A/N: Sorry about the delay, but here's a bit more. On the side, I was asked about the title of Daiyati. The word has no linguistic origins, it simply is what the characters used. Daiyati, as far as I can figure, is a name/title for a head of family who holds primary guardianship over you, but is not your father.
Chapter 10:
Sirius Black scowled at the ceiling as he tried to find something else he 'needed' to do in an effort to escape what he really had to do. He'd visited Mrs Dursley, under orders from Narcissa, to provide them with a building which would soon enough be registered as a Public School with limited boarding facilities...those without family had to stay somewhere. It was a school which would take non-magical children as well as the magical children, the warding was going to be fun. He'd visited Green Harry and commiserated over the fact that Green Harry couldn't tell what he saw without permission...given the current basilisk issues his distress was understandable. Sirius groaned his resignation as he realised that the only procrastination left was actually worse than what he was procrastinating about.
"Disgraceful Moron summoned Kreacher?"
"No." Sirius jumped to his feet. "But please, prepare the purification room and then absent yourself to Hogwarts for the next three days."
"Kreacher will." The small elf was gone and Sirius got to his feet before turning his attention towards his next task. The wards of the house were a beastly necessity, mostly because it required multiple trips through the purification room, which was the magical equivalent of a scouring...though Narcissa swore by the results as the prep for public functions. Sirius tended to object to the knowledge that he had literally had every cell in his person cleaned and all dead cells removed. It had, however, been the first room he'd visited after arriving in the house after Azkaban. The purification room was one of the secrets behind the family wards, because to actually set foot outside the actual house without first passing through was a very effective way to die. To not be re-purified every third hour was also a sure way to die...the skeletons and randomly strewn bones were discouraging enough, but the fact that most were pretty well gnawed on discouraged personal experimentation with skipping the purification step. Muttering direfully of getting scoured out of existance, he ignored Kreacher's cheer, and pondering how to lure Voldemort into testing whether immortality could stand up to this most basic form of defence he made his way eventually out the far door and onto the swamp of darkness and death which really was the greatest Black defence of them all. There were no records of who had caused the swamp, or why a Black chose to build there after it was carefully warded and lost by the Ministry...but the number of inferi tended Sirius to support Hades version of history, which included a major war and a curse from the ancient god Pan whose wrath over a destroyed forest knew no bounds. Hades also said that the Blacks were guardians of the swamp, which was the main reason Sirius doubted the story, he couldn't figure why a swamp, warded out of existance in all minds but the Head and primary Heir's, needed any sort of guardian...the swamp was in no danger of being discovered, and even if it was, it was a swamp which even magic couldn't drain. Definitely not a guardianship of any value, and a great bore in truth since, as the Head of the Ancient and Noble House of Black, it was his duty to do the bi-annual maintenance, which ensured the house didn't sink too far, the beasties didn't invade the actual house, and that the moisture didn't get in. There was a stone in the Master bedroom which gave a status condition on the wards which stretched across the swamp, inside the Ministry's original wards, and that saved Sirius from a bi-annual trek across the unknown miles of swamp to check the individual wards. Legend had it that the bi-annual check took six months to complete before the ward-stone had been created to monitor the outlying wards, and death had not been uncommon since three hours was really not very long when you were wading around in a swamp.
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"What did you do that to her for?" The scream was the only warning Hades Black had before the magic hit his wards. It was an hysterical wall of magic, half intentional, half accidental and it rippled over his wards. For a long and silent moment Hades simply inspected how his ward had managed the wave of magic, then he'd turned his head and looked for the most rational expression in immediate proximity.
"Which Gryffindor's been petrified now?"
"Trying to say it wasn't you?" The query was rather snide.
"I suspect you will find that the Fat Lady is willing to stand witness that she has given no ingress or egress since lunchtime when I elected to read over watching us get unnecessarily trounced at quidditch. I repeat, who's been pertrified?"
"Granger...near the library."
"Well, so much for peace...anyone else?"
"A Ravenclaw...Clearwater...pureblood and a prefect. Staff's in a frightful bait."
"No surprise, they actually semi-believed the legend that the beast is targetted."
"You think it's not?"
"If it was, would it have petrified a cat on its first go?" Hades reset his ward and then resumed reading.
"You are creepily unworried."
