head, following with a shimmering charm Hazel couldn't read, even as her fingers again danced with lethal fire, and the instant the unforgivable was released she was vanishing again, reappearing with an arm stretched to the fiery shards floating above Voldemort, another charm lengthening them into spears, to drop singing straight for his head.
Okay. Okay, she got it. Hazel had always wondered why Mum said Dumbledore hadn't entirely trusted her, why some people spoke of her with the same awed whisper given to Moody, or the Prewett twins, or Orion Black, or Lestrange. She was seriously fucking good at this magic thing. Not that she'd thought Mum was lying but, well, actually seeing it was something else. She was in Mum's head and she couldn't keep up, god damn...
Not that that little trick had worked — Voldemort was also seriously good at this magic thing. The deadly green light was intercepted with something he'd conjured, the spears blown away with a simple banishing, shattering against the ceiling, debris falling to the torn and blackened floor to simmer away. And Voldemort was staring at them, eyes wide enough to see all the way from here they'd gone thickly bloodshot, the sores on his face weeping, a trail of red seeping from the side of his mouth. And his face was pulled in an open grimace of disbelief, of building fury. 'You,' he snarled, the single word filled with hatred so heavy the air shook with it, Hazel's skin crawled.
Mum didn't even twitch. Fire rose at another flick of her wrist, another clench condensing it into glimmering blades, a dozen floating an inch from her wrist. Voice even, casual, with only a hint of breathlessness, she said, 'Me.'
'No. No, that's not possible. That's not possible!' he screeched, rising high enough Hazel would have winced, the air around him shimmering, a gathering storm setting Hazel's hair to sparking. 'I killed you! I watched you die! You're dead, you should be dead!'
Mum's lips twitched. 'And I could have sworn I'd killed you. I guess we both have to learn to live with disappointment.'
'How?! How, are you here, and in the child, that's impossible!'
'I suppose I'm just more clever than you, Tommy boy.'
Another shout of fury, or maybe that was an incantation she couldn't make out, the shimmering in the air twisted into an inky black mass of something cast out by his wand, and Mum was moving again, slipping away into shadows. But the second she was back he was already facing her, tendrils of magic red and black coiling around him, snapping out toward Mum, she barely had time to slip away again.
'Stop it—'
Mum took one glance at Voldemort — face contorted into blind rage, leaking blood from widening sores, mouth and ear — and let the glimmering magic about her wrist fade away. When another curse made for her, deep purple and menacingly crackling, she rolled out of the way, didn't bother returning fire, just kept smirking.
'—Evans you—'
Another curse was coming, a wide band of black and green, so thick with malice Hazel could taste it even isolated from her tongue, and this one Mum slipped into shadows again, moving to stand just out of the way.
'—vile bitch just—'
And Voldemort was casting a slew of killing curses, so close together it was almost a steady stream of green fire, Mum going in and out of shadows so quickly Hazel didn't even have time to figure out where in the room they were before they were moving again.
'—just die you—'
Voldemort was casting that wave of black lightning again, and when Mum came out of shadows she was standing on the ceiling, upside down, hair and nightdress falling upward. Hazel caught a startled thought from Mum, and she snapped both hands down, stopping it at her thighs. It probably shouldn't amuse Hazel so much that, even in this situation, it would abruptly occur to Mum that Hazel, as usual, wasn't wearing pants and she should try to "preserve her modesty" — especially since her nightdress was already singed and sliced in places from near misses — but she simply couldn't help herself. The priorities Mum had sometimes, honestly.
'—mudblood cunt—'
Another curse was shooting up at them, and Mum let go of whatever magic was holding them to the ceiling, falling out of the way, then slipping into shadows again.
'—why won't—'
Mum slid down a wall, rolled to the ground under a whip of red and black scouring the rock, a light banishing flinging her fully out of the way, and straight toward another killing curse, disappearing into shadows.
'—you just—'
And the air was filled with those red and black tendrils, Mum ducked under one, skipped out of the way of another, stepped into shadows only to appear into another pack of them, dancing out of the way of one, another, another, before she was again forced into shadows, only to duck again.
'—die just—'
The flickering tendrils filling the room pulsed, power so thick in the air Mum's breath came out in a fog. And Mum was suddenly worried, Hazel could feel it, she planted her feet, and runes were again springing from her fingers, one and another and another and another, more than Hazel could follow, definitely more than Mum could physically draw in that time, whole sentences of alien script. The tendrils were clumping into columns, thick trunks of thrumming power stitching together floor and ceiling, and then they were expanding outward, glowing a somehow eye-watering black, and Mum finished her runic spell just in time, the magic catching with a tactile snap—
Hazel was removed from her own body enough it wasn't too bad. It was uncomfortable, sure, like the jolt of a static shock, but constant, the even burn of standing too close to a fire. But, by the way her vision suddenly become nothing but white and red blobs, by the sound of her own voice screaming, she was only getting the tiniest fraction of it.
