Reading Group
Victor Krum, seventh year student of normal height and weight and seeking talent, (he couldn't help it if no one else flew with confidence or couldn't catch anything that wobbled a little bit, and he did practice, a lot, that was true), and now he was the Durmstrang champion, (like he needed any more fame, that was next to useless if you couldn't win. If he could win it might let him finally retire his mother's medical debts, or most of them, that would be nice.) Either way, win or lose, he'd signed up for to be part of the tournament expedition for two reasons, the international networking opportunity that was outside the normal Quidditch circuit, and the chance to scour the library of whichever school the tournament ended up at, he'd been absolutely ecstatic when Hogwarts (School of Witchcraft and Wizardry) turned out to be the library in question.
Walking into the library now and feeling the eyes of everyone follow him and a few seeming to work up the nerve to try to talk to him, he was less enthused. Durmstrang had duelling clubs that garnered only slightly less rabid fans than Hogwarts seemed to produce for something so useless as Quidditch. And those duelling clubs regularly sent teams to competitions where they were just as regularly trounced by similar clubs from Beauxbatons. If the stories they brought back were to be believed, those people were crazy. More likely people were jealous of the results without looking into exactly how Beauxbatons honed such skill.
Victor's mother and grandmother had taught him you don't get to pick and choose what you're jealous of, if you choose to be jealous of a concert violinist, you must also choose to be jealous of the tens of thousands of hours they put into their practice. Victor liked the violin well enough, but not enough to spend hours a day at it, as he did for Quidditch.
But he wanted to do something useful for society, he wanted to make the world a better place, he wanted to see his name on something more important than racing broom posters.
.
He surveyed the library, as usual the students from all the schools were scattered and mixed among each other, showing some residual cliques but mostly integrating as far as shared interest and shared languages would permit, but even while mixing with the other schools, the Hogwarts students remained segregated by tie colour.
He couldn't help think that had to be the result of a powerful curse somewhere. The Brown Institute students segregated somewhat by robe colour when practising, but not when sitting in the library revising or sitting in the eating hall. But that made sense, their robe colours indicated what classes they were pursuing.
He looked around again. There was one group that broke that tradition, one group that didn't seem to be stealing glances at him, and didn't seem to be segregated by tie colour. Did that mean they each had enough power to negate the effects of the curse? They had only integrated with two of the four visiting schools so far, perhaps they wouldn't mind if he added the fourth school to their group total. As he stepped closer his heart sank a little when he recognised the brown robed drakkin from Brown Institute. If they'd already chosen which champion they were rooting for they might not give him the time of day. One of them looked up, "Hello, Mr. Krum," she said, "can we help you find something?" She was familiar, the cute little urchin from the selection ceremony who'd run out as soon as her lord and master permitted her to go. OK, she wasn't so little, there were places in the world where she'd be allowed to marry, just not where he was from, plenty old enough to be trying to flirt with him though. Unfortunately.
"I'm not sure," said Krum, "Where should I aim if I'm looking for something on advanced creature defence."
"Well I can show you how to use the catalogue," she said, "but Tom and Dietrich have already pulled most of those books off the shelf, do you want to just sit with them and help go through their selections too."
Victor looked in the indicated direction, there were not one but two champions sitting at their pushed together group of tables. And they weren't glaring at each other with hostility, they were to all appearances pouring through a shared stack of books. Tom looked up and waved, with a wry smile and an inviting wave at their stack of tomes.
"That sounds like a good place to start," said Victor, "But perhaps you should teach me this other thing you were talking about first?"
"Sure," she said and led the way to what appeared to be an ornate shrunken chest of drawers. What people with more money than sense might keep dry potions ingredients in.
It turned out to be something quite different.
It was based on the facts: 1) the roman alphabet has a standardised ordering, 2) it is easier and faster to move to the correct place in the alphabet than the correct place in the library. 3) it is simple to create many duplicate cards that all represent a single book, and place it in the catalogue multiple times depending on what piece of information about the book you're looking for, Title, Author, Topic and Year Published were what he understood immediately, she mentioned some other ways and reasons a book's card would be in other parts of the catalogue or in the catalogue additional times. The point of it all was to quickly find out that the book you're looking for exists and that it's in the library, and that which shelf to look for it in.
