The Long Game

by inwardtransience

Britain has been at peace for nearly a century — protected from the devastation of Grindelwald's war, free of conflict of their own. Charissa Potter, raised surrounded by family and friends more numerous than she can count, never really expected this to change. But hidden forces, it seems, have been playing a long game. ON INDEFINITE HIATUS.

37. Fifth Year — Not Out of Love

September 24th, 1995

---

Charissa didn't bother saying the password to open the passage. She knew it, of course, but it made her feel somewhat silly. Instead she simply stabbed at the enchantment with a pulse of magic, threaded through with a command to open, authoritarian and unwavering. The mirror, extending from the floor to above her head and wide enough for four people shoulder-to-shoulder, turned transparent without a sound, revealing the hidden room within. Charissa stepped through the barrier, paused only a couple steps into the room. 'Weasleys.'

Toward the back-right corner of the large, high-ceilinged room, buried between tables laden with bottles and boxes and simmering cauldrons, there were two simultaneous yelps of surprise. One of the identical red-haired and freckle-faced figures dropped whatever he'd been holding into the cauldron he'd been leaning over, setting the contents to violently boiling. Charissa took one glance at the thick fumes billowing into the air, and flicked out her wand to cast a bubblehead charm over herself, followed by a general repulsion charm a second later, just to be safe.

She was mildly impressed, when the fumes finally cleared enough, to notice the twins had managed to protect themselves, despite the far lesser time they'd had to react. Though, it was possible they had a light repulsion charm enchanted into something they were carrying. That was something experimental potioneers did rather a lot, and the deviously clever seventh-years were definitely capable enough to do it.

'Dammit, Potter!' one of them yelled, glaring at her across the tables and boxes packed into the room. 'What are you doing—'

'—just barging in here? We could have been killed!'

She sniffed. 'I highly doubt that.' Despite what many might say, the twins weren't stupid enough to risk a deadly reaction happening so easily. Besides, she was rather sure most of their products hadn't anything truly dangerous in them anyway. Some of the Snackboxes, maybe, but they would be appropriately cautious in preparation. Which they knew full well — she could see in their mind that comment had only been to buy time as they scrambled to reason out just how she'd found them.

They couldn't come up with an explanation on their own, so they just asked. 'Really, though, how'd you find us?'

'Nobody's ever managed to find our lab yet.'

'Nobody knows the secret passages like we do, do they, Forge?'

'Not even close, Gred. Plus, the aversion ward we put up.'

'There is that,' complete with a pair of suspicious glares.

Charissa met their obviously displeased looks with an easy smirk. 'The answer to both those questions is the same: I'm a legilimens. I felt the aversion ward, of course, but I just ignored it — mind-influencing magics tend not to work too well on people like me. I knew you were here because I can feel your minds from three floors away if I try. The ward was a bit of a giveaway, but I already knew you were here before I was close enough for it to affect me.

'And really,' Charissa said, voice turning sweet and smirk tilting wider, 'shouldn't you have seen me coming? What, don't have the Map open?'

The twins went very still, staring at her flat and steady, faces absent any expression. Their mind, though, was racing. 'Map?' one said, voice slow and almost innocent.

'Don't know what you're talking about, I'm afraid.'

Shaking her head with mock disappointment, she said, 'Boys, boys, boys. Really now, if you're going to lie to a legilimens, you'll have to try harder than that.'

'Even if we knew what you're talking about—'

'—and we're not saying we do—'

'—what makes you think we have this Map of yours?'

'Or that there's a Map at all, really.'

Charissa shrugged. 'Moony's convinced you have the thing, has been since your third year.'

Two sets of identical eyes widened with obvious shock, two identical mouths gaping open. 'Moony?' they said in unison. 'You mean, the Moony? You know him?'

'I know all of them. Show me the map and I'll give you names. Padfoot in particular you might want to meet. I imagine getting this shop of yours set up will be quite the financial undertaking. Impress him and he may be willing to help you along a little.'

The twins couldn't produce the Map for her quick enough. Soon they had a sizeable square of old parchment on the table, yellowed and fraying at the edges. One of them pulled his wand, likely to activate the thing for her.

Charissa grabbed the man's wrist before he could. She pulled her own wand, set the tip to the parchment. Voice even and clear, doing her best to avoid how extremely silly this was, she said, 'A tickler of dragons seeks passage.' She lifted her wand, ignoring the twins muttering something to themselves, watched the parchment as glossy black ink rose from its depths.

Mr Prongs aknoulecheþ a comrade-at-armes, but warneþ þe ſecrettes of þe Marauders are not ſo eaſilie partede ƿiþ.

Mr Moony ƿiſheþ to aſk þe petitioner ƿhat he intendeþ to do ſcholde he be grantede acceſs.

Charissa grimaced at the terrible fake Middle English. It was decipherable, of course, but it was just annoying. Seemed like something Dad and his friends would have done as teenagers, self-important brats. Putting her wand to the parchment again, Charissa said, 'As to the first question, I wish to create a copy for my own use. As to the second, as the firstborn child of Mister Prongs I feel I have some right to his work, especially something so useful.' She completely ignored the twins' jabbering at that.

Mr Padfoot moveþ to deny þe requeſt. Obviouſlie, þe petitioner is a liar.

Mr Ƿormtail ƿiſheþ to remind Mr Padfoot contraception is often miſappliede by þe eager. It is not impoſſible Mr Prongs coude haþ faþered a child.

Mr Moony chideþ Mr Prongs for his careleſſneſs, but is not truly ſurpriſede.

While the twins snickered, Charissa just rolled her eyes. Bloody thing. 'It has been years since this map was created, you know. Mister Prongs and my mother were married.'

Mr Moony begeþ þe petitioner conveȝe his greateſt ſympaþies to his moþer for her miſfortune.

Charissa actually snorted at that one.

Mr Prongs ƿolde like to tell Mr Moony to keepeþ his unƿantede opinions to himselve.

Mr Padfoot ƿonderþ ƿho ƿæs so unlucky to marrie þe antlerede prat.

Mr Moony suȝȝeſteþ Ms Evans.

Mr Ƿormtail diſagreeȝeþ, ſince Mr Prongs must hæn livede long enouȝe to beget þe petitioner.

'This is very amusing, boys, but I do have things to do. Are you going to release the ward keys for me or not?'

Mr Prongs sugȝeſteþ þe petitioner be grantede his requeſts. Eny child of his muſt have plans for hit amuſende.

Mr Moony conſenteþ, as it be improbable þe petitioner coude damage þis article ƿiþ acceſs to þe keys alone.

Mr Padfoot ƿolde prefer þe child learne to do ƿhat dirtie ƿork hisselve, but ƿill alloue it þis ones.

Mr Ƿormtail conſenteþ, an preȝeþ Fortune favour þe petitioner.

A moment after the fake Peter's last message was displayed, all the text vanished, replaced with blue light, a small circle glowing softly in the centre of the parchment. Finally — that had been seriously fucking annoying. Charissa lifted her left hand a bit, a flick of her wrist flipping back her sleeve, revealing s silvery bracelet slung close about her skin. A tap of her wand and a minute burst of magic had the enchantment primed. A brief incantation and a second tap of her wand and the thing was ready to accept the ward keys. She brought her wand back to the Map, the first word of the incantation forming on her lips.

'Wait!' one of the twins yelled, almost but not quite reaching to grab her arm. 'What are you doing?'

'We mean, is the Map still going to work when—'

'Yes,' Charissa hissed through grit teeth, shooting the boys a cool glare. 'Calm down, will you? I'm only copying the ward keys.' That should have been bloody obvious, the fake Moony had even said what she was doing wouldn't ruin the thing.

'Ward keys? You mean...'

'The Map pulls everything from the castle wards?' The Weasleys looked stunned, wide-eyed and still.

'Yes, obviously. How else did you think it keeps up with the little shifts this place goes through all the time? Or how it knows where everyone is?' The twins seemingly didn't have a response to that, simply staring into the distance, somewhere between shocked and impressed to the point of overwhelmed. Charissa shook her head, going back to her work.

Not that she could entirely blame them, to be honest. Her mother had designed this little take on the Marauder's Map, but she'd said she needed to get access to the wards from Remus. Remus, though, hadn't been willing to help her get them, or even tell her how they'd gotten them themselves. He'd just pointed her in the direction of the original Map instead. Cracking into the wards wasn't too complicated, theoretically, but it would involve physically attaching a fade anchor of their own make to the wardstones, probably a few attempts to get the enchantment exactly right. Charissa didn't even know where the wardstones were. Far as she knew, save for a few select members of the staff, nobody did.

It was a simple matter to duplicate the ward keys — a single charm to copy them into the bracelet, a second to get the enchantment to integrate the seemingly random threads of magical energy, and it was done. Charissa slipped her wand away, activated the enchantment with a soft pulse of wandlessly-drawn energy.

