Author note: Thanks to all the people who reviewed this story or marked it as a favorite.
I always like to read what you have to say about my stories, good or bad. This chapter was difficult to write and I hope you will like it. I took a few controversial decisions in it and I would be glad to hear what you think of it. The most important ones are plot driven and will be described in the scenes below.
Another one is actually cosmetic and is one that can pop up every time one crosses a manga with something else. It concerns anime hair colors and it can be a touchy subject, so I will describe my reasoning for this decision. As you probably know, some anime and manga will use outlandish hair color as a way to help the reader / viewer distinguish the characters. It is not mentioned as anything special or even mentioned at all.
Rosario+Vampire does that for a few of its characters, including Moka Akashiya (who has pink or white/silver hair depending on her seal's status), Kurumu Kurono (light blue hair) and her mother Ageha (light blue hair too). While some may think it intentional given that they are ayashi, one quote in chapter 2 of the manga goes against that. Kurumu mentions that Moka's human form has brown hair instead of the pink she has in colored drawings and the anime.
In this story, I decided that anime hair colors in human shape had to go. The human shapes of the Yokai were created to allow them to pass as humans, which makes pink or light blue hair counterproductive. The basic rule I followed is that human shapes will have a tendency to match one of the common ethnicities of the place the ayashi are living in or the ones of the place they're supposed to hail from. All this to say that, in this story, Moka's sealed shape has brown hair (her human shape being technically half-Romanian and half-Japanese) and Kurumu and her mother are raven-haired in human shape.
Thanks to Narsil for betaing this chapter.
Disclaimer
See Chapter 1
Narcissa Malfoy, nee Black, looked at her reflection in the mirror. Ten years ago, if someone had told her that she would one day wear those kind of clothes… she would have hexed the person just for daring to make the suggestion. Right now, she loved how the white power suit and high heels married with her platinum blond hair and lithe body. She had worked hard on that last point, after one of her first outings with Ageha made her feel fatter than a cow.
Who did Kurumu-chan say that I looked like? Yes, that Emma Frost woman in one of her stories. A pity I have to glamour it at home… no, it's not like I would let Lucius touch me again anyway. He doesn't deserve any of this, she thought as she applied some light, pale blue lipstick Kurumu had gifted her and posed with her hands on her hips in front of the mirror.
She looked about the room she was in: sharp angles, chromed metal, and white leather in a refurbished industrial loft. The place was completely alien by wizard standards, just as she had wanted it to be. This place helped her to switch between the two persons she now was. At first, the woman in the white power suit had been the mask, the one she donned while pinching her nose, to abide by the conditions of the pact she had made with Ageha. Now, ten years later… well, she guessed that she was thoroughly corrupted, because the mask and the truth had switched places.
Now, she hated the dull life of a proper pureblood wife. She hated the world she grew up in. When she looked at it, she didn't see honor and tradition anymore. All she saw was the fabrication of a few old men who panicked when Europe started to go through the Industrial Revolution, old men who decided that isolation and stagnation were better than having to face the new world the muggles were building. Sure, sometimes one muggleborn or another managed to get something through, like the Wireless or the Knight Bus… but everything was delayed by decades and made 'more magical' to better appeal to wizards… which often stripped the item of the common sense the muggles had put in their version. The Knight Bus was a perfect example of that.
She wanted nothing more than to stop that masquerade, to tell Lucius it was over… but there was just too much at stake. All she could afford were those breathers when her husband was too busy with something. Thankfully, she had managed to sway the family house elf to her side. Things would be a lot harder for Draco and her without Dobby's complicity.
Like sending that indirect warning to the Potter boy… a pity I still don't know exactly what Lucius is plotting, but the goal is evident: remove Dumbledore from Hogwarts. And now that thing with the Granger girls complicates everything…
She went to the loft's safe and put her hand on the panel, feeling a slight tickle as the system verified her identity. This safe was in itself a symbol of how out of touch with reality wizards were. It was a Goblin creation marrying the finest Goblin crafting magic with the latest muggle technology. Few British wizards would have understood the implications of such an item. It meant that if the wizards managed to piss off the Goblins enough to trigger a new rebellion, they would not face axes, but techno-magical weapons.
