Her Mother's Love

by inwardtransience

Albus still didn't fully understand what magic young Lily had wrought that night. At the time, he'd only been grateful her noble sacrifice had earned them peace, however temporary. He should have looked into it deeper. He should have done something. Unknowingly, long dead, that arrogant girl might just have ruined everything. (independent!GWL, black/white magic)

20. Disaffection

Hazel got to Charms class very quickly, enough she was the only person in the room. Well, except the professor, of course.

This year, her Charms class was in one of the newer buildings on campus, probably only a few decades old, and the room itself showed it — made all up of polished wood, the floor covered in a thick, Beauxbatons blue carpet, the tables and chairs all metal and ceramic gleaming in the light from the sun, let in through a bank of windows all along one wall. Though the glare wasn't nearly as bad as it might have been, as most of the newer buildings had wards to filter light to be safe for vampires, still bright and sunny but mellowed somehow, subtle enough she couldn't say exactly how it was different. (It was apparently very obvious to Evi, she could tell just by looking, but Hazel hardly noticed.) The walls were comparatively bare, only a few neutral pictures or portraits here and there, which wasn't a surprise — the classrooms here weren't fixed to a particular subject, switching around dependent on exactly which courses were needed at the moment.

The professor — a young-ish man with a sort of...slightly brownish skin tone, and quite possibly the shortest hair Hazel had ever seen on a mage, black and spiky — was walking between the desk, laying out little cards. Hazel recalled his name was...er, something from the Near East, anyway—

Hüseyin Yıldız.

—right, that, however the hell that was supposed to be pronounced. Apparently he was a muggleborn from...Turkey, or one of those tiny Caucasian countries, she honestly couldn't remember. She had heard of him, Cvétka and Dragí had had him last year, and he was apparently pretty good, but for all the times they'd mentioned him she still wasn't sure how to say his name. When they said it, it came out something like Chyuseillèn Yèldèz — 'ch' like the hard 'h' sound, apparently a lot of Continental languages didn't have the soft one so they overcompensated trying to get it right, people did it with Hazel's name all the time. But, she was pretty sure that wasn't right. Cvétka and Dragí often sounded off, they had a very obvious accent in French, so it was kind of hard to tell.

So, when Hazel said, 'Oh, hey Professor, er...' she trailed off, lamely scrambling to figure out what to call him.

He shot her an understanding sort of smile. 'Hüseyin will do.' Okay, just a soft 'h' and that weird 'u'-but-not-'u' sound French and Aquitanian both had, that was fine. He paused, took her in for a second, his head tilting. (Hazel made sure she had a firm grip on her sexy lilin magic, but the yellow-blue sparks of his mind were pretty muffled, it was probably fine.) 'Are you Elizabeth Potter?'

'Er, Hazel, but, yeah.'

'Right, Ròri told me about you.'

Hazel blinked. 'Really?'

Lips tilting into a crooked little smile, he said, 'How often do you think twelve-year-olds pull fives on Competency exams?'

... Well.

She had taken the Charms Competency exam, the qualification equivalent to the OWL most other nations in the ICW shared, at the end of last year. (Or, sort of equivalent, at Beauxbatons it was given at the end of fourth year, so Hazel assumed it was slightly less advanced.) It hadn't been easy, exactly — most of her Charms education had come through Mum, who had been taught to OWL standard, which was a little different — but it hadn't been particularly difficult. The theory section had been a little sketchy, some questions she hadn't been certain of the answer at all, but she'd blasted through the practical without even trying. And it'd apparently been good enough to balance out, because the exam was out of five, so.

But, 'Not very often, I imagine, but I hardly count. I've been studying Charms on my own since I was, like, seven. It'd be kind of embarrassing if I wasn't ahead of other kids my age.' Besides free casting, which wasn't a standard subject anyway, Potions was the only other practical class she was ahead in (she'd be taking the Competency in that this year), and everything else she was mostly normal. Like Transfiguration and Enchanting, she'd actually started behind in both those subjects — the Beauxbatons Transfiguration curriculum included some alchemy, and they started basic runic magic (not that they called it that here) in first year. Mum did help a little bit when she could, but Hazel was still taking her year-level class in the former, and was actually a year behind in the latter. So, her advance...-ed-ness was very specialised, was what she was getting at.

You know, you could try taking the compliment one day, just for a change of pace.

Shut up.

Hüseyin smiled off her protest. 'Even so — you'll often find that people who were self-taught or home-schooled are often behind on theory, getting a top score this early is still impressive.'

'The theory was the hardest part.'

'I'm sure it was. Also, by the way, we are going to be doing a partner project over much of the year,' he said, nodding toward the nearest pair of desks. Hazel leaned over to peek at the surface — she didn't know who off hand, but those were obviously students' names, apparently they would be getting assigned seats. Which, Hazel still thought that was just kinda dumb. Did they think they were still in primary or something? 'I put you with one of the other younger students — I find some don't react well to younger kids testing up to their level — but if you're having any trouble feel free to come talk to me about whatever it is, all right?'

'Right. I'll just go sit down, then.'

'Ah...' He glanced the room for a second, finger tapping at his hip. 'I think I put you over there,' he said, pointing toward the middle of the bank of windows, 'but I don't remember exactly, you'll have to look.'

He did remember, she found a card with her name — Elizabeth, of course, which still felt bloody weird, she never used it — on one of the desks by the windows. Letting her bag fall to the floor, Hazel leaned over, reading the card on the desk right next to hers.

Artémisia Cècine.

...

Son of a bitch.

Hazel was still brooding over that unpleasant discovery when other kids started dripping into the classroom a few minutes later. (She had been very early, but that's what happens when you can shadow-walk.) She only recognised a few of them — Beauxbatons was big enough most of them hadn't been in her previous Charms class, and she'd tested ahead enough they weren't likely to share any others with her. The room was maybe a third of the way filled when Arte drifted in, with that dreamy, floating grace she always seemed to have.

Of all the mages Hazel had met at Beauxbatons, Arte was probably the most obviously pureblood of the bunch. There was the name itself, of course — Artémisia Cècine, Jesus, what even was that shite? She was fucking tiny, like so many purebloods tended to be, short and thin and delicate, and there were hints of a more feminine figure than when they'd first met but it was still pretty damn subtle. Not that she could ever be mistaken for boyish, her face was far too girl-pretty, all soft and round and smooth and shite, her long silvery-blonde hair always done bloody perfect, and she was always made up all rich-pretty, uniform and shoes and even her fingernails just so, and she was always wearing bloody jewelry, which was a little bit insane, because Hazel was pretty sure those were real and, honestly, who the hell let a thirteen-year-old kid wear real gold and sapphires?!

Okay, fourteen now, but still, who even did that? Purebloods, obviously, it was purebloods who did that.

(Hazel had heard a rumour at the end of last year that Arte was considering joining the dueling team, which, that was bloody strange, she couldn't imagine the prissy bitch doing anything quite so undignified.)

Along with a few other rich girls — mostly new rich girls, not the same ones from last Charms class, though as far as Hazel could tell they were mostly interchangeable — Arte swept across the room, checking desks as they went, occasionally leaving one behind as they found their spots. When they got close, Hazel felt her mind properly for the first time, hadn't run into Arte since she'd met the sky, which was...interesting. Her mind was surprisingly vibrant and colourful, really, with an ethereal echo to it that reminded Hazel of the Ollivanders, of all people, and it almost seemed to... She wasn't sure what the right word was. Like, turning, almost, shifting around to follow Arte's focus, which was odd, minds didn't normally do that.

It...sort of reminded her of Sev, actually. Which, that was just fucking weird, she hadn't expected Arte Cècine's mind and magic to be somewhere between Garrick Ollivander and Severus Snape. She hadn't even realised there was a between thing to be, had no idea what to think about that.

Though, solid occlumency barriers did come down immediately, the colourful music largely muted, Arte shooting her a blank look.

When Arte did finally find her spot, there was a brief exchange with her remaining friend — it was very quiet, and also in the local Provençal, which Hazel still only sort of understood. (Reading it was pretty easy, but the vowels were bloody weird.) Something about meeting up for lunch, she thought. The other girl flounced off, and Arte gracefully fell into a seat, smooth and almost soundless. Somehow managed to make sitting down look all...

Hazel really did hate pretty girls sometimes. It was stupid and shallow, but she couldn't help it.

They sat in awkward silence for a while, the room still filling in. At least, Hazel felt awkward, it was hard to tell with Arte — she was way too good at that aristocratic, pureblood dignity...thing, she hardly ever showed an expression. Arte was just sitting there kinda...staring at her. Somehow, over the months since Hazel had last seen her, she'd forgotten this was a thing Arte did. She'd, just, stare, for minutes unbroken, brow sometimes creasing with a confused frown, occasionally rubbing at her forehead, as though looking at Hazel hurt somehow. She'd forgotten how unnerving that was.

Though, it wasn't quite the same thing this time. It was a...considering look, less than it was a confused or disdainful one, as though picking over what she should say. Hazel didn't see how there was anything that really needed to be said at all, but...

Eventually, she did speak, all smooth and casual, as though she hadn't just been staring at Hazel like a creep. 'I heard you had a difficult summer.' Arte did have a very obvious Aquitanian accent on her French which, perhaps paradoxically, had always been easier for Hazel to understand than "proper" French. Most Aquitanian languages tended to have softer consonants, and the vowels were a bit...blunter? She meant, French had far too many vowels that were too close together, enough they were sometimes hard to tell apart, but the Aquitanian accent kept them more distinct, words spoken far more...Latin-ish, closer to how they were spelled.

(If Provençal didn't have weird fucking diphthongs, and vowel shifts that made no bloody sense obscuring the original Latin, it'd probably be way easier to interpret than French.)

But, just because what she'd said had been perfectly comprehensible didn't mean it made any sense. She had had a difficult summer, but she somehow doubted Arte had heard about her weird lilin illness followed by the whole ridiculous...magical metamorphosis...thing. 'Er, what are you talking about?'

'Everyone knows all about your peers' efforts to beggar you and strip you of your rights. I thought I'd express my sympathy.' (Christ, what kind of kid even talked like this...)

Of course it was that, what else did rich purebloods care about? Hazel completely failed to keep her eyes from rolling — she did try, but by now she was just exhausted of all this shite with the Wizengamot and Potter stuff. She'd been looking forward to going back to Beauxbatons partially just so she wouldn't have to hear about it all the time. 'Yes well, thanks, I guess.'

Arte gave her a flat look, one pale eyebrow ticking up just barely noticeably. 'Did I say something wrong?'

'No, I'm just so tired of this shite. I don't even care about it all that much, I just want it all to go away.'

'You don't care.'

'Not really.' Hazel shrugged. 'I mean, it's annoying that they're racist and terrible, but I don't care about this shite like all you seem to, I'd let the Fawleys have it all if they'd just shut up and leave me alone.'

It was hard to tell, as inexpressive as she usually was, but Hazel got the distinct impression Arte was annoyed with her. It was subtle — only a slight tension around her eyes, the muffled song of her mind flaring hot behind her occlumency — but it was there. Arte stared at her for a moment, blank and still, before turning toward the front, quietly waiting for the class to start.

...Had Hazel said something wrong now? She didn't get it...

I have no idea. Your guess is as good as mine with this girl.

And they were going to have to do a big term-long project together. Yippee.

It shouldn't be a problem. Just be your usual charming self, you'll win her over eventually.

Was that sarcasm? Hazel was pretty sure that was sarcasm. It wasn't like she'd ever had much success at making friends. Like, ever. With a few particular exceptions, people didn't like her. Which, she did realise a lot of that was on her, she was really bad at talking to people much of the time, she didn't make it easy for them. She wasn't sure she even minded that much, she was mostly fine with the few friends she did have. But it was still true.

Anything I can say here you'd just pass off as mum stuff and not take seriously.

Hazel shrugged.

---

'Oh! Hello, Hazel. What are you doing out here?'

Hazel had felt their minds coming, but she still had to hold in a frustrated sigh at her peace being interrupted. 'Hello, Cvétka. Just relaxing, I guess.' Trying to get a moment alone, more like.

She hadn't realised how...hard it would be, this lilin stuff. Just getting by was starting to become a problem. Sure, theoretically it wasn't that big of a deal — push on people's emotions a bit, pull off a bit of their brain juice to keep herself going, piece of cake. Especially since it was so easy to do during sex — it was impossible to not do it, in fact, it just happened instinctively — and people liked sex, and because sexy lilin magic she didn't really have to worry too much about incompatabilities in sexuality and personality, it shouldn't be difficult at all to get what she needed.

