Draco
"Harriet? Harriet Matirni, are you still up?"
Harriet reached into a pile of robes on the floor by the bed and found the magic mirror that was allowing the racket into the room.
"Hello?" she said with a grogginess that was perhaps a bit feigned.
"Where are you? When can we meet?"
"I was trying to sleep, Draco," said Harriet, "What's the rush?"
Next to her Luna stretched and yawned. Several seconds later and across the room Padma copied her. "What's going on?" she said.
"Neville almost broke curfew wanting to brainstorm with me about my aunt's escape from Azkaban. Apparently he received a bit of intelligence and it's allowing him to re-think what sort of person she is, and what sort of environment the war provided her to grow up in. I want to speak to you about some of it. Are you somewhere secure?"
"I'm in a dorm room with two girls that one or the other of us trust more or less implicitly, do you wish to meet now, or tomorrow, perhaps during breakfast? Did you wish to speak to me or to all of us?"
Draco was silent for a minute, seeming to take a moment to translate that into who Harriet was with and therefore where.
"All of you is fine," said Draco, "suppose you played with your spimster wicket for an hour and then meet me in the common room?"
Which would neatly get around curfew problems, and wouldn't bother their sleep as badly as straight staying up late.
Harriet looked around at the other two. They nodded.
Luna seemed to already know about spimster wickets. Interesting.
No, of course Luna already knew, as soon as someone mentioned the name to her, she could check their possible futures for a time in which she interrogated them for the information.
"Yes, that's fine," said Harriet, "we'll dress and be right down."
.
As they made their way to the eagle door, they met Draco coming in.
"I wasn't clear whether we were meeting here or in Slytherin," said Padma.
Draco shrugged, "I wasn't sure either, so I waited five minutes there, then took the most obvious route here, it looks like my estimation of your average dressing speed wasn't too far off."
Padma shrugged, "are we talking here or upstairs?"
Draco scratched his chin, "We want privacy, but I don't see any reason to break rules or whatever."
Padma shrugged, "this isn't Gryffindor, you can go in any unoccupied public room, or any dorm room you've have a current invitation into. When I tell you to leave you've got twenty seconds to leave before the door starts screaming, and twenty more before it forcefully levitates you out."
"That answers the question in regards to Ravenclaw house, what about with regards to The House of Patil?"
Padma shrugged, "I have less problem letting you in than Harriet. Come along, I've been meaning to show you around for a while anyways."
They followed her up a flight of wide spiral stairs. Stairs whose treads twisted and extended half a yard up the outside wall. And the air itself seemed to have some charm on it so that one could see all the way up the stairs to a balcony railing and beyond into the dimming sky.
If Draco looked straight up, he could almost forget that the stairs were spiral. If he looked down he could almost forget that he'd be able to see all the way up if he looked. He'd almost forgotten to wonder about the weird twist and rise on the outside end of each step before a sixth or seventh year popped out of one of the rooms several stories up and came charging down two and then three steps at a time, angling outward until he was running on the wall, or almost on the wall, at which point the steps seemed to be tilted at just the right angle to present a flat surface to his feet.
About two stories away he seemed to recognise them and nodded a bow without breaking stride, "Princess Patil, Heir Lovegood, Heir Draco, Matirni First."
"Prefect Hilliard," replied Padma with a nod of her own, just before he passed.
And he was gone.
"I never wondered where the house of Lovegood stands by the various rankings of pureblood status," said Draco, "Luna, I apologise for my oversight."
"That might have merely been the order he recognised us," said Padma, trying to be diplomatic? Trying to highlight that he and Matirni were out of their own house and might get less … deference from the prefects in charge here, or merely slower recognition.
Another floor up and Padma stopped in front of a door which she pressed open without giving evidence where the handle might be. There was a knocker. Padma gave an indicative flourish, so Matirni and Luna entered ahead of her. Then Padma laid a hand on Draco's shoulder, "Draco, this is my room, Room this is Draco, he may enter whenever I'm here to monitor him.
She let go of the door and it slammed shut with a soft squelching sound that indicated an air-proof locking charm.
"Try it," said Padma.
Draco dutifully laid his hand on the door. It gasped out the puff of air that indicated it had unlocked, then opened so easily that Draco imagined that a muggleborn might take weeks to realise that the tiny pause as the door unlocked wasn't mere inertia.
"Good," said Padma and ducked under his arm to precede him into the room.
Luna and Harriet were already sitting on one bed, heavily implying that it was Luna's and that they were used to sharing it. Padma's bed on the other hand had the curtains mostly drawn and there was a slight snoring emanating from the barest crack by the wall.