They grew while we waned… but weapons are just toys compared to the Goblins' real might. They control the wizarding economy because our ancestors stupidly thought they could take their gold back by force if needed… but I have to be fair. It was the eighteenth century and everybody's ideas on international trade were still in their infancy. If someone had told them that the equivalent of billions of Galleons would be exchanged every day, sometimes at a rate of several millions per second, they would have just laughed. Who could have thought that the Goblin Nation would become a corporate republic with Gringotts as one of its many fronts? If the Ministry tries anything, Gringotts will just close its office in England, freeze all British wizard assets under its control and only give them back after taking enough in 'fines' from them to strangle us. The truth is that switching to the pound and relying on the muggle financial system is the only sane choice to get rid of the noose most wizards don't even realize is around their neck… but enough ranting.
She took the ring – a diamond on a silver band – in the safe and put it on her right hand, leaving her wand in the safe in its stead. European wizards rarely considered foci other than wands, another sign of decadence in her opinion. Ageha had stressed how, in that Japanese magical school she studied in, spellcasting classes taught the pros and cons of each type of focus. Compared to wands, rings had an accuracy issue for anything requiring aim but they were far better for self-enhancement spell due to the constant contact with the caster's body. They also had a major advantage that made them a popular focus among American wizards: discretion. When you had to mingle with Muggles, carrying and using a wand could easily become problematic. A ring could generate comments about taste depending on its style, but was otherwise just an ornament.
She smiled slightly, remembering that she had promised Kurumu to see if she could find a way to pull off that 'diamond body' transfiguration Emma Frost was capable of. It was no simple matter. Human transfiguration needed a lot of care because messing up could become lethal and non-living shapes were even more dangerous. But she was a Black and her family had a knack for shapechanging, a fact proven by the regular occurrence of Metamorphmagi in the family. Thanks to Ageha, she even knew why it was so.
Another lie: the 'Toujours Pur' family motto was coined in 1823, at the same time the Sacred Twenty-Eight myth was built, which is the real reason why the family tree tapestry was 'reset' to not display members before Licorus Black. Before that… 'Potestas per Diversitatem' implies a very different point of view, as does the fact the Blacks are a magical branch of House Basarab that settled in England after the fall of Wallachia. Gosh… when I think about how much Sirius looks like this old portrait of Vlad Tepes in the Grimmauld Place house's attic…
She left her loft, putting on a white leather trench-coat to complete her costume. She felt like walking, like feeling the streets around her and maybe turning a few heads in her wake. Her 'Slayer' high heels – she still wondered why that magical shoemaker from Los Angeles had given them that name – had been enchanted to be both more comfortable than slippers and easier to walk in on all kind of terrain than a pair of trekking shoes anyway. The shoemaker had even guaranteed her that the spiked heel could stab through dragonhide boots if need be.
Narcissa remembered how it had all started. Shortly after Voldemort's demise, the Black family had been in turmoil. The conflict had cost many members of both light and dark families and the Blacks had been no exception. In fact, there had been only two male Blacks alive at that time: her father Cygnus and her cousin Sirius, and the latter was in Azkaban for the murder of Peter Pettigrew. Shortly after that, things had gotten worse. Her aunt Walburga had been found dead, having messed up one time too many with the cursed artefacts that collected dust in the Black ancestral home on Grimmauld Place. A mere month later, her father met his demise in a duel after insulting the ancestry of an African wizard.
As her own sisters, Bellatrix and Andromeda, were respectively in Azkaban and disowned, Narcissa had logically tried to claim the Black Estate. Her son Draco could become the new Lord Black… but it was then that she had realized that Sirius… Sirius the prankster, Sirius the Gryffindor, her goody-two-shoes cousin, had outsmarted them all. First, there had been the fact that Orion, while he had let Walburga vent publicly about having cast out her honorless son, had actually never filed Sirius' expulsion with the Ministry and Gringotts. The old snake had probably realized that there were too few Black sons still alive and that it was better to keep the family's options open.
Still, even if that made Sirius the family head, she had ways to declare him unfit thanks to his imprisonment… and that was when she stumbled upon years of creative misfiling that had hidden the fact that her cousin was married and had a daughter the same age as her Draco. Digging deeper… she had no proof but there were tiny hints, things that started to make sense if you let paranoia guide you. If her hunches were correct, Sirius' marriage had been the final phase of a plan carried out over four decades to place the House of Black under the control of a Japanese influence agent: Ageha Black née Kurono, Yokai Academy graduate.
Being a true Slytherin, Narcissa had whistled in appreciation. She remembered how Horace Slughorn, the Slytherin House Head during her stay in Hogwarts, had often cited the Dark Lord Mikogami as an example to follow for all Slytherins. When you knew that said Dark Lord was the Headmaster of the Yokai Academy… well, thinking that he could use his school as a recruitment and training center for his own agents was not that far-fetched.