She didn't know how long, a few seconds, Mum keening and gasping the whole time, the world nothing but white, there was a hard thrum set through her, and another voice was in the air, joining hers in equal agony. And Mum cut off whatever spell she was doing that was hurting her so badly, collapsing to her knees, Hazel could barely feel the thump, letting out a shaking moan as the excruciating pain diminished only slightly. Then they were moving through shadows again, even here her vision spotted with rainbow afterimages, and the world was back, too blurred and saturated for Hazel to make anything out. And Mum was casting another spell, Hazel couldn't tell what.
And then she collapsed, arms wrapped around her stomach, forehead against the top of her knees, and she shivered, and whimpered, clearly in too much pain to do anything else.
It was obvious it hurt rather badly — it was hurting Hazel, too cold and too hot all at once, pins digging into her not-quite-skin, and she could hardly ever feel anything when Mum was in control — but there was no way she had time to sit here like this. Voldemort was fucking scary, they should really be moving, she couldn't—
He's gone, Hazel. Mum's thoughts even felt worn out, thin and shaken loose, barely able to string themselves together straight.
He was? She hadn't noticed anything, she meant, couldn't see a bloody thing...
I felt it. That last spell burned him out. I cursed the body just to be sure. Quirrel is dead, Gaunt is gone. It's done.
Oh. Well, good then. Was Mum okay? Did she overchannel really bad or something? Maybe she should get up to—
Not overchannelling. Well, a bit, I suppose, but this is something else. I fucked up.
Fucked up how?
Letting out a quivering groan, Mum pushed herself back up to sitting. When she opened her eyes, everything was still washed out, could barely see a thing. Mum drew a rune in the air, the strokes slow and shaking. With a jab of power, some unfamiliar spell was activated — not an instantaneous one, the rune stayed floating there, soft and pale. Whatever it was doing, the icy fire in her veins diminished, Mum letting out another, thin moan of relief. Like a bloody idiot, I forgot you're a lilin. Acted on instinct, I didn't think...
Okay. And why was that a bad thing?
Your magic is naturally attuned to the dark, Hazel. You can't cast powerful light magic like that isolation ward without making yourself ill. This is white magic toxicity.
Oh. She'd never heard of that before.
I've never had it before. I know the theory, though. It is possible, though rare, for humans to be attuned to light or dark — I've healed black toxicity in other people before, just the same thing in reverse. Though, now that I think about it, there's some research I have to do.
Er. Research?
I have to find alternatives to replace the light magic I was going to teach you. Most importantly, the patrōnus, you'll never be able to cast it. I should have thought of it before, completely slipped my mind.
Right, okay, plans for later. Now, though, they should probably be getting out of here before Dumbledore showed up. She'd be surprised if he didn't have something observing the place, he'd know something happened.
He's out of the country at the moment, so we have some time.
Why was Dumbledore out of the country?
Something at the ICW, he was called as an expert witness. It was in the paper. I'm sure that's why Gaunt decided to move today.
Oh, okay. So...they should get going to Sev, then? Felt like Mum could still use a Healer.
Yes, but we're going to Pomfrey instead. Sev is good, don't get me wrong, but he is a self-taught hobbyist, not a professionally-trained Healer. Unfortunately, I have no doubt Pomfrey will figure out you're a lilin within five minutes.
What, really? Hazel had seen Healers before, and they'd never noticed it.
Because they weren't looking for it. The ways lilin are different from humans, medically, are rather few — in prepubescent children especially, they would have to explicitly test for it, and there's never been any reason to.
But, human children generally didn't get white magic toxicity or whatever.
Yes, exactly. She'll figure out what it is in seconds, determine with your age and health you'd need to be a dark-attuned nonhuman being of some sort within a minute, and conclude you're a lilin soon after. Fortunately, she's bound by oath and law not to share that, so letting her know might be safe. I say might, because it's possible she might feel obligated to inform Dumbledore, who is an exemption to those rules in cases where the health of other students might potentially be at risk, and I have no idea what he'd do with it. But she might keep it to herself. I really don't know.
Why would other kids be at risk just because she's a lilin?
Because, Hazel, the hatred and fear so many mages have for lilin isn't as irrational as it might seem. They are potentially dangerous for humans to be around. To put it bluntly, if you don't want to accidentally kill anyone we're going to have to start being very careful when puberty comes around.