After a second of indecision Draco conjured two arm chairs.
Padma turned around from finding her wand and seemed surprised to find them already occupying the same space where she'd likely been planning to conjure something similar. "Thanks," she said and sat in the one closest to her bed. Draco took the other.
"So," said Padma, "What's this about Bellatrix Lestrange?"
So Draco explained.
And really the main thing to decide was whether to help Neville who seemed to want nothing so much to get her at wand point, and then ask her for her life story. At the moment he seemed to imply that he'd be willing to listen to a sob story of some sort, then negotiate a peace treaty between the houses of Longbottom and Lestrange.
Harriet was inclined to wish to be helpful to her friend Neville, but also was frightened that if she helped at all, Neville would solve the mystery before she did and might have Bellatrix back in Azkaban before Harriet had a chance to speak to Draco or Lady Malfoy or Lord Black about whether to take that risk.
And the Malfoys had treated her like family before Neville had, yet Neville's mother and Lady Potter apparently had formalised some sort of family-like alliance before the night the dark lord disappeared.
What Harriet and Padma agreed to, was that it would be nice to ask for advice from a known disinterested party who was known to be good at solving such problems.
Harriet nominated her friend Ann Hathaway.
Padma suggested Tomuggest anyone out loud, but he did eye Luna critically for an uncharacteristic period of time, not once but twice.
Finally he looked at Harriet, "Telling Tom could solve the problem, but like telling Neville, it might solve the problem in an unforeseen way, do we trust the possibility that if he does solve the problem oddly, it is at all likely to be the best possible way?"
"I have no idea," said Harriet, "I think I'd be more comfortable bringing him in as an ally of us helping Neville, than as … a big brother who we happen to confide our worries to. I trust neither his restraint nor his …. I don't trust his restraint from violence on our behalf, nor his restraint from again recruiting the same followers that last time worked out well for him but badly for the rest of the world."
"Interesting distinction," said Draco.
He looked at Luna, "do you have any suggestions?"
"Our best solution is probably already gone," said Luna, "our next best solution is … probably suggesting to Lady Malfoy that Neville wishes to find Bellatrix and interview her about her involvement in the last war, and it might be good if he succeeds sooner rather than later."
"I can notify her," said Draco, "but what do we expect her to do about it?"
Luna frowned for a long moment. Draco's first instinct was that she was about to lie, and his next was that if she knew everything she might have issues with choosing who to tell what, and when.
And his next worry was that she was the one strategising, not him or mother. Not that he had the fullest trust in Harriet's discretion.
"Lady Malfoy deserves to find her sister before Neville," said Luna, "just knowing that he's also looking for Bellatrix might help her search differently."
Interlude 3
Narcissa bustled in with her evening meal, "Read this as you have time."
Bellatrix marked her place and moved from the work table to the food table. When she was seated and taken her first bite, she picked up the reading material tucked next to the clotted cream.
It was her own biography. Before she was through the first paragraph she stopped chewing, then very deliberately she put it down and ate her whole dinner.
"What is it, besides some sort of biography?"
"It's this week's Quibbler, there's three articles in there about you. As expected with the Quibbler, they all contradict each other."
Bellatrix nodded and continued eating.
"The day after it went out, the daily prophet dropped an article that made you out to be the most normal everyday sort of witch thrust into the most extraordinary circumstances, and while somewhat misguided, you rose to the occasion as best you could. The witch with your name in that one is the most unrecognisable of the four, it's quite obvious that the main point of it is to curry favour with the house of Nott. And it's obvious enough that Lord Nott must give that favour or denounce you and the article. I don't think Lord Nott will be particularly amused.
Bellatrix finished her meal and picked up the magazine and began reading.
The first article wasn't a long read, only a page and a half, but in other ways it was very detailed, most of the names and dates could be inferred from public records, and yet … there were inferences that were … very private, many of which had faulty logic behind them and yet ended up with accurate conclusions about her. Or maybe the logic wasn't faulty, but concentrated on aspects of the situations in which she'd found herself that Bellatrix had never bothered to concentrate on. She read it again.
And she understood, some questions only had one answer, not because there weren't other answers but because at a foundational level some answers were not just non-obvious but actually antithetical to one's beliefs or even one's foundational way of thinking. The author had chosen to explain precisely those parts of the logic in careful detail, which were so natural to Bellatrix that she'd leaped over them without a second thought.
It was frightening in some ways. Her whole life was in there, not as if someone had read her journal and summarised it for an essay. But as if someone had been reading her thoughts and listening to her prayers for her entire life and only mentioned the important events. But Bellatrix didn't pray aloud, had never shown anyone the code she'd used in her journal, and she had learned occlumency at a young age.