And meeting Ageha, actually becoming friend with my newest in-law, changed everything… looks like there is a lot of people tonight… right, Valentine's Day and it's Friday.
She didn't really look at the line standing in front of the club's entrance but she enjoyed the gazes on her body as she cut to the VIP side of the line. She knew that her old self would have feel ashamed, protesting that she was not that kind of witch. The new and improved Narcissa didn't mind having one-night-stands once in a while. It wasn't like Lucius was faithful either anyway.
"Konbanwa, Black-sama," said the bouncer with a bow, just before he opened the door for her.
She bowed back, more of a little nod to acknowledge a faithful servant than anything else. She was still far from mastering all the intricacies of Japanese etiquette but thankfully her cousin's employees – or maybe vassals, as the Kurono-kai was rather a kind of 'chivalrous organization' than a regular commercial company – were not too formal.
Narcissa went right through the inside security control where the young people going to the dance floor had their hand stamped. She could have taken the office entrance on the rear side of the building, but she took pleasure in feeling the crowd acknowledge her importance… and her beauty. She aimed for a door next to the bar, nodding again in reply to the bow of the guard posted here.
A short climb later, she arrived in a large room furbished as an office and sitting room combination. There were large windows on one side, with a view of the dance floor below. Narcissa knew from experience that the windows were one-way mirrors mainly constituted of a new Goblin metal called transparent aluminum. While not as good as the famed Goblin Silver, it was a lot easier to produce and already good enough to stop a Bombarda Maxima spell.
Her cousin was there, working at her desk. Ageha was a statuesque Japanese woman with an impressive bosom and shoulder-length light blue hair. Narcissa could see that her cousin was irritated by the way her tail spade was wiggling under the desk and how her bat wings almost fluttered. The discovery that her newest in-law was a succubus had been a shock, but some old laws enacted by dirty old men in the Wizengamot had been adroitly exploited and she had understood it was checkmate. The problem was that agreeing or not to such a union was the family head's responsibility. Nobody in the Wizengamot wanted the Ministry looking too closely at 'internal family affairs'. Nobody had thought about the situation the Blacks were in.
"Good evening A-chan," said Narcissa as she sat in the armchair in front of the desk, crossing her legs with a calculated slowness. "Anything I should know about?"
"Eleven years ago, Sirius and I both made a terrible mistake," replied the succubus as she closed a Finch & Blackrose file marked 'Grunnings'. "I'm wondering how to correct it."
"How can I help?"
"I won't ask you to act on it. It would be far too risky at this point of the game."
"But you can still tell me about it and maybe I can help make your plan more cunning, dear cousin."
"In short, I believed Dumbledore when he said he was keeping Harry safe. The human relatives he set the kid with hate magic… I think you can guess the rest."
"I see. Could you use the old guardianship law?"
"Dumbledore can block the attempt by erasing the proof. He already did some 'clean-up' in that area… to prevent Lucius and his associates from learning where Harry was. I need something he will not be able to prevent. Arranging an accident for the Dursleys is tempting but the backfire potential is too high. Also, there is the matter of the wards set on their Privet Drive home. They seem to be dependent on Harry living in a place with his blood relatives."
"Hmm… then we need them to move abroad. That will leave Dumbledore having to choose between letting your godson leave the country or having to live with another family. His face if Harry Potter had to transfer to Durmstrang… but our goal is to get Harry under our control, not further away."
"Yes, and I agree with your idea of forcing a move abroad. I was already thinking about acquiring Vernon Dursley's company. It's losing money badly and convincing enough shareholders to sell to take control will be easy. As for Dursley himself… a recently fired secretary said a few interesting things about the company's book-keeping to one of my boys. Dursley is not stupid – at least when magic is not concerned – and he has to know that a tax audit would get him in trouble. If I offer him a chance to make a clean start somewhere else with an equivalent posting, he's likely to take it… I should be able to arrange something in Brazil. Spun that way, I am saving him and therefore bypassing any 'ill intent' alarm Dumbledore may have set up. Having him concede Harry's guardianship to House Black should be a formality then."
"And if Dumbledore Imperius him?"
"In that case, proof of his use of the Unforgivables will end up on Amelia Bones' desk. This has become a matter of clan honor and I will not settle for anything less than total victory."
Narcissa nodded. She remembered what Ageha had told her. Twenty years ago, freshly graduated from the Yokai Academy, Ageha and her friend slash school rival Tsurara Shirayuki had made the decision to not let themselves be reduced to their respective species' stereotypes. They would win respect and they didn't mind if they had to dirty their hands to do it. Narcissa wasn't sure exactly what her cousin's Yuki Onna friend was doing but she knew the choice Ageha had made: she had joined a world where a determined person could do the work of thirty years in a third of that time. She had become a Yakuza and now controlled a good part of London's nightclubs as the kumicho of the Kurono-kai.
