Beta'd by the educational Insane Scriptist.

Of truth and preparation

Dorea was not allowed to leave the Hospital Wing for another two days, time in which both Madam Pomphrey and Professor Snape attempted to guilt her into telling them what had happened. Well, Madam Pomphrey tried more than once; Professor Snape just glared at her and gave her detention after her initial refusal. Dorea spent the unexpected downtime going over her friends in her head and deciding which ones she trusted with the secrets which had to remain secret and how to tell the secrets which she had kept simply because she didn't think they'd be well received, the true identity of Voldemort being an example of the latter. Telling them flat was out of the picture, but if she worded it just right they'd forget all about her dramatic collapse and Hospital Wing stay, as it would be old news.

By the time she was released from durance vile –ahem– bed rest Dorea had come to a decision. She would tell the combined study-group –all forty or so of them– about the true identity of the Dark Lord and his crimes against magic. That would distract the younger students and the gossips, enabling her to gather her core group of close friends, get their oaths and tell them about her heritage, the unnecessary prophecy and her family's plans for Wizarding Britain. After all, she actually had a plan now.

Her Papa knew something of her plan, as he had recently amended his will to state that Dorea would be permitted to select her own husband and that said husband would have to take on her names in all matters pertaining to British Magical Society. Said husband would be Lord Potter –as the Potters were all about sharing responsibilities– and Consort Black, because Blacks did not share. He would however get an allowance, access to all Black assets and properties and a say in the Family's investments. With a bit of luck Dorea wouldn't need to marry until she was twenty at least, but it was good to be prepared considering that starting from her next birthday proposals would be flying thick and fast. She'd be fifteen and of marriageable age then.

Dorea hoped to find a man she could fall in love with, but if not she was prepared to settle for someone who accepted her and was willing to treat marriage as a working partnership. If it came to it she could always marry Rence, as he still obviously loved her for all that said love was completely platonic and more 'knight to liege-lady' than 'husband to wife'. Blaise was her brother so marrying him would just be wrong, never mind that the very idea of marriage gave him the screaming heebie-jeebies. Blaise's aversion was perfectly understandable, considering his mother had been widowed for the sixth time –shortly after Christmas– due to her husband dying of an unexpected allergic reaction to dittany. Draco was far too closely related to consider –plus he didn't see her that way– Theo was too cold and hands-off to be a good father to eventual children and both Weasley Twins had their eye on other girls.

Hopefully Hermione would get over Victor's sincere but not genuinely romantic admiration of her person soon and notice that George was smitten with her. Fred was still dating Katie Bell, but Dorea wasn't sure that would last considering how invested both twins were becoming in her study group and social circle. Katie preferred to have nothing to do with Dorea and was possibly holding a grudge over the whole Prewett business. Katie had not been happy when her Quidditch team-mate had dyed his hair and hidden in Slytherin house, far away from his friends, when the other twin had been Petrified. That Dorea didn't think Katie knew which twin it was who had done so didn't seem to matter; the older girl still resented the Black Heiress for the trust both twins had in her. Dorea didn't really understand the continued resentment, but chalked it up to alien Gryffindor thought processes.

Blaise wasn't sure exactly what he'd been expecting when Rhea called together everyone belonging to both study-groups, her relatives and friends in the upper years for an 'explanation'; he certainly hadn't expected a potted history of the Dark Lord. Or, as Blaise decided to refer to him in future, the Dark Idiot. The Zabinis had a long and colourful history that included no small number of Dark Lords and Ladies, but none so stupidly short-sighted as Tom Riddle. The concise explanation of his heritage, upbringing, career and attempt to escape death was all in all somewhat horrifying, especially when Rhea made it clear that Dumbledore could have taken steps to eliminate him before he ever became a problem yet had refused to dirty his hands.

He had to admire his best friend really: she had certainly won the crowd over with her description of the Dark Idiot as 'a Muggle-raised madman with daddy issues, no respect whatsoever for our culture and values' as well as pointing out that he was 'so utterly terrified of dying he broke the most fundamental tenet of our society: the sanctity of the soul'. It was all such juicy gossip, so outrageous that just about everyone forgot to ask what this had to do with Rhea winding up unconscious in the Hospital Wing in favour of hurrying off to write home or tell their friends. His friend had likely planned it that way, something most of her acquaintances wouldn't realise as Rhea was usually rather open and direct about her manipulations.