If she hadn't practised with Severus on something far simpler, this would have been completely impossible. Mum had decried putting the Map on literal paper as far too impractical — not only would one have to carry a big piece of parchment around, but scanning for a specific person was rather tedious, and it was far too obvious when it was being used. Instead, she'd adapted an enchantment she and Severus had invented back in their school days for the purpose, Charissa practising with one of their original works to get herself used to it while waiting on the ward keys.

Essentially, instead of drawing the Map on paper, it was drawn straight into her mind. It would come out complete nonsense to someone who wasn't passable with mind magic, perhaps even overwhelming and painful, but Charissa straightened it out without too much trouble. The three-dimensional image was very easy to sort through, flicking by room to room at the speed of thought. Finding a specific person was ridiculously easy. She simply thought the name Hermione Granger to herself, and she was suddenly looking at a pale blob of colour in what was clearly the library, labelled with her name and a Ravenclaw emblem, another blob labelled Luna Lovegood nearby — interestingly, instead of a Ravenclaw emblem, Luna had what Charissa recognised as rather outdated coat-of-arms for House Ollivander. Curious. She thought of Linden, and he showed up immediately, his blob looking oddly washed out — since he appeared to be sneaking into the occupied Gryffindor changing room down at the quidditch pitch, a few named blobs in the showers (of which she really only knew Bell), he probably had the Cloak on, diminishing his presence in the wards somewhat. Much like Luna, he was labeled with a personal family crest instead of his Hogwarts house, but it was clearly the Longbottom one. She thought of Perry, and immediately found him in a ground floor inter-house common room, sitting with a group of mostly unfamiliar Slytherins and Ravenclaws, only some of whom had emblems matching their names. Hmm.

Just a guess, she was assuming someone had added some record of what House someone belonged to at some point into the wards, but simply hadn't updated it in centuries. That would explain Luna's, as well as her brother's and, she confirmed quick, her own. Lovegood was a comparatively new House, but Luna's grandmother had been born an Ollivander, one of the oldest established magical families in the Celtic world. Similarly, her House was significantly older, but by no means ancient, originally founded by a Longbottom. It wasn't unreasonable an outdated scheme might simply consider them Longbottoms.

Just out of random curiosity, she thought of Dumbledore and—

Nothing happened. She frowned, then shrugged it off. He was probably out of the castle again. She flicked up to his office quick, just out of curiosity, to confirm he wasn't there. However, there was another presence there, bright and vibrant in the wards, labelled with an emblem she didn't recognise — a red sun rising over a purple field, three orange and white feathers spread beneath the horizon — and the name... Well, it was Classical Brīþwn, obviously, and she was pretty sure it translated to Glitters-With-Morning-Dew.

She was mildly confused for a moment, before realising who that obviously had to be: Fawkes. It had never really occurred to her to wonder about before, but it was common knowledge phoenixes were self-aware beings, no less intelligent than humans. Fawkes must be his own person, not just Dumbledore's familiar. In fact, he most likely wasn't Dumbledore's familiar at all, as most people assumed, just following him around and keeping him company for some reason. More like a friend than a pet, if that made sense. Somehow, she'd never thought to wonder what Fawkes's name actually was. She was a bit curious what exactly the emblem was supposed to be. Probably a family crest of some kind. Did phoenixes have formalised clans or something? She didn't actually know. Hmm.

There was one thing to add to her list of topics to research, she guessed.

Not pausing a second to answer the Weasleys' questions, she gave them a quick nod of thanks, then turned to leave the room, the castle and its inhabitants a subtle presence in the back of her mind.

---

October 6th, 1995

---

Charissa smoothly walked into the hallway, falling into step right behind her targets. 'Gaunts.'

The familiar pair of figures — both now a fair bit taller than herself, she saw with some annoyance — visibly jumped at her unexpected appearance, stopping their easy walk away from Charms class and whirling on their heels to face her. 'Charissa!' Alex said just under a bright shout, face split into a smile. 'Well, this is a surprise.'

'Yes,' said Hesper, his voice more a low drawl, eyes very obviously trailing downward. 'A pleasure to see you as always, of course.'

Charissa somehow managed to not roll her eyes — that hadn't been subtle at all. 'This was your last class of the day, right?'

The Gaunts looked momentarily disoriented by Charissa not playing along with the whole expected social niceties thing and just getting right to the point, blinking silently at her for a couple seconds. Which Charissa thought was a little silly. She would figure they'd have gotten used to her by now. Finally, one of them (it didn't really matter which) said, 'Ah, yes, nothing more today.'

'Did you have anything planned this afternoon you can't miss?'

'Er...' The Gaunts glanced at each other. Charissa did have to wonder exactly why they did things like that. 'No? I mean, we were going to meet up with the Carrows—' Hesper glanced over his shoulder as Alex kept speaking, checking to see if the Carrows were lingering, but Charissa had seem them walk off, seemingly not noticing the Gaunts had been intercepted. '—to get our Runes work for the weekend done, but we could skip it. Why?'

Even after a few years, Charissa still wasn't sure what to think about the two sets of Slytherin twins being such close friends. Other than some relief she wasn't in their year, of course, she knew from Jasper the four were a consistent disturbance even during classes. Anyway, she didn't bother answering their question. She just raised an eyebrow a tick, said 'Follow me,' and turned to walk off again.

The twins hesitated a moment, she felt, their shared mind buzzing with confusion and curiosity. As a hopeful tinge of rising excitement started washing the rest out, they kicked into motion, quite nearly skipping in her wake.

She wasn't sure if that was more exasperating or adorable.

Down a hall and up a rickety staircase squirrelled in a corner, and Charissa was leading the pair into the room she'd prepared beforehand. One of the absurdly numerous abandoned classrooms throughout the castle, all the desks and chairs already shrunk and stowed, the room nothing but blank, uninterrupted stone. Except for the thick layers of privacy and protection spells, but she couldn't actually see those, as well as her bag waiting in a corner, since she had needed to put all that furniture somewhere.

As the twins blinked around at the room, clearly confused, Charissa moved for her bag, pulling at her wrist. She turned back to face them as she reached it, just in time to meet Hesper's question. 'What are we doing here?'

'You're going to fight me.' With ease born of repetition, Charissa swiftly loosened both straps of her wand holster in quick succession, dropping the thing inside her bag.

They glanced at each other again. 'Both of us?'

'Yes.'

'At once?'

'Yes.' Her second holster joining the first, she kicked her bag, turning it so the open end was facing the corner. The enchantment in the bag should prevent anything in there from being damaged by any errant spells, or at least anything they were likely to be casting. That taken care of, she started walking for the middle of the room.

Still looking intensely confused, the twins said, in unison, 'Why?'

She shrugged. She would admit this was a bit odd, but she was just weird sometimes. 'I have to be sure.'

'Sure you can beat the shite out of us, you mean.'

She stopped, turning to face them again. 'Yes.'

They just frowned at her. 'Why?'

'I don't know if I can explain it. Before I can be comfortable doing anything with you two, I have to be sure.'

Somehow, they looked even more confused than they'd been a second ago. 'You're saying you have to be sure you can overpower us whenever you want before you can be at all physically intimate with us.'

Charissa shrugged. 'Something like that, yes.'

She realised it was weird. She couldn't really explain it, even to herself, in her own head. It hadn't been an issue with anyone she'd been with before — she'd always known she could overwhelm any of them if she truly felt she had to, she overpowered all of them by enough they were barely even a discernible threat. The only possible exception was Bell, who she still couldn't match in a duel reliably, but without the limits imposed by tournament rules she'd likely have a better shot, and that first time had been extremely spur-of-the-moment in any case.

Well, and Dora, but Dora was both family and unflinchingly loyal, Charissa found her inherently nonthreatening. Dora was one of the very few people she'd met she couldn't imagine consciously hurting her, so Charissa didn't need to be able overpower her.

The situation with the twins was somewhat different. It hadn't occurred to her until a week or two after they'd started Hogwarts again, one instance after another of the silly things showing up to cling all over her, paired with nearly constant and very direct flirting. Not sure "flirting" was even a good word for it, the offer wasn't subtle at all. It wasn't until Charissa had finally decided to take them up on that offer, if only to hopefully get them to be marginally less annoying, when she'd realised she had a problem.

The Gaunts were skilled duellists themselves. And there were two of them. Even worse, their profound twin bond granted them an unnatural degree of coordination, enough that in doubles they'd managed to take out teams far and away more skilled and more experienced.

Charissa wasn't sure she could beat them. For all that she'd improved since starting more intensive lessons with her mother, for all she had them handily outclassed in terms of raw magical power and trained skill, she still wasn't sure she could take them both in a straight fight.

Not that she thought she would necessarily ever have to. It was obvious the twins liked her, to put it mildly. She didn't even need to be a legilimens to know that, but the additional insight she got into their mind obliterated any doubt. Since Hesper — thus, in a way, both of them — was to marry her one day, there would be no advantage in harming her even should they want to. The twins were intelligent enough to realise that, and clever enough not to sabotage themselves. While she didn't exactly trust them to act in her interest selflessly, she certainly trusted them to act in their own interest selfishly, so she almost certainly had nothing to fear from them.