Narcissa was a true Slytherin, even more so since her association with Ageha reminded her of the true roots of her family. She understood the inherent dark part of human nature. She knew that trying to eradicate crime was futile. The balance would always swing back the other way, destructively. In her opinion, controlling crime was far better. Society was kept safer and its dark urges would be channeled in a less destructive way. This was why she had accepted the ritual sake sharing Ageha had offered her. As 'improper' as the world Ageha had shown her was, she understood it and she understood that it meant a far better future for her and her son than being the minions of a psychopath with delusions of immortality.
"Ladies," said a tired man as he entered the office and went to sit in another armchair in front of the desk. "No offense, Ageha, but teaching Kurumu was being particularly daunting today… she was rather obsessed about finding me a date for Valentine's Day. Anyway, she's with Lilith and Arya now."
Ageha had a little smile. The tired wizard was her husband's sworn brother, Remus Lupin. As a cursed werewolf, wizarding society had not been kind to him but he had been too 'Dumbledorized' to easily accept the help of someone as 'dark' as her, particularly when Remus didn't have all the facts concerning the Potters' death and particularly who betrayed them. Two years ago, however, Ageha had finally managed to reach to him. Kurumu was nearing eleven. Given her nature, she was unlikely to be invited to attend Hogwarts so Ageha had decided to hire a tutor to handle the magical part of her education. Ageha offered Remus an honest job that he took thinking that the girl was in no way responsible for her father's sins.
Except that in those two years, Kurumu's cheerful nature has eroded his armor of bitterness… better to leave off the topic of Harry for now. I still need some time to destroy the respect he has left for Dumbledore. Him knowing that Pettigrew and not my Sirius was the traitor and actually having a cordial relationship with Cissy-chan is enough for now.
"Remus, you will be happy to know that Angus Nott will not be a problem anymore," said Narcissa who had reached the same conclusion.
"I wouldn't say happy, Cissy," replied the werewolf. "I understand why he had to die and I am relieved that he will not make things more difficult for honest werewolves anymore but… hell, I am happy that justice has been done for those girls."
"Fair enough."
"It's a pity he didn't try to pull that kind of thing in my territory," said Ageha. "My boys do not take kindly to people murdering my customers and we would have spotted him a lot earlier."
"Except that he probably knew it. As much as I dislike my wolf part, I know it gives me an acute sense of when I am intruding on another's predator territory. To give a blunt example, I would rather poke a sleeping dragon than get within two miles of Stockton Manor. What's the word in pureblood circles, Cissy?"
"Not much. He was stricken from the Nott family records since he was infected. Good riddance to bad rubbish would be more like it for most of the 'proper' purebloods. The DMLE is more concerned. I heard they put Moody on the case because of the 'Wanted' posters that appeared in Knockturn Alley two weeks ago."
"Ouch! Ageha, you can expect him to come here."
"It won't be the first time… though with cousin Nymphadora being almost fully trained… I will tell the boys to look out for metamorphs," replied the succubus as she remembered that the senior Auror Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody currently had as a trainee a metamorphmagus of Black descent.
"And if you catch her snooping?" asked Remus.
"Nothing violent, we're family after all… and I don't despair of finally convincing Andromeda to accept my offer to put her back on the clan lists. Now, enough for tonight," said Ageha while she got up and shifted to her human shape, her hair taking that peculiar black hue that reflected blue with the right light. "Let's go party!"
Severus Snape was grumbling as he walked toward the headmaster's office. He was already no fan of Valentine's Day usually and with the disaster organized by Lockhart, he had hoped to spend a peaceful Friday evening, maybe with some light musing on how he could torment the cad in the following weeks. The man had dared to insinuate that he, Severus Snape, would sink low enough to resort to love potions!
Damn him! As if forced love was anything but a bitter illusion!
He went through his Occlumency routine exercises as he walked, letting the iron mental discipline quell his emotions. This was not a topic he liked to think about. It invariably led him to those same regrets, to the same old mistakes, to torment himself about what he could have done differently to win the love of the only woman that counted for him… the woman his stupidity killed. Thankfully, these thoughts were now back in their little compartments and he would not let them out.
He gave the password to the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office and walked briskly up the stairs as soon as they were in place. As he entered the office, he noticed that Dumbledore was nursing a glass of Firewhisky.