"What is all this?" said Bellatrix, "Who wrote this?"
"Which one? There are three." Narcissa leaned over, "Ah that one is by Lord Potter's betrothed, unless I very much miss my guess."
One of the children in the dark lord's new inner circle, a leading member in the Gaea faction, or whatever.
"Why?" said Bellatrix.
"I haven't quite figured that out yet," said Narcissa, "It's a pack of lies just like everything else her father prints, but there's enough truth in it that some people will believe it."
"I …" said Bellatrix, "I believe it, well most of it, and the missing bits I almost fear are missing only because I forgot them in Azkaban."
Narcissa blinked, "You mean any of it is accurate besides a few of the names and dates?"
"Yes," said Bellatrix, "Dangerously accurate, I wouldn't have believed anyone knew me this well."
Narcissa deflated, "I am disappointed that anyone outside the family knows you better than I."
"Andromeda ought to know me slightly better than you, as she taught me occlumency, but beyond that… no one should know me this well." Unless they answer to the name Mother Magic or Gaea.
"Hmm," said Narcissa, "how about the other two?"
Bellatrix read the next one, it was her life as an adventure story, it covered almost five pages, she was quite the dashing hero. It was a hysterical yet somehow still accurate caricature of her childhood and her goals in life at one time. It was by Newton Talbot. "Has this Newton Talbot written anything else?" smirked Bellatrix, "I'd like to see what he can do with my husband."
"I don't know. What he did with the dark lord is intensely disturbing, he hasn't published it. I assume partly for fear that the dark lord might return and be upset for being portrayed as a hero. And partly for fear that if Dumbledore is exposed as the aloof bigot that drove Voldemort dark he might start acting like a dark lord himself."
Bellatrix guffawed three short bursts then silenced herself as she reformed her mask and glanced down at the paper, "what's left, normal villain then? Probably with Mother the aloof bigot leaving me in the cruel hands of Walburga to turn me into the killing machine I am?"
"Pretty much," said Narcissa, "Though perhaps they switch up roles now and then, and in general there's also a bit of favouritism and sibling rivalry. It's written by the editor himself, though in that account you go by the name of Amazonia Estell of Weird."
"Bellatrix … Black … of strange, what does that make… Newton Longshanks… Neville … Longbottom. The Longbottom Heir wrote this? How the hell?"
Narcissa sighed, and passed over a long roll of parchment, "He also sent this, directly to me, it doesn't accuse me of freeing you from Azkaban, it does hint that with three days head start he expects I could have found you already if I'd wanted to. And that he intends to hunt you down and find out which of these three stories are most accurate. And then depending on what he learns, let you go again or try to practice some of the darker curses he's learned recently but never had a test subject who might deserve to receive them."
"Oh dear," smirked Bellatrix, "it wouldn't do to keep Heir Longbottom waiting now would it?"
"If you're feeling well enough to receive aggressive visitors?"
"I think I can handle a slightly above average thirteen year old."
"Neville has the reputation of being slightly below average," said Narcissa, "but I don't think it would be wise to trust that reputation too far."
Bellatrix nodded, "I understand. Show him in."
"No, he's not here yet, he seems to have carefully said nothing directly to indicate that he intends to breech my wards looking for you."
"Oh," said Bellatrix.
"So my idea was that I could move you to a randomly chosen muggle convention centre, we rent you a conference room, we ward it sufficiently to keep any duelling undetectable from the outside, the two of you meet, you make no mention of where you are staying when not going someplace off the map to hold audiences with uppity teenagers who happen to be heirs of once great houses. When he's satisfied or dead or mind wiped, we make any necessary repairs and disappear again."
"That sounds like the minimum level of security," said Bellatrix, "I take it that he knows more about me and my situation than just what's in his article?"
"He knows you summoned Dobby, that Dobby went to the nearest sufficient authority to get permission to serve you tea, Harriet Matirni redirected him to me for a reiteration of proper protocol, without realising who you were or why you'd managed to summon Dobby."
"Why did I manage to summon Dobby?"
"Dobby was Dorea's house elf, when all her heirs except Harry Potter died, and when he couldn't find Harry, he returned to Grimauld place, looking for Sirius or Andromeda, of course Kreature wouldn't send him to either of them and sent him to me instead, so he's been serving me since then. When Harry reappeared and won his emancipation I had no choice but to reassign his allegiance back where it belonged, though the lessons for each how to treat each other in the absence of a house and grounds was a bit difficult. I simplified the problem by renting Harry a suite in the guest wing."