So she didn't think it was likely. But, even so, against all logic it was irrelevant, the knowledge that they possibly could overpower her if they chose to made her feel...vulnerable.

Charissa hated feeling vulnerable.

Hence, the entire purpose of this exercise. She'd intentionally divested herself of anything enchanted that could conceivably give her even the smallest advantage — hence the very simple, comparatively form-fitting leggings and shirt of muggle make they'd taken the opportunity to leer at at first sight. She'd left both her wands aside. Both of the Gaunts would attack her at once. And if she beat them anyway, despite the disadvantage, that would be all the proof she needed. Even should they decide to betray her, she could successfully defend herself, so there was no particular need to worry about it. If she couldn't defeat them...

Well, she'd figure out how to deal with that if it happened.

After a long silence of their own, apparently thinking through the oddness of the situation, Alex said, 'This won't be much of a fight.' Charissa only had a moment to be very annoyed before she continued. 'We can't really do any wandless magic.'

Oh. Well, of course. Shrugging off her temporary fury at the misunderstanding, Charissa said. 'Yes, I know. That's why you'll be using your wands.'

They both looked at her as though she were completely insane. 'Er...'

She glared at them, hoping her expression would communicate she was entirely serious, and they better obey if they knew what was good for them. 'You will use your wands. And you won't go easy on me either. You will come at me with absolutely everything you have. Ignore tournament rules if you think it'll give you a better shot.'

They glanced at each other again. 'Er... What we can use is still limited, you know. If we don't want Dumbledore running down here asking why we're throwing around dangerous black hexes and curses.'

'I put an isolation ward over this room. Don't worry about it.' Dumbledore was out of the castle currently anyway — it hadn't taken her long to notice, once she had Mum's altered Map working, that Dumbledore spent more time out of the castle than in it — but there was no telling when he'd be coming back. All that accumulated magical energy would be released when she dropped the ward, but it would just be undifferentiated black magic by that point, impossible to tell exactly which spells had created it. Would probably make Dumbledore paranoid, but he would have insufficient evidence to recreate the event or trace it back to them.

Knowing Dumbledore, he'd likely blame her for it anyway, but that wasn't the point. He couldn't do anything about it, so it didn't matter.

The twins still looked very confused, staring at her in clear disbelief. Then they glanced at each other one more time, shrugged, and drew their wands, the motion identical and in perfect synchronisation, started slinking across the room, opening space between them as they made to circle her from both sides. Charissa didn't move an inch, still standing there with her feet together and hands relaxed at her sides. Once the twins were around her enough to make roughly a right angle, they paused, staring at her warily. Waiting for her to move probably, but she didn't, still waiting, staring steadily directly between them, patiently watching them in her peripheral.

With minuscule sighs, both of the twins moved, tiny little half steps driving sharp twists of their wands, a pair of familiar bright purple spellglows, a common black variant of a stunning charm, burst simultaneously from the tips. Charissa pivoted and leaned out of the way of the one making for a spot high on her shoulder, deflecting the one aimed low on her hips into the ground with a flex of magic and an easy flick of her fingers. Focusing on her slight irritation they'd tried something so easy, Charissa brought the feeling forward, pulling it over her as thick as she could, drew her magic through the lens of the black emotion. Thoughts filled with blades, sharp and cutting and splitting, she forced the magic down an arm, single finger inscribing a wide spiral in the air, a red-black spellglow lifting away to spin off directly toward Hesper.

She could feel their shock thick in the air, which wasn't too surprising — that was a black severing curse she'd just cast, and not a weak one either, the way she'd formed it into an overlapping spiral making it even harder to shield against. Very easily deadly. But Hesper didn't flinch an instant, ducking a bit to the side even as he brought up a pale orange shield charm, the tendrils of her curse he hadn't avoided flaring and dissipating. Even as Charissa brought up her own shield, Alex's white vertigo hex splashing away against it.

That wouldn't do. Summoning her old fury with Draco over how he'd treated Hermione until she'd put a stop to it, Charissa drew a stream of energy into both hands — sidestepped a nasty bludgeoning curse even as she ducked under a purging charm (the healing charm instead of the hex, clever) — released it with a hiss of, 'Calōre vindicō.' The temperature of the air around her instantly shot up several degrees, turning dry and sharp, as intensely bright flames in blues and whites sprung from her fingers, stretching across the room straight for either Gaunt, tongues wide and thick, the air about them shimmering.

Which just gave the Gaunts opportunity to prove exactly why they're so good at this shite. They both rolled to the side out of the way, unnaturally quickly and unnaturally far, probably using a featherlight or a banishing charm or a combination of the two, in seconds outrunning the flames, standing exactly on either side of her. Before she could redirect her fire charm somewhere more useful, she felt one of them prepare a summoning charm. Just in case, she dropped the charm, leaving the fires she'd already conjured to burn themselves out, cast a simple little thing to anchor herself to the ground, readied herself to resist a summoning charm—

—which never came. She saw Alex hop slightly into the air, knew without seeing Hesper had done the same, then the summoning charm was released. From both twins, on each other. As a Gaunt rocketed in at her from both sides, both already thick with rising black magic, Charissa hastily dispelled the charm holding herself in place, hopped slightly herself, firing off a banishing charm at an angle at the floor to her side. The room tilting dizzyingly around her, stomach lurching, she frantically tried to spot the floor she was about to hit, or possibly the wall, but the mess was too confusing, so gave up, cast a repelling barrier around herself instead. She barely managed it in time, her downward motion coming to a sharp end a split-second later. The friction the ground made against her shield was less than a true physical object would have experienced — not that she entirely understood why there should be any friction at all, magic was weird like that sometimes — but there was still enough to draw the shield into an uncontrollable spin, the room reduced to nothing as she tried to ignore the nausea rising up her throat.

After a second or two, there was another jarring slam as she came against the wall, Charissa dispelling the shield before any leftover momentum she had could send her rolling off again. She came down hard on her shoulder, but she ignored the pain from the impact, pushed herself to her feet. Or she tried to, anyway — the world was still swirling around her, stomach high in her throat and head light and buzzing, sending her stumbling to the side and pitching to a knee before she could take a step.

Okay. That could have gone better.

She could still barely see, the room streaked blurs, but she felt a rush of black magic falling in at her anyway. Wait, not black magic — a black curse and a white curse at the same time. That was brilliant, actually, any shield she cast would only be able to block one of the two, the other would slip right through. But never mind that now, she could be impressed later. She didn't bother trying to stand, just dove to the side, shoving at the floor with one foot to push herself into a roll. The charms splashed against the ground behind her, her leg clearing them by inches.

'Flamma impulsāns—' she said, pushing herself unsteadily to her knees. Flickering, stinging magic crawling up her chest, her skin tingling from spine to fingertip, both hands coming to the floor in front of her. '—assurge!' A wall of flame a deep orange-red, tall to scrape the ceiling and nearly wide enough to bisect the room, the heat nipping at her face and arms. Hands lifting from the ground, both pushing outward, 'Ēverte!' The wall of fire rushed away from her, sweeping across the room in a inexorable wave, flickering and crackling and hissing.

Charissa ignored it, took the momentary reprieve to bring herself to her feet. They hadn't been caught by that, she knew — she could see in their head they were casting an elemental shield, they were fine — so she had to recover as quickly as she could. She finally got to her feet, unsteady, still shaking a little. Bent half over, hands on her knees, she took a moment to simply breathe, struggling against the nausea still filling her throat.

Yeah. Could have gone better. The smart thing would have been to just conjure something around her for the Gaunts to ram themselves into, but she couldn't really do that without a wand...

Not for the first time, she wished she weren't so shite with water elemental magic. Some ice right then would have been great.

Speaking of elemental magic, the twins were definitely doing something. All that fire had left enough smoke she still couldn't see them, but she could taste it rising in the air, feel the focus in their— Ah, a lightning spell. A pair of them, actually. That wouldn't be too hard to get rid of, she would just—

No. No, wait. She had a better idea. She drew her own power back from her fingers, letting the magic of Hogwarts slip into its place, honey thick and blood warm, pushed it back out, deftly inscribing runes in sharp whites and soft blacks. Three simple runes, activating them with a snap of power, throwing the spell into the floor in front of her. Nothing happened.

But then, nothing was supposed to.

She waited for the twins' attack to come, but she didn't have to wait long. Soon blue-purple lightning was crawling across the air, snapping and screaming. Fast enough Charissa moved instantly, raising a hand, pointing a single finger at the approaching illusory electricity, ordered, 'Obvertite!'

Against an elemental charm this destructive, this powerful, that normally wouldn't work. Not without Charissa putting more power into it than was quite wise, at least. But with the help of the runic amplifying charm she'd prepared, it hardly took any power at all, at least not a noticeable drain, and the storm of lightning was halted in place, dragged into a shivering ball. Shivering, straining, she could feel the twins trying to force the spell out of its containment.