"So," Blaise asked once only himself, Dee, Trey, Theo, Hermione, Padma, Susan, Hannah, Ernie, Neville, Roger, Sally-Anne, Ginny, Rence, Fred, George and unexpectedly Odile Witt remained in the room along with Dawn, Deborah, Gregory, Stephanie and Leo –as Anthony Black's friends had taken to calling him– who as Rhea's Black relatives could tell when something fishy was going on. Draco had left, no doubt to write to his father. Draco was, according to Dorea, far too Malfoy to notice subtleties in his other relatives and far too dependent on his father's opinions.

"Why is the true and scandalous blood-status and identity of the Dark Idiot relevant to your passing out of magical depletion?"

Rhea closed the door of the Armoury, which had been the only easily accessible room both large enough for this discussion and entirely lacking in portraits. "I mentioned that Riddle had split his soul in the pursuit of immortality; he then put the pieces in Soul Traps, so as to anchor himself to the physical plane. I found one of these Soul Traps in Hogwarts and destroyed it."

"By yourself?" Blaise couldn't help the anger that coloured his voice. "Mio dio, Rhea, what were you thinking!"

Rhea huffed. "I was thinking that I've already lost two relatives to destroying the damned things and I wasn't going to watch anybody else die!" She retorted sharply, hands clenched into fists.

Ginny gasped. "The diary! It was… I was possessed by a piece of V-v-voldemort's soul?" Her elder brothers immediately moved closer and hugged her tightly.

Rhea bowed her head. "Yes," she said quietly, "and I knew it from the moment the Chamber was opened. My family have destroyed four between them, costing me my grandfather and my great-aunt. Now I have destroyed a fifth, meaning there is only one left and then the Dark Lord will be fully mortal. If he is still incorporeal when the last Soul Trap is unravelled he will simply leave this plane, but if he is corporeal he will be mortal and just as killable as everybody else. More so, in fact: being broken in soul will limit him both mentally and magically and makes him incredibly vulnerable to Soulfire."

"You mean to kill him," Dee said quietly.

Rhea lifted her head; Blaise heard several gasps as her eyes glowed with orange fire in the dim room. "House Black has sworn to see him dead for his crimes against the Family," his best friend said in tones of terrifying gentleness. "If it be by my hand, then so be it."

"But why are you so invested?" Odile Witt asked, eyes slightly narrowed. "Your father I could understand; he is after all Lord Black. Why is it your family has given you the necessary knowledge and skills to defeat the Dark Lord?" Odile was one of Rence's fellow sixth-years, Pucey's fellow Slytherin Prefect and both brilliant and secretive without any actual friends. Blaise wasn't quite sure why she was still here, beyond her being far too canny to be distracted by gossip and having a bit of a fixation with knowing what was going on around her.

Rhea paused, turned and hissed at the door, waving her left hand. The scar across it briefly glimmered before fading away again, giving the Italian an inkling as to what might have happened to his friend's still-missing wand.

"Before I tell you that I need secrecy oaths," she said flatly but unapologetically. "Just as a precaution against Legilimency, Veritaserum and other slip-ups, of course."

"So," George said after oaths had been made and Rhea had meticulously explained everything, "you are secretly the Girl-Who-Lived and the Dark Twit wants you dead for witnessing his undignified demise, never mind that you were a toddler and it was your mother who actually killed him."

"And there is a prophecy that, despite not actually fitting the situation, Dumbledore is convinced pertains to you and Voldy," Fred went on, "so if he finds out about you he will try and push you into facing the Dark Bastard on your own, despite divination being a load of hippogriff shit. Oh, and you're a parselmouth and the real heir of Slytherin as well."

"That about sums it up," Rhea agreed, fingers twitching nervously.

"Right then," George said grimly, "we'll just have to make sure that when the time comes we're ready to back you up. Fred and I will start working on a few more, ah, offensive pranks for personal use in addition to working on the Soulfire. Mist is more a backup skill that directly offensive, but your tactics books all talked about controlling the terrain and we can do that once we know how. We'll brush up our duelling too: can we visit the Slytherin Duelling Halls?"