Theoretically — it hadn't occurred to her until a couple weeks into term that it wasn't really quite that simple. At her blood relatives' place, it'd been very simple. There had been dozens of willing humans around, and they didn't even share a language most of the time, so it wasn't like there'd been much else she could be doing. It hadn't been too much of a problem at home, either, since Dora was always around, and Dora was great. (Now she knew she couldn't block Hazel entirely, had learned to let Hazel in without letting her hurt her, it worked out.) She had started wearing Dora out, sometimes — mentally and magically, she meant — but she had friends she could bring in to help. She did have to be careful about who she brought along, since Hazel was still uncomfortably young by most human standards, but they'd managed it, she'd gotten by.

At school? Yeah, she was starting to have serious problems at school.

It wasn't until she'd come back that she'd realised most of her friends were...well, her age, or thereabouts. Which was pretty young for humans to be screwing around — she hadn't even bothered asking, she could tell just by the way they reacted to her sexy lilin magic that they wouldn't be comfortable with it. In fact, excluding Gabbie (if she even counted as a friend), she was pretty sure they were all virgins. And she couldn't pull from Gabbie, because she was a young veela and needed her brain juice just as badly as Hazel did. Especially since she'd need there to be multiple people around, just to make sure she didn't pull on any one hard enough to hurt them... She knew a couple older lilin and veela, but only passingly — not the kind of relationship she could just walk up and go, hey, you got an orgy or something coming up I can join in on? — and that was really it.

(She probably could just do that, they'd probably be very understanding of this sort of thing, but she wasn't sure she wanted to. It just felt kind of skeezy, she couldn't say why exactly.)

And it was starting to become a serious problem. She'd noticed, last week, that she'd started to...drag, sort of. Started feeling so tired, had trouble focusing, that sort of thing — the early symptoms, she knew, of the same kind of deterioration that had nearly killed her only a few months ago. She'd staved it off thus far just kind of...prodding at people's minds, little touches all the time. Like, she'd be sitting at meals with her sept, or surrounded by people in classes or in the halls, and she'd push whatever she was feeling at the moment at them — nothing bad, she tried to only do it when someone had just said something funny, or she was pleased about something, she didn't want to make other people feel awful. Each time, she'd siphon off a little bit of their brain juice — she did keep calling it that, even though it wasn't a great term, but she hadn't anything better — just a little bit at a time. She only could take a little through that kind of superficial contact, that's how this worked, but she spread it over enough people, did it often enough, that it was enough to keep her going.

But fucking hell, it was exhausting. Not physically or magically, she was fine there, but the mental strain it took to do that all the time... She'd noticed her marks had taken a slight hit lately, and she often didn't have the energy to do much more than curl up with a book and wait to pass out for the evening.

Or, on weekends, go up into the hills surrounding the valley the town was in, and just...lay out in the autumn sun. She didn't know how long she'd been up here, but it was nice. Warm despite the shortening days — it hardly ever seemed to get properly cold here even in the dead of winter, Mediterannean climate for you — a soft breeze tossing her hair, tickling at her skirt. All alone, not a single mind in hearing range, quiet and still and...

She couldn't stay up here for long, and she wouldn't want to if she could. But it was nice, for a few hours, to not have to worry about holding herself back from other minds, or pushing and pulling in just the right way to sustain herself without being too intrusive. It was nice.

Had been nice, until Cvétka and Dragí had turned up to ruin it.

Cvétka appeared over Hazel's head to block out a segment of the sky, short black hair flickering in the breeze. She gave Hazel a soft, thoughtful sort of look, blue eyes narrowed in...concern, maybe? Probably deserved, Hazel wouldn't be surprised if people were noticing she wasn't doing too great.

(Hazel tried not to notice anything else, because wandering thoughts happened, and wandering thoughts tended to make her sexy lilin magic sexier, and Cvétka was actually younger than her, definitely off-limits, shouldn't even mess with her head too much if she could help it, it was kind of squicky, actually, but she could be good, she wasn't that tired, this was fine.)

Cvétka was probably working on what to say, but before she could figure it out Hazel let out an involuntary squeal, twitching way from the cold, wet nose poking into her side. 'Dragí, what the hell!'

Still nosing at her, but thankfully not getting anything quite that ticklish again, Dragí let out a couple high whines. He'd decided to stay wolf-shaped for their walk in the hills — which should surprise no one, he'd been born wolf-shaped and still slept this way most of the time, apparently. His fur was the same shaggy dirty-blond as his hair when human-shaped, and Hazel wasn't an expert on canine aging, or even wilderfolk aging for that matter — she assumed it worked the same way it did with lilin, they were pretty similar things — but he looked little different than he had a year ago, straddling the edge of puppyhood, still less potentially dangerous predator and more adorable fluffball.

So Hazel couldn't quite resist slipping her fingers into his fur, ruffling the spot behind his ears a bit. Not that he minded, she had pet him before — he was basically a dog with human-level intelligence. (It was only weird if you thought about it too much.) 'I'm fine, Dragí, I'm just tired.'

'Oh,' Cvétka muttered, her voice almost lighter than the wind. 'We can leave you alone if you want.'

'No, it's fine.' She did like these two. From the beginning, she'd found their relationship completely fascinating — and Dragí was just great in general — and that hadn't changed at all. They were interesting, if nothing else.

They did share a bed, she knew, which had apparently taken some convincing from their parents (adopted parents in Dragí's case, obviously) to get the staff to allow, had the exact same schedule, they were virtually never apart. Hazel still wasn't certain how much of that was Dragí not being entirely comfortable around humans outside their family — understandable, given his birth family had apparently all been murdered by mages — and how much of it was the two of them, just, preferring it that way. Despite the sleeping together and the bathing together, Hazel got the impression it was completely innocent, their relationship more like siblings than anything else. Just really, really close siblings.

Of course, they were both still twelve. Well, Cvétka was, they'd just given Dragí the same birthday for official purposes — wilderfolk weren't big on calendars, nobody knew when he'd been born exactly. She guessed it was possible their relationship might evolve as they got older, but...

But she shouldn't think about any of that, because they were twelve, and what the hell, Hazel, come on.

'You took third-level Potions last year.' As usual, Dragí delivered the statement bluntly, with little implication of feeling whatsoever. And he'd apparently considered this important enough to say to just go ahead and shift back to human-shape, so now he was kneeling there in the dirt, completely naked. Because of course he was.

Hazel let out a hard sigh, staring up at the sky, waiting for Dragí to get dressed. (Cvétka had pulled clothes for him out of a pocket, unshrinking them before light-heartedly chiding him for running around starkers.) These two really didn't make it easy for her sometimes, being too interesting and entertaining, and then moments like this on top of it. Like... Was she just kinda skeezy, or did it not count as paedophilia if she was still underage herself? They were only like five months younger than her...

I don't know, Hazel. Your worrying over maybe being "skeezy" is a little rich, though, considering you were younger than Cvétka when that business with Léandre happened.

Yes, but Hazel was a lilin though, and these two weren't. That did make a difference.

I know it does. I'm only saying, maybe you understand my reaction to that a little better now.

No, not really. It probably wouldn't bother her at all if she thought Cvétka and Dragí would be comfortable with sex stuff — or, she meant, if she thought they'd be comfortable with it after getting out of range of her sexy lilin magic being sexy, it probably wouldn't register in the moment. But anyway, she knew they wouldn't be comfortable with it, which put them more firmly in the do not touch category than their actual physical age. If they were, like, six, or something, that would obviously be fucked up, but at a certain point, if the person in question was comfortable with it, no, Hazel still didn't understand what the problem was, Mum's freakout was still confusing and ridiculous.

...Well, I suppose as long as you respect others' boundaries, it doesn't actually matter if you don't understand it.

Mum didn't actually believe that. She still thought Hazel was bloody weird.

Sweetheart, I love you, but you are bloody weird.

Hazel had to bite her lip to keep herself from giggling.

When she checked back into her surroundings, Dragí had gotten dressed again, was flopping down to lay on the ground next to her, Cvétka sitting with her legs folded next to him. And they were talking about potions now. Which, okay, that was fine — she'd been a bit ahead in Potions since the beginning, since it was one of Mum's best subjects and even Andi had taught her a little, before Hogwarts. She wasn't quite as much of a natural talent with potions as she was with charms, but fine, she didn't mind talking about it.

Dragí, she quickly realised, was not at all suited to potions...which wasn't surprising, when she thought about it. There was a sort of poetry to brewing, the logic behind what different ingredients were used for and how they were combined to get what effects more an art than it was a science, metaphorical and fuzzy and at times whimsical. It was a very human thing, when it came down to it, and Dragí was very much not human. He was a bit too...literally-minded, she guessed, for it to quite click for him. How much of that was a consequence of biology, and how much of it was just Dragí's individual personality — he was the only wilderfolk Hazel had ever spoken to — she really couldn't say for sure.

Of course, Cvétka had nearly as much difficulty, and she didn't have the excuse of being half literal dumb animal, so. Whatever.

(Not that she was saying wilderfolk were naturally stupid, it was a simple fact that their animal heritage had some influence on their psychology, one that resulted in different biases than that of humanity's own animal heritage. It just sort of made sense that modes of thinking that worked for humans wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for wilderfolk.)

Eventually, she didn't know how long it was — long enough they'd gotten out of the Potions conversation, babbling off on random tangents — Hazel started getting rather sleepy. It was very nice up here, the warmth of the sun balanced by the constant, gentle breeze slipping between the hills, the bouncing, complimentary melodies of Dragí and Cvétka's minds a soothing backdrop to their carelessly wandering conversation. It was probably rather rude to start drifting off when she was supposed to be talking to people, but she couldn't help it, it was comfortable up here, and she was so tired...

'Er, Hazel?'

'Hmm?'

'What are you doing?'

She opened her eyes, meaning to find Cvétka to give her a confused look — but was immediately distracted when she instead found cloth pressed up against her cheek. A glance up and, yes, that was Dragí, she'd apparently ended up snuggling up to him at some point. She hadn't realised she was doing that. 'Oh. Sorry.'

'It's fine.' His head turned at an awkward angle to make out her face, Dragí was frowning at her, like she was a peculiar foreign creature he wasn't quite certain what to do with. He shot a questioning glance at Cvétka — she looked more amused than anything, looking down a the two of them with a smirk twitching at her lips — before turning back to Hazel, his shoulder shifting against her in a shrug. 'You're being very strange, you know.'

A weak giggle dribbled past her lips. 'That's a funny thing for you to say.'

'I don't mean compared to normal people. Compared to yourself most of the time, you're being strange.'

'Yeah. I'm just tired.' Hazel turned her face into Dragí's shirt, arm more firmly rounding him, lying half on top of him now. 'And you're warm.' That was something Cvétka had commented on before, that Dragí was her personal space-heater, spent colder days pretty much attached to him. It was true, apparently, Dragí was very warm, she hardly even noticed the chill of the breeze anymore. (Also, he smelled nice, like grass and cinnamon.)

Dragí let out one of those huffing chuckles of his, chest twitching under her, slipped his fingers into her hair, gently combing through it, once, again, again. Hazel heard their voices passing back and forth over her head, they were clearly talking about something, apparently having decided to let her take a nap, Dragí surrendering to his status as living heated pillow.

Which was good, because she was tired, and he was comfortable.

And his mind was very pretty. This was a new thing she'd started noticing about people, when this term had started — she'd been able to feel people's magic before meeting the sky, but it was just more background noise back then, only distinguished from the ambient magic around them by feeling denser and far more energetic. Now it was...alive, somehow, something subtly different than the dancing rainbow melodies of magic all around her, less like empty wind brushing against her and more like a kitten, warm and dynamic and soft and alive.

Dragí's wasn't quite like that of anyone else she'd felt before. Because he was wilderfolk, she assumed, he was the only one she'd ever met. It was very colourful, for one thing — ordinarily, a small handful of colours would jump out to Hazel, not making up the entirety of the person's being but all the same being consistently the most prominent. Dragí's looked similar at any one time, single notes in two or three colours flaring to the forefront, but it shifted moment to moment. Which wasn't itself unusual, no, people's minds changed all the time, a constant dance of noise and colour that never stood still even while asleep, but Dragí's was strange in that, when it did change keys, the primary colours she noticed changed too, almost feeling like a completely different person. It was interesting.

Not that Hazel would ever mistake his soul for anyone else's, he was very distinctive. It was...fuzzy? She meant, normally the notes in people's heads were clear and plain, complicated and interwoven, yes, but the individual tones quite clean. But there was a rawness to the music of Dragí's soul, something... It put her in mind of, like, the difference between professional, highly-produced pop and amateur garage punk, something messier and wilder and just...

It was...kind of fascinating...and just really pretty.

And he was so warm.

Mm...

Hazel was shaken out of it when her living pillow shifted, hard enough she was flung onto her back. She flailed for a moment, her head spinning, nearly tipping over to go rolling off the bed before she managed to catch herself, sitting upright. No, not off the bed, she was in the hills outside the town, right. Had she fallen asleep or something, what—

Your magic, Hazel.