Well, that wouldn't do. Still pointing at the barely-restrained elemental magic, her hair pulled away from her skin by the static thickening the air, Charissa took a long, low breath in through her nose. 'Is-ã lũgesat.' The instant she felt the struggle for control over the spell start, Charissa pulled, violently ripping the magic away from the twins; she heard them cry out, in shock or pain, but she ignored it. The ball of lightning settled, compressing further, until it was a thick sea of sharp, blue-purple light, the air around it shivering with contained power.

She took another slow breath. This was going to be a hell of a thing.

'Prō mē elementa, meum nexum subīte, et in meā manū vigēte.' A hot, unpleasant shiver running up her spine, a painful crackling racing across her skin, Charissa winced as the lightning split and swirled, flowing almost like a gas or liquid, forming into a tight, flashing hemisphere around her. She tested it only for a moment, reaching out to the energy around her not with her fingers, not with her magic, but with her mind — the process was very similar to legilimency, in fact. The elemental magic didn't feel like a conscious mind, not exactly, a chaotic and disorganised and tempestuous storm of power and anticipation and glee, at once too thin and too intense to really be a person. But she felt it shift as she forced her intent into its primitive essence, her trick had obviously worked.

No reason to delay, then. She imagined the lightning parting before her, and it did, pulling back to form two arms extending out from both sides. She quickly spotted the twins, wands half-lowered, staring at the impossibly stationary lightning snapping and squealing all around her, numbly blinking.

Charissa smirked.

She took a few steps closer to the twins, the magic moving with her. It was the easiest thing in the world, hardly even conscious — she simply imagined the lightning leaping forward, splitting into two separate streams to strike at each of the Gaunts, and it did. The screaming rivers of power were deflected by simultaneous shield charms, the orange defences cast with a very clear air of desperation. At a thought, both streams pooled, forming into concentrated balls of lightning once again, before both split into three separate bursts of far more natural-looking stabbing bolts. Even as they shot straight for their targets, Charissa prepared a pair of black binding curses, one in each hand, tossed them off for the twins. Desperately, barely, the twins both managed to escape, by the skin of their teeth.

'Is this all you two have?' She brought the lightning around again with the slightest thought, negligently shooting off stinging and bludgeoning hexes in a thin rain, the twins too busy shielding and dancing to even think to retaliate. When Hesper took a grazing hit from a slice of lightning, limping away and hissing in pain, Charissa failed to hold back a low chuckle. 'I expected better than this. I'll admit, I think I might be a little disap—'

It happened so quickly Charissa didn't have time to react. There wasn't even any warning from the twins' mind, apparently acting on instinct. Their seemingly random evasions suddenly brought the two together, Hesper going down to a knee, a shouted incantation raising an unfamiliar black and purple shield charm. Whatever it was, it held back the lightning strikes falling an instant after it'd appeared without even flickering. Before Charissa could even blink, Alex was already facing her, back straight, eyes narrowed with visible fury, hair wild and slick with sweat. Voice half-choked with a shocking degree of rage and hatred, she snarled, 'Cruciō!'

Charissa was so blindsided by the use of an Unforgivable she completely forgot to avoid it.

The blood red spellglow struck her straight in the chest, hitting like a bludger burning red-hot, blinding sparks of agony spreading across her nerves. Charissa stumbled back a few steps, her vision flickering, teeth clenched, but she managed to keep to her feet, if only barely. Just as soon as it'd started, the pain was gone, the sudden relief leaving her gasping. That hadn't been that bad. Obviously, Alex didn't actually want to hurt her, even Mum's very reluctant demonstration of it this summer had hurt worse than that. But it was enough to break Charissa's focus, her control over the lightning shattered, the last flickers already vanishing to nothing, enough to give the Gaunts a breather, Alex passing her wand over the burn along Hesper's leg.

Her breath still hard and thick in her throat, still shivering with dull aftershocks from the cruciātus, Charissa felt herself smiling. Apparently, the Gaunts were taking this seriously.

Later, she wouldn't be able to say exactly how long it went, in the end. It was the hardest duel she'd ever fought, painful and dirty and exhausting and desperate, seemingly going on and on and on. It would all be reduced to an indistinguishable blur — curses and hexes, elemental charms and shields, a bit of haphazard conjuring from the twins, grasping at their mind with her own only to feel it twisting away, feelings and memories not her own joining the confusing mix of impressions, she couldn't sort it out.

But she knew one thing. She couldn't even remember how it happened, to be completely honest, how the chaotic nonsense of the fight got to this moment, how she'd pulled it off. But it didn't truly matter. All that mattered was that it had.

Eventually, throat raw from breath, clothes heavy from sweat, shaking with adrenaline and exhaustion, she was staring down at the twins, one on his hands and knees, the other on her back desperately gasping, their wands in her hand.

She'd been so out of it, it'd happened so suddenly, it took a moment for it to make sense. She stared down at the twins, blinking, every once in a while glancing at the wands in her hand, eyes flicking back and forth. She'd summoned these, she remembered that. There had been a lot of fire, and a lot of yelling, she didn't know exactly... She remembered summoning them, but...

She'd won.

The realisation crashing over her in a soothing wave, Charissa collapsed to her knees, shaking so hard she could barely sit, head heavy and fuzzy. Blinking, she turned toward the corner of the room, summoned her bag with an unsteady wave of her hand. It slid across the floor to her, and she pulled it open, shuffling through the contents. She'd prepared potions, of course, she wasn't an idiot. She downed a couple herself, than poured a few down each Gaunt's throat — they were far more badly injured than her, scorched and bleeding in places, shivering with the aftereffects of black hexes. A couple healing charms to take care of the balance the potions wouldn't handle, and she was done.

She sat back to wait for them to recover. The smile on her face was so wide to be painful, but that wasn't too surprising — she was feeling incredibly pleased with herself right now, almost giddy.

'Okay,' Alex said, voice thick and slow, blankly staring up at the ceiling. 'Let's not do that again any time soon.'

Charissa shrugged. 'I don't know. Didn't you have fun?'

Their mind was shivering a bit with clear amusement, but Hesper turned a glare on her anyway. 'Of course you had fun. Winning is fun.'

'No reason to pout at me, Hesper. You two did quite well, not bad at all.' She felt her smile tilt, shifting into a smirk. 'Besides, I think I know a way I can make it up to you.'

'How?' In unison again — out of nowhere, she found herself wondering how they decided who would say what. Hmm.

Charissa put a hand to the floor, reached for her magic. It came just as easily and smoothly as it had at the beginning of the fight, but that wasn't a surprise. The Blessing had given her inhuman magical power, of course, it was her body and mind that had nearly failed her. She pushed a softening charm into the hard stone floor, more and more and more, until she felt it give under her, visibly sinking under the Gaunts. That felt good enough. 'Take off your clothes.'

They blinked at her. 'Huh?'

She didn't bother saying anything aloud, just raised a single eyebrow.

'What, right now? After all that?'

'All these weeks pestering me, and you'd really rather wait? I have nowhere else I need to be. And there are more potions in my bag if you need them.'

For long seconds, the Gaunts just stared at her. Eyes flat, faces empty, minds an indistinguishable jumble of uncertainty and affection and exasperation. They glanced at each other.

Then they sighed, eyes turning up to the ceiling, and started kicking off their shoes.

At first, just for a moment, Charissa sat unmoving, watching the Gaunts as they undressed, not even bothering to moderate the smug grin she felt on her lips.

---

December 23rd, 1995

---

Trying to keep as much of her frustration off her voice as possible — by this point, very much a lost cause — Charissa said, 'Are we there yet?'

Leading Charissa along by his fingers around her wrist, she didn't have to be able to see Hesper or feel his thoughts to know he was smiling. Of course, at the moment, she couldn't actually do either: the aggravating boy had somehow convinced her to consent to being put under a blinding hex, a pendant enchanted to contain mind magic hung around her neck. Apparently, the twins had decided these absurd measures were necessary to ensure their surprise remained a surprise. 'Not yet. Just a little further.'

Charissa had absolutely no idea what this surprise was — Hesper had been very careful to avoid thinking about it until her legilimency was sufficiently blocked. She'd been invited to the Gaunt family home for the day, which had been fascinating enough on its own. Unlike most seats of Noble Houses, and even more unusual for a Most Ancient House, Lady Merope's manor was very new, as such things went. They'd only broken ground in the Forties, she'd been told, and that was just to put a much smaller house on the current site. Over the decades, as the House accrued new wealth to replace that that had long been lost, the original house had been remodeled, expanded, then expanded again, and again, and again. The twins remembered the latest stage of construction, only completing when they'd been nine.