"This is ingenious," he said, "Who invented it?"
She leaned forward, and whispered, "Muggles invented it, about 1789, during the French Revolution," she whispered, "they use it in all their government libraries. We think that in Magical Britain, only Hogwarts and Department of Mysteries have catalogues. (Of course, the Department of Mysteries probably catalogues things much more interesting than books.) The four of us started building this one for our library about four years ago." She waved her hands vaguely at several people at the table she'd just left, not actually that helpful, but the names she gave, "Padma Patil, Hermione Granger, hmm Daphne Greengrass isn't here today." He'd heard of the Davis-Greengrass empire, she might have something to talk about other that Quidditch. But no, today was for research. And now that he knew how to use the catalogue, he probably wouldn't need much help for a while, … and if he did … and they always studied at the nearest table to be on hand to help. What an eminently sensible and selfless way to run things. He approved.
"Thank you very much," he said.
"You're welcome," she said, "Now I suppose you're going to go hang out with the champions and leave the rest of us be?"
That was either a veiled invitation to leave or a wry acknowledgement of her expectation that students would segregate by age, except that obviously that hadn't happened in their clique. If their group did not segregate by age or tie colour and they already had two champions reading … in proximity at least, they must be very different than the rest of the students.
"And you are?" he said.
"Oh, sorry," she said, "I'm Harriet Matirni, Dietrich's little sister."
"A whole family of drakkin, and you're spread out over the whole hemisphere?" he said, "You seem to all get along, why does your family try so hard to separate you?"
She smiled, "we're not drakkin, Dietrich is just a skin walker. He discovered it is a very old family tradition."
"Oh," he said, "so can you also change your skin?"
"Sort of," said Harriet, and her hair was suddenly twice as long and blue-black, and just as suddenly the same length and colour it was before. "I'm a metamorphmagus, not nearly so useful."
"Still impressive," said Victor.
She shrugged and glanced at the book that was still closed around her finger.
That veiled hint didn't even need translating, "It was good to meet you, Thank you for the tour."
Victor went over and pulled their stack too him. It was all defence related but a lot wasn't about creatures.
"Hmm," said Victor, "I take it that all of us have gotten vague hints from our headmasters?"
"Charms Professor actually," said the dragon shifter, "Learn the conjunctivitis curse, learn how to cast the stunner as powerful as possible, and in as tight a beam as possible, I'm supposed to be able to hit a ball the size of my fist. I didn't even know the stunner, I found it in the book, but …"
"Aren't you a seventh year?"
"No, second year," said Dietrich, "got control of my magic last year on boxing day."
"Then why did you enter?"
"My headmaster claimed certainty I could win and ordered me to put my name it," shrugged Dietrich, "but I later found out he told the same thing to all the students who were the correct age, so I didn't really worry about it, I figured the cup was supposed to sort out the weak participants."
"How much magic were you wearing when you put your name in?"
Dietrich looked at him, blinked, and his eyes widened and kept widening, "Oops, I'm … dead aren't I."
Victor shrugged, "If you transform, and crouch, can anything hurt you?"
Dietrich grinned, "Not much, I guess I'll survive the tasks, I'm more concerned with several of my professors taking issue if I don't put forth a much better showing than that… Or my what my parents or uncles will do to me if I get expelled for something so trivial as a school contest."
"Do they even realise what kind of contest it is?"
"No, not really."
"Alright," said Victor, "How about you Tom. Did you get different hints how to prepare than that?"
"Yes," said Tom, "One said that my familiar could handle the task alone, if only it were smart enough or allowed to compete in my place. Another said that I'll probably die if I don't prepare, probably even if I do, so that's encouraging."
"That isn't quite the least encouraging thing I can imagine one of our professors saying. Who would say that?"
"Senior Transfiguration," said Tom, "he used to hate me, I think now he just hopes I'll die. Or maybe … it's reverse psychology because he knows how scared I used to be of dying."