She frowned, turned her attention inward. Whoops, her weird lilin mind magic thing was flaring at the moment, pushing on—

Oh, right, she'd been lying on Dragí a second ago. And she'd lost control over her stupid sexy lilin magic. Lost control of it really bad, it felt like — she must have been projecting something at him (and probably Cvétka too), which she was pretty sure she hadn't meant to do, she just couldn't help it sometimes, especially when she was tired and not paying attention. (Hell, the first time she'd done it, with Susan, she hadn't even known she could push feelings at people, it was just something her mind and magic did naturally.) She should definitely stop doing that, which was easy enough, just do the occlumency thing and...

Wait, fuck. Did she just...kind of molest Dragí on accident?

What do you think?

...Whoops?

Hazel turned to face the two of them, finding Cvétka still sitting exactly where Hazel had last seen her — one hand was turned to draw her wand, but she hadn't actually done it yet — and Dragí wolf-shaped again — his trousers laid abandoned on the ground, his shirt torn up a bit. He was pacing around, forcing out odd snuffles and shaking his shaggy head, his mind a riot of fuzzy colour.

'I'm sorry! I didn't...' Son of a bitch, how was she supposed to explain accidentally sexually assaulting someone? This being a lilin thing sometimes, honestly... 'I was half-asleep, and my stupid sexy lilin magic stuff just... I really didn't mean to, I didn't even know I was doing it, I'm sorry.' Hazel physically bit her lip, forcing down the urge to babble. It was almost physically painful, her chest going tight and hot, but it probably wouldn't do any good.

Her brow cocked, Cvétka gave her a crooked, doubtful sort of look. 'That's something you can just do accidentally?'

'Yes,' Hazel grumbled, 'I have to pay attention to it pretty much all the time or it might get away from me.' She could hear the pout on her own voice, but that was fine, she was quite annoyed with herself at the moment. 'I didn't, erm...' She glanced over at Dragí, still shuffling and huffing. 'I didn't, like, stick my hand down his trousers or something...'

Cvétka let out a shocked laugh, Dragí even freezing to stare at her. 'Did you— No! Did you think you did?'

Something odd and squirmy, uncomfortable enough she couldn't quite meet their eyes, had Hazel shrugging, slow and awkward. 'Well, I don't know, I don't know what I was doing, and Dragí kind of...'

'No, you were just doing the lilin mind magic thing and it made him uncomfortable, that's all.' An odd, embarrassed kind of look crossed Cvétka's face, she shrugged nearly as awkwardly as Hazel had a second ago. 'Well, you were doing me too, but, yeah.'

'Oh. Oh, good.' Not that fucking with her friends' minds was exactly good, but it could have been much worse, she guessed...

Just be grateful Dragí caught it and changed in time.

Actually, it wasn't the changing that did it — being wolf-shape didn't actually make a difference. Lilin mind magic shite worked on, just, animal animals, it should have still been affecting him after changing. It was flinging her off that had snapped her out of it.

Oh, right, I forgot about that.

Didn't blame her, Hazel tried to forget that lilin could totally screw literal animals if they wanted to too. That was just kind of...

Yeah.

During that little aside with Mum, Dragí had finished his wandering around, padding over to within arm's reach to give her a flat, wolfy stare. Not that it was much different from his flat, human stare, really — his eyes stayed the same colour, and he was pretty much always blunt as hell, it was the same thing. 'I really am sorry, Dragí. I didn't mean to do it, it just kind of slipped out. One of those lilin things, you know.'

Dragí stared at her for a moment, then let out another one of those breathy huffs. And then suddenly he was right there, pushing into her lap — and, okay, wolves were big, there wasn't really room — and then he was—

'Hey, wait, no—'

With a surprisingly dextrous shove of her shoulders with his front paws, Hazel was pinned on her back, and Dragí was licking at her face, because that was a thing they were doing now, and it was wet and scratchy, and honestly tickled a bit when he got at her neck, and she tried to push him off, but she couldn't get a good angle on him, she could just helplessly flail and breathlessly giggle.

(At least he didn't have dog breath, what with eating people food and practising proper dental hygiene. Could be worse.)

'No, Dragí, stop,' she gasped between giggles. 'That tickles, I— I can't breathe, get—'

With a last fuzzy nuzzle into her neck, his weight abruptly lifted off her chest, and she was free. She didn't move for a moment, trying to get her breathing back to normal, her throat, rather sore from laughter, not quite cooperating. Once she was mostly okay, she dried herself off with a quick wandless charm, pushed herself back up to sitting — she noticed as she did that Dragí knocking her over had pushed the front of her skirt up way too high, clear over her hips, but she doubted either of them cared.

(Mum felt like she wanted to say something about Hazel's complete apathy over whether or not Cvétka and Dragí had just gotten a good look at her privates, but in the end decided to not articulate whatever the comment was. Which, good, didn't need to have that argument again.)

Dragí had moved to sit next to Cvétka — her hand had made its way into his fur, seemingly by reflex, rubbing at the back of his head — eyes yellow and blue bright with amusement, Cvétka smiling and Dragí's tongue lolling in an expression of canine self-satisfaction.

Despite how uncomfortable that had just been, and that her throat still bloody hurt from the uncontrollable giggling, Hazel felt her own lips twitching with a smile. 'Does that mean I'm forgiven?'

Dragí let out a short wuff, and Cvétka laughed.

'Right, I'm taking that as a yes.'

---

The fire flared, casting flickering green shadows across the Greengrasses' formal floo room, and the newly-acknowledged Lady Potter stepped out of the hearth.

Hazel had never actually met Eirlys, the woman Fawley had made his challenge for House Potter on behalf of. She knew they were related, Andi had drawn out a Potter–Longbottom–Fawley–Prewett family tree just to explain what the fuck was going on. Apparently, her grandfather... Well, okay, Charlus Potter wasn't biologically her grandfather — wasn't even legally anymore, now that she'd been officially delegitimised — but she still thought it automatically. Anyway, his first wife, the one he'd had the Elizabeth she'd been named after with, had been Ceinwen Fawley, Eirlys's...great-aunt? Charlus and Ceinwen had also been second cousins, both great-grandchildren of the Lord Fawley before the current one. Her great-grandfather Boniface Potter had also been related to the Fawleys through the Prewetts, and his grandfather had just straight married a Fawley.

Go back a bit further, back before the Potters had seriously declined in numbers, and there were a lot of Fawleys on the family tree, they'd been very close for generations, apparently. (Too many jokes could be made about purebloods and inbreeding, it was a thing.) If any family was going to be able to press a claim on the House, it'd be the Fawleys.

Well, maybe the Blacks or the Longbottoms, but they'd been excluded for internal House law reasons. See, it was somewhat complicated, because the rules for someone to inherit the Potter title were a bit...weird. The Blacks couldn't take it, because the only members were Sirius and Carina, and the former wasn't in good standing, being a fugitive and all — they were working on that now, but it hadn't gotten far enough yet — and the latter was already the head of her own family. (Most family legal codes forbade anyone from heading two families at the same time.) The Longbottoms couldn't take it, because the only four members were the Lady, ineligible for the same reason as Carina, Frank and Alice — the latter was born a Prewett, so also related despite being an in-law — who were both legally incapacitated, and Neville, who was the only obvious heir after his grandmother, no good for the same can't-head-two-families-at-once rule. Many other Longbottoms and Prewetts and Llewellyns and who knew who else were ineligible for similar reasons.

In the end, the top Fawley had ended up with a handful of potential candidates, from whom he'd selected Eirlys. Apparently, nobody knew hardly anything about Eirlys. She was about a decade older than Hazel, still practically a child by wizarding standards, had been your standard, inoffensive Hufflepuff at school, in an enchanting apprenticeship ever since her graduation, and just...existed. She didn't have much of a public face at all, Andi and Holly hadn't been able to say much about her one way or the other.

At least, other than the assumption that Fawley had picked someone boring and uncontroversial on purpose, so there was no way to distract the proceedings with his candidate's baggage (since she didn't have any), could instead make it all about Mum and how obviously deceitful and terrible she'd been. If that had been the plan, it'd worked beautifully. The trial had gone through quicker than even Holly had suspected it would, Mum had been convicted in absentia, and Hazel had been stripped of everything and anything Potter-related. Including her name — she'd been an Evans for a hot second before the adoption paperwork had been signed, she was legally a Tonks now.

Technically, because British law was retarded sometimes, there was now a warrant out for Mum to be arrested and chucked into Azkaban — despite, you know, being dead and all. They'd have to keep that in mind, when they finally brought her back. Suddenly returning to life after more than a decade always would have been problematic, but now...

Anyway, aside from a few photos in the Prophet now and again, this was her first real look at Eirlys Faw– er, Potter, Eirlys Potter. A blonde woman rather taller than Hazel — though not tall, of course, most pureblood were little — dressed somewhat modestly by the standards of British nobility. She meant, like, yes, those ridiculous robes everyone wore, probably more expensive than they really needed to be, but they were rather muted colours, not too...elaborate, looking comparatively simple and practical. Taken together with the unornamented plait her hair was in, the steady, staid feel to her mind (or what little of it Hazel had caught before her occlumency came up proper), the word that was coming to Hazel was, just, boring.

Which was exactly as she should have expected: Lord Fawley wouldn't have picked anyone controversial, that the woman would be plain and boring wasn't a surprise.

Eirlys looked at Hazel, sitting waiting in one of the sofas, for a brief moment before glancing toward Ailbhe. 'Good afternoon, Lady Greengrass.'

Looking very much like an aged up version of Daphne, very blonde and very pretty, Ailbhe stayed in her chair in the corner, glancing up from her book to shoot Eirlys a cold smile. 'Oh, hello again, Eirlys. It has been a while, hasn't it? How is Felix doing these days?'

There was a spasm of amusement from Mum — Hazel didn't quite get why, but she explained quickly enough. Apparently, Ailbhe was consciously addressing Eirlys as the apprentice of one of her colleagues instead of a peer. Ailbhe was a licensed enchantress, she'd mentioned when planning this little meeting that Eirlys had petitioned to apprentice under her some years ago — Ailbhe had rejected her, which didn't really mean much, she'd only taken one ever, preferred to focus on her theoretical work — and Eirlys had eventually gotten one under some bloke called Felix Scrimgeour instead. (Mum vaguely recognised the name as a Ravenclaw prefect early in her time at Hogwarts, didn't know anything else about him.) They were sort-of friends, they'd worked on a handful of papers together, apparently, Ailbhe had known Eirlys before this whole business through him.

Apparently, refusing to use Eirlys's new title was a low-key snub, but by doing it the way she did Eirlys couldn't call her out on it without coming off like a massive bitch. Which, Hazel didn't get it, why Ailbhe bothered or why Mum thought it was so funny, but fine, whatever.

Eirlys barely hesitated, her pleasantly blank expression didn't even flicker, so if she noticed the stealth insult she didn't care. 'Master Felix is all right, I suppose. He's been wrapped up in a big warding project for the Yaxleys recently, you know how he gets sometimes.'

'Not getting too wrapped up, I hope — that's a good way to get yourself killed, playing with wards while sleep-deprived.' Apparently, this was another insult, implying Eirlys was, what, Felix's nursemaid or something, Hazel didn't entirely get it.

Mum thought it was funny, but Ailbhe was so smooth, her voice far warmer than Daphne's ever was — but then Ailbhe wasn't nearly as frigid as her daughter, she was rather nice, actually (though, it was possible she was being nice on purpose, she and Mum had been friends). She sounded perfectly sincere. Hazel wasn't even certain Ailbhe was doing what Mum thought she was doing.

It wouldn't work if she didn't sound sincere.

Whatever. Hazel wasn't convinced Mum wasn't just imagining it. If Ailbhe was trying to insult Eirlys, she wasn't doing a very good job of it, since she didn't seem to notice, moving on with the conversation all nice, talking about...something, Hazel didn't know, she wasn't listening. They went on for a while — professional gossip, she assumed — before they finally got on with it. 'But you didn't come here to meet with me,' Ailbhe said, lazily turning back to her book. 'Hazel here has something for you.'

'Oh.' Eirlys turned to her, an odd look taking over her face. Couldn't say what it was, exactly — something uncomfortable, certainly, but uncomfortable was such a broad category, could mean almost anything. 'Er...'

Trying not to roll her eyes, Hazel pushed herself to her feet, took a few steps closer. She noticed Eirlys tense, occlumency thickening enough Hazel could barely hear her mind at all. 'Oh, honestly, I'm not going to hurt you. Calm down.'

By some miracle, Eirlys actually looked a little embarrassed, wincing and awkwardly shifting. 'Right, I... Sorry, I just thought you might...be annoyed.'