And the place was fascinating. Most manors had been around long enough many modern techniques in enchanting and especially alchemy hadn't yet been developed. Leuteris, boundlessly curious magical scholar as he was, had adapted whatever clever innovations he could; Merope, less enthusiastic but more appreciative of the statement the display made, had consented to all of his wildest ideas. The manor was, of course, larger on the inside than the outside, but that wasn't the limit of the space-bending tricks going on in here. Charissa had noticed right away that, despite the twins' rooms being on the second floor, she hadn't needed to climb any stairs to get there. Also oddly, the hallway from their rooms to the centre of the common areas of the family wing — sitting rooms, library, casual dining room, kitchen, that sort of thing — had been a straight shot, and a very short one. The twins had claimed, and Charissa had confirmed with a little exploring, that the same was true of everyone's rooms, not just theirs. Which, by the very basic principles of geometry, was absolutely impossible. The interior of the manor wasn't just expanded, but the internal structure warped, thoroughly enough Charissa doubted it would be possible to draw a contiguous floor plan.

After trying to process all that, Charissa had barely blinked when Áine had claimed both sunrise and sunset could be seen through the same bank of windows in the sitting room. And it was almost certainly true, since she had been there during sunset once already, the riotously colouring sky spread before her despite that she would have sworn those windows were facing east.

It was best not to think about it too hard, she'd quickly decided.

The materials were fascinating enough themselves. Stone enchanted warm and smooth, bits of crystal here and there alchemised to glow with soft inner light. In some places, ceilings alchemised to be even more fully transparent than glass — one room in particular was a sizeable garden, indoors, not that it was easy to tell standing within, sun shining down and environmental charms setting a warm breeze to blowing. Some of the floors were alchemised to appear like a river surface, light glinting and flickering off the tops of slight rippling waves, a few feet of clean and clear water only slightly diminishing the view of the bottom, pebbles of granite and agate sparkling like half-hidden diamonds. The illusion was so perfect Charissa had hesitated a few seconds before bringing herself to walk across it, some instinctual part of her deeply confused by the juxtaposition between the river she saw and the smooth stone tile she felt.

After her legilimency had been muzzled, she'd been allowed to peruse Leuteris's library, which had been just as fascinating. Especially since he hadn't gone in ahead of time and removed the volumes not entirely legal in Britain. Being the unabashed polymath he was — sometimes Charissa was a bit surprised Leuteris hadn't been in Ravenclaw, to be honest — Charissa had very rarely seen such a bounteous collection of obscure knowledge. The temple library she'd been granted access in Kemet, perhaps, but most of that she hadn't been able to even attempt to read. The majority of this library was in other languages, granted, but perhaps half of it was a mix of French and Aquitanian. While she doubted she'd be able to speak Aquitanian well at all, she could decipher it written without too much trouble, and of course her French was more than adequate.

Needless to say, she'd been so thoroughly distracted while she waited for whatever the hell this surprise was to be ready she'd entirely forgotten to be impatient.

Now, however, she was getting a bit annoyed. With a lot of whining and pouting and cajoling, Hesper had convinced her to submit herself to being blinded and guided to the right room. She was not pleased. By this point, she was mostly willing to trust the twins. Not entirely without reservation, of course, but enough to assume there wasn't any sinister intent wrapped up in this nonsense. Granted, she had mostly come to trust the twins as much as she did by being a massive bloody cheater — it'd been clear they'd liked her before, quite a bit at that, but since they'd started having sex Charissa had noticed a gradual intensifying in their more affectionate feelings for her. Though, interestingly, while their internal thoughts and feelings had shifted significantly, their external behaviour had hardly changed at all, enough she was half-certain she never would have even noticed if she weren't half inside their shared mind every time they were in a room together. They'd never thought about it explicitly in her presence, so this was a guess, but she was pretty sure the twins were intentionally avoiding being overly sentimental with her, aware she wasn't inclined to such displays, and was likely to simply be made uncomfortable with anything of the sort.

To be completely honest, she thought that might be one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for her. She was aware that sounded a bit odd, but she appreciated it rather a lot. The twins were annoying sometimes, yes, but at least they understood her enough and were considerate enough to remove an unnecessary potential annoyance for her before the problem even started presenting itself.

So, while she was generally inclined these days to tolerate their more directly aggravating moods, that didn't mean she was entirely unaffected. She did not appreciate being partially bound and blinded as she was now. It made her feel far too vulnerable. And she hated feeling vulnerable. But she knew rationally she was as safe here as she was anywhere, so she did her best to ignore it, to contain her reflexive need to strike back as much as she could. Her voice still more or less even, she hissed, 'This is very annoying, you realise that.'

'I figure it would be.' Of course, his voice was entirely absent of any remorse or guilt whatsoever.

She clenched her teeth, fighting back another flash of anger. Useless, she was fine, stop it. 'I have no idea why I consented to this.'

Now with a faint trace of amusement, Hesper said, 'Actually, I'm still a little surprised you did.'

Fruitlessly, she glared through the blackness in his general direction. 'I hate you.'

'Mm-hmm,' he hummed, sounding entirely unaffected. But, then, he wouldn't be — she actually said things like that or exactly that rather often, and he had to realise by now she didn't mean them.

So, one had to wonder why she bothered saying this shite. She just...did. She didn't know. It wasn't like she claimed to perfectly understand herself all the time, after all. 'You know, one day, eventually, I will murder you.' That one might actually be true, come to think of it. Something could come up to make such a thing necessary, but even if it didn't, she could see the twins requesting she end their lives quickly, rather than let them age into obsolescence. Not that they knew she would inevitably be in a position to, of course, she hadn't yet seen fit to inform them about the Blessing.

Somewhat to her surprise, Hesper chuckled under his breath. 'Yes,' he said, his voice smooth, 'the perfect crime. They never suspect the wife, ever.'

She rolled her temporarily useless eyes. 'Smart arse.'

Suddenly bright and cheerful, he chirped, 'Yep!' She heard a door click open, an incomprehensible jumble of whispered voices washing over her. 'Anyway, we're here.' Without another second's pause, he dispelled the hex over her eyes.

For a moment, she could only blink, momentarily dazzled by deep orange light. Slowly, painfully, details started to distinguish themselves. A moodily-lit circular room, a collection of people arrayed around a rectangular table of black stone. On the opposite side from her were a few familiar Gaunts — Lady Merope, Lord Leuteris and his wife Lady Móirín, the twins' parents Áine and Fidelis. The people on the near side mostly had their backs to her, but even so she recog—

She blinked, blankly staring as Aunt Alice turned to raise a curious eyebrow at her. The slighter figure to her side was definitely Gwyneira, the man to her other side definitely Frank, the woman on his other side had to be Lady Augusta. What was...

Then she noticed who sat at the head of the table. On the far side of the double-wide chair, that was definitely Neville, she would recognise him anywhere, looking only faintly uncomfortable. Next to him, her hair meticulously pinned up as it only ever was for formal occasions, was Alexis. Quill in her hand poised over a long sheet of parchment, eyes steady on Charissa's own, a silent question on her face.

Charissa made the connection in an instant. She lifted a hand to point at Alex with a single finger, and said, the hardness in her tone making it an obvious order, 'Sign it.' She whipped the stupid necklace off, letting out a relieved sigh as her mind stretched out, the thoughts and feelings of the others in the room warm and soft against her. She'd gotten used to that always being there now, she just felt somehow wrong without it.

A grin splitting her face, Alex signed with an overdone flourish, then slammed the quill down on the table. 'There.' Turning her grin on Neville, she said, 'You're ours now. There is no escape.'

As the adults went on with their own chattering, Neville let out a somewhat awkward chuckle, giving Charissa a half-curious half-confused look. 'Yeah, I guess not.'

By this point, a few steps in head of Charissa, Hesper had come to a stop behind Alex. While she just kept grinning, he pointed at her with both hands, voice turning thick and overly-dramatic. 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.'

Doing her best to repress any external trace of her own amusement — partially pointless, with two other legilimens in the room — Charissa came around Hesper to lean against the chair behind Neville, shaking her head. 'That was terrible.' She noticed Gwyneira watching her, wiggled a few fingers in a wave, getting a soft smile in return.

She had to focus a bit more on keeping her lips even when she felt Gwyneira idly imagining exactly how this relationship with the four of them was going to work — imagining quite graphically, of course.

When she came back to what was going on around her, Áine, evidently not too distracted by the adults' conversation, was saying, 'Yeah, I could have done without that comment.'

Alice, a very familiar smirk crossing her face, said, 'I don't know, I thought it was funny.'

With an odd combination of a grimace and a tolerant smile — if anyone should be accustomed to Alice being Alice — Frank reached over to pat his wife on the arm. 'Don't encourage the little demons, dear.'

Neville actually felt somewhat amused. Clearly despite himself, not entirely pleased with his own reaction, but it was obviously there. 'Dad, if there's one thing I've learned about these two the last few years, it's that it doesn't matter what you do. They don't need to be encouraged, and can't really be discouraged. They'll do whatever they feel like regardless.'

'Aww, Neville.' Alex leaned against her future husband, her voice high and breathless, mind thick with amusement. 'I swear, such a romantic.'