"Good evening, Severus. Miss Granger sent this to Harry, with instructions to transmit it to me," said Dumbledore, handing him a sheet of paper.
He first noticed that it was some kind of typewriter paper and the characters looked printed. He read through the neatly organized information and could only approve as he noticed that it wasn't the bloat of minute details Hermione Granger usually inflicted on him in her essays. Things were short and to the point. Presented this way, the hypothesis of a Basilisk being responsible for the petrification made sense and they definitely had to do something about it.
Someone has finally managed to pound into her thick skull that… what?
"She has Lucius under surveillance? How?" he asked, having deciphered some subtext about 'suspicious movements in the Wizengamot'.
"Severus… her grandfather is the Dark Lord Mikogami."
Snape let himself crash into the chair in front of the desk. He knew about Mikogami the Strategist of course. Little was known of the magical abilities of the Japanese Dark Lord but one thing was certain: any true Slytherin considered him a master of the political arts.
"I see you understand the implications," continued Dumbledore.
"Yes. Mikogami is going to look long and hard at Britain. He is going to meddle here. Touhou Fuhai will follow and… the Fae," he said, using a name the Ministry refused to acknowledge but that was heard more and more by those who gave a damn about the non-humans.
"I have reasons to believe it has already started. A few days ago, Angus Nott was found mauled in his home, a broken silver dagger in what was left of his right arm. I suppose you knew the rumors about him."
"I did. He never hid how he considered Muggles. The Fae?"
"Mundungus Fletcher said that 'Wanted, dead or alive' posters appeared in Knockturn Alley. They were taken down quickly enough but two days later, Nott was executed. Unfortunately, the body was not found until the stench became unbearable a week later."
"Bones cannot let it pass."
"She put Alastor on the case. The idea is to try to defuse things before the Wizengamot realizes what happened."
Hogwarts, February 5
Dear Hermione,
Thank you for the warning…. I told Dumbledore about it after last night's dinner and he said he agreed with what you wrote on the clues page. All of it.
Bloody hell, Hermione… I didn't realize what you wrote on that page really meant before I gave it to Dumbledore. I saw him lose that twinkle he always has in his eyes. When I asked him why, he had a long, hard look at me and told me that while the Basilisk was bad, what really saddened him was how much you understood of the stakes behind it.
Dumbledore then told me that you understood the chess game the Heir is playing with him, using us all as pawns. He told me that the way you had written the clues showed that you knew that the Heir was trying to set up a situation where he could not lose. If things become too bad for him, the Heir just has to let the Basilisk loose and Dumbledore will be removed for being unable to prevent its rampage, maybe even die stopping it. If we do nothing, the small attacks will finally push the Board of Directors to remove Dumbledore.
I think he told me that so that I understood his point of view rather than asking you. He said that he was sad that you had to lose your innocence so early… I didn't really understand it then but now… now I am sitting at two a.m. in the common room and writing this letter because I can't sleep. Because I understand now. I understand that for some people, other people just don't matter. They will use them and throw them away like Dudley with his used toys. I understand that being a brave Gryffindor is not enough, that people like the Heir will just factor that in as if it was just a big math exercise and not hesitate one second to kill to solve the 'equation'.
I cannot tell Ron. I don't want to tell him. We kids should only have to worry about our grades and things like the next Quidditch match. We shouldn't have to think things like 'I have to sacrifice these if I want to save those'. How do you cope with it, Hermione?
Take care
Harry
Hermione rubbed her eyes as she finished re-reading Harry's letter. It was a pity that she couldn't phone him… it would help make up for the fact the letter had needed ten days to reach her, thanks to the people in the Glasgow Sanbao offices having to deal with a big contract. On the other hand, it meant that she had a little time to think about a reply… and ask someone for advice.
She activated software whose installation disk had been put in the many books she had brought back from the Himalayas. She typed several codes, checking the random, disposable one from a sheet, and waited for the channel to open, knowing that her request was now transiting through the satellite dish in another area of the estate. A window soon opened on the screen and she made sure that the small camera next to her screen was activated too.
"Hello Khany," she said in Naacal. "Do you have some time to chat?"
"Of course, Hermione," replied the former Empress. "Is something wrong?"
"It's Harry… I would like your advice on how to reply to his last letter."
Ginny Weasley was humming as she added another component to her potion. She had needed to calm down after the nightmare Gilderoy Lockhart had made of Valentine's Day. Not only had the dwarves dressed as cupids been embarrassing, probably even more for the dwarves themselves, but Lockhart had once more proven that he had the sensitivity of a troll. He had made comments to Snape and Flitwick about love potions and mind control spells that made her want to hex him. So, she had faked a slight tummy ache and gone to her secret garden, where she had spent most of the night, using a decoy to make the girls in her dorm believe she was sleeping under the covers.