Hazel shrugged. Even if she did care about the whole taking all the Potter stuff thing — which she didn't, really, other than some annoyance with the shite people have been saying about Mum, she'd been perfectly straight telling everyone she didn't need any of it — she had little reason to be angry at Eirlys in particular. From what she could tell, the whole thing had been Fawley's idea, he likely hadn't asked for Eirlys's opinion on the matter. Of course, she could have refused to cooperate, but internal House politics could often make such a prospect very...unattractive, to put it lightly; Hazel didn't doubt a lot of people raised into the nobility, and for whatever reason had no expectation of inheriting their own title, would take the opportunity of getting one if it threw themselves at them as this had at Eirlys. Didn't blame Eirlys for it, really, old man Fawley was the arse here.

And even if she were angry with Eirlys, eating her mind didn't seem like the thing to do about that. But, she was a lilin, people were racist idiots, this wasn't surprising. Irritating, but not surprising.

'Whatever. There's just this thing, that I have, that belongs to the Potters. Andi said I shouldn't leave it sitting around, so—' Hazel reached into shadows and pulled a long cloak out of nothingness, paper-thin silvery cloth gleaming like moonlight. '—here it is.'

Eirlys blinked. 'An invisibility cloak?'

'I'm told people call it the Peverell Cloak.'

She hadn't seemed sure what to think about this awkward meeting being over a bit of old cloth, but that definitely got a reaction. Eirlys jumped, leaned away, wide-eyed gaze fixed on the cloak with an expression halfway between horror and fascination. 'The Peverell Cloak? You mean, the Relic of Death? That Peverell Cloak?'

Hazel couldn't quite keep a smirk off her face at the almost hysterical shock on the older woman's voice. (Even Ailbhe looked surprised, she hadn't told her what this was about.) 'That's what I'm told. According to notes I found going through the library, it passed into the family through Iolanthe Peverell, who married Hardwin, the founder of the House. He'd been a Longbottom at the time, of course, but Iolanth brought it with her when the Potters broke off. So, it's been in the family for literally as long as the family has existed. Which makes it yours, now.' Shifting her grip on the slippery cloak slightly, Hazel held it out to its new owner.

For a long moment, Eirlys didn't move, just stared at the cloak with a numb sort of...something, anyway. Then, slowly, she reached for it, fingers shaking just noticeably, gently lifted it out of Hazel's hands. Silently, she stared at it for another while, one hand slowly running along the surface, the silvery shadows and reflections the magical cloth seemed to be made of shifting with her touch. 'I... I didn't even know the Potters had this. I thought it was lost, centuries ago.'

'Yes, well, people can be odd about Relics, so I hear. Especially when it comes to Relics of Death.' Mum had wanted to hang onto it, actually, but Andi, raised more in the sometimes superstitious pureblood culture, had insisted Hazel hand it over. What with her inheritance being called into question and all, it was possible Death would decide she was stealing it — there was no telling whether it would care or not, but if it decided it did care there was simply no way it would end well for Hazel. Giving it up was the smart thing to do, just in case.

Besides, it wasn't like being able to turn invisible was a particularly useful skill. And if she wanted to be invisible...for some reason? She guessed it had been nice during her last term at Hogwarts, when everyone had been being complete arseholes, but she could hardly imagine other situations she might want it. Anyway, as she was saying, if she did want to be invisible she knew charms for that now.

The Peverell Cloak blocks detection through nearly any method, you know. Including your sexy lilin magic.

Well, yes, Mum had mentioned that, and when Hazel had made this decision a few months ago she hadn't realised just how hard it would be to hold that shite in, so wanting it as an option wasn't completely crazy. But, as she'd said, she could hardly imagine a situation she'd want to be invisible anyway. So.

Also, Mum referring to it as sexy lilin magic, tee hee.

Yes, you're clearly a terrible influence on me.

Pretty sure it's the other way around. Besides, Hazel was a funny clever awesome person who said funny clever awesome things, it only made sense that Mum would borrow them.

You know, when you say things like that about yourself I can tell you're being sarcastic and don't really mean them.

Obviously. It wouldn't be funny if she actually meant them.

(She did get the point, that Mum was implying Hazel had some kind of self-esteem issue she wasn't dealing with, but she didn't think that was really true. Most people didn't seem to like her much, but she didn't need them to. She was perfectly fine with who and what she was, for the most part, she just had no illusions about it. Just because she could be honest with herself about her negative traits didn't mean she actually cared.)

(She hadn't articulated the thought directly, but Mum clearly still caught it. It was also clear that she thought Hazel was kind of full of shite — well, an abused child doing the avoidance thing, the blunt phrasing was all Hazel — but it was also also clear that she knew she'd never be able to get Hazel to look at the "problem" the same way she did, at least not in any reasonable timeframe they could slip into the middle of an ongoing conversation. So she didn't bother directly articulating anything either, just let the tangent die.)

'I mean...' Her eyes seeming to reluctantly tear from the semi-legendary bit of old cloth, Eirlys turned her dumbfounded look up at Hazel. 'You didn't... If you kept this, I would never have known.'

That was hardly true — the Cloak was mentioned in the personal journals of previous Lords all the bloody time, if she got into Potter stuff much at all Eirlys would eventually find out about it. Of course, she probably wouldn't have been able to sue her to return it, since mages can be superstitious silly people about Relics, and she would have had to admit exactly what it was if she wanted the Ministry to help her get it back, so then everyone would know she would have it, which...was a problem, for some reason?

Sometimes Hazel really didn't understand purebloods.

But anyway, that wasn't the point. Hazel hadn't returned it just out of worry she'd be caught. There wasn't much use in explaining that, though, so she just shrugged. 'Yes, well. That's all I had to talk to you about, so.' That was sort of rude, but... Actually, now that Hazel thought about it, she did have to worry about these things now, since she wasn't a Lady of the Wizengamot anymore, and couldn't get away with it. Well, no, she should have to worry about it, she didn't really, still.

'So.' Eirlys was silent another long while, staring fixedly at the Cloak. A long while, enough Hazel was wondering if she should say something or, just, leave. (Tracey and Daphne were waiting for her deeper in the manor with chocolate and increasingly awkward social interaction.) She was just about to go when Eirlys finally spoke, her voice almost painfully uncomfortable, low and shifting, avoiding Hazel's eyes. 'Hazel, I... I had nothing to do with it.'

'Er...with what?'

Still not looking at her, Eirlys shrugged, the motion twitchy and awkward. 'The claim on your House, the suit against your mother. It wasn't my idea, it...'

Eirlys trailed off, seemingly unable to grasp for the words, so Hazel filled it in for her. 'It was Fawley, I know.'

"Yes, I just...' Letting out a brief huff, Eirlys glared out into the near distance — a glare weakened by her obvious discomfort, but still noticeably displeased. 'I didn't— I was rather...annoyed with him, in fact.'

Hazel blinked. 'Er. What for?'

'I remember Lily, you know. I was young, then, younger than you are now, but Jamie, he was always... He was the fun cousin, you know, we all liked him, and...'

...Okay, this was a confusing change of subject. Eirlys trailing off, half lost in memory and half trying to get back to the point, wasn't really helping Hazel figure out what the fuck was happening. Also, was that even a thing, Mum had never mentioned meeting Eirlys before.

She would have been a kid back then. Jamie had a lot of little cousins, it was impossible to keep them all straight.

Yeah, she got it, kids were boring, no reason to sound so defensive.

Mum huffed.

'I don't know what happened between Jamie and Lily,' Eirlys was saying, having found her train of thought again. 'Maybe there was something...untoward going on, I don't know. But it doesn't seem...' She sighed, shaking her head. 'I don't know. We all owe your mother our lives, you know. The war wasn't going well, for us, if the Dark Lord won — and he was winning — we all would have been... If not for what Lily did that Hallowe'en, who knows what would have been made of Britain. Us of the Light, certainly it wouldn't have been good for us.

'And it is us of the Light, the very ones who stood the most to lose if she hadn't done what she did, that have been the most... When I agreed to this, Grandfather didn't tell me he was going to make it all so... It just seems...remarkably ungrateful. I don't know how to... I'm sorry, that things went the way they did. I never wanted any of that.'

Oh. Well. Hazel had absolutely no idea what she should be saying here. She did think it was kind of funny that Eirlys didn't believe the Girl-Who-Lived shite, but she'd been learning a lot of people old enough to remember didn't — her mother had had a reputation by the end of the war (exactly what kind of reputation varied a hell of a lot depending who was asked), that she was somehow responsible for whatever had happened that night was actually a common assumption. But snarking about that probably wasn't a good response. Er. 'Okay. Thanks?' That came out sounding more confused than she'd wanted, but.

'Grandfather wants me to...' Eirlys grimaced, for a second looking almost disgusted. 'He's talked about taking back what little you took with you, he was furious when he found out. But that's not going to happen. I'm Lady Potter now, and, he can't do that sort of thing on my behalf without my cooperation anymore. It's fine, it's not going to happen. And if, I don't know, you ever need... You'll be fine, is what I'm trying to say. You don't have to worry about Grandfather or anybody else trying to... You'll be fine.'

... Did the woman who stole all her shite just promise to give her financial and maybe legal cover?

That's what it sounded like.

Huh. Hadn't seen that coming.

Yeah. Maybe you were right about not taking too much and giving the Cloak back, she might not have decided to side with you against the racist arsehole segment of the Light if you weren't being so, well, honourable about it.

Possible, she guessed. No way to know for sure.

But, weren't the Light pretty much all racist arseholes? She meant, not against muggleborns, obviously — at least not for the most part — but she'd been under the impression hating nonhuman magical beings was, like, their thing. Most of the people saying awful shite about her and Mum were Light, or else former Death Eaters...which was kind of weird, when she thought about it. She meant, they were called dark creatures for a reason. She didn't understand all this weird politics stuff, and didn't much care besides, but she was pretty sure people who called themselves Dark wouldn't also use the term derogatorily for other people.

Eh, it's complicated. The commons are generally more liberal when it comes to these sort of things, their attitudes have been slowly bleeding up for generations now. Though, not about lilin in particular, I suppose, their reputation in Britain has never been great, but for others. Dumbledore helps — he's rather moderate when it comes to being rights, has been dragging portions of the Light toward him. Even the worse ones at least aren't so blatant about it anymore.

Most of the time, anyway. When a lilin finds her way into the Wizengamot, it's another issue entirely.

Good point, yeah. It is pretty fucking annoying. Here I recall personally saving Lord Brown's son's life, but now I'm some kind of devious evil monster, sure.

Rich pureblood nobles were ungrateful bastards, who would have guessed.

Shocked, I tell you.

But anyway, supposed to be having an awkward conversation with her usurper here. 'Er. Thanks? I mean, yeah, I don't blame you for any of that nonsense and, erm, if Fawley isn't done fucking with me yet, yeah, thanks for...not being a complete awful bitch, I guess.'

That was definitely not an appropriate thing to say, and Eirlys would be fully within her rights to be offended. Instead, the woman burst into laughter. Only for a second, before her hand clapped over her mouth, and she stared down at Hazel, looking very surprised and more than a little horrified with herself.

Hazel smirked.

Terrible influence.

She knew, it was fun.

Anyway, once that awkward conversation was wrapped up, it was time to go straight into another awkward conversation.

Since she'd needed a neutral location to meet with Eirlys anyway, Hazel had decided to pull double-duty on it, and use the opportunity to hang out with Tracey and Daphne, who were also home for winter break. Which was sort of nice, she guessed. These days, most of her contact with her once fellow Slytherins was through letters — she'd hardly gotten to see them at all last summer, what with all the shite going on first with weird lilin illness and then Sirius. Tracey was sort of her first friend...kind of? Their relationship was still sort of awkward to begin with, more than it was with Camila or Cvétka and Dragí (or even Gabbie or Evi, really), but Tracey was also just about as socially stunted as Hazel was, so that could just be because neither of them really knew what the hell they were doing. Daphne also being around usually made it a bit easier, since having one person who actually knew how to hold a conversation greased the wheels a bit, even if Daphne herself could be a bit...well, Daphne Greengrass, fucking ice statue this girl. But, she did still like the two of them, even missed Tracey at Beauxbatons sometimes — if nothing else, it was nice having someone around to commiserate with on how weird and confusing everyone else was — so it'd seemed worth it.

Of course, when she'd decided this was a thing she was going to do, she hadn't realised just how incredibly awkward it would be. Now, Hazel wasn't generally very good at reading people, consequences of that whole socially stunted thing, so maybe it was just lilin mind magic cheating somehow. But it was incredibly bloody obvious that Tracey had a massive crush on Daphne, and had absolutely no idea what to do about it. Hazel couldn't imagine Daphne didn't notice, it wasn't at all subtle, Tracey was just as much of an awkward bitch as Hazel was. But, maybe she didn't, because she certainly didn't act like there was anything going on.

