The Illya Infiltration

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Iris used her fork to mush her mashed potatoes up against the chicken thighs on her dinner plate. She created a small wall of potatoes around a particular bit of chicken, then began to add peas and a couple of carrots as embellishments to her small chicken fort.

It had been a few days since her disastrous attempt at bonding with Fluffy, and she was feeling quite listless.

She was uncertain if the source of the listlessness was from something that had happened while bonded, or if it had simply been the failure and stupidity of her actions weighing on her.

Madame Pomfrey had been quick to dose her with a number of potions to deal with the symptoms she had admitted to having. And no point loss or detentions had been given out, so apparently the woman hadn't mentioned their night time entry to any of the teachers.

The potions had made everything feel better after only a few hours, so Iris was inclined to believe that she was just feeling bad about how stupid she had been.

She glanced up at Shirou, sitting next to her, and Hermione, sitting across the table, her companions for the meal.

They were both engaged in an intense conversation about Floo Powder, which caused fellow Second Years at the Hufflepuff table to go cross-eyed if they listened in for too long.

Rin and Sakura were at the Ravenclaw table, entrenched in 'sister time', which Rin insisted on doing as a check-in with her younger sister at least once a week.

She used her knife to cut up pieces of her castled chicken and scattered them around her plate, leaving one behind to man the mashed walls.

Idly, she forked two of the chicken chunks and dropped them back into the potato fortress, then speared another piece and brought it to her mouth.

She made a disgusted face as she chewed and then subtly spat the piece back out into her napkin.

It had gone cold while she was playing with it and was downright unappetizing now.

"Pardon me." A young voice called out from across the table. "Do you mind?"

Iris glanced up sharply, wondering if she had been caught spitting her food back out.

Her gaze met red irises, and she closed her eyes.

It was the Slytherin Emiya girl. It probably shouldn't have been a surprise, Draco hadn't been a prick so far this year, so Slytherin must have nominated someone else to be their voice of condescension.

"What?" She seethed to the first year.

The small girl took a step back at her hostility.

"Iris!" Hermione scolded from across the table. She then turned to address the newcomer. "How can we help you?"

"Sorry." The white haired girl honestly seemed to be on the back foot now. "I was just wondering if I could sit here." She gestured towards the seat space next to Hermione, which had opened up when her and Shirou's conversation had become more intense.

"Of course." Hermione responded. "Why wouldn't you be allowed to sit here?"

"Well..." The girl edged herself closer to the table and sat down. "Your group seems to be the only group that sits outside of your table group."

"Ahhh." Hermione nodded. "That's because it's only the second week, so everyone is still catching up and adjusting to their House. More groups will be branching out soon."

Iris glanced over at Shirou to see how he was reacting to the Slytherin presence while Hermione gave the first year a background history of the House rivalries and why people mostly sat at their house table.

He was... staring.

Iris softly elbowed him, and he jolted a bit before his face settled back into a more normal expression.

"Was there something you wanted from us specifically?" Shirou asked while studiously ignoring the hard stare that Iris was drilling into the side of his head.

"Yes, actually." Iris turned to look back at the young girl, who was nervously playing with her fingertips. "I... that is... we would- Oh no! I'm sorry! I haven't introduced myself!" She sat up stiffly. "My name is Illyasviel Emiya... Oh! But you can call me Illya... since Illyasviel... is a pretty long name... And... um... I..." She trailed off and closed her eyes, reciting something silently for a moment before speaking again. "I'm a member of the Einzbern family." She spoke with more confidence now. "And since I am attending Hogwarts with you, Iris Potter, my grandfather wanted to convey his appreciation of the actions you took against that criminal."

Iris very nearly rolled her eyes. She'd never heard anyone refer to Voldemort as 'that criminal' before, but she'd been dealing with this kind of gratitude ever since she had entered the Wizarding World.

"It was no problem." Iris responded by rote, readying herself to use her scripted responses.

She elbowed Shirou softly. He was better at talking to people, and could usually help her out in these situations, but he had returned to staring, just less obviously now.

"It may have been 'no problem' to you." Illya shook her head, speaking with passion. "But it's a big deal to my family."

"It wasn't like I could have done anything else." Iris frowned as the conversation slid off script.

"You could have done anything else." Illya argued. "You didn't have to stop him at all."

Iris stared hard at Illya.

"It's not like I could have just gotten up and walked away." She said. "He came at me."

"That's not the story I heard at all." Illya blinked in confusion.

"What?" Iris snarked. "Did you think a fifteen month old baby went hunting for a Dark Lord on a whim or something?"

"Wait!" Illya held her hands out in front of her. "What?"

"What what?"

"What are you- I mean: what are we talking about?" Illya asked in a panic.

"Me killing Voldemort..." Iris explained slowly, appreciating that the girl at least didn't flinch at the name.

"Wha- Oh!" Illya's eyes widened. "Ohhhh! Ahhhh..." She buried her face in her hands and mumbled. "I'm so bad at this. It's a disaster already."

Hermione patted her sympathetically on the arm.

She raised her head and carried on, despite looking like she was about to cry. "I was speaking about how you stopped the robbery here at the castle last year."

Iris just stared at the teary eyed girl and then started to laugh.