"Or maybe he's just mocking you," said Harriet, "if it drives you to prepare that's additional glory for the school, if it helps you overcome your fear of death, then so much the better.
"I'm shocked, shocked, to hear that you're afraid of death," said Padma.
Tom glanced at her, "Did you just mock me?"
Padma shrugged, "Professor Dumbledore started it."
"True," said Tom, "somehow my estimation of his right to mock me is very different from my estimation of your right."
Padma smirked, but everyone could tell she was somewhat frightened.
"No one has the right not to be mocked," said Dietrich, "Only not to be slandered, Or am I confused about how these words are used these days?"
"Hmm," said Tom, "Perhaps I meant something more like, 'I find I interpret mocking from the ex-headmaster, different than I interpret mocking from … Padma."
"If anyone littler than you ought to get a free pass, for mocking you, specifically in regards to your existence or death, I think it should be Parvati and I."
Tom continued to stare at her for several more seconds, then said, "So it was an overture of friendship?"
"I'd have thought we were past mere overtures," said Padma, "What with the projects we worked on the summer before last."
Tom nodded, "That was alliance, and could be interpreted as only through Draco. This is different, I believe."
Padma nodded, "Perhaps it is."
Tom nodded and looked around, "I apologise for wasting everyone else's time, but that seemed important to clear up quickly."
"We understand," said the … boy part-veela at almost the same time as Harriet.
Tom looked around, His eyes fell on Victor, "What was your hint?"
"A very very dangerous creature," said Victor, "so probably in the British system, four X's or above."
They glanced back and forth amongst themselves, "Four X or above," said Tom, "And creature not creatures?"
Victor nodded.
"Some of the four X creatures are only dangerous because they swarm," said Tom, "but a single creature that still could kill us if we don't prepare and remain alert… task so simple that a bird can accomplish it, but so dangerous that perhaps only a magma petrel would survive the attempt," Tom turned his attention to Dietrich, "Conjunctivitis curse, and very powerful stunner into the volume of a fist… Merlin," said Tom, "We're fighting a dragon."
They looked at him. So did everyone else within ear shot. So that was going to be all over the school soon. There might or might not be benefit to seeing how the other two champions responded to the news. There was a chance that it was something else that fit the requirements, most of which were somewhat vague. "We're all going to die," said Tom.
"You may die if you like," said Victor, "I have to take the prize money home to my mother."
"Fighting a dragon is not a task for children," said Dietrich.
"Check the rules," said Tom, "We're not children. And Lord Potter was emancipated."
"Yes, but…" said Dietrich.
They looked at each other and seemed to be reassessing each other, and all the tasks they'd have to accomplish, not just this one.
"Moving on," said Dietrich, "Are we all fighting one dragon, or each fighting one dragon."
"What are you thinking?"
"Two different things, First five of us teaming up on one dragon actually sounds doable, and just the sort of object lesson they'd want us to teach all the spectating students. We need a plan that not only maximises our effectiveness and chances of survival but also which proves we are a team and trying to work together, not simply one of us seizing the moment and completing the task while the others keep the dragon distracted."
"What you're saying," said Victor, "Even if we work together, If we look like a free for all they'll score us at how effective we 'took advantage of the chaos on the field' But if we look like a relay race they'll get to make the kind of speeches they want to make to all the students. And since 'community and cooperation' is exactly what they said the 'competition' is supposed to be about."
"Right," said Dietrich, "And the second thing, can a magma petrel fight a dragon, or merely survive indefinitely while under attack, to accomplish some inane goal that somehow must be done in the presence of a dragon?"
"So it might not be, 'fight a dragon' it might be 'get past a dragon'?"
"Are the old roman laws still in effect that grant the remains of a slain dragon to the slayer as his just reward?" said Victor.
"Roman law never extended this far north of into Scotland," said Tom, "But whether present day Britain or Scotland has adopted those laws and neglected to get rid of them I can't say."
"Shall I write Lord Potter's solicitors?" said Harriet.
"Who is Lord Potter to you exactly?" said Victor.
"My sponsor," said Harriet.
"Also our cousin," said Dietrich.
"You mean he didn't sponsor all of you?"