The whole conversation was just unbelievably awkward and tense, Hazel got the fuck out of there as quickly as she reasonably could. Either those two were going to end up being an almost sickeningly adorable couple or their friendship was going to completely implode, and Hazel couldn't guess which it would be, but it was seriously fucking uncomfortable, and she'd just stay away until they had things figured out, okay.

Bet you a sickle Tracey writes you for advice in a couple weeks.

Yeah, no bet.

Hazel could have just stepped through shadows straight home, but instead she decided to fly. With how early she'd gotten out, there was still some time until dinner, it wasn't like she was in a rush. Lilin definitely flew fast enough. And she liked flying, okay, it was fun. Pretty damn easy to get lost, yes — especially since she had to fly really fucking high to make sure muggles on the ground would mistake her for a normal bird — but Mum had scripted out a shadow-beacon to add to the wards on the house for just this purpose. Theoretically, standing anywhere on earth, she could close her eyes and point straight at home.

Of course, if she were far enough away she'd end up pointing into the ground, since it worked on a straight line, and wards that blocked shadow-walking would probably block this too. Still.

Before too long, she was spiraling down to a landing in the front yard. She'd gotten enough practice by now that her high-speed-dive-shift-banish-the-ground landing only had her skipping a couple steps, didn't even fall over this time. It was a magic control thing, throwing off a banishing charm at the ground just powerful enough to kill her momentum, she'd gotten a feel for how much was necessary, and the practice was also good for other magic, since that kind of fine control would carry over to everything else.

You're trying to convince me to be okay with you nearly breaking your neck every time you land. It's not going to work.

Hazel shrugged. Worth a shot.

Rolling out her shoulders — flying wasn't an entirely physical process for lilin, really more magic than muscle, but it still took a little bit of work — Hazel trotted through the shallow snow to the front door. And apparently the universe wasn't done messing with her tonight, because when she stepped into the living room just inside Andi and Ted weren't alone, accompanied by a handful of strangers. Hazel didn't recognise them, but they were obviously here about her.

After all, she couldn't imagine why the hell several lilin would turn up at the house to talk to Andi and Ted.

And they were bloody weird lilin, too. Though, now that Hazel thought about it, she had seen someone who looked like this before, but only once. Loose trousers a deep purple, a singlet of black stitched with gold, and absolutely covered in weapons — knives all over the place, strapped to chests and legs and hips, a few with full-length bloody swords hanging from their belts, all of them shining with gold and rubies, sheaths black with curving white lines Hazel recognised as the one their language was written in (though she couldn't read it herself). She vaguely remembered, when she'd been ill over the summer, she'd been dragged to the Zabinis', and there'd been a man dressed exactly like this. She'd had a conversation with Mum about bladed weapons apparently being useful in magical combat, she remembered because the thought was still sort of weird, despite supposedly being a thing.

(She also remembered because Mum had said she wouldn't want to get in a fight with the bloke because it was very possible she would lose, which was also absurd to think about, because she was Mum, Hazel had literally watched her out-duel a bloody Dark Lord once, just, shite.)

Anyway, she hadn't expected to find what she assumed were some kind of lilin bodyguards in her bloody house. And certainly not five of them. Though, not all lilin, actually, she saw now that she was looking closer. They were four men and one woman, two lilin and three veela — the giveaway was the feathers plaited into their hair.

Almost right away, she'd noticed that people did that — lilin and veela pretty much always had three feathers in their hair, usually accompanied by a string of beads and shite — though she hadn't learned what that was about until earlier in the fall. It was one of those family things, apparently. In younger people, one of the feathers would be from their mother, another traditionally from whatever bloke in the clan they were closest to (who would actually be an uncle or a cousin, since they didn't do the fatherhood thing), and the third varied a bit, usually a teacher or something. It varied more with older people, but was generally meant to represent the three people they were closest to, those most precious people in their life. Apparently the beads meant something too, but Hazel didn't get it, it sounded very complicated.

Before she'd realised she didn't know what it was for, Gabbie thought it was depressing Hazel didn't have anyone to ask. Now she made a point about hinting, with a very Gabbie-like lack of subtlety, that she could have one of Gabbie's if she liked, had even gone as far as sticking one into Hazel's hair while she was sleeping multiple times now. Hazel was considering doing something with three of her own feathers just to get Gabbie to quit it.

Anyway, due to how their families worked, lilin were most likely to have three lilin feathers, and veela were most likely to have three from other veela — sometimes you'd see two of one and one of the opposite, like Gabbie wore two veela and one lilin, but you could usually tell which one someone was by the feathers. So, the ones with (mostly) black and purple feathers would be lilin, and the ones with (mostly) white and gold feathers would be veela.

Hazel still thought some of their cultural stuff was pretty bloody strange, but it was usually easier to just go along and not overthink it too much.

The presence of the absurdly armed bodyguards surprised Hazel enough she froze just inside, the door still hanging open behind her, the winter wind making her skirt flutter and her hair wiggle. Before she could hardly move, one of the bodyguards flicked her fingers, the glimmering heat of a wandless spell shooting over her shoulder, the door clicked closed. (Her skin tingled where the spell had passed closest, the giggling song of light veela magic causing a sympathetic echo in her own more dark.) Then Andi was on her feet, somewhat shaky, a subtle note of anxiety on her voice (speaking in French, for some reason). 'Hazel, we have a...very important guest.'

...Guest, singular? 'Okay?' Casting curious looks around at the bodyguards, Hazel stepped a little further into the room, asking, 'And who exactly is this...?' She trailed off once she got to an angle she could make out the stranger who'd taken over Ted's usual armchair, because their very important guest was definitely her.

Hazel had no bloody clue who it was, of course, but she certainly looked important. She had a sort of vaguely Near Eastern feel to her — skin a light brown and hair very black (complete with two black feathers and one white, her magic dancing fire and shadow, definitely a lilin), dark eyes framed with curling red lines that were so solid and intricate it looked more like a tattoo than makeup (Mum thought it might be henna, but Hazel didn't know what that was), wearing baggy trousers, the cloth a solid blood red making it the plainest thing she had on her, and a rather brief top, sleeveless and neckless, a little thing starting just at the top of her breasts and ending not much below, her ribs and her stomach only partially hidden by dangling strings of beads in white and purple and gold and red, overtop it all a sort of jacket thing, wide fringed sleeves down to her wrists, the hem low enough it'd be nearly at her ankles standing, the cloth made heavy and thick with dense brocade, in silver and gold and what Hazel was pretty sure were tiny gemstones, the thing scintillating distractingly in the light, each movement from the tiniest breath of the woman wearing it throwing chinks of rainbow light shifting across the walls, the whole picture was...

What. The hell.

I have no idea.

Pretty, though.

Definitely pretty, but what the hell, are those bloody diamonds in her fucking jacket? Diamonds can be alchemised pretty easily, but...

What the hell.

Seriously.

Hazel didn't have very long to stare before the bodyguard standing next to the chair, with the familiar lilin/veela accent on his French, casually said, 'You look upon Her Highness Kunšas Isaç Değsut Ćenizai, Princess in Media.'

...

Princess...Kunšas? He meant, the Empress's granddaughter Princess Kunšas, second in line to the throne Princess Kunšas?

I...think so? That, yes, I think that was her name, but—

—what the hell was she doing here?

Yeah, that. I mean...what the hell.

Seriously, what the hell.

Hazel had actually met lilin royalty before — the very first lilin she'd ever met had been royalty, technically, the Zabinis were a sort of...not a separate family, exactly, more like a separate household within the same huge, sprawling family. She'd met several Zabinis, in fact, there were a few at Beauxbatons right now. (One older girl named Rossana was particularly annoying.) But, in a way, the Zabinis hardly counted, really — they were related to the Empress, yes, but distantly related, enough that nobody honestly expected it to ever pass down to them. They were famous and influential and fabulously wealthy, yes, but in a way that was more like the British Noble Houses than legit royalty.

This was quite a different thing entirely. She'd actually heard of Princess Kunšas before, which only made sense. The lilin and veela sort of had a world-wide empire going on — though the particulars of how that worked were very fuzzy, because dual citizenship and semi-recognised enclaves and blah blah — and Kunšas was definitely going to be queen of the whole bloody thing at some point. It'd be a little while yet, since lilin lived a bloody long time, but eventually. And, true, Hazel knew very little about how exactly the government worked, so she didn't know how much that actually mattered — she had the feeling it was sort of like the United Kingdom, in that there was some democratic assembly and the power of the monarchy was rather limited. But...

Still.

Princess Kunšas was in her fucking living room.

Hazel had no idea what she was supposed to do with this.

Or, she realised, how the fuck you were supposed to talk to a magic bloody princess. After an intensely uncomfortable silence going on far too long, Hazel finally managed, 'Er, hi?' wiggling her fingers in a weak little wave.

Apparently, that wasn't a bad thing to do, since none of the armed people — a royal guard of some kind, maybe? — looked particularly annoyed with her, and the Princess herself even seemed slightly amused, one lip curling with a faint smile. So. Just play it casual, then, she could do that. All right.

So Hazel took the open spot between Andi and Ted on the sofa. And sat in silence as one of the guards...fixed tea. Because, she and her parents were having tea with a lilin princess. This was a thing that was happening now.

Your life is bloody strange sometimes, you realise that.

Said the disembodied voice of her dead mother living in her head.

The silence stretched a little longer, the four of them taking their first sip of the tea — not tea, actually, she realised as she tasted it, but that stuff made from coffee cherries they'd had in Egypt. Only the four of them, since the bodyguards didn't get any, apparently, still looming over them, an intimidating volume of magic wafting from them into the air, filling it with twittering, rainbow haze, like a hundred whispering voices, like sunlight shining through oily water. Now that she thought about it, it was sort of impressive Andi and Ted were seemingly unaffected, considering the sort of things their magic tended to do to humans' heads. Actually...it didn't seem like it had a sexy feel on it, it was more like...just, something warm and relaxed, peaceful. Almost scary powerful, yes, but it sort of felt like they were projecting, just, niceness, to stop anything from getting carried away.

(Which, no matter how inoffensive it was, she knew a lot of people would consider that sort of invasive, but pushing their emotions at each other was just a thing lilin and veela did in ordinary conversation. People of any race with telepathic abilities tend to use them, just instinctively. Honestly, with all the lilin and veela around all the time at Beauxbatons, Hazel hardly even noticed it most of the time.)

Eventually, Hazel wasn't certain how long, Kunšas spoke, her voice low and smouldering. In their language, of course, but the veela man standing at her shoulder followed it in French pretty quickly. 'Her Highness says, "I have heard much of you lately, Hazel. You and your mother."'

'Oh, er.' And...how was she supposed to respond to that, exactly? She wasn't surprised, of course, with the huge bloody circus people finding out about the lilin thing had turned into, but saying well, obviously you've heard of me to bloody royalty just seemed kind of... 'Okay?'

Kunšas seemed to be trying not to smirk. More foreign lilin-speak, another immediate translation. '"I won't intrude here overlong. I heard of your troubles with the mages here, for which you have my condolences."'

'You know, it would never have been a problem if my mum had known she was a lilin. If you look at it, this is really all the People's fault, for the way they do things.' Mum was kind of quietly horrified that she'd actually just said that, but...well, honestly Hazel hadn't considered whether she should or not before it'd been tumbling out, it was possible she had a problem with not thinking before she said things.

But none of the "People" in the room reacted too badly — a sympathetic wince even crossed Kunšas's face, she hissed under her breath for a moment before speaking again. '"The exile of the Flightless as it persists in modern times is an unfortunate consequence of the Statute of Secrecy. Before, it was practical to send them to other clans, or nearby human communities, but in this new closed society..."' The man trailed off for a moment, blinking down at Kunšas. 'It is painful, for the mothers. There is a magic to these things that... It's hard to explain.

'Before, it was feasible to form enough of a distance for everyone, the child and the mother and her family, to overcome the trauma and live a normal life, but still be able to acknowledge the Flightless in some meaningful way, to find children like you early. With how much more closed magical society has become in recent centuries, this is no longer possible. The fault lies not with the clan of your mother's birth nor the Empire itself, but with the mages, and their insistence on dividing our world.'

Okay, that still wasn't a great answer. 'Why the hell did you go along with it, then?' That was a question she had for a lot of people in the magical world, actually. It only took a little bit of thinking to realise the Statute of Secrecy was a terrible idea. It might not have been so obvious at the time — though Hazel was far less willing to give people in the Seventeenth Century that benefit of the doubt than Mum was — but it was certainly obvious now, as mages futilely scrambled to keep up with the muggle world, prevent themselves from being revealed or overrun or both. It was inevitably going to explode in everyone's faces, and the centuries of isolation were only going to make reintegration more traumatic than could possibly ever be considered necessary.