... Oh. Okay.
But, anyway, Healer now?
I think I can move. Just have to get out of this room, the wards block shadow magic moving in or out.
Oh! That was why Mum hadn't just poofed away. She'd wondered about that.
Mum didn't really react to that, but Hazel could feel the faint amusement threading her exhaustion. She pushed herself up to sitting again, and opened her eyes. Their vision had cleared, not perfectly, but enough that Hazel could make out her surroundings in almost perfect detail, just slightly out of focus, the colours only slightly faded.
So she saw, by some absurd coincidence, they'd ended up right in front of the mirror.
The thing was in surprisingly good shape, considering how the room had been torn and blasted apart around it. It had been flung against the wall, one foot in a furrow dug by one curse or another leaving it standing crooked, but the metal of the frame was still pristine, the glass without the slightest crack — those must be some damn impressive enchantments on the thing. Hazel herself looked only somewhat the worse for wear, minor cuts and bruises dotting her arms and legs, probably from debris cast by the damage to the stone all around her, a few scrapes on knees and shoulders, from the less graceful dodging Mum had done. Her hair was even more of a mess than usual, one side darkened and glossy, charred by a near miss, and her nightdress looked a total loss, tattered and blackened and in a few spots stained with tiny patches of blood. Considering the sort of magic that had been thrown around back there, the ruined state of the room, Hazel thought that wasn't bad at all.
Before Mum could gather the strength to push to their feet, Hazel's reflection wavered, the image wiped away, changing. And Mum froze, her mind abruptly blank with shock.
It was obviously Mum, in the mirror, but it didn't look exactly like her. She had the same red hair, an unnaturally perfect deep shade that put Hazel in mind of the darkest, lowest flame, the same green eyes, an equally unnatural green, so sharp and vibrant they almost seemed to glow. Both those traits, which Hazel had inherited, she had the nagging suspicion were magical, seemed somehow too off to be perfectly mundane. Back before she'd known magic was a thing she hadn't thought twice about it, it was just the way she was, but now she wondered. Anyway, she had Mum's tall, thin frame, the same soft, rounded face, but not quite, slightly off. Seeming somehow, just slightly...she wasn't sure of the word. Less like the actual Mum, and more the idea of Mum, the minor imperfections everyone had smoothed away, looking all too perfect, all too symmetrical to be quite real.
She was seated in an armchair — judging by the gleam of the wood, a rather fine one, but it was completely unornamented, a bare, simple frame. She was dressed equally simply, plain black trousers and a vaguely tunic-looking sort of thing a creamy off-white, the cloth smooth and shimmering enough to suggest those weren't exactly cheap either. Close to her throat was the same choker as before, though now bare of the stone, but that wasn't the only extra bit. Setting above her left ear, wrapping around the back of her head like a weird sort of half-laurel, was some sort of leafy thing, with tiny whitish flowers and reddish berries. It almost looked like holly, it was odd. Clenched about the top of her right shoulder, reaching to the base of her neck, was a silver-looking thing bent in an omega-ish shape, carved with fine details too small for Hazel to make out from here, attached to the ends a length of cloth, sort of a cape, maybe, but only falling over Mum's right shoulder, covering most of her arm, a mix of reds and greens and blues, threaded through with gold stitching, in lines that almost looked like writing of some kind, but if it was Hazel didn't know the script. There was a heavy bracelet around Mum's left wrist that matched the other silvery thing, looked almost identical, if slightly smaller.
Hazel was there too, of course, she wasn't surprised by that, standing behind and just to the side of the chair. Maybe slightly older, looking just as exaggeratedly perfect as Mum, in a pretty blue and purple dress of silk and lace. She noticed she also had a silverish thing, with similar looking designs, but hers was on her head, set into her hair, looking rather like a tiara worn that way, though a comparatively simple one. It wasn't until Hazel noticed her mirror self, the way she was standing, all calm and easy and happy, that she realised the Mum in the chair was holding herself... She wasn't sure how to put it. A luxuriating predator, a warrior at ease, but not quite a warrior, that word was too small. General, perhaps.
A monarch on her throne, perhaps.
Whatever this all was supposed to be, it obviously meant something to Mum it didn't to Hazel. If Mum would snap out of her daze and explain this to her at any second, that would be great.
It took a moment, too set on the image, a fascinated, ravenous sort of focus, but Mum did finally answer. This is supposed to be me as the Lady Protector.