"Sure," Rence said easily, cutting off Rhea before she could open her mouth. "Just make sure you come as Prewetts, okay? It's a bit late to get you started on weapons but footwork and some hand-to-hand shouldn't be too hard to teach."

"Thanks Rence," Fred said with a smile, tapping his chin with a quill. "You know, having the scope to create lethal pranks is going to be new and rather interesting. I wonder how we can test them."

"I would suggest the Acromantula," George said, "but they've all vanished."

"Basilea ate them," Rhea said casually. "She said they were crunchy and delicious though."

There was a pause.

"Dorea Rosamund Black-Potter," Deborah said repressively, "do you mean to tell me that there is a Basilisk in the school?"

"Currently yes," Rhea admitted meekly, "but I'm trying to find a trunk that opens out wide enough that I can put an Undetectable Extension Charm in it so I can bring her home with me this summer. She doesn't eat much but her options are pretty limited up here."

Trey covered her face with her hands. "And to think I thought the black mamba was bad enough!" she moaned.

"Hey, Baz is a total sweetheart!" Rhea protested. "Perhaps not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but definitely smarter than Goyle. Much less cruel too." Goyle had a worrying sadistic streak that Crabbe lacked altogether.

Blaise chuckled. "Look on the bright side," he offered with a grin, "she's never going to bring home a bigger or more dangerous snake than this one."

"Besides," Rhea said primly, "it's not illegal to own a Basilisk, just to breed them. I checked."

Dee burst out laughing, much to the confusion and surprise of all present. Daphne never laughed like that. In fact, the usually sedate and controlled girl was whooping and rolling on the floor, clutching her ribs. Rhea blinked down at her friend's antics, then looked up to meet Blaise's eyes.

"Zee," she said conversationally, "I think this is a sign of the end."

Blaise honestly couldn't bring himself to disagree.

As much as Dorea would have liked to focus her efforts on improving her skills with Soulfire and getting used to how the phoenix feather embedded in her hand enhanced and refined her wandless skills, she had slightly less than three months left until she had to take her OWLs and they had priority. Then there was the heavy duelling tournament Dawn organised for the older Slytherins and the Durmstrang students that she had to participate in –the Baron made it compulsory for all the students who took Combat classes– and a few pick-up Quidditch games that Rence coaxed her into joining in with. Dorea discovered that she was actually pretty good on a fast broom despite her distaste for them and proved to have a good eye for Bludgers. She had a good arm too, probably as a result of having to swing a sword around four times a week. Batting Bludgers was unexpectedly soothing, for her at least: those she played against apparently found it nerve-wracking.

However as the exams grew closer she spent more and more time in the Music Room, pouring her worries out into music and practicing the visualisation exercises in Fluidity of Form. She had needed to read the entire book three times to properly understand what it was saying, but her Ancient Greek was now better than it had ever been –pronunciation included– and she was beginning to understand how the more outlandish and extreme kinds of self-transfiguration could be achieved without loss of mental faculties.

'Modern' transfiguration, which wasn't really modern at all but firmly grounded in medieval theory, had as a basic rule when a living creature was transfigured into something lacking corresponding senses then the original being would not be aware of anything that happened to it while transfigured. So while a human being transfigured into, say, a ferret –seeing Not-Moody do that to Draco had been rather amusing– would be aware of just about everything due to ferrets and humans both being mammals, a human transfigured into a tree would be blind and deaf to everything until changed back.

The original Greek transfiguration theory and method was drastically different: it held that transfiguration was actually a kind of physical illusion, so a transfigured sentient would always be fully aware of what was happening to them and able to exert a measure of control over themselves regardless of form unless cursed otherwise. Because belief was such an important element of casting magic effectively, the theory a witch or wizard learned actually affected the efficacy of their spells. Dorea, having been taught Classical magical theory by her Great-Aunt before Hogwarts, had a much wider and more flexible view on magic and what was possible than most other British Magicals.