"Sorry! Sorry!" She stopped as the girl across from her got increasingly upset. "I'm just laughing at our conversation. I've had a lot of people thank me for stopping a bad guy, but they've always thanked me for stopping Voldemort. I don't think anyone even really thanked me for stopping the heist last year until just now."

"What about Madame Bones?" Hermione asked. "I thought she was very appreciative to you."

"She was thankful that I saved Susan." Iris corrected. "She probably wouldn't have cared if Hogwarts did or didn't have another magic rock on the property if anything had happened to Susan."

"Magic rock?" Illya squeaked out. "So it really is-" She choked on her words for a second before she became incredibly incensed. "Did you just call the-... Did you just call that item a 'magic rock'? Do you know what it does?"

Iris opened her mouth to respond, then closed it.

"I don't think what we ended up protecting was ever revealed to the public." She said thoughtfully.

"As alchemists," Illya said pridefully, "my family keeps itself abreast of important events in our field. We were able to discern what almost happened here after the fact, and we are very grateful to you for stopping... that item from falling into the wrong hands."

She let out a tense breath.

"So," she continued, "if there is anything you would like to request of me, or my family, please let me know."

Any consideration that Iris might have put into the offer was preempted by Hermione grasping onto Illya and forcibly turning the girl to face her.

"Would it be possible to get lessons in alchemy?" She asked insistently. "Despite only being a second year."

"Uhhh..." Illya turned to look at Iris questioningly.

"Yeah." Iris sighed. "Could we get alchemy lessons for a few people?"

"I can talk to Sella and Leys about it." Illya said slowly. "But I'm sure we can work something out... Um, I'm sorry, but I don't know your names."

"Hermione Granger." Hermione said enthusiastically, shaking Illya's hand. "I hope we can learn alchemy this year. That would be so great."

"Shirou Emiya." Shirou introduced himself, also shaking the girl's hand.

"Any relation to Kiritsugu Emiya?" Illya asked happily.

Shirou stiffened and Illya winced as he suddenly tightened his grip on her hand.

"Sorry." He said, quickly letting go of her hand. "Kiritsugu... The name... sounds familiar." He spoke cautiously then sat down and refused to speak for the rest of the meal.

-o-o-o-o-

"You would all like to learn alchemy?" Sella Einzbern asked of the assembled students.

The group had collected Rin and Sakura after dinner, and made their way to the offices shared by the Alchemy Professors.

"Yes, Professor Einzbern!" Hermione responded eagerly for all of them.

Iris glanced at her companions.

Rin did seem interested in learning.

Sakura seemed to be going with the flow.

Shirou seemed to be deep in thought about the prospect. Iris knew that he was invested in his magical travel project, but had never known him to turn down the idea of learning something new.

Illya... was there, since she was the negotiator on the side of the students.

Iris was ambivalent about the whole thing. Alchemy was a lot like potions, and she wasn't a huge fan of potions.

The professor smiled momentarily down at Hermione.

"Please," she said, "feel free to call me Sella. I'm afraid that things may get complicated between myself and Leysritt if people insist on calling us both 'Professor Einzbern'."

"But, you're a professor!" Hermione argued. "It would be disrespectful of me to use your first name."

"I am a teacher." Sella rebutted. "My job is to convey knowledge to you in an effective and efficient manner. It would be disrespectful of me to insist upon honorifics when they will confuse and disrupt that process. If I feel that discipline is lacking, I will enforce it through other means that will not be counterproductive."

Hermione stood stock still, gazing up at Sella as if she had met her idol.

"It will be of a time investment." Sella warned the group. "For yourselves, and also for Leys and myself. But we are willing to do it if you are."

Hermione was nodding vigorously.

"Then I will request tutoring forms from the Headmaster." Sella said. "But before we get going, I'd like to give you all a small test, so that I can figure out where to start teaching you all."

The pale haired woman drew out a piece of parchment and, after a moment's thought, began to write out questions on it.

When she was done, she waved her wand over the paper, duplicating it and dispersing the papers to the group, except Illya.

"Take your time with it." Sella gestured towards a number of desks that had been set up throughout the room, and everyone separated to claim a desk.

Iris settled in and examined the paper in front of her.

After a few minutes of thought, she decided that she would have to update her dream journal.

That previous weird dream was definitely a portent.

She hadn't studied for a test which she definitely hadn't seen coming.

-o-o-o-o-

Snape was barely paying attention as he strode among his victims, but Iris didn't care, she wasn't glaring at him for his sake, she was doing it because she was angry.

Just because he didn't teach well, she had been graded poorly on the alchemy placement test. Now, everyone else would be learning alchemy from Sella, while she and Sakura were going over the basics of potions with Leysritt. She didn't care too much about learning alchemy in the first place, but it had been embarrassing to be put on the same step as a first year.

She fixed her gaze to the back of Snape's head, and managed to glare right into his eyes as he turned around.

He flinched.

She blinked in confusion.

"Something to say, Potter?" He asked scathingly, all signs of any emotion but scorn gone.

"No, sir." Iris bit back, her glare returning full force.

Snape met her gaze for a moment before he glanced towards her hair, scowled, and turned away.

"Then get back to work." He drawled over his shoulder. "And ten points from Gryffindor for slacking off."

Iris patted down the top of her head, checking to see if there was anything in her hair.

Hermione elbowed her to get her attention, but she kept staring at the Potions professor.

What had that been?