This one actually seemed to annoy their guests — they hardly showed it on their faces, but she could feel it on the air, the gentle magic turning harder, colder. It was Ted who spoke first, though, leaning in slightly to mutter, 'Er, love, the People of the Song fought against Secrecy.'

...Oh. Right.

He means "fight" literally, too.

Yes, Hazel knew that. Or, she'd known that in general — there had been a literal war over the whole Secrecy thing, back in the late Sixteen Hundreds, with actual bloody battlefields in the Americas, scattered places in southern Asia, Africa, and the Near East. (There had been a few...disagreements in Europe, but they'd gotten off rather lightly by comparison.) But it was something that was never really spoken of much in her History classes — besides references to much of the Americas' enduring anti-Statutarianism, and the peculiar relationship places like central Africa and Japan have had with Secrecy — glossed over enough Hazel hadn't even realised the lilin and the veela had been on the losing side. That was the sort of thing she'd thought would come up.

The veela man next to the Princess — Hazel thought he was in charge somehow — spoke again, but this time obviously for himself. 'We did not go along with it. We fought the enforcement of Secrecy, bitterly. We fought until our blood soaked the soils and sands of a hundred kingdoms across three continents, until we had no more left to spill, until we were forced to capitulate to prevent our extinction. So many were killed, entire clans were wiped out, mages even slaughtering children in their beds, the dying so great that to this day we are less than we were. Do not speak, child, of what you know not of, you have no standing to—'

'Stop.'

At Kunšas's command, the man broke off with a twitch. It belatedly occurred to Hazel that the translation had only been going one way — the Princess must understand French, though she apparently didn't speak it very well. Their eyes met for a moment, and it was honestly kind of funny, the intimidatingly well-armed man silently chastised by the glare of the smaller, younger, comparatively harmless-looking woman, the man quickly surrendering, bowing his head and muttering what was clearly an apology of some kind.

At least, it would be funny, if Hazel weren't so distracted by what the bloke had just been saying. Apparently, nobody had seen fit to inform her the race she'd suddenly discovered a couple years back she was a member of had been the targets of an effective genocide a few centuries ago. She doubted most people thought of it that way — if they had, she certainly would have heard about it at some point — but it did sound like the word would be accurate.

I can't say I'm particularly surprised. The Celts have nearly squeezed the tree kin and riverfolk to extinction, and there are races of elves elsewhere in Europe that have been wiped out completely. Goblins, giants... There was a program of active extermination against vampires for centuries that they've barely begun to recover from.

Well, no, Hazel couldn't say she was surprised either, honestly. She just hadn't any idea.

'Forgive them the shortness.' That was Kunšas, with perhaps the worst lilin accent Hazel had ever heard, the consonants thick and grinding, the vowels simplified. 'We live long, to humans. This is not so far with us. In my mother's youth, some lived who knew it. It is yet raw.'

'It's all right, I...erm, I didn't know. About that. It's not something they teach in history classes, apparently.'

Kunšas's lips twitched with a wry sort of smile. She spoke, but in their language, the guard at her shoulder again translating for her. '"There was nothing that could be done about the trial with your Wizengamot — we decided it would do more harm than good to intervene. Going forward, however, there is perhaps something we can do."'

Straight back to the reason they'd come, then, as though that whole uncomfortable tangent had never happened. All right, then. 'Er, and what is that?'

'"We cannot stop the local mages' government from making trouble for you in the future, but we can make it more difficult for them."'

Hazel didn't think it was that much of a problem anymore — she was a Tonks now, and being a member of any house, even a common one, did give people at least a minimum of legal cover. Especially since Andi was relatively well-connected, friends she'd made all the way back when she'd been a Black. (And the new Lady Potter apparently intended to have her back, but Hazel didn't know how far she'd be willing to go, probably shouldn't count on that.) And, about Blacks, what with Sirius being her godfather and everything, Carina had actually offered to adopt Hazel herself, she just preferred to stick with the Tonkses.

But, Kunšas did sort of have a point that the Wizengamot could still make her life seriously difficult if they wanted to. 'Okay. How?'

'"We've learned over the course of the Empire's existence that it's far more difficult for local mages to get any sort of legal meddling with our people off the ground when they have to worry about potential external intervention."'

'Er...'

It was Ted who answered, sounding peculiarly serious — for him, she meant, the normal cheerful bounce was absent, just made him sound like someone else entirely. 'Her Highness wants to officially acknowledge you as a citizen of their Empire.'

Oh. 'Wait,' she said, frowning up at the bodyguard pulling translation duty, 'aren't I already? I mean, I am a lilin and all.'

The man looked slightly exasperated with the question. 'Our nation is comprised of those who have sworn allegiance to the First Clan. Since you were born and raised outside of our society, you have no claim to membership in any of our communities or institutions. You're no more a citizen of the Empire by merit of being born lilin than your family are British simply by merit of being born human.'

Well, they kind of were, actually...

Not really, it's a lot more complicated than just being human and being born here, especially in Ted's case. Hell, even on the muggle side, you're technically not considered a British citizen just for being born and raised here, there are other conditions.

...That didn't make any sense. What, British muggles had to...?

No, no, if your parents are citizens it's automatic. There's a process for the children of migrants, it's a whole thing.

Oh. Well, that's kind of dumb. As far as Hazel was concerned, if you're living here and participating in society you're part of it, bringing in other fiddly technicalities was just kind of silly.

You know, by your own standards, you shouldn't be a citizen of their country either. How much are you actually living there and participating in their society?

...Good point.

'Well.' Hazel forced herself to concentrate — they were talking about serious things, it was time to be serious. Yes.

And you continue to be adorable.

Shush, she was trying to be very serious here. 'So, er, like, how does that work, exactly? I mean, day-to-day wise. Would there be, like, lilin laws I'd have to worry about, am I going to have to pay lilin taxes, what?'

'"You would see little difference day to day. Under our law, Britain is considered unincorporated frontier, so there are no relevant economic obligations; since our legal code mostly concerns affairs between our citizens, you would have little reason to concern yourself with any of that, either. Your family would have the right to participate in the Syndicate for the Wilds, and you can choose to contribute to the activities of your Syndicate financially if you wish, but both are optional."'

That...sort of made sense, reading between the lines. Basically, being a lilin in Britain was like aboriginals living out in the wilderness, didn't pay taxes to the government because they had little to do with it. Hazel knew the syndicates were something to do with the government the lilin and veela had, she'd heard references to them here and there, though she didn't know how exactly they worked. (There was a big one in the capital that was obviously the equivalent to Parliament, but there were littler ones too, like, increasingly local tiers of government? Something like that.) One part she didn't get though. 'My family?'

Kunšas smiled again, looking rather amused. '"The oath you would be giving is intended for the representative of a clan — you would, simultaneously, be founding a new family with yourself as matriarch. Your whole family would be accepted as citizens of the Empire, not yourself alone."'

... Oh.

Naturally, Hazel had little part in the conversation after that, Andi and Ted asking just what that would mean for them, and especially Dora — being an Auror and all, suddenly becoming a citizen of a foreign nation might have some...complicated consequences for her career. So she just sat back for a while, turning the suggestion over in her head, considering the potential consequences years down the line. At least as well as she could guess at such things.

She didn't think she saw a downside, honestly. Yes, people might not like their precious Girl-Who-Lived going full lilin on them — not that she actually was, it would change very little, but random people might not see it that way — but having the backing of the lilin-veela government would more than make up the difference. The Empire in Twilight (silly name, but what did she know) was quite literally the oldest institution in the entire world, and they had political and cultural legitimacy accumulated over thousands of years to back it up. It wasn't weight she could throw around to get whatever she wanted, obviously, but it would present an extra barrier to arseholes in the British government making trouble for her.

Basically, a bloody magical princess had just shown up to get rid of one of her problems for her...or, at least, lesson its weight considerably. (She couldn't deny the possibility someone might still try something, but it'd help, at least.) Andi and Ted would probably come to the same conclusion before long, she just had to wait a couple minutes.

Mum was getting to that point right now — Hazel felt, at that place in her mind were Mum lived, a gradual easing, a weight lifting away that had been dragging at Mum so long Hazel hadn't even noticed it was there. Apparently, Mum had been worrying about racist idiots fucking with her over the lilin thing way more than she'd let on.

Of course I've been worried, Hazel. You've seen how people can be about lilin.

Well, yes, that wasn't really the point, though. Mum could let Hazel know about things that were bothering her, she didn't have to keep it to herself.

Mum didn't respond to that. Of course she didn't — the few occasions Mum did address this sort of thing, it was to brush it off, say it wasn't important, that Hazel shouldn't worry about her.

(She did anyway.)

---

Hazel eased back to full consciousness, the overwhelming haze of song and feeling that had temporarily obliterated all capacity for rational thought slowly dissolving.

The whole weird lilin mind magic thing was difficult to put into words in its ordinary, baseline expression — but when it went all out, mad desire and raw passion chasing away everything else, the force of it pushing her outward, threads of her very essence weaving into that of the people around her, diving into the beautiful but eerie songs of their colourful souls, until everything was overtaken with the sound of their magic and the taste of blood and grass and pleasure so intense she literally couldn't contain it, had to push it outward, closing the loop and pushing it faster and faster and faster...

Really, Hazel wasn't surprised that lilin, just, broke people sometimes, without even meaning to. The human mind only had so much to give.

It was always a peculiar, liminal sort of experience, those minutes afterward. Those bits of Hazel that had stitched themselves into smooth harmony with the souls around her, soft notes in all colours of the rainbow dancing through her head, slowly drifted back toward her, untangling themselves bit by bit. Like a brush dragging gentle through her hair, occasionally catching on a thought here or there — a mind instinctively fighting her, or perhaps reflexively drawing her in, intoxicated by her own magic's seductive pull — bits of hair coming with the brush, seeping into her. Pieces of their souls taken and absorbed to sustain her own.

(Tiny pieces, of course, nothing they would miss, nothing that wouldn't grow back before too long. At its worst they might feel a little fuzzy for a couple days, like the earliest stages of that weird illness she'd gotten last summer. It was, in fact, the same thing, though the progression of the condition in humans was an exact mirror — lilin and veela would slowly deteriorate, while humans quickly recovered.)

And part of her would be focused on that — song slipping through her fingers, a few notes breaking away to sink into her, soft and warm and pretty and mine — but another part returning to her physical surroundings. Sound, that always came back first. Initially just a fuzzy, indistinct jumble of whispering voices, before growing clearer — slowly, slowly — before long joined by the random noises of the tower around her, the murmur of distant conversation, the occasional ruffle of passing feathers, light thumps as residents returned for the evening.

Touch came back next. Nothing that made any sense at first, just an indistinct mass of warmth. But little things, the things that were different from the rest, built a contrast, overall perspective developing from those couple of points. Fingers trailing back and forth along her hip and up her spine, slipping through her hair...but not fingers from the same person, she realised. No, the fingers in her hair were thin and delicate, feminine, and the hand on her back was at an angle to belong to the person she was lying on who, by the flatness of the chest rising and falling under her and the little hairs tickling at her skin, was most likely male.

She was laying at a rather odd angle, she eventually put together. She was straddling a bloke (Hugues, probably?) — or, had been, at least, one of her legs had slipped down at some point — and she'd ended up flopping across his chest at a somewhat peculiar angle, putting her head on a smoother, somewhat cooler shoulder — the girl stroking her hair, presumably (couldn't remember her name). She was warmer than she'd expect to be — there were environmental wards over the lilin–veela dorm, but they didn't quite completely cut out the winter chill — that thought leading to the blanket someone had thrown over them at some point, fuzzy and soft. That had probably been the other bloke (hadn't caught his name either), taking care of that while she'd been out of it.

As her mind finished rebuilding itself from the pieces she'd taken from the humans around her — an automatic process that seemed slower from the inside than the outside, it felt like she'd drifted off for hours but it'd probably only been a few minutes — Hazel finally started to life. 'Mm, hey.'

'Hey yourself.' The girl giggled, her mouth close enough to Hazel's ear it was almost uncomfortably loud, breath tickling at her neck.

The bloke she was laying on spoke next, his voice confirming he was Hugues. 'I thought you might have actually fallen asleep there.'

'No, lilin can't sleep right after, it's just not possible.' Or, so she assumed from her own experience, anyway. They did sort of black out for a little bit, going still and mostly unresponsive — there might be a little bit of humming or nuzzling further into whoever they were brain-sucking at the moment, but other than that, dead to the world. Apparently, it could be a little creepy for people who weren't used to it, which Hazel thought was...sort of weird? She meant, she'd never seen it herself, but it didn't sound that different from, just, falling asleep for a few minutes. But when she did come back it was always with a sense of low-simmering energy, had to hold back the urge to descend into Gabbie-like hyperactive babble, or even just pace around the room like a crazy person, always ended up having to get up and do something, lying in bed doing nothing was torture.