Dorea was nowhere near practiced enough for full-body transfiguration to be possible, but she was getting much better at turning chickens into pot-plants and mice into mugs while keeping them aware of their surroundings. She hadn't attempted Human Transfiguration yet, but she was certain she'd have the skill and confidence for it eventually.

The reason she was pursuing the subject so avidly was that it was her best hope for freeing Remus from the Curse of Lyacon, as his affliction was properly called. He would likely go on transforming into a wolf under the full moon for the rest of his life –there was nothing she could do to change that– but a properly-tuned ritual and an appropriate potion would probably free him from the cannibalistic urges that accompanied the change, as well as the total loss of control. Lycanthropy was technically a Vengeance Curse gone horribly wrong, or depending on your view horribly right, as the original victim certainly deserved what the long-dead caster had done to him. Unfortunately however said caster had been among Lyacon's first victims, so there was no original documentation pertaining to it in existence. Dorea was hoping that by familiarising herself with the same information the creator of the curse had access to, she would be able to break it down and partially neutralise it.

Dorea did not enjoy sitting her OWLs. Partly due to the stress of so many written exams taken one after another, but mostly because roughly half of the questions in the written tests were based on theory she knew to be incorrect but still had to write about because otherwise the examiners wouldn't give her the marks. Dorea despised misinformation, so being required to regurgitate it made her irritable. On the bright side, she did well enough in her practical tests that even if she barely got Acceptables in the theory she would still get Es overall. She was certain she would do better than that however, despite not being able to debunk the flawed theory because nobody would give her marks for it.

In the end Dorea hadn't been the only member of the study group taking exams early: all of her close friends wound up joining her for the Charms OWL, even Luna. Hermione had decided to take the Muggle Studies OWL as well, claiming it would be 'good practice' so she would know how the exams were laid out for fifth year. Dorea was just glad for the company; despite taking Ancient Runes with the fifth-years, she wasn't really close to any of them except her cousins. Stephanie said they felt threatened by her intelligence, which was a bit dumb in Dorea's opinion but hey, you couldn't have everything.

The Runes OWL turned out to be unexpectedly easy, even with Dorea livening up her practical by doing something much more complicated than was strictly necessary, while Charms was straightforward enough that Dorea was pretty sure she would be getting an O. Muggle Studies was even easier but Ancient Studies was rather more challenging despite Dorea having been allowed to move up a year back in the previous spring. Dorea had to work hard just to finish the exam in the time provided, let alone write down everything she thought was necessary to get the highest possible marks!

Transfiguration however was the hardest of her exams, simply because she had to use the theory she no longer believed to be accurate in order to answer the questions on the written paper. The practical was easier, as she could use her new and more informed view to improve her performance. Fortunately for her nobody had yet noticed that she was using a different wand, but she was sure that sooner or later a professor would spot the change as both the wand length and wood type were different. Dorea was hoping she could explain it away as having lost her wand after her 'accident' and her father having sent her a Family wand to replace it, but she still wanted to go through the other heirloom wands back at the manor over the summer and pick out a spare. Having two wands made getting caught in misbehaviour much less likely, as she could offer up her 'official' wand for Priori Incantatem and use the other one for illicit activities. Being reduced to one wand –despite not needing one at all now even for delicate or accurate work– was rather unnerving.

Her Music OWL was actually rather pleasant: she was let into a specially Warded room with a piano, given a piece of music then left alone for an hour to practice it before the examiners came in to listen to her perform it. She had two tasks: first she had to play the piece through as it was written, then for extra marks she could embellish it. Dorea did both and was congratulated on her performance afterwards by the examiners, who assured her she would be getting an O for her efforts.

Her Art OWL required no work at all, as she had already done it: all the pieces painted by this year's OWL students were hung in one of Hogwarts halls for everyone to see and the examiners had to mark each painting individually. The paintings did not have names next to them, just numbers, and after all the scores were completed the marks would be averaged for each student's paintings to give them a final grade. Dorea knew she wouldn't be getting her marks back until the last week of July, but she was fairly confident that she had done well.

However Hermione was being distressingly irrational about her performance, which took a bit of straightening out. She was a Ward of House Black, she would do brilliantly and wailing and stressing like she was doing happened to be both unbecoming and foolish!