She understood Snape a lot better since she had started coming here. Brewing potions was an art and she was getting quite good at it. From what she remembered, her Mum had been very good at it too… until the backwards, rotting wizarding society forced her in the role of a housewitch. Ginny wouldn't let that happen to her. She wouldn't let petty people cage her dreams.
She adjusted a control on the apparatus. She had always found it funny that this place actually had much better equipment than what Professor Snape had… despite the fact it was a thousand years older than the things in the Potion classroom. Here, she just had to run her fingers on the crystal sphere next to the black metal cauldron and let the charms do the stirring according to instructions she could time to the second. The thing was so well-made that even a Muggle could use it. The apparatus was pumping the magic the potion needed directly into the ley lines below the castle without her having to provide anything.
This simplified her life a lot, meaning she didn't have to be here for much of the brewing process. She still had to pretend to be a model student after all. Though, if she had to admit it, she had learnt more during the hours she had managed to spend here than in class, thanks to her very special tutor.
"We will soon run out of élan vital," she said as she checked the intensity of the bluish radiance of a crystal set on a big, black metal jar, against the scale she had reproduced on a parchment strip.
As she gazed into the crystal, she felt a moment of doubt but it quickly vanished as she saw words form on the pages of the open diary next to her, accompanied by the slight buzz that his presence always did do her. Had she been a little more observant about some things, she might have noticed how restless she got if she didn't feel that buzz for too long, how much the sensation had become a need for her.
"I know, Tom," she said, having read the words "But, don't you find it's a pity we could not use the one of the ghost? He always annoyed me."
She remembered how it had all started. She remembered being a stupid little girl with a stupid crush on Harry Potter. That had been before she found the diary among her second-hand school books. The first time she had written in it, the ink had disappeared and reappeared to form other words, Tom's words. After that, everything changed.
Tom had been nice to her. He listened well and gave good advice, even if he was a little limited, being stuck in that diary like that. He didn't mind about her second-hand robes and books like some of the girls in the Gryffindor dorms. Instead, he called her an uncut diamond, saying that the most beautiful gems started as ugly rocks. He could help to reveal the diamond in her… if she let him. At first, she had hesitated but after a public humiliation dealt by some Slytherin girls led by Pansy Parkinson… she had cried a lot and begged Tom to help her. She had agreed to do everything he said.
First, he had helped her with her grades. Nothing dramatic, he had been very clear about that. A too rapid change and people would guess about him. She didn't want to lose her friend. But she had seen the difference in a mere week. How, if she followed his instructions, she could quickly memorize things, how to approach a problem in new and creative ways. He had taught her how to observe people, see the subtle clues on their face and moves that betrayed a feeling or another. How to find the words that would hurt the most and those that would give her a person's trust. She was still not very good at it but she progressed.
When she had been surprised that some things were so easy, Tom had explained her that she had always been smart. She just didn't know how to use what she had, something he had corrected. He had pointed out that her brothers were all smart too. Charlie, Bill and Percy were all brilliant in their own way, even if Percy let himself too easily be shackled by rules that didn't bring him any advantage. Ron was an excellent chess player but he was too lazy to use his analytical mind for anything else, particularly now that Hermione was not here to push him anymore. As for the twins, had they put half the genius they used for their pranks into academic achievement, they would have been among the first of their class.
Tom had assured her that, in time, she would be such a powerful witch that Harry would notice her, realize she was better even than Hermione. As the weeks passed, however, she had realized that the Harry she met in the Hogwarts halls… well, he was cute but he was too short-tempered, reacting far too much to Malfoy's clumsy provocations. He wasn't that interesting after all, at least not for the smart girl those few weeks under Tom's coaching had made of her. Tom now… he had shown her how he looked in a dream and… yummy.
A few days before Halloween, she had decided to act on her feelings and asked him if there was a way to get him out of the diary, to give him a real body. He had said that it was possible but that she needed to become more powerful if she wanted to help him. She had renewed her promise to do everything he would ask of her. It was then that he had showed her this place and how to get in. He had shown her the Chamber of Secrets.
Time for a little break…
She came out of the lab and stretched a little bit, using those yoga exercises she had found in a book in the Chamber's library. She had several reasons for that. One was that the book she had read on them indicated how they could help to strengthen one's magical core, even though they rather used terms like 'opening the chakras'. Another was that, as short-lived as the dueling club had been, it had showed her the importance of being in good shape. The final one was that… well she doubted that Tom would love her if she became as fat as her mother. So, she exercised, she studied hard all the things he asked her to learn and she took the potions she brewed following his instructions without discussion. She would be a good girl. She would be useful and he would love her. When she had given him a body, she would be his.