"No," said Dietrich, "That is part of why we go to different schools."
"Oh," said Victor, "I take it that your family politics are very complex?"
"Not really," said Dietrich, "we all love each other and there is hardly any politics, but the money is not evenly distributed like some muggle families, nor centralised with the Family Head like purebloods like to do, so it probably sounds complicated from the outside."
"So it is not the dangerously blatant favouritism that it sounds like?" said Victor.
"No," said Dietrich, "It is only which relative had money liquid when Harriet started, vs. when the rest of us started." Dietrich's smile was oddly predatory. Victor wondered if he'd needed to blackmail someone into sponsoring him. Which was obviously not something to discuss somewhere so full of listening ears as a library.
"Ah, OK," said Victor. On the other hand the whole wealth vs. liquid wealth concept victor understood far too well. And if the others were weak enough to only start last year… How much power did he actually have, a dragon skin and courage to face adult sized dangers not withstanding.
"Yes, write your sponsor's solicitor," said Tom, "Some of us want the money more than the fame, if we can all cash in on dragon remnants, rather than on fighting tooth and nail for the final prize, … well it might just be a lot more profitable than we were hoping for, we need to know soonest whether to prioritise for the reward money for killing it, or against point penalties for damaging it. Also who owns the dragon or dragons in question? … Merlin! There is a dragon for each of us, otherwise one of us could take it down and negate all meaning of the task for the rest."
"And they will all be different, to … keep the audience entertained," said Victor. Which meant their preparations needed to be broad enough to encompass all probabilities, or at least all those common enough to be within the price range of five schools or their governments (which were effective enough to span most of the hemisphere. Which meant they could afford anything, but precisely because they had a habit of not affording anything that wasn't cost effective.)
"They might not be smart enough to cancel the old laws," said Victor, "But there will definitely be points taken off for damaging them permanently."
"Ah, but points are abstract, galleons in the bank are not," said Tom, "we need to know who owns a dead dragon, and we need to verify how economically liable we are for damage done to the dragon … or by the dragon."
"There's no way we're responsible for that … is there?" said Dietrich.
"Probably not," said Tom, "But someone has got to be. If we're able and willing to begin prioritising for anything other than mere survival it would behove us to know who is responsible for picking up the pieces."
They nodded soberly.
.
"Alright," said Dietrich, "Can someone tell me about the conjunctivitis curse, or point me toward the right books?"
The girl with bushy hair answered with a concise and informative lecture which included incantation and wand gestures.
Dietrich learned it relatively quickly and didn't seem to be having any trouble following her quick and precise English. Victor wasn't having any difficulty following her either, though he already knew the spell. Instead he wracked his brain for her name, the other girl had said it when she'd been introducing those who'd helped write the catalogue. Something like, Hrmenie, yes 'thunder' to the Russian contestant's 'lightning' he wondered if they had met yet. This group did seem to network the most, or they somehow didn't need to because the more powerful just naturally gravitated to them. That didn't seem likely, they were attracted by something. Then again there was a part veela, a part keplie, and a part incubus all hanging out near each other, (and who knows what else that was too subtle for Victor to identify under the auras of those three), everyone probably came to them, and they might merely need to invite the cream to stay.
When they finished the impromptu lesson in the conjunctivitis, Victor leaned forward, "That was impressive, Hrmenie."
They both looked up and said, "Thanks," and then at each other to say, "Um what?"
"Hermione is my name," the girl.
"Hrmenie is the name of my horse," said Dietrich, "I get called that too sometimes."
"Hermione," said Victor more careful to say it her way this time, "would you attend the ball with me?"
Everyone looked up.
"Maybe," said Hermione, "could we go someplace else to discuss why you've asked?"
Victor thought a moment about propriety, then about how public all the corridors were in this castle. "Yes, that is fine."
The table and several nearby buzzed with whispers as they made their way out of the library. Krum, you could have managed that better.
.
As soon as they turned the corner into the corridor and out of line of sight from everyone in the library Hermione stopped, "What's this all about?"