"Nothing I can do will save me from a Basilisk and I'll be pulled from classes as soon as the Mandrakes are of age, I've got to get my exam prep done sooner rather than later." Hades didn't even bother to glance up, Pluto was already filling him in on the rules which Sprout was apparently laying down for the safety of Hufflepuff. If the other houses followed that lead, the rest of the year was going to be intolerable and brewing with Snape was going to be even worse.
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"Ooh." There was no one to hear the little exclamation at the darkest hour of the night, or the giggle which followed. There was also no one to see the staircase which, though it never deviated from the straight and was a normal length staircase, left you standing on the original landing after you'd climbed all of the stairs. "I wonder..." Within less than an hour Hogwarts had undergone a reconstruction which would ensure that absolutely everyone was late for breakfast and most of their classes since several staircases and corridors had somehow gone missing along with a section of the second floor...that no one could get out as much as no one could get in was a fact which was missed by most. The Staff raged solo and in chorus over the 'prank', with the single exception of Snape who had hijacked the first Black he saw that morning and demanded a location of Green Harry. It hadn't taken the little ghost long to explain and Snape had taken a moment to smile appreciation at his former student before he requested directions to get between the Great Hall and the dungeons, all other places were irrelevent in his opinion...though he'd also count the Great Hall irrelevent if Dumbledore hadn't made it a school rule that staff attend at least two meals a day...someday he was going to find out why Trelawney was not subject to that rule, but for now he preferred to comply and rest in confidence that house elves never went among his stuff.
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If Petunia Dursley had been told a year ago what the future held for her she would have cheerfully written the person off as insane. It was not a year ago though, it was not someone speaking to her, this was literally her life and she'd ceased being a housewife and was now a Headmistress of a school which was growing alarmingly quickly. It had been rather awkward at first with the whole magic and school thing, though Vernon had become less offensive after Black had snidely observed that computers were more magic than any wand-waving wizard-kind dreamt up. Vernon had tried to prove Black wrong by teaching the man about computers, but that had proven expensive as wizards and computers were mutually exclusive. Electric tea-pots, telephones, fridges, microwaves and hot-water cylinders soon joined the list and Vernon had settled for banning anyone magical from touching anything which used electricity...for the present. Vernon had taken it as a personal insult that wizards could actually blow tech up just by touching it and Petunia was quite confident that sometime in the next few years Vernon would produce a fix to wizard-proof technology.
"Petunia!" It was Lady Malfoy who'd just arrived.
"Narcissa." Petunia appologetically raised her grubby hands as explanation for the greeting which was verbal only.
"I've got the list of muggleborns for next year and I suggest you request Sirius to contact the Weasleys...actually, no, do not send Sirius, they'd never listen to him...best send Mr Finch-Fletchley, tell him to think up some excuse, but make sure they know about your school."
"Why?"
"Draco said that Harry is watching Miss Weasley...a nice girl, but rather sadly lacking in proper upbringing. At present she'd make a good, but common, wife...her bloodlines are good, she has distinction and she badly needs some self-confidence which she'd get if she was taught social graces. Poor child had six older brothers. Your school would be good for her and Harry wouldn't be watching her if she wasn't somehow connected to the fiasco with the school. Tell Sirius to approach the Longbottom matriarch as well...wretched woman is too convinced that her grandson is a squib. Tell Sirius to tell her of this wonderful school which includes a muggle curriculum...and then make certain young Neville sees your psychologist person because Augusta is bound to insult the poor boy out of existance in changing his school."
"Sirius is in the back-shed with Vernon, bring him in and I'll call Mr Finch-Fletchley...though what he's going to say to Mr Weasley..." Petunia's gesture was one of speaking despair.
"He can recruit Arthur to help magic-proof electronics, wretched man adores plugs and is less damaging than Sirius...besides which I require my cousin and I'll thankyou to deprive him of his excuse that he's needed here."
"He claims he's needed here?" Petunia had gone rather red. "You have my permission to torment him with any and every social event you can imagine...he's been corrupting Vernon."
"Corrupting?"
"Vernon was a self-respecting and normal man before he decided to prove you magicals could use a computer. Since then I have not been able to turn around without finding out that something new has been done to the car."
"Boys and their toys, my dear...be thankful the motorcycle is believed to have been destroyed."
"That wouldn't happen to be a very large and very black monstrosity with a front headlight which can literally wink?"