The Lady what? The image shifted again, setting a scene Hazel vaguely remembered — she'd been there only once, some formal thing she hadn't been able to avoid. It was the Wizengamot Hall, recognisable by the blindingly white marble it was carved from, specifically the side of the circular chamber reserved for the government. She meant, the High Enchanter, the Minister, the various department directors. The setup of the seats was slightly different though. All the department seats were the same, the directors stationed behind their desks decorated with the emblems of their departments, though Hazel didn't recognise their faces, the honor guard standing along the perimeter in their overdone, Wizengamot purple uniforms. The bottom tier, just at the floor, was entirely different. The seats for the Minister's direct assistants and advisers were still there — though, like the department directors, were different people than Hazel remembered — but the desk for the Minister himself, the High Enchanter's podium, both were gone.
In their places was a stone chair, heavy and carved in swirling shapes lined with silver and gold. In the chair, wearing a more formal version of what she had been a moment ago — trousers and tunic replaced with what Hazel recognised as light dragonhide armour of Hebridean black, the cape-ish thing longer and the colours sharper, the silvery things gleaming brighter and set with precious stones — was Mum, staring out at the mirror, or she guessed technically the Wizengamot, looking both unnaturally beautiful and intimidatingly powerful.
Lord Protector usually, of course, Mum was thinking, rather distractedly. It's the closest thing magical Britain... They were really never one nation, you see, people from different lands, different tribes, speaking different languages and practising entirely different customs. The Wizengamot is really the only thing that ever unified them.
Okay...? Maybe finish answering the question before getting distracted again, please.
In times of emergency, the old clans would elect a single, you might say, chief-of-chiefs, who would rule the entire alliance for the duration of the crisis, and then step down once it was resolved. The Wizengamot preserved the tradition, calling the office the Lord Protector. The position has been vacant for most of history, hasn't been one for centuries now. Rarely, a Lord Protector would rise to power, and keep power, in a couple prominent cases passing it on to a chosen successor for a few generations.
Wait, was Mum saying—?
Yes. The Lord Protector is the closest thing magical Britain has to a king. Or, a queen, as it were.
Hazel had seriously never heard of this before.
There hasn't been a legitimate one, properly selected by the Wizengamot, since the fifteenth century. The image shifted again, Mum in the wooden chair again, flanked by an array of Hit Wizards in Wizengamot purple. People came, one after another — Hazel couldn't guess why, she knew virtually nothing about how this would work. Most of them she didn't recognise, she assumed people Mum would get a kick out of being all humble and bowing to her and shite, though that was obviously Dumbledore, that one Narcissa Malfoy. People have tried to take it by force, of course, that was what winning would have looked like for Voldemort. The last one to succeed was Cromwell.
Woah, woah, wait up. The Cromwell? The Dark Lady Cromwell? The Cromwell who duelled High Enchanter Henry Black to the death on the Wizengamot floor? The Cromwell whose followers saw to the destruction of dozens of Noble Houses, including half of the remaining Most Ancient ones? The Cromwell who started a war that, estimates say, reduced the magical population of Britain by nearly a third? That Cromwell?
Yes. That Cromwell. You know, I'd never thought of it before. Going for it, I mean. I probably could, I am powerful enough, and with the socioeconomic situation being what it is...
Mum, come on, focus, they had to be getting to Pomfrey. Remember?
Of course, the Noble Houses would never even contemplate the idea. Even if so much as mentioning the office weren't essentially taboo these days, they wouldn't acknowledge a muggleborn Lady Protector. Not after Cromwell, no...
Mum obviously wasn't listening, so Hazel tried to force herself back to her own body. She'd never actually done it before, so she wasn't entirely sure how. She just, sort of, reached out, trying to feel it, but she wasn't sure what she was reaching with, what it would feel like. She tried to yank at Mum's mind, pull her back, but her mind magic wasn't nearly good enough to do much of anything, she had no bloody clue what she was doing.
...way to do it legitimately, that would never happen. No, it'll have to be through revolution, that's the only way. The muggleborns, of course, but there aren't enough of us. The exiles, the poorer Houses, may be possible, I'll have to think about the politics...
Mum! Mum, come on! They had to go! Did she really want Dumbledore to find them here?
...probably a little milder on the deregulation of dark magic than I actually want, at least at first. Unpopular position that, especially with the poor, but I might get a few more wealthy supporters if I'm careful. On the quiet, of course. Creature-being law, though, I'll want the faefolk on my side, goblins would be a coup if I can manage it, but maybe not be too loose on werewolves. If I can get an alliance with the Gaelic nationalists...
Really, Mum, this was stupid. She realised it was a magic mirror and all, and by how hard it'd been to focus on the life-and-death situation going on it probably had some sort of mind magic silliness it was doing, but Hazel had managed to beat it, and she was eleven! This was so pathetic! For fuck's sake, snap out of it!