"I started playing Quidditch because I loved playing it," said Victor, "But I have no interest in talking about it. And the longer that I am a star the more I hate talking about it."
She nodded.
"I will not insult either of us by suggesting that you don't know quite a bit about it, but I suspect that if we were to spend the evening together dancing or otherwise in each other's company, you will find much better things to talk about?"
She nodded, "I do know quite a bit more about Quidditch than I wish to. Did you think that I'm not going with someone else?"
Victor took a deep breath and made sure that it was not a sigh. He sniffed again, "Your quarter incubus boyfriend will be able to find someone else without half trying. … Unless that is precisely what you're afraid of."
She blinked, stared, closed her eyes, "Yes, I'll have to discuss that with him as well." She looked up with an aggrieved air.
"Now that I think about it," said Victor, "If I had an immature succubus throwing herself at me at your age, I also would enjoy if for as long as it lasted and she appeared to remain safe. Though I would make sure that I had a friend or two keeping watch and warn me off before she reached full maturity."
She looked ready to hex his face off, but gradually she calmed and looked away, "A word to the wise is sufficient," she said.
"I hope so," he said, "I often must be told twice."
She grinned and turned back to the library.
"Um," he said, "I do want to apologise though, I didn't realise that the incubus I was smelling was yours until we left the table and the smell stayed with us."
"Ah," she said, "That makes things more innocent, but not less creepy. How can you just ask like that, why not ask for a Hogsmeade weekend or something?"
"I don't know what that is."
"That would be why," she agreed, "Never mind, um ask me again in two weeks."
"Yes, Ma'am," he said. He made a mental note to do just that, also to find out what a 'Hogsmeade weekend' might be.
They returned to the library, but he kept the most ambiguous distance possible between them. Since she'd said neither yes nor no, he figured it was appropriate.
Atachment?
Harriet spimmed and found Tom already in their runes lab. "§-Greetings Cousin,-§" she hissed as she put down her books and parchments and began arranging things for another attempt to understand exactly how to hold her magic in tune with another creature's while also casting a piercing hex through it or something else similarly lethal.
"§-Likewise,-§" Tom hissed back, then continued his muttering and pacing.
After she'd been working for about twenty minutes, he sighed and sat down to take some notes.
She sighed back and decided to give up on the middle and work from another corner. Maybe when she knew the subsections well enough the whole thing would make sense.
Eventually he looked up, "What are you working on, Harriet."
"Can you make sense of it?" she said, "It makes my head hurt, I think the arithmancy involved might be a year or two ahead of where I've needed to read ahead for the bracelets we made."
His frown intensified and he circled the table to lean over her parchment. It was rather complex and she'd drawn it extra large so that she could take notes between runes.
"Where did you derive this from, it's got polarities wrong all over the place."
"So it doesn't work?" she said.
"Not as written," he said, "its at a terrible risk of backfiring in at least three places. I can't tell for sure what it was meant to do, but right here you're attempting to bind the life force instead of drawing power from its release. Here you're binding again instead of protecting against attack from the sacrifice's magic. And here's a clause for making sure that any soul you … harvest all the memories from, if that's even possible or safe, probably not if they have any occlumency at all … and then you filter those memories by … it looks like … I'm going to guess this is someone's idea of muscle memory compared to soul memory, the next clause gets the magic memories also, leaving only the soul memories behind, then the soul is released, that's fine. But somewhere over on the opposite side where there's this single … store, attach, and remember trigraph, there should be a whole group of systems to capture, duplicate, and stabilise, and even name the secondary container."
"Um, Tom?" said Harriet, "What the hell do you think this is supposed to do?"
"I can only begin to guess of the mess it would make, this whole area is trying to be about legilimency and blood status maybe," said Tom, "It might take me several months but I expect I can get you the original arithmancy and show you how to derive the whole thing properly."
"Right," she said, "Maybe I should have asked for all that too." She heaved another deep breath.
"How long have you been worrying with this?"
"Since mid summer," she said.
"Damn … just wow," he said, "I … I thought you might not be serious about going through with this. I thought you might just be looking for defences against it or trying to build a detector of some sort, such things do exist but perhaps not on this end of the continent."
