Lelouch was returning to the common room after an afternoon studying at the Room of Requirement. As he opened the door, he was welcomed with an expected scene.
Daphne, Tracey, and Millicent were sitting in a corner of the room. Among them, laughing and waving his hands as he explained something, was Blaise Zabini, the fence-sitter who avoided both Malfoy and Lelouch at the start of the year. Lelouch frowned in displeasure. He had expected this to happen at some point, but that didn't mean he had to like it. this kind of dissimulate behavior reminded Lelouch too much of his times in the Britnnian court.
Daphne noticed his approach, stopped smiling and narrowed her eyes at him. Lelouch clicked his tongue. She was welcoming Zabini in their group with open arms, probably thinking of him as a piece she could use to learn more about Lelouch, a mean to an end.
Zabini noticed Lelouch's approach and held his hand in front of him for Lelouch to shake it, his smile failed to reach his eyes and looked somewhat disturbing.
"Greetings, I am Blaise Zabini, it is an honor to meet the scion of the Black family."
His eyes shined with intelligence, though. Lelouch snorted internally. He might be crafty, but did he understood that he was already being used by Daphne?
Lelouch answered with the plastic smile he was so good at. "Julius Black, heir to the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black," he said. Lelouch sat among them and they started to chat among banal things.
On another corner of the room, Malfoy was frowning. Every ten seconds he turned to glare at Lelouch in anger, he was probably still planing something.
Malfoy had no use anymore to him. It would be better if Lelouch didn't have to deal with any more revenge attempts from him. Maybe he could direct the boy to his sister? or to the Potter boy? Lelouch heard they already had multiple disagreements.
Lelouch turned to stare at Blaise. His behavior was very artificial. Lelouch decided he would keep him at arm's length.
...
It was the day of the quidditch game. Gryffindor versus Slytherin. The stadium was filled to the brink with people.
Ophelia stood beside Ron on the boxes, searching for Harry among the players flying in the air. Karin was also beside her, but she wasn't looking at the players. she was instead staring at the other side of the field, searching for something or someone among the Slytherin crowd.
Ophelia frowned, looking at her with the corner of her eyes.
Karin had something of a sensation after she killed the troll at that Halloween night. The fact was soon known by the entire student body. A first-year troll slayer was definitely something Gryffindor could be proud of, the hundred points she got were just a bonus. Flitwick even showed interest in training her, he was well known for having won multiple dueling championships.
She was a weird girl, though. Ophelia had the impression Karin became their friend more out of duty than anything else. There was always this invisible wall around her as if she was incapable of relating to her housemates.
From what she heard from Ron, she was the family's little genius, learning to talk and read before anyone else. She would be the Weasleys dearest daughter if she wasn't so distant from the rest of the family. Karin was cordial with the whole family, but she was only genuine among her twin older brothers.
Without noticing, Ophelia's mind turned to her older brother.
She frowned. She had always felt this same feeling of detachment coming from Julius. It was as if he was living in another time and place, some wonderland she just couldn't see, and it weighed on him. There was a deepness in his eyes she never managed to understand.
Ophelia only found out about his struggle with the troll during the morning of the next day. Minerva had asked to meet her in her office and described the events that happened in the previous night. Ophelia's heart tightened at the time, but she still managed to keep a straight face, burying her feelings away.
She decided to check on her brother that afternoon. Ron and Harry made a scowl when she mentioned it. Karin offered to go with her.
Her brother was laying at the bed. His face, deathly pale, and he was shuddering, clearly delusional, talking to himself with a strange accent she had never heard before.
Julius looked so...normal like this. Where was that...creature that was impersonating him last months?
She shook her head in confusion and looked at the girl behind her. She had only noticed now, but Karin was staring fixed on her brother. Her gaze was steady and grim, there was some kind on inexorable determination there that Ophelia didn't understand.
She looked at her brother again calmly watched his expression.
Maybe she was right, she never knew her brother. She remembered his mocking expression that day at the dinner and clenched her fists. It was as if a hidden facet of him had just suddenly sprung up out of nowhere after being kept in check for years, a facet of him she never knew. Was the Julius she knew a lie?
No, she was certain she had seen the real him once...
"Lulu...who is she?" Ophelia asked, in a whisper. Her eyes held a touch of reluctance as she stared at the girl's portrait that he had painted. Deep purple eyes, like her brother's, a serene and accepting smile on her face.
Her brother stared at nothing for some seconds, his eyes empty and soulless. "Don't touch it," he said.
The portrait... She needed to know who was the girl in that portrait. It probably had the answers she needed.
Harry and Ron insisted that he was probably just like her father, a bloodline supremacist that would probably be loyal to Voldemort had him been born thirty years back. Were they right?
At that moment, Ron shouted "Go harry! get that damned snitch!"
Ron was excitedly watching the game. She turned to look at Karin again and followed her line of sight. Far away, on the other side of the stadium, among the Slytherins, Ophelia saw Draco Malfoy waving a flag with his two friends beside him.