(Which, she learned, was pretty much the exact opposite of what most humans felt like doing after being steamrollered with orgasms augmented by sexy lilin magic. Personally hard for her to comprehend, always made her feel uncharacteristically up, but she guessed her energy was directly at their expense, that was how this worked, so.)

'Yeah, I know, but you were out for a bit longer than normal...' Hugues being the expert on the matter.

That wasn't meant to be sarcasm, not really. He was a Delacour, but he wasn't a veela himself. All veela(/lilin) clans had humans in them (the humans were sometimes the majority, in fact), and they were pretty much treated as a part of the family like everyone else. There were things particular to veela and lilin directly involving their special brand of magic, the humans obviously couldn't participate in that stuff, but other than that. They took the same last name, used family terms for each other — Gabbie had called Hugues her cousin despite their most recent common ancestor being literally thousands of years ago, all the way back before veela had existed — and even, Hazel knew now, had full rights as citizens of the Empire same as anyone else (though, again, with exceptions related to magic stuff, blah blah).

In a lot of ways, Hugues was more a veela than Hazel was a lilin, despite the whole being human thing. He'd grown up with veela, raised in the same culture — he spoke their language (and had the accent to prove it), knew their traditions and such backwards and forwards, because they were his too. Hazel might have the magic, but people like Hugues had everything else.

So, he'd had experience with the whole...mind magic fugue state thing lilin (and veela) did, certainly more than she had from the outside. He had every reason to know what it was supposed to look like, how long it was supposed to take.

He knew enough to have a faint note of concern on his voice, even.

She hadn't been doing very well lately, she knew that. This whole...being a lilin thing, it was hard, okay, far worse than she'd expected it would be. It would be fine if she had friends who would be comfortable with helping her keep her mind from falling apart, but they were all too young, and also awkward nerdy types, so she was pretty much screwed. She was in for a difficult, draining few years, that was for sure. It'd get better eventually, as she (slowly) got to know more people and the friends she already had aged up a bit, but for now...

She hadn't been getting enough, she knew that. It'd started getting bad, the last couple weeks. Not so bad that she was starting to really get worried, but she'd have to be a fucking idiot to miss the low current of anxiety Mum had been harbouring lately. Obviously it must have been getting pretty fucking bad — when Gabbie had practically thrown three ready and willing people at her, Mum hadn't showed a single gram of her usual discomfort with this lilin sex stuff, she'd just torn herself from Hazel to float away and wait until she was done.

And that really had been about the shape of it, Gabbie showing up at her room with a few humans, here, go nuts. It hadn't been quite that simple — Gabbie had obviously been worried for her, they'd had an awkward conversation about not wanting to see her miserable and properly taking care of herself. (Which, by the expressions on their faces, had mostly gone right over the heads of the humans in the room who weren't named Delacour.) And that was just...kind of awkward. Gabbie was growing on her (like cancer), but Hazel was honestly still trying to resist the annoyingly cheerful girl's attempts to make their friendship happen, and there the silly little thing had been, all warm and worried just on the edge of panic, and all saying she knew Hazel didn't want her help, but she was going to, dammit, and the whole thing was just...

Maybe Hazel should try to be nicer to Gabbie. She was still a huge bloody pain most of the time, but...

But, anyway, the whole thing had been just...kind of awkward. And Hazel couldn't even say why, not exactly. These three strangers Gabbie had ushered in, and everyone knew what they were getting into, everyone was fine with it. But Hazel had still felt... She didn't know. As absurd as it might sound, as much as she knew she needed to for weird lilin reasons, she just hadn't been in the mood. Which was fucking weird, because Hazel hadn't even realised it was possible for lilin to not be in the mood. (It'd certainly never happened to her before, sometimes she wished she knew how to turn the bloody thing off, feeling distractingly randy like fifty per cent of always was fucking frustrating.) Of course, she did know she needed to, and Gabbie and Hugues were very convincing and understanding, so she hadn't told them to piss off, as much as she might have wanted to.

The three of them had ended up needing to get started on their own, because she just hadn't been at all into it at first. That had worked, obviously. Not a surprise at all, considering the noises girls make was her favourite thing ever — was the first thing that had ever legitimately turned her on, so, there's that — but it had still been, just, unspeakably awkward for a little bit there.

And it was beginning to get really fucking awkward again, now that she was fully conscious. After reassuring Hugues that, yes, she was fine, don't worry about it, then there was talking, and... Well, Hazel didn't really have much to say to these people, did she? They had virtually nothing in common. They were all Proficiency students, some years older than her, so they didn't know any of the same people or take any of the same classes. (Well, one of them was in the same level she was for Charms, she figured out listening, but not the same professor.) Hugues was, of course, up in the whole veela culture stuff, which Hazel still knew virtually nothing about, and the other two were purebloods from...Italy? She was pretty sure what mages called Genoa was just northern Italy, but who knows, the borders and names on the magical side were ridiculous. (She had literally taken a class on this stuff last year, but the Mediterranean from Italy eastward was particularly confusing.) But, anyway, point was, she knew comparatively little about veela and even less about Italian purebloods, so there was nothing to talk about there.

Even listening to them, she hardly knew what they were talking about. There was gossip about people she didn't know, stuff about classes she wasn't taking, she was pretty sure that was a music group she'd never even heard of before, and on, and on, and on. Hazel just lay there, half on top of Hugues and half on top of Genoese girl, really only half-listening, and just feeling...

...uncomfortable.

It was probably the...having too much energy thing. She did feel kinda weirdly squirmy, sure, but she was also starting to have trouble sitting still. Sitting here listening to these three talk about shite she knew nothing and didn't care about was, just, boring and uncomfortable, and she wanted to do something, muscles twitching and magic sparking. But, well, if she wanted to do things, she'd probably have to kick them out of her room, and that just seemed like a bitch move, honestly.

And she didn't want to be a bitch, because, she might have nothing to say to them, but they had helped her, and they really hadn't needed to, and she was... She just, she had nothing to say to them. They weren't friends, she didn't find them particularly interesting so far, not enough to be motivated to try changing that not being friends thing, and she just...

She didn't want to be here anymore.

Her inability to sit completely still, idly shifting around, was apparently distracting. But Hugues starting to stiffen against her hip actually had Hazel popping up to her feet, sudden enough to get shouts of surprise from her bedmates, the blanket flinging to the ground again. Feeling unaccountably uncomfortable and...squirmy, Hazel shuffled through the pile of clothes on the floor — not entirely her own shite now — looking for a slip she'd modified to come through lilin stuff with her. 'Sorry, I just can't lie in bed doing nothing anymore. I'm gonna go fly for a bit.'

'Oh, sure,' Hugues said, with the easy understanding that came from actually having known veela (and lilin) all his life.

'Did you, er, want us to leave?' That was Genoese bloke — Hazel still hadn't caught either of their names, but it wasn't like she'd probably ever see them again anyway, whatever.

Pulling the first suitable dress she'd found over her head, Hazel shrugged. 'You can stay if you want. I'm wired, I probably won't be sleeping tonight.' She might need a nap early in the afternoon, but she had a hole in her schedule, it'd be fine.

Before anyone could say anything to keep her on the ground, Hazel pushed through the blackout curtain her dorm room had instead of a door, crossed the outside hall at a run, and leapt between the pillars into open air. She didn't even fall for a second before shadows and fire rushed over her, and the wind caught at her wings, halting her descent before it'd hardly had a chance to get going properly. By muscle and magic, Hazel pushed herself up in a shallow spiral, the valley slowly spinning below her, hundreds of soft lights in all colours of the rainbow glinting in the night.

She was up for less than a minute before there was an odd pressure at the back of her head, slamming down quicker and harder than usual — Mum was back, with a shivering urgency out of nowhere. What's happening? Are you okay?

What? She meant, yeah, she was fine. Why wouldn't she be?

I just felt you suddenly leave the tower and... Are you sure you're okay?

Of course she was sure.

I am touching your bloody mind, Hazel. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but I can tell when you're lying.

Oh. Well.

Drifting directionless over the valley, Hazel sank into an uncertain silence. (Well, her conversations with Mum were always silent, but.) Because, wanting to get out of there hadn't just been having too much energy and not being able to sit still anymore — that had been part of it, yes, but not all of it. She'd just felt...strangely uncomfortable. All uneasy and squirmy, and... She didn't know, really. She hadn't liked it. She'd needed to get away from them, and flying around seemed like as good a way to do it as any. She did like flying.

But that didn't mean she wasn't okay now. It was just a thing.

Hazel...

Hey, watch this. She tipped and fell into a dive, wind roaring in her ears and picking at her feathers. The ground rushed up at her, fast enough she could feel Mum tense at the back of her head, a twitch of her tail corrected her angle of attack slightly, and she plummeted into the narrow gap over an alley between two apartment blocks, she threw open her wings at the last second, the sudden pressure enough of a strain she groaned, the thwump hard enough in the semi-enclosed space the air around her seemed to shiver, like with the booming of a drum, and the buildings were night-muffled yet still colourful smears to her left and right, occasional balconies passing within centimetres of her wingtips—

And she was out in the open air again, her momentum finally starting to bleed away as she slowly twisted up toward the clouds. That was great, if she were human-shaped right now she'd probably be giggling.

I really wish you wouldn't do that, Hazel. You're going to give me a heart attack one of these days.

It was fun though! Fwoosh!

Mum didn't articulate an answer, just sat back there feeling exasperated.

For a little bit, anyway — she let a few minutes pass in peaceful silence before saying, Your attempts to avoid subjects you're uncomfortable with haven't gotten any less transparent.

Hazel mentally pouted. (Because she couldn't physically, beaks weren't really meant for pouting.) Mum had gone silent long enough she'd started getting pretty high again, the wind sharp and icy around her, a slowly increasing tingle of magic — the wards stretched far over the valley, but she wasn't supposed to cross them, because muggles. It was after sunset, so it probably didn't matter — being mostly black and purple, lilin blended into the night sky very well, veela were far more conspicuous — but getting in trouble for risking discovery sounded like a pain. So she relaxed her upward climb a bit, letting herself start drifting down in a slow, shallow spiral.

But anyway, the thing Mum was talking about. Yes, fine, she'd been avoiding the subject, which was partially because it was just uncomfortable. But, also just kind of confusing, and she didn't know what was going on, and really wouldn't know what to say about it anyway.

You're allowed to feel lonely, Hazel.

What? That's silly — Hazel was hardly alone. She meant, she had the Tonkses, and, hell, she had more friends now than she'd had at any point in her entire life. It wasn't very many, true. What, back at Hogwarts there were Tracey and Daphne and Hermione, and now Cvétka and Dragí, and Gabbie should maybe count, and kind of maybe Arte now she guessed — talking to her was still difficult, but they did spend a lot of time together these days — so she could literally count them on her—

You skipped Blaise and Evi.

Blaise was an arse, and Evi just kind of creeped her out. She meant, Evi was fine. She sort of reminded her of Sev, though rather less cruel in the targets she chose for her snarking — and she was very pretty, not that it was always obvious, with the way she had to cover up to avoid horrible death by sunlight. But, she didn't know, just being around her was...

There's not really anything she can do about that. Some people who are especially sensitive to magic just find vampires unsettling.

Yeah, Hazel got that it wasn't her fault, but it was what it was. But anyway! That couldn't be the weird squirmy thing, loneliness, because she'd never been less alone in her entire life. That made no sense.

There's more than one way to be lonely, Hazel. It's not all cupboards under stairs.

Well, no. Okay. Mum meant, feelings-like, a closeness-to-people-belonging thing.

You always have the silliest ways of putting things.

Thanks, she tried. Actually, that was a lie — she didn't try at all, she was just naturally like this. But anyway, that was also kind of silly, because when had Hazel ever wanted squishy closeness-to-people-belonging stuff? Honestly, she hardly knew what the fuck to do with the relationships she did have, making them even squishier would just make them more awkward than they were already.

Unless Mum was suggesting she needed friends she could actually have sex with. Because, at the moment, those two groups — the people she shagged (because she needed to for weird lilin reasons) and the people she actually liked were two entirely separate groups with no overlap. She realised that was...sort of weird? She didn't understand squishy feelings stuff, really, but fine, she wouldn't be surprised if there was something...unhealthy, she guessed was the word, going on under the surface with that. It probably wasn't ideal, emotionally speaking. Not really her fault, though, most of her friends were around her own age, because that's how these things usually worked, and that was still young for humans to be screwing around...

You could try finding people you actually like.

Was Mum suggesting, like, dating?

Sure, you could try having an actual boyfriend, and see how that goes.

You know, Hazel suspected she might actually be kind of gay.