In the central hall, she had a look at the huge face carved on the end wall. It was Salazar Slytherin's face but it wasn't what was important. What was important was the space behind it, the place where the Basilisk slept. Tom had shown her where to find Salazar's diaries. Salazar had created the beast as a last-ditch defense in case witch hunters found the school. It had also led her to understand that Malfoy was even more an idiot than she thought, that the Salazar Slytherin people like him believed in had little to do with the real man. The real man was a lot worthier of respect in her opinion.
Of course, it had needed work. Salazar wrote most of his texts in Parseltongue, whose written form used the same script as Sanskrit. She was learning it with Tom's help… though the potions had helped too. Salazar had created those as a way to unlock the special blood some wizards had, in particular members of the Black family like her grandmother Cedrella. The special blood that allowed her to do all these nifty tricks like changing how she looked, something that was becoming easier as the potions did their work.
Well, there are some side-effects, but they're not that bad and I can easily change how I look now. Even make myself almost invisible if I don't move too much… but I think I can do better, having the chameleon effect adapt in real time, as Tom says.
As if it reacted to her thoughts about her changes, her tongue flicked past her lips, tasting the air. She had come to enjoy the new world of sensations it had opened her as it became a little more forked with every potion. When her thoughts erred on the naughty side, she wondered what it would be to kiss someone with it.
Her thoughts went back to the Basilisk. Using it was a pain but she didn't have a better solution to harvest the élan vital she needed for Tom's body. It wasn't as if she had killed them anyway. She had even been kind enough to remove the memory of the attack from them… well, to be fair, it was to cover her own tracks as well. The targets she and Tom had chosen were people who annoyed her in one way or another, like Colin Creevey who had seen what he shouldn't have.
No, what was really annoying her was that she had not been able to control the creature herself or do the fine spellwork so far. She had to let Tom drive her body because she didn't have enough experience. If she had to be really honest with herself, the fireworks Tom's presence in her body sent through her brain were good but she had to control herself not to smile stupidly afterwards. It was dangerous and… she had to prove that she could be useful all on her own.
But that doesn't mean being a stupid, reckless Gryffindor. A moment of hesitation and the Basilisk will attack everything in sight. I would be discovered and lose Tom.
As she went back to her potion, she had a stray thought of worry about the people the Basilisk would kill in that scenario, but the buzz of Tom's presence quickly banished the distasteful thought. It was just a hypothetical scenario after all. It wouldn't happen if she was smart. For Tom.
Time to plan for a new harvest… who's annoyed me lately? Maybe time to paint some of the Slytherin boys as blood traitors and leave evidence. No, I know: Pansy. A few shrunk muggle fashion magazines dropped in her bag, with the spell timed so that they are found by her classmates… I need a sample of her writing… shouldn't be too difficult. Pansy, I'm going to destroy your reputation. You'll be outed as a secret muggle-lover and… who knows, maybe your family will disown you.
Hong Kong, the 15th of February 2003
Dear Harry,
I'm writing two letters this time. One more general that you can show to Ron and this one, for your eyes only.
I'm so sorry. You are right, kids shouldn't have to think about those things but… Harry, I will be blunt: being kids is a luxury you and I cannot afford anymore.
My grandfather is a member of an important family in Japan and an ally of Touhou Fuhai. I may be only thirteen but everything I say or do can have consequences for my clan's reputation. There are already people here in Asia wanting to use me or kill me just because of who my relatives are. As for Europe, there are many people there for whom a muggleborn smarter than them is 'forgetting her place'. It is far easier for these petty men and women to degrade others than to try to better themselves, because doing the latter would mean admitting they did something wrong.
You are in a similar situation. As the Boy-Who-Lived… I know that you hate that name and all it stands for but others won't give you any choice in the matter, particularly Voldemort. He cannot afford to ignore you, not if he wants to keep any kind of political significance. You are the symbol of his failure and he has to destroy you. He needs that both to crush the hopes of those who see the Boy-Who-Lived as their savior and to tighten his grip on his own followers.
I know, it's horrible and unfair. But if there is one thing that I learned, it's that the world is only as fair as we make it. But you are also right, being a brave Gryffindor is not enough. Our enemies have set the rules of that sick game for decades. You have seen that with what Malfoy and the others can get away with. If we rush in blindly, they'll use that to turn the people against us.