...issues with a pan-Celtic movement of any kind, but if I promise some sort of home rule, I can probably work around that. Most people don't identify that closely with anything beyond their House anyway, it shouldn't make that much of a difference. That will require a weaker Wizengamot, or whatever I call the replacement, but I'll probably want a weaker Wizengamot anyway. I've always felt executive and judicial power in magical Britain was far too vague. Some significant devolution, local magistrates and courts, I can probably get more people jumping on just pitching that...
Fuck it. Mum clearly wasn't listening. She was just going to have to wait for Dumbledore to show up and drag them off.
Because it wasn't like him finding her here, in this state, was going to make things horrendously complicated or anything.
[And she wasn't even lying about that part.] — It always bothered me, both in canon and various fanfics, that Harry would take his parents' deaths so personally. I mean, if they were killed when he was old enough to remember them, that would be one thing. But since he can't, it seems it should be a more abstract justice thing, less vengeance and more righteous retribution. Which would be fine if it were written that way, that could actually be fascinating, but it's simply not. Harry takes everything about his parents shockingly personally, considering he's never even met them. (See various racist/misogynist comments directed towards Lily, and the bit about James being a raging asshole everyone, both in canon and much of the fandom, glosses over in ways I've always found irrational and unsatisfying. I mean, even "good" characters are allowed to have flaws, don't just dismiss it, come on, people.) But anyway, Hazel's far milder take on it, and Lily's preference she not got involved if at all possible, both seem far more realistic to me. But I'll admit it's possible I'm just failing at anticipating normal person behaviour again.
[Hazel had no idea who the hell this Green Lady person was] — In case anyone's wondering, yes, that is my headcanon Wadjet who briefly appeared in The Long Game. ("The Green Lady" is Lily's brain automatically translating the modern Kemetic epithet into English.) She also exists in this timeline, but is not relevant to the story, so will likely never turn up.
[I know intent-detecting spells are a crapshoot] — Some of you might be annoyed with me making Dumbledore's carefully-crafted defenses that useless, but prior worldbuilding decisions make this inevitable. Simply put, intent-detecting spells are a crapshoot. All it can tell is that Hazel doesn't want Voldemort to have the stone, and that she doesn't want it herself; it can't tell that those feelings are situational and temporary respectively. That sort of thing is too complex for any enchantment to properly decipher.
Lord/Lady Protector — In case anyone was wondering, the concept itself is a more modern extrapolation of something old Celtic tribes actually did, but my decision to use this particular title was directly inspired by the Protectorate. Though, in headcanon history, it actually works backwards, it'd been around as long as the Wizengamot. The title is, conceptually, the same as the various regents in English history using the title: they are "protecting" the realm until legitimate government can be reestablished. In the seventeenth century, a muggleborn by the name of Frances Cromwell successfully overthrew the Wizengamot, replacing it with a semi-democratic Senate she pretty much had in her pocket, over which she ruled as Lady Protector; around the same time, her younger brother, the historical Oliver Cromwell, ascended to the top of the parliamentarian New Model Army during the Second English Civil War, eventually named Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, the title selected as a direct acknowledgement of the republicans' close alliance with Frances's movement. (Yes, there was confusion about that, up to and including misguided accusations of incest, probably should have picked a different title.) The remains of the "legitimate" government of magical Britain, acting in exile, never acknowledged Frances's authority, and eventually rallied and defeated her in 1658; Oliver died soon after, the Commonwealth swiftly collapsing. The chaos of the first half of the seventeenth century was a large part of why Britain supported enacting the Statute of Secrecy. From that time through the modern day, the Wizengamot has never declared war or a state of emergency, because then they would have to select a Lord Protector, the office now too severely tainted by the shadow of the Dark Lady Cromwell.
Yeah, seriously. For some reason, past!me thought that would be one scene, maybe five thousands words? Absurd.
Anyway, update schedule. I'm strongly considering posting scene by scene, uploaded whenever I finish them. This would mean smaller updates — occasionally a monster like this, but some wouldn't even top 3k — but also more frequent updates. If I'm not distracted by work or things, it's not out of the question I could have three or four updates in a single week. The back-and-forth letters between Hazel and Hogwarts friends coming up here might go up one a day for a little bit, though that often will be rare. I'm going to give it a trial run before committing to it long term, we'll see how this works.
Also, a side fic is planned for this, revealing things that are going to happen away from the main narrative starting pretty soon. I could jump over to them as they happen, or I could put them at the end of this fic, or in a separate fic once this is done. I'm leaning toward the last, but I haven't decided, I'll let you know when I do.
That's all I have today. Thanks for tolerating my ridiculous rambling,
~Wings