...Hazel, you were just in bed with two blokes not an hour ago. Your first time was with one.

Well, yeah, but it was complicated, see. She didn't think sexual orientation worked the same way with lilin and veela as it did with other people. Since they need it, and everything, and how their mind magic, just, side-steps people's preferences entirely. One of Léandre's friends said something about that last year, remember, how it can be kind of confusing for humans sometimes because, under the right circumstances, sexy lilin/veela magic makes them sexy to everyone no matter what their natural orientation might be, so it's pretty constant to get this odd drama going on here at Beauxbatons where people get really confused about their own sexuality because lilin and veela being magically sexy messing with ordinary teenager stuff.

That was a long and unnecessarily confusing way to put it, but yes, I remember.

Well, Hazel thought it might make more sense, when talking about this stuff from a lilin perspective, to completely separate sexy things from squishy things. She meant, lilin magic being what it was she needed to shag people to survive (not really, but it was the easiest way to do it), and because sexy magic being accomodating it didn't really make much difference which sex she got it from — sexy lilin magic being sexy would take care of any underlying incompatabilities, not just for whoever she was with but for herself too. (At least, it made sense to her that she was affected by her own sexy magic being sexy, it certainly felt like it worked that way.) So, it wasn't a matter of sexual orientation, but more like... Well, Mum might have noticed that, except for Dragí, her list of friends she'd come up with a minute ago was all girls. It could be a coincidence, she guessed, but if she were going to try to do the dating thing — you know, a more squishy-type relationship where she was actually doing stuff with and having, like, feelings for the person she was shagging — she'd probably try a girl first. She'd have no idea how to go about that sort of thing, romance and what-not, but it seemed sort of reasonable, right?

Oh, and, there might actually be an underlying sexual orientation thing too, when you think about it. She meant, she did tend to find girls pretty more than blokes — there was the occasional exception, yes, but she couldn't deny she noticed girls way more often. Also, the noises they made continued to be, just, it was her favourite thing, like ever. It was possible that she was actually just gay, or at least leaned that way, and sexy lilin magic being sexy made up the difference. If that made sense.

It does, I guess. I suppose it just didn't occur to me that there might be a difference between...well, to use your terms, sexy stuff and squishy stuff. If I'm being honest, I never really understood the squishy stuff — dating and romance and love and what have you. I thought they were just words people used because that's how relationships were to be talked about. It wasn't until I was some years older than you are now that I came to understand people really did feel those things, the words were intended to describe an experience people truly had. I don't think I ever did.

...Mum literally got married to her magic high school sweetheart straight after graduation.

Well, yes, but... You know what, I might as well come out and be perfectly honest about these things. It's not like you're shy about anything, and you hardly have any secrets from me. I guess it's only fair I return the favour.

Hazel was starting to get low again, the highest buildings passing only a couple metres under her wings. So she pulled away from their conversation long enough to come to a landing, perched near the tip of a spire of Flamel's concert hall — it was probably better that she wasn't trying to fly while talking to Mum anyway. But, yeah, keeping secrets from Hazel was already a lost cause. She'd even learned about Mum and Narcissa bloody Malfoy over two years ago now.

You're never letting go of that one, are you?

Nope. Too funny.

Of course. Anyway, no, if I'm being honest, it never clicked for me. The difference between friendship and romance, I mean. My good friends — not just, you know, casual acquaintances, but people I actually liked and spent time with — there would always come a time when I...started to be attracted to them. And I was never really thinking about, you know, making our relationship something it wasn't already, there was nothing romantic about my feelings, really. I just... I didn't understand why most other people's conception of friendship excluded sex. And I still don't, not really. I know it's not how others think about these things, but it's just that — something I know, like a distant fact I read in a book somewhere, it doesn't really click to me.

I don't think I've ever had a friend, once I was old enough, who I didn't consider sleeping with at some point. There were a few it didn't work out with — because they weren't open to it or it ended up being awkward or I just never brought it up — but I would always think about it. It's just part of what good friendships are to me, I think. And I still don't really understand the difference between a close friendship and a romantic relationship, really, never felt it myself.

So, wait, all of her friends? Even Sev?

Mum didn't answer quickly enough.

Ah ha ha, damn, Mum totally shagged Sev, didn't she.

There was an odd, shifty feeling from the back of her mind, Mum mentally sighing. Only once. We agreed it was weird and uncomfortable, and never did it again.

She was touching her bloody mind, Mum. They didn't have to talk about it if she didn't want to, but Hazel could tell when she was lying.

You're a pain, you know that.

Yes. Yes, she did.

As long as you're aware. And I'm not lying, not really. It was weird, but it was far more uncomfortable for Sev than it was for me. We were...sort of dating at the time, it's complicated, and it was unspeakably awkward, because we were fifteen and had no idea what we were doing. We did end up sleeping together, once, and Sev was feeling all weird about it afterward, and after a few days had the revelation that it felt weird because it felt like incest — that I was far too close to being a sister to him for comfort. He was so relieved when I said that was fine, it was sort of hilarious, actually.

Erm...

He was worried I'd be angry at him for "breaking up" with me, I think.

Oh. Right, that made sense. Well, it didn't entirely make sense, because Hazel still didn't really understand the incest thing — especially since it wasn't like Mum and Sev had actually been related — but still, yeah, she got it. Filled in a lot of holes from what Hazel had heard about Mum's time at Hogwarts, actually.

Yeah, Jamie and Sirius hated Sev, that whole business was part of why.

And Sirius?

There was another long, silent sigh. Yes, Sirius too. At least, before things really got going with your– er, Jamie, anyway — eventually, Sirius started feeling a little bit weird about shagging his best mate's fiancée.

Mum could keep calling him her father. She knew he wasn't, not biologically, but.

Yeah, I just... Never mind.

Feel guilty. That's what Mum had just avoided saying, that she felt guilty. But that was silly, Mum hadn't done anything wrong.

I think you'll find that's a matter very much up for debate.

But anyway. People like to make it out, then and now, that I was just...a loose fucking slag, to put it bluntly, but it wasn't like that, really. It wasn't like I was running around shagging anyone and everyone. I just... I love my friends, you know? I don't really mean the same thing when I say it that other people mean when they say they love their partners, or when Jamie said he loved me — it's not quite the same thing. But that doesn't mean it wasn't real.

I lost several people I was close to in the war, and it was devastating each time. I was there when Terry was blown apart, that's Tracey's father, right in front of me, and I was, just, mad with rage — I don't know how many Death Eaters I killed that night, I wasn't counting. I kept crying at the drop of a hat for weeks after Travers murdered Marlie and her family, poor Jamie had no idea what to do with me. And I still miss them terribly, the living and the dead. It's easy not to think about it too much, with how strange and distant things can feel as I am now, but when I do...

Wow. She meant, Hazel wasn't certain she felt that much for...well, anyone, really. Maybe the Tonkses, she guessed, maybe. Just sounded...really intense.

Yeah, it definitely could be. There were reasons people thought Cassie and I were together, we could be a bit...

But that's way off topic now. The point I meant to get at, is, it seems to me you're not happy with the way things are now, and maybe you need to try something more. And, don't worry if you don't know how to do squishy things, because, what you need, what you're happy with, might not look exactly like it does for other people, or how you're told it's supposed to. It might not look the way it did for me, either. In fact, I wouldn't expect it too — I'm very weird, you see.

Mum wasn't that weird, really. Just sounded like default lilin stuff to her.

...Holy crap, you're right. I never noticed that. But, of course I wouldn't have, I had no idea I was a lilin, it never occurred to me that...

Never mind that, now. I was saying, just, do what feels right to you, and don't fret over the details too much. Though, I was thinking about this earlier, you might try meeting more vampires, or some of the fae around here. They're more powerfully magical than humans, it's possible you could survive off of one of them alone. Maybe, I don't know enough of how this works to be certain. So, if you wanted to try doing squishy things, doing it with someone who can fully support your magical needs might be a good idea.

At least, it's where I'd start — two birds with one stone, and all that.

Yeah, but... She just, the only vampire she'd ever really met was Evi, and, she didn't know...

I did say you should try meeting others.

Well, yes, but she was saying, being around Evi felt just kind of creepy, and it stood to reason other vampires probably would too.

True, good point. Fae, then. I noticed there are plenty of elves and nymphs around — which is interesting, I'd thought nymphs were dying out...

Mum meant, like, tree kin and riverfolk, right?

Those are the two most numerous races of nymphs, yes. Or, I guess, the ones humans have the most contact with.

...Was that even physically possible?

I don't see why not. They may look a little off—

Hazel thought they were pretty, but okay.

—yes, but, I was saying, they aren't too distantly related to elves, and they're more obviously sexually compatible with humans. And there are all kinds of stories about it, going way back. Stands to reason.

Yes, but, Hazel didn't know anyone of any kind of fae at all. Was she supposed to, what, just walk up to some random riverfolk girl and ask her out? They were very pretty, yes, she wasn't saying she was entirely against the idea, but that just seemed...weird.

Well, no, you'd get to know each other as friends first.

And Mum was aware Hazel was terrible at making friends too.

It was just a thought I've been having recently, Hazel. I'm not saying this is, like, an immediate solution you can do right now. Just something you should maybe think about in the long term. If that makes sense.

Right. Er. She'd try to do that. Maybe. She'd think about it, at least. She still thought the suggestion she was feeling weird about the shagging practical strangers thing because she was lonely was maybe not entirely on, but, sure, she'd think about it.

That's all I ask, Hazel.

Okay.

...

Well, there were probably still a bunch of practical strangers in her room, so...wanna go do some charms practice?

Sure, why not. I've been thinking about how elemental fire magic might interact with this lilin stuff...

---

[vowel shifts that made no bloody sense obscuring the original Latin] — The vowel shifts in the languages of France are actually pretty fascinating. A huge part of the inventory just kind of...rotated. Standard French has a couple of them, the original 'oo' sound (/u/) shifting forward to a rounded front vowel (like an 'ee' pronounced with lips rounded like an 'oo' (/y/)), and certain long 'oh' (/o/ or /ɔ/) sounds shifting up to an 'oo'. The Occitan languages in southern France had those, but then a couple more. The 'oh' to 'oo' shift is far more extensive, essentially all of them shifting except in certain stressed situations. To fill the gap, some unaccented 'ah' sounds (/a/) then shifted up to become 'oh's (/ɔ/), which means all those feminine nouns that end in -a sound like a final -o! Basically, back vowels all rotated up and forward, which I think is just neat. And yes, I realise I'm a nerd.

[She was pretty sure what mages called "Genoa" was just northern Italy] — Honestly, Hazel, Genoa borders Aquitania. You know, the country you're in right now? Come on.

So, yeah, magical Italy. Oh boy...

Expecting Italy to be united on the magical side is kind of silly. Historically, Italy was divided from the invasion of the (Greek-controlled) peninsula by the Lombards in 568 until the conclusion of Risorgimento in 1871 (or 1918, depending on who you ask). There wasn't really a single Italian national identity until the 18th century, which you might notice is after the Statute of Secrecy. On the magical side, there are still independent nations of Florence(/Tuscany), Venice, Sicily(/Naples), and Genoa (debatably on top, escaped the historical decline of the Republic due to the timing of the Statute). Of course, it is more complicated than that, since they're all in a sort of supranational alliance thing, referred to as Italy despite also including a few bordering non-Italian states for maximum confusion, and they're all in separate alliances with other magical states elsewhere in Europe. Florence thinks they're all crazy and just wants to be left the fuck alone, the ancient feud between Venice and Genoa never really stopped and both of them totally want to be the next Rome and unite the peninsula under them (though they both deny it), and neither of them are happy about Florence's alliance with Austria or Sicily's with Aquitania, Sicily thinks (semi-accurately) the other three are all run by evil fascists and they all think (accurately) Sicilians are dirty commies...

It's a mess. You think modern European politics are confusing, try skipping back to a time before the unifications of Italy and Germany, then add in fucking magic, see how absurdly complicated shit gets. And even some big names like France and Spain were really multiple nations unified by allegiance to a single king, and when the mages decided they didn't have to care about the king anymore... Yeah. Yeah, it's bad.

Yes, I realise I think about this shit way too hard.

---

Holy shit, finally done. Not entirely happy with it, but this is still the awkward squishy middle part of the fic (which is almost over, thankfully), so I doubt I'd ever be happy with whatever I came up with. (Beginnings and endings are fine, I hate middles.) I actually cut shit out, believe it or not, this chapter was almost significantly longer than it ended up being. I have serious difficulty predicting how long a particular scene will take, it's a thing.

Anyway, still doing my alternation with Echoes — finally getting off Dantooine, god damn. After that, probably one more third-year chapter, and transitioning into the Tournament plot, starting the countdown for the finale. Woo.

Right, shutting up now.