"Oh dear...well, be happy, you need never fear injury in an accident...or running out of petrol...needing to change tyres...having the paintwork scratched...have insufficient space within the car...I think Sirius got fifteen people on his wretched motorcycle once. The police won't fine you for any traffic offences either...for that matter you may as well relax because you'll never have to worry about rush hour traffic again...it'll probably fly as well if you ever need to escape the country because our Ministry objects to you having an enspelled car...even though you are clearly outside of their jurisdiction and muggle law doesn't have any views on the subject." Narcissa seemed pensive for a moment. "How dreadful, I am apparently an upright and law-abiding adult. Tea?"
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"Mr Black." Severus Snape was studying the floor with a curious expression.
"Master Snape?" Hades Black ceased operation on the fine weed which was his current torment, and recently delivered by Kreacher.
"Did that house-elf just refer to you as Horrible Dung-smelling Yah-tack Monster...or was that just my imagination?"
"To be frank I am quite certain that is precisely what he called me, but Daiyati insists on making a point of appologising for Kreacher's speech-defect which so distorts his words...enraged house-elves are not pretty, they turn a greenish-pink which has some weird name I never have remembered."
"What might yah-tack mean?"
"No idea...but Kreacher doesn't use it in the presence of goblins so we're pretty confident of the word's origins." Hades resumed operation on the fine weed, he didn't have much time to spare. "The implications assure us it isn't polite though."
"That appears to be a reasonable assumption." Snape turned back to his own work with a vague wonder of what Black and Lucius were up to now, he hoped it wouldn't have him hauled into another after hours meeting ith the Headmaster, the last one had been quite bad enough, even though it had ensured that no one could be assigned to the school with more clout than Dumbledore.
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It was pain which drew Green Harry to the second floor. Pain from Hogwarts. Staring at what remained of a wall, Green Harry couldn't help but flinch. Someone with a serious issue had just become impatient over the staircases and hallways which isolated a large chunk of the second floor, the holes were large enough to drive a good-sized truck through. The new lines of writing on the wall didn't rate consideration against Hogwarts' pain.
"My goodness." The exclamation at the first wall gave Green Harry just enough time to gulp and hide before the staff reached the critical hallway. Exactly why Harry felt so driven to hide from the staff he couldn't say, but resistance was rather impossible, particularly if his suspicion that Hogwarts was behind the impulse was correct.
"A student?" Flitwick by the sound.
"Certainly not staff." Snape sounding thoroughly unimpressed. "Might I suggest putting the school into lockdown?"
"Oh, yes, of course." McGonagal in a flap, a most unusual thought. Harry drifted off as the booming announcement rang through the school sending all students to their common rooms and summoning all staff to the staffroom. Not student, staff, nor really a ghost. Harry drifted uncertainly before he decided that family came first, and that meant he needed to find Fai'lo now.
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Gilderoy Lockhart was stuffing his possessions into his bags as fast as he could snatch them up. Fight Slytherin's monster? He wasn't a fool. Anyone could see where this war was going to end since the Dark Lord could infiltrate even Hogwarts under Dumbledore's long and crooked nose. He needed to pack, he needed a way out and he needed a plan. Shirt in hand, Lockheart paused as his mind threw forward an idea which seemed ideal from every angle. Fai'lo Black was practically a squib, the Potter heir and number three on the Dark Lord's 'I will give anything to get' list. The perfect gift to bring when changing sides. He just had to finish packing and find the boy before departing.
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"Ahh, there you are Mr Black." Gilderoy Lockhart had been more than a little relieved that Filius Flitwick had simply accepted his statement that he needed the help of a Black for the task he had been set. "I've been asked to deal with the basilisk and the Headmaster encouraged me to seek your help."
"Permission given." Fai'lo Black seemed to speak from a very great distance, but then the silver-streaked green eyes focussed on the DADA Professor. "I doubt I'll be much help, but very well sir." Black stood up, tidied his thing into a bag and passively followed Lockhart out of the Ravenclaw commonroom. Internally Lockhart was cheering, but he would not have been had he heard the explosive cursing which shattered Gryffindor and Hufflepuff Commonrooms or seen the two boys whom Hogwarts swallowed to bypass the lockdown. Hades and Pluto Black were on the war path and they were going to make sure Lockhart followed the script he was claiming...time to find out whether a five times winner of Witch Weeklies most charming smile award, could charm a basilisk!
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