'Er...' Neville's confusion was so thick in the air she could almost taste it. That wasn't the only thing slowing his attempt to respond to that, of course — he was clearly very distracted by the feel of Alex pressing up against him. Not that she could blame him for that, mind, and Alex was doing that on purpose. Given the way they were sitting, it would have to be on purpose for her comparatively minuscule breasts to be as obvious against his arm as Charissa could see in his mind they were. When he'd at least partially gathered himself, Neville twisted around to look up at Charissa. 'That was teasing, right?'

Charissa smiled. She was tempted to ask which part he meant, but quickly decided she shouldn't embarrass him in front of his parents and grandmother more than necessary. 'Yes, that one was teasing.' Mostly teasing, anyway. She was certain Alex knew about those little flings he'd had with a couple of their year-mates, so likely knew as well as Charissa did that Neville could sort of get that way. Not the point, though.

'Right, okay.'

Suddenly leaning in and taking her arm, Hesper let out a high, ecstatic, 'Oooohhh,' before finally seeming to remember how to speak English. 'This is so exciting! So great, couldn't have turned out better.'

Alex nodded, arms more firmly encircling a slightly helpless-feeling Neville. 'Yes, very true. One big happy Gaunt–Potter family. I love it.'

'Gonna have to work out where exactly we'll be living.'

'And start looking for a nice bed big enough.'

'We can just transfigure it. I'm sure Charissa will be able to anchor it with runic casting by then.'

Despite that they weren't really paying attention to her right now, Charissa nodded. She could probably do that right now, in fact. It wasn't something she'd attempted before, and Mum hadn't explicitly taught her how, but anchoring a spell of any kind to local ambient magic shouldn't be difficult at all. Potentially dangerous if she fucked it up, but...

Anyway, the twins hadn't shut up quite yet. 'Four together, very comfy,' Hesper said, nodding.

Nodding in perfect time with her other half, Alex said, 'Four together, very warm.'

'Er...' Now Neville felt very confused, and more than a little unsettled. He glanced between the twins for a couple seconds, eyes eventually making their way to Charissa's again. 'Was that...?'

Charissa shook her head. 'That one wasn't teasing. Well, mostly.' The fact the twins had decided to say that in current company, and the exact way they'd gone about it, that was teasing, she guessed. But it wasn't just teasing in that Charissa was certain they were completely serious about the four of them sleeping together regularly. In senses both literal and metaphorical.

Which Charissa was, she could admit to herself, and probably Mum and possibly Perry, more than slightly conflicted about. She'd been somewhat concerned about who exactly Alexis would end up marrying — the twins being so intimately bonded as they were, Alex's husband would inevitably be a major part of her life. Since she'd gotten them to agree to not marry anyone she didn't approve of, the worst of that concern had been ameliorated, leading her to the conclusion that she'd almost certainly be shagging whoever Alex married as well. But she was still somewhat leery of the whole thing.

Not that she was displeased it was Neville, of course. Neville was one of the most favourable options she could imagine. She approved, she completely approved, enough she suspected she might be smiling despite her best efforts, in fact. But she did still have her reservations. Despite her...whatever she had going on with Tugwood, despite her admittedly rather frequent encounters with Hesper over the last couple months...

She was honest enough with herself to know she preferred women. She definitely preferred women, it wasn't even close. The twins had split their electives, so they didn't have to repeat homework — they frequently complained about having to complete all the work for all their core classes twice — so there was a fair portion of time only one of the two was available. With how Charissa's own schedule worked out, Hesper was free at the same time she was more than Alex. But still, she'd sought out Alex far more times. Hesper a few times, yes, but not nearly as often.

And even then, partially just because the thought of Alex attempting to focus on class while half of her was having sex tickled her — Alex could feel whatever she did to Hesper just as well as Hesper himself could, after all. Apparently, both Alex and Hesper had had to resort to throwing notice-me-not charms over themselves to avoid making a scene more than once.

She'd observed a difference in her own behaviour, yes, but it also just felt different. Not to say she found Hesper entirely unattractive. Just...less. She would fuck him, but she was never preoccupied with the thought of it when he wasn't around, as had started happening sometimes with Alex, never got that burning need to touch him the way she did her. She'd actually found herself pretending he was Alex more than once which, to be honest, wasn't hard to do. There was no real difference in their behaviour. Their mind was the same irrespective of which half she was looking at. If she ignored the mild differences between their voices, they spoke the same way. Their mouths were shaped slightly different, but not enough it was noticeable snogging them. Limited to their hands and their mouths, their technique was identical. It was only actual intercourse that shattered the illusion, really.

She'd admitted to the twins she didn't like that very much at all, but she still did it. (When she was alone with Hesper, anyway — they could take care of it themselves the occasions they were both there.) She tolerated it, because she felt she sort of had to. It didn't seem right somehow to have him get her off, then not return the favour, so to speak. When she'd admitted all this, as a preemptive explanation for not seeming exactly enthused about it, oral as a possible alternative had come up, but she'd shot it down immediately. She didn't at all mind doing that for girls — in fact, she found the noises they made and how they tended to squirm endlessly entertaining — but she'd never done it with a bloke, and she would never. She couldn't even explain exactly why. Some part of her she couldn't name just rejected the entire idea out of hand. So, she tolerated taking Hesper inside of her, she allowed it, planned to continue allowing it for decades to come, but it wasn't something she anticipated she would ever enjoy for itself.

Neville joining would realign the gender balance in this relationship quite a bit. She wasn't really comfortable with that. It would mean a bit more tolerating things she didn't really enjoy, but that was...fine. For Neville, she'd put up with it. She'd anticipated likely having some problems with whoever Alex's husband ended up being, hesitant to permit him to fuck her, but Neville she was fine with. Not ecstatic about the idea, but he was allowed. In fact, if he'd thought to ask, she probably would have permitted it a long time ago, even without this whole quasi-marriage thing. She actually liked Neville, she was inclined to give him whatever he wanted to make him happy, especially when it costed her essentially nothing. Hell, she'd probably even let him direct things, so to speak, and she always slapped both Tugwood and Hesper down when they tried that.

It should go without saying, though, she would make it very clear she was still in charge, so to speak. But she thought she would feel comfortable sacrificing some minimal control over the situation to him, something she couldn't say about Hesper.

At least not yet, anyway. She hadn't known Hesper nearly as long as she had Neville. It wasn't unthinkable she could change her mind later.

So, the sex part was somewhat complicated. Not so unpleasant she wouldn't deal with it, and if she was getting too frustrated with the whole thing she could always keep a female paramour or two...or five, or however many. Their betrothal contract hadn't stipulated she couldn't, after all, and she doubted the twins (or Neville) would object. In fact, the twins had even already joked a couple times about sharing. Not a big deal, that all she could deal with. Somewhat leery about the whole thing, but fine.

The literal sleeping together though...

Ugh, that was going to be a pain. She'd never entirely grown accustomed to sharing a bed with Hermione, and she was far less clingy than the twins could be. Hermione, at least, had seemed to need at least some of her own space to sleep properly, but the few times she'd actually slept with the twins so far were not nearly so convenient. They seemed to think she was the most comfortable pillow to ever exist, or something. It was very annoying. It was almost impossible to sleep with people all cuddled up all over her — the only exception she'd found so far, to her own surprise, was Perry, she didn't seem to mind him nearly so much. Odd. But anyway, adding another person to the pile was just...

She hoped she got used to it eventually. It'd been hard enough semi-regularly sharing her bed with one person, but doing it with three, and for the next century or more?

Thankfully, she suspected the Blessing had reduced her need for sleep somewhat. Otherwise she might have had a major problem on her hands.

She'd been so distracted by her thoughts, she hadn't even noticed the collected Gaunts and Longbottoms starting on their way out of the room. Which was a bit embarrassing, yes, enough she'd had absolutely no choice in hexing the twins' amusement off both their faces.

---

April 18th, 1996

---

It was something she'd done a thousand times. She hadn't really been thinking.

Bella was bored. Honestly, she was bored rather a lot, but that didn't make it any less annoying. She couldn't read anymore without risking her head exploding, Clíona was being a bitch, Énna was in bed already for some unfathomable reason, who honestly knew where the fuck Astoria was, and she was bored. She had considered running off to find Charissa, but she didn't want to be annoying, and the twins would be just as good. Alex and Hesper were always a good balm for boredom. They could be a bit annoying sometimes...frequently...whatever, the point was they were interesting people — she still wasn't certain whether the plural was technically appropriate — and every time she was in their presence they did something amusing. And, really, she would have to be a massive hypocrite to fault them for being annoying.

That she was a massive hypocrite was entirely beside the point.

So, she was going to their room, because she was bored, and she needed to be entertained before she cursed someone. She nearly had already. Clíona had been sitting there going about her usual babbling self-aggrandisement, and Bella had been growing increasingly tempted to set her hair on fire, or perhaps hit her with a scouring curse right in her stupid face. Sometimes she really had to wonder why she was friends with that infuriating cunt. But anyway, Gaunts, entertainment, yes. She'd gone down the boys' stairs at first — despite the fact that the Gaunts invariably slept in the same bed, they each had their own room, and they used Hesper's most often — but the little twats weren't there! She'd stomped around a little bit, checked the bathroom just to be sure, but no, empty. Fuck. Somehow resisting the urge to set up a few prank jinxes as long as she'd been in there, she'd turned on her heel, and made her way back for the stairs.