"So Dobby was in the house, and serving a tenant and family-member, so when I, as a guest family member, called him, he came but required clarification. I understand. What clarification did you give him?"
"I told him you he could serve you as he pleased, if it didn't conflict with his duties to his true master, and that you were hiding and he should reveal information about your location to no one except me or his true master. Apparently that was enough to keep Longbottom suspicious."
"Alright," said Bellatrix, "so, lets pick a meeting place, choose a Hogsmead weekend, send an invitation, and find my wand."
"All except the wand. Dear Bella."
Bellatrix attempted to start a glaring contest. Narcissa just raised an eyebrow and waited.
After almost a minute Bella stopped looking angry, then smirked, "Oh, is that how we're going to be playing this?"
"I believe it's best," said Narcissa, "from what I know of Neville, it will be not only safest, and optimal, but … the most friendly as well."
"Alright," nodded Bellatrix, "I shall trust your assessment of his character." Then looked thoughtfully at the ceiling for several seconds, "do you think magic suppressing bracelets with tracking charms on them might improve the effect?"
Narcissa raised her other eyebrow, then smirked, "That would be just the right touch, if I were anyone else, and hoping to extract any useful strategic planning from you."
Bellatrix smiled. Keeping Narcissa's role as ambiguous and disavowable as possible. Perfect.
Padma
"Padma, where are you?"
Padma sat up from her book and pulled out her mirror.
"Hi, Draco," she said, "I'm in the library, in the middle of something."
"Are you coming to Debate Club?"
"I was planning on going later."
"Oh," said Draco, "do you want me to tell you anything after it finishes?"
"No, just remind me not to be late."
"Alright, I will, if my brain isn't too fried after matching wits with the others."
"Good point," said Padma, "I will attempt to be there without your reminder then, see you."
They shared a wry smile and put their mirrors away.
Someone across the table rearranged their books, Padma looked up. Harriet sighed in frustration and wrote another line, frowned, drew three horizontal lines and four more letters.
Padma looked closer. It was a series of runes with several missing. And although Padma didn't recognise some of them, those that she did recognise were from … probably two separate alefbets and one syllabary.
"Umm, Harriet?" said Padma.
Harriet looked up.
"Is it … safe to mix symbols like that?"
"For a European witch, an Indian witch, or an heiress of Magadan."
"Umm, any of the above?"
"The Magadan do it all the time," said Harriet and her eyebrows lowered in thought, "but perhaps with most of them squibs, they usually don't have to worry about things blowing up before they stabilise."
Padma felt her eyebrows shoot up.
"I'm beginning to think this is too complex to carve in only two dimensions anyway, regardless of how many languages I borrow from."
"What's it do?"
"Allows a squib to temporarily draw power from their human core to simulate a wizard core, and then go back to normal before anything bad happens."
"I don't think that's possible."
"I know its possible with the help of another wi-wizard and another squib, I'm just not sure it's possible to build with runes instead."
"It can't possibly be possible or everyone would do it."
"And how many of the mysteriously disappearing squibs are because each step is possible and not that hard to figure out, but the combination of all of them is what is needed for it all to happen safely."
Padma lowered one eyebrow, hoping she was successfully imitating Harriet's Mom's interested-but-doubtful expression.
"Or… I guess I mean survivably, 'safe' is a more stringent definition, which I'm sure your sister or any of the gryffindors would tell me is an abstract ideal rather than a real thing."
"What symbols or concepts are you missing?"
"Conditionals and deactivation."
"You want the array to deactivate itself."
"I want various parts of the array to activate and deactivate other parts, In general I'm looking for runes that can specify the thing to be activated or deactivated is written on the skin of the creature touching the carved object."
"Now I understand what you mean by needing and possibly having more than one surface to write on."
Harriet shrugged.
"I'd ask a sixth year that you know made it past the ancient runes OWLs."
Harriet blinked, "because this isn't the circus, this is Hogwarts where people have time to help or rather at predictable schedules by which to find time to make appointments."
"Quite," said Padma, "What's that frown for?"
"Slytherin may not be the … best place to go looking for help 'curing' squibs."
Padma stared at her, "And you think Ravenclaw isn't significantly worse? In slytherin at least you could spin it as a business proposition, in ravenclaw…" Padma shuddered, "I'd recommend you don't explain what it does, just ask for help with individual rune structures and hope the help is useful without showing the whole multi-part array."
{End Chapter 9}
Rating Changes to M just to be safe. For the next chapter because of sex, then 3 chapters more for angst over adult ethics relating to that. Feel free to skip all four, to just continue with everyone else's plot.