One solution could be to flee. You could come to Asia and we could live here but… the more I think about that, the more I see the ghost of Sir Winston Churchill looking at me with disappointment (figuratively, of course). The more I realize that the enemy I must strike down is wizarding society itself. In the end, Voldemort is just a symptom of how sick the wizarding world has become.
Will you come with me, Harry? I won't lie to you, it will be a long, hard road paved with blood, toil, tears and sweat to paraphrase Sir Winston. People in the wizarding world will call me dark, call me a monster. I accept this. It's the price I must pay to build a better world.
Hermione
PS: this message will self-destruct ten seconds after you finish reading it.
Harry blinked. He had expected a lot of things but… well, if he had to be fair, it was in character for her. The year before, when she prevented Neville from interfering with their attempt to reach the Philosopher's Stone, Ron had called her 'brilliant but scary'. He also remembered a little thing he had understood about Hermione. On the surface, the girl cared a lot about rules – the infamous 'killed – or worse, expelled' she said after their encounter with the Cerberus came to mind – but Harry had come to understand that Hermione Granger had a mental hierarchy for rules. Rules that disagreed with her core principles were irrelevant. Rules that were in the way of a more important objective were suspended until realization of said objective. The whole issue with understanding her was to determine what her inner, ethical hierarchy was.
That and the fact that asking people about their opinion is not at the top of it… In a way, it's funny. I doubt I would have seriously thought about all that if she was still here, if I hadn't had to think about what to write her, he thought.
He had a look again at the message. The text had disappeared, its ink reorganized to form notes about some second-year charms, as if he had asked her for help on the matter. Hermione was already going into full 'spy movie' mode. He shuddered as he imagined the relentless girl he knew trying to… no bar that, she would slaughter the Slytherins at that game. He knew that it would take very little for her to set her conscience aside and decide that killing was necessary, all for the Greater Good.
He knew he had reached a decision. He had to go with her. While the wizarding world had been an improvement for him compared to his life in Privet Drive, he also realized that something was wrong when people like Malfoy were the ones with money and influence. He also knew that Hermione would go down that road, with or without him. If he went with her, he could prevent her from becoming too ruthless.
But what to do about Ron? Ron's never known anything but the wizarding world. He may not even realize what's wrong with it…
"It's a letter from Hermione?" asked a voice near him. "Can I read it?"
He looked in the direction of the voice. Lost in his thoughts, he had forgotten that he was in the Gryffindor Common Room. The person who had just talked was Ginny, Ron's little sister. He remembered how shy she had been in the beginning of the school year. He was glad to see that being in Hogwarts seemed to have instilled some confidence in her.
"Sure," he replied, handing her the 'public' letter where Hermione described some more events of the big festival they recently had in Hong Kong.
Something is wrong. Harry has no subtlety and there is no way this… routine letter could have put him in that state, thought Ginny as she walked through the halls.
There was a lot of gossip and speculation running around the school about what happened to Hermione. The solid facts most people knew were that some kind of accident happened on Christmas Day, when she was admitted to the Hospital Wing. After that, she had to leave but didn't go to St. Mungo as would be normal for a patient Madam Pomfrey could not handle herself. No, she had gone abroad and later gossip coming from Lavender had revealed that she was in Hong Kong and Harry was heard telling Malfoy that Hermione was studying with Touhou Fuhai.
That particular name had spread through Hogwarts like Fiendfyre. Malfoy looking like if he had been slapped when he heard that name. The blatant jealousy in the eyes of the senior Ravenclaws, who had seen that name referenced in the Ancient Runes manuals. The letter she got from Bill after she wrote him to ask about that name where he told her that the Gringotts Curse-Breakers considered the man a master with few equals. Hermione had been deemed good enough to study with a man like that.
Without Tom, she would probably have been jealous too. Tom had known how to reassure her. He had not pretended to be as good as the ancient Chinese master, that would have been presumptuous, but he was good and he had reminded her that they had Salazar's library at their disposal in the Chamber. They would work harder and the augmentation potions would ensure that her magical core grew beyond that of any witch. She now firmly considered Hermione to be her main rival and she would prevail.
Still, something was wrong. She knew that Harry was looking for the Heir. Given his and Ron's usual subtlety, evading their attempts had been easy and for most of fall, they had been looking in the wrong direction anyway. Then, after a letter from Hermione, they had started to do things she didn't like. Hermione had obviously discussed the matter with her new master, as the two boys' actions showed a radically different method.
I will need to think about a diversion… difficult because I don't know what they know. Spying time then.