She was still a couple doors down from Alex's room when she let out a little sigh of relief. Even from here, she could feel privacy charms on the door — they were inside. Finally. Bella walked up to the door, yanked at the handle, then stared at the door in surprise when it didn't budge. It was locked. Odd, the Gaunts never locked their door.

Well, that wasn't true. More than once, she'd come to their door only to find it locked, then charmed it open and barged in on them screwing. Each other, she meant. Everybody in Slytherin knew they did that — probably plenty of people in other houses by now — and Bella had to be one of the only people she knew who had barely blinked. While British mages didn't tend to freak out over incest nearly as much as British muggles did, it was still something that was considered somewhat odd, especially to be doing on such a regular basis. So people did still whisper about it, give them odd looks on occasion.

Bella had just shrugged it off. Far as she could tell, the Gaunts were basically the same fucking person. She figured it was more akin to masturbation than anything, no reason to be silly over it.

But still, she did hesitate for a second, staring indecisively at the door. It didn't particularly bother her what Alex and Hesper may or may not get up to while they were alone together, didn't change how she thought about them at all, but that didn't mean she wanted to actually see it. She'd walked in on them a few times by now, and every time it... It was just awkward.

She'd definitely taken those opportunities to get an eyeful of Alex, though. Hey, she was cute, okay.

Tapping at the door handle, Bella's eye's tipped toward the ceiling, her lips pursing a little. That was an interesting thought, she hadn't really seriously considered it. Was she just gay or something? She realised she was a little young to know these things for sure yet, but she had to wonder. She'd been having rather distracting thoughts about Luna and Astoria in particular, she'd have to be an idiot not to have noticed — not to mention her persistent obsession with Charissa, but since that'd been going on since she was eleven she wasn't sure it counted. Those times she had walked in on Alex and Hesper she'd barely even spared a glance for Hesper but, she was unashamed to admit, had stared almost uninterrupted at Alex for as long as she'd been able. The whole time feeling a bit...

It was something to consider. But not really important enough to consider it right now. Honestly, if it did turn out she was the dykiest little dyke to ever dyke it up with a bunch of dykes, she seriously doubted she would give a fuck.

Speaking of not giving a fuck? Fuck it. Bella flicked out her wand, with a deft little swish dispelled only the locking charm, leaving the rest alone — her still elementary wandless abilities she was working on under Charissa's direction were developed enough she could certainly cancel a locking charm, but not good enough to do it without disrupting the others thick upon the door. She pushed the door open, and took a—

Standing in the middle of the doorway, Bella jerked to a sudden halt. She hadn't been wrong: the Gaunts were screwing.

But they weren't alone.

For long seconds, Bella could only stare. She was so...so...astounded? Something like that. Anyway, it took her far longer than it should have to cast a notice-me-not over herself. She probably should have just left instead but, no, she stayed. Hidden, watching.

She really just couldn't help herself.

She was pretty sure that, right there, lying on her back on the bed, was Alex. It was sort of hard to tell, considering her face wasn't exactly visible at the moment, but she was almost entirely positive. About the right height, about the right figure, yes. And there was Hesper, kneeling on the bed, Alex's hips tipped at an uncomfortable-looking angle to give him a better...angle. Words. Because he was fucking her, see. Normally, that would be sufficiently distracting as to take all of her attention — she'd noticed Hesper's prick itself seemingly did absolutely nothing for her, but watching it slip in and out of Alex was still inexplicably fascinating — but she honestly barely noticed. Something else in the room had irrevocably drawn absolutely all of the concentration she had to spare. Someone else, to be precise.

Charissa was here. Charissa was completely, entirely, naked. Nothing on her at all, not a thing. Bella couldn't see quite everything — the angle from here was from the side and somewhat behind — but that was still plenty to be getting on with. Her hair all messed up and stringy with sweat, sticking to her back and neck and shoulders, normally pale skin, looking all smooth and soft and Jesus, her fingers were fucking twitching, but it was noticeably darker than it should be, turned a very obvious pink, more in some places than others, as though she were flushed with fever. Bella spent long, shameless moments letting her eyes trail over the back of her thigh, along the curve of her hip, following the visible lines of sweat streaking her back.

Bella shivered, forced herself to swallow. Her throat was so dry it nearly hurt.

God, she just wanted to—

She way she was moving was extremely distracting. Because Charissa wasn't just sitting there. She was perched on her knees, the fingers of one hand twisted into Alex's hair, from what Bella could see from here that looked like it had to hurt a bit, the other Bella couldn't actually see, low between her legs somewhere, looked like. Not the only thing between her legs. Where she was, her knees were on either side of Alex's head, and...

Well, Bella may be a virgin, but it was still plainly obvious what was going on there.

And Charissa was just...moving. Rolling motions of her hips, occasionally hitching a bit as her shoulders would raise with a sharp breath the silencing charms covered up, her head occasionally tipping to the side, or falling forward, hair glued together with her own sweat flicking heavily, mouth and throat moving with moans Bella couldn't hear—

She had to. She had to hear.

Not fully aware of what she was doing, as though moving in a dream, Bella took a few steps forward, until she felt the tingle of the silencing charm slide over her skin, noise crashing over her in a piercing wave.

Hesper's voice she dismissed immediately. The odd, squishy, occasional slappy noises of him fucking Alex she intentionally tried to ignore — that always sounded vaguely gross. Alex's whining moans were far more interesting, but they were a bit muffled at the moment. All that, she was aware of, but not really listening.

She was listening to Charissa.

Not that there was much to listen to. Just watching, Bella had assumed Charissa would be being far, well, louder than this. Just breathing — thickly and heavily, yes, but mostly just breathing. Occasionally, as a visible shudder went up her spine, her shoulders hitching as she'd noticed a few times, Charissa would let out a... Well, the word that immediately occurred to Bella was "whimper", but that didn't seem quite right somehow. That word, to Bella, had a connotation of, of weakness, she guessed. Bella couldn't imagine Charissa weak, the concepts were mutually exclusive. High and nasally and fluttery, in any case, she didn't know what to call it otherwise.

For long seconds, she had no idea how long, Bella's world was reduced to those intermittent noises, sweet as honey on her ears, the fascinating shifting of her hips, barely visible bobbing of her breasts, more beads of sweat carving rivers down her back.

Was it just her, or was it rather hot in here?

She hadn't really been watching, but Hesper's hands must have been moving, because she suddenly noticed his fingers on her hips, trailing up her back. Bella drew in a sharp breath as the air was abruptly chilled with a jolt of enraged magic, Hesper's hands batted away by some invisible force. Her previously hidden hand lifting into view, Charissa contorted in place, turning to glare at Hesper. Her hand came around behind her back, fingers glowing with a faint purple aura, swiping across inches over Hesper's chest. Despite nothing visible happening, he let out a moan of...pain? Maybe pain. Flinched somewhat away in any case.

Wait. No. Not nothing visible. His cringe brought his shoulders turning somewhat, giving her a partially-obstructed view of... What was that? Whatever Charissa had hit him with hadn't broken the skin, no scratches or cuts, hadn't burned him. Instead, he suddenly had three narrow lines a riotous blue-purple, clearly bruises. What the fuck hex was that? Bella had never seen such a thing...

Her voice turning the air unnaturally heavy and cold — it could be her imagination, but Bella thought she saw the beginnings of ice crystals in Charissa's hair — eyes narrowed and lip curled, Charissa snarled, 'Did I say you could touch me?'

Bella missed whatever Hesper said in response, blinking to herself. Belatedly, she noticed Alex's wrists were pinned high under Charissa's shins, effectively preventing her from using her hands — Bella would be surprised if she could move much at all, really. She... She really didn't know what to think about this.

She didn't know what to think about this consciously, at least. Because as she realised what she was seeing, as one fact of what was going on here fell into place, Bella... Well, she didn't know how to describe it. She felt hot, impossibly hot with Charissa's anger still freezing the air, she felt somehow unsteady, knees shaking and back curling under her own weight, she felt shifty and...like her guts, her flesh and bone had suddenly been transfigured into jelly, the slightest push could see her toppling to the ground, the slightest breath melt her away.

But of course it didn't end there. Charissa turned back down, leaning and curling a bit to bring her face closer to Alex's. Bella noticed her knuckles shift somewhat, her wrist twisting, obviously not going easy on Alex's hair. It was hard to tell from this angle, but at the muffled, desperate whimper loosed from Alex — this one was definitely a whimper — she thought Charissa might have smirked, just a lifted corner of her lips visible from here. 'Did I say you could stop?'

A hot, pleasant rush sweeping over her skin, Bella shivered again. She couldn't help it, she couldn't stop it, her unruly legs and spine seemingly trying to pitch her to the floor.