He was a ponce and have been bothering them since the start of the year. Ophelia turned to look at Karin again and there was a slight smile on her face.
No way...
She shook her head and stopped that line of thought.
Before her mind could wander anymore, she heard a great commotion at the stadium. Everyone's gaze was up looking at something. There, in the sky, Harry's broom was going crazy, shaking like a leaf on the wind.
"What is happening with Harry?" Ron turned to look at her with alarm in his expression. She took the binoculars from his hands and turned them to Harry while following his movements, she noticed Snape with the corner of her eyes, mouthing something while staring fixedly at Harry's. She was about to comment on that when Harry fell.
Everyone raised from their seats in surprise. For some reason, the protective charms that kept the players from crashing into the ground like a pancake were failing and harry was falling like a rock.
Seconds before he cracked his skull on the ground, his body suddenly stopped in the midair. Everyone turned to stare at Dumbledore, who had risen from his seat and was pointing his wand at Harry. He was frowning with a worried expression.
...
The next morning, Kallen was thinking about Lelouch's words. According to him, there were powers moving at the shadows he that he couldn't contend with yet. She was sure he didn't share with her all his worries, though. He was always hiding things.
The scare Harry gave them all in the previous day brought her mind back to that conversation they had. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to be careful around Dumbledore and the other teachers.
Ophelia and Ron, for some reason, were convinced it was Snape who hexed Harry's broom during the last game. Harry agreed with them and after talking among themselves, they concluded Snape was trying to enter the forbidden corridor on the third floor to steal the object that was kept there. Karin snorted but decided to let them live their little fantasy. Snape would be a bad spy and a terrible infiltrator, he was completely incapable of keeping his scorn for Harry from showing in his face.
At that moment, the owls entered the great hall and started distributing mail. An old and battered owl arrived with a letter and dropped it in front of Kallen. She frowned and opened it.
Suddenly the letter unfolded and revealed itself to be a holler.
"Karin Weasley! What is this about you fighting a troll that I heard about?"
Kallen groaned. She could hear the snickers from her housemates around her.
"Do you have any idea about how much danger you were in? It is an XXXX beast! for Merlin's sake! What did you have on your head when you decided to do..."
Before it could drone on any more, Karin scowled and pointed her wand at the holler. "Incendio" she whispered. The letterburned into cinders and slowly drifted away to the ground. The entire hall was staring at her in bewilderment. Ron was snickering at her and whispering something on Harry's ear. Ophelia was trying to hide a grin.
Kallen sighed. Her relationship with Molly was confusing at the best of times. In her previous life, she was the one who had to take care of her mother after her father remarried and her brother died. Kallen never got used to being mothered the way Molly does. It restricted her and sometimes felt like a chain she just couldn't get off from.
Her father was way more easygoing.
They finished breakfast and went to the DADA class.
...
Kallen was bored out of her mind. Quirrell was almost another Bin, he could turn an exciting class like DADA into a very unpleasant experience. She glanced at Lelouch on the other side of the hall and gritted her teeth in anger when she saw him talking with Zabini.
The boy's mother was legendary in the wizarding community. She was widowed seven times, and every one of her husbands died in suspicious circumstances. She was a true black widow. This Blaise Zabini was probably cut from the same cloth as her. Kallen had to inform Lelouch about it. She would have to keep an eye on the boy and to keep him as far away from Lelouch as possible. It would be better to just erase his existence, but alas, this wasn't Japan, nor she was a terrorist anymore.
She turned to stare at Daphne with curiosity. She wasn't sitting at Lelouch's side anymore. Tracey was sitting between them for some reason and Daphne glanced at Lelouch from time to time as if trying to solve a puzzle.
Kallen wasn't paying attention to the class until the teacher called Lelouch's new name. It was strange because Quirrell didn't stutter at all when he called him.
"So, Mister Black," he said, curving his mouth upwards. "Can you tell the class what is the difference of a Jinx, a Hex and a Curse."
Lelouch nodded and answered calmly while looking at the teacher. "Of course professor. A jinx is a type of magic that..."
They were staring at each other in a way that disturbed Kallen. Somehow it reminded her of those standoffs you see in movies, with each opponent anxiously waiting for the other to move.
Suddenly, Lelouch groaned and closed his eyes. When he raised his head, he was glaring and scowling angrily at Quirrell.
Quirrell fell kneeling on the ground, with blood dripping from his nose. Kallen thought she saw him mouthing the word "Bitch." under his breath.
Lelouch rose from his seat under the stupefied eyes of the other students left the classroom in a gait. There was an ugly expression on his face, one that promised revenge.
Quirrell struggled from the floor and laughed away the entire situation. "I-I s-seem to have fo-forgotten to ta-take my pills t-this morning." He said with an embarrassed chuckle.
The entire thing felt like a prelude to something.