But Alex couldn't gather the wits to answer, or do as Charissa told her, high, breathless gasping splitting the air, interrupted somewhat as Hesper started up again, half-obscured by Charissa's thighs in the way — not to mention Bella somehow doubted Alex's mouth was entirely her own at the moment. Charissa's hand drifting over behind her back again, fingers shakily clenching halfway into a fist, as she drew out a long, 'Well?'

Lines were carved into Alex's skin, from the bottom of her ribs down across her stomach, about halfway down her thighs up toward her hips, drawn agonisingly slowly, thin and shallow, showing only the tiniest drops of blood in a couple places. And Alex's voice was ringing in her ears, high and breathless and keening, just under a scream, her hips bucking off the bed, her toes digging into the sheets, Charissa ruthlessly holding her in place, only responding with the slightest laugh—

Bella didn't know what to do with what she was learning today. She didn't think she'd ever—

Suddenly, Charissa back straightened, shoulders rising, head lifting. She contorted in place again, this time looking over her other shoulder. She couldn't see her, Bella knew that — her notice-me-not was still up. She might notice something was there, but she couldn't be sure it wasn't her imagination, and she certainly couldn't know it was Bella specifically.

Bella spun on her heel and bolted anyway.

She slammed the door behind her, nearly dropping her wand as she scrambled to recast the locking charm. Then she was walking off down the hallway, her ceaselessly shaking limbs turning her steps dangerously unsteady.

She only made it a few doors away before she gave up, turned to face the wall, planted both elbows about at head level, and pillowed her face in her forearms.

That was...

She didn't...

That...

She didn't think she'd ever been more jealous of anyone in her life.

It was a bit odd that that was the thing she was taking away from this, yes, she could admit that to herself. But she couldn't help the thought. It was there whether she willed it or not. She wanted it to be her seeing Charissa naked on a regular basis, she wanted it to be her who got to hear those indefinable noises she was probably making even now, she wanted it to be her Charissa—

Bella frowned into her arms, surprised by the thought.

She wanted it to be her...Charissa made helpless. That she...hurt. That she made not-scream.

That was fucking weird. Apparently, not only was she (maybe) gay, but also a masochist? Huh.

Learn something new every day.

And she couldn't stop bloody thinking about it! She couldn't get the image out of her head, she couldn't get that voice silenced, she couldn't stop imagining it, and she was hot, and she was shivering, and she was basically fucking melting and it wouldn't stop.

She couldn't. She couldn't handle this. She didn't know how to make it go away. It was too much, too much, she knew she would be overwhelmed, she couldn't handle it.

Then, quite suddenly, she had an idea.

If she were in her proper mind, she would have instantly discarded it. It was a bit of a crazy idea, she knew it would come back to bite her in the arse later.

But she wasn't in her proper mind right now, and she simply couldn't care.

She quite nearly flew down the hall, her steps so smooth and effortless she hardly noticed them happening. Which was a bit odd, considering she'd been an inch from falling on her arse a second ago. Then she was floating up a flight of stairs, through another door, floating down this hall. Then, without a thought, she was throwing a familiar door on her floor open, and slamming it closed behind her. Locking and silencing charms quickly followed, so quickly and smoothly she wasn't certain she'd even drawn her wand.

To her credit, Astoria, reclined reading in her bed — good, she was here — didn't seem at all surprised by Bella randomly barging into her room. In fact, she didn't even look at her, eyes steady on the novel in her hands. 'Good evening, Bella dear,' she said, voice perfectly easy and calm. 'Didn't your mother ever tell you it's rude to disturb a lady at her leisure?'

Bella frowned. 'My mother didn't tell me shite.'

Leaning back somewhat, Astoria blinked to herself, looking somewhat surprised. Evidently, remembering just who she was talking to. 'Ah. No, she wouldn't have, I suppose.' With a soft sigh, Astoria folded her book closed over her thumb, turning to raise an eyebrow at Bella. 'To what, then, do I owe the dubious pleasure of your company? And do make it quick, it is getting late.'

She rolled her eyes. 'Love you too, Tori.'

Astoria just smirked.

For a second, Bella considered being circumspect. Ease into it, nice like. But only for a second. 'I was thinking, you wanna fuck?'

Astoria blinked at her. Then she blinked again. 'Really.'

Bella barely held back the reflexive impulse to snap out a remark on Astoria's intelligence. 'Yes.'

She blinked again. Then her face broke into a bright smile. Bella groaned — she knew that smile. 'Oh, Bella, I am all aflutter!' Oh, come on, seriously... 'I hadn't thought you had it in you! I should have known better than to doubt the sweetness of your most tender grace, oh, I feel I might faint—' Ignoring Bella's glare, Astoria collapsed against the headboard, her wrist coming to her forehead. '—I think I should sit down...'

'You are sitting down.'

And Astoria just kept fucking going, of course. 'Honestly, Bella, I am thoroughly swept away!'

'Are you quite—'

Her voice abruptly returning to its usual low drawl — usual when they were alone, anyway — Astoria said, 'Yes, I think I am.' She dropped her hand, giving Bella a thin smile, one brow slightly raised. 'But honestly, Bella, just coming out with it like that. What's a girl to think?'

She snorted. 'That I'm feeling a bit randy and would you like you to help with that, I should hope.'

Astoria's lips twitched. 'And they say romance is dead.'

'I don't like you like that,' Bella said, shoulders lifting in an easy shrug.

For some unfathomable reason, Astoria looked amused. 'No, I suppose I wouldn't expect you to. You have been quite thoroughly obsessed with your favourite cousin since halfway through first year. Frankly, I'd be surprised if you were at all capable of seriously entertaining the thought of anyone else.'

Perhaps not so unfathomable of a reason, then. 'Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.' She would not be explaining why she'd come today of all days. Astoria would have far too much fun with that. 'Stop playing around. Do you want to or not?'

'Honestly, bursting in and propositioning a lady, I never—'

'Tori.'

'Fine, fine. Hmm.' Astoria pursed her lips, head tilting a few degrees away to stare up at the ceiling. Even as Bella was settling in to wait, with characteristically ill grace, for her to draw out coming to a decision for as long as possible just to make her squirm, Astoria said, 'Sure.'

Bella blinked. 'Huh?'

'I said sure.' Astoria reached for the stand next to her bed, pulled out a bookmark to replace her thumb, set her book aside. 'Yes. Fine. Okay. What are you still doing over there?'

Oh. Er. That had honestly gone easier than she would have expected. Suddenly feeling a bit nervous, she stepped over to the side of Astoria's bed, tipping down onto one knee before sliding in to sit next to her. 'Fair warning, I haven't ever done this before.'

This damn girl sometimes. Just sitting there smiling at her. So annoying. 'I haven't either, actually.'

'Well, I was just saying...' She trailed off as though to shrug, but really her heart jumping into her throat had just started interfering with her ability to speak. She worked on forcing her own throat to behave for a second before talking. 'You know, in case I make an idiot of myself.'

'You've made your entirely unnecessary warning quite clear, Bella dear. Maybe just get on with it, then?'

'You're really annoying, you know that.'

'And you would be the expert on annoying, of course.'

Well. Astoria had her there. 'Okay. Er. I guess I should just kiss you, then, and we'll work our way up from there.'

Smiling at her, all brightly and sweetly, but her voice meticulous, overly serious, Astoria said, 'That sounds like a workable strategy.'

Bella glared. She would really, really like Astoria to shut up now.

Luckily, she had just the thing.

---

Calōre vindicō — Latin. Calor literally means "heat", but is used poetically for various things to do with intense emotion. Vindicō is the Latin source of English "vindicate", and can be used for the same meaning, but could also have meanings more along the lines of punishment and vengeance (the latter is also from the same root). This charm has appeared by name a couple times in TRW (incantation used in 19, important enough in 23 it's the title of the chapter), and in this fic Charissa instinctively used it way back in chapter 22.

Flamma impulsāns assurge — As a reminder, this is basically a fire elemental bludgeoning charm.

Ēverte — Command form of a verb meaning overturn, thrown down, destroy, expel.

[Prō mē elementa, meum nexum subīte, et in meā manū vigēte.] — Latin, woo. Literally, "Elements before me, submit to my bending, and live (with)in my hand." Honestly can't remember if I've used this in this fic yet, but I know it was in chapter 11 of TRW.

---

So, that happened.

Chapter one day late, but I really thought it was going to be a lot more than that. I was having terrible difficulty writing, so far behind schedule. Then, yesterday, I suddenly just burst out with the third and fourth scenes. Over half the chapter in one day. No idea where that came from. My brain sometimes, honestly.

Coming up on the closest thing this fic has to a climax before too long. I won't make any promises about how many chapters are left exactly, since I'll inevitably get it wrong, but we're definitely approaching the final stretch. Just some last few things to set up, then lots of things abruptly going to hell, and finally a handful of chapters leading into the sequel (which involves everything else abruptly going to hell).

With that in mind, I hope to have one last chapter for Back Burner and a poll up sometime this week.

Until next time,
~Wings