She shrugged, "You know other than my Mom, my family is mostly from the other end of the continent."
"I …perhaps hadn't taken that enough into account," said Tom, "Do you think any of the rest of our group feels the same way?"
"Feels the same way about what?" said Harriet.
"Horcruxi," said Tom.
Harriet blinked, "You think this makes a horcrux. … You think I want to make a horcrux? Tom don't you know me at all?"
Tom blinked, "That is precisely what I'm trying to figure out." He glanced at the rune array again, "If it doesn't contain and process the middle ceremony of creating a horcrux, what process is it the middle ceremony of?"
"Skin walking," said Harriet.
"Like Dietrich," said Tom closing his eyes. Keeping his eyes closed his head jerked back and forth, as if reading something nonlinear. Several times one or the other shoulders hunched, or his mouth worked. "It's almost the same diagram that the dragon scratched on the floor in Gringotts."
"Where was that different?"
"He kept some of the soul memories, and used stronger language to protect his soul as it was released from his body. A couple key runes were changed to allow the dragon err, Ulrich wasn't it, to make the ritual still properly recognise which party was which based on which one died, rather than on which one did the killing."
"Hmm," said Harriet.
"And he figured it out and re-designed it in a minute or so," said Tom, "either he was terribly bright … or anyone can be a lot smarter when wearing a dragon brain."
"I think he was just terribly bright," said Harriet, "and knew this diagram inside and out. Do you have any idea how many creatures Dietrich inherited from him?"
"No, how many, … oh, that explains some of the other differences. If he had to change it to give Dietrich all his animals instead of just the … one he was wearing at the moment of his death."
"Likely," said Harriet.
"Have you been learning this from Dietrich or Ulrich?"
"Moit actually," said Harriet, "Dietrich hasn't taken any more animals since he received his inheritance from Ulrich. Moit has taken a fox and a snake, he's been threatening a bird, and a rabbit but I don't have any idea what he's accomplished since the summer."
"So Dietrich may know, and his knowledge may or may not be confused by partial memories from Ulrich."
"Yes."
"But Moit knows, at least enough that he implemented this. Did he use this exact diagram?"
"Actually he didn't use a diagram either time," said Harriet, "But might have been working on understanding this non-stop since before Christmas, whereas Dietrich and I went to school."
Tom nodded, "It's not so very large an array, but still bigger than I'd want to try from my head without drawing it out the first time."
"Yeah," said Harriet, "And Moit has the advantage that he starts them gently with accidental magic, not igniting by wand the way I do."
"Are you good at any spell that requires a precise amount of power?"
"Possibly not," said Harriet, "you already know I can keep my magic to myself when we were working on the bracelet."
Tom nodded, and drew his wand, "Out of curiosity," he transfigured a blank piece of parchment into a tambourine, "Levitate this."
"I can already tell you that it will sound like a freight train," said Harriet.
"Vibrates rather than floats?" said Tom, "And if you didn't work so hard on control it would be stuck to the ceiling?"
"Pretty much," said Harriet.
"We need to work on that," said Tom, "I used to have the same problem, but not nearly so bad or so early as you."
"Are you saying that I'm more powerful?" said Harriet, "I mean than you were at my age?"
"Maybe," said Tom, "maybe you just have a more compatible wand than I did."
"Um, can I try your wand?"
Tom blinked, "Sure, why?"
"The first time I met you, it reminded me of the first wand that worked for me," said Harriet, "I've heard of family members having better than chance compatibility with traded wands." She took his wand and turned it over in her hand. It didn't spark immediately, but Harriet had long ago theorised that the pyrotechnics display at Olivanders had to do with the amount of time before that in which magic had built up and not been put to any use.
"Usually only twins have a significant compatibility," said Tom, "And that has to do with birth month wood and ideal length being the same or nearly identical."
"Maybe," said Harriet, "there's a difference between significant probability of compatibility and significantly better than chance probability."
"What do you mean?"
"So far as I know, wands commonly come from 8 to 18 inches, made from 13 to 15 different woods, and about 10 different possible core materials."
"Sure, though 18 inches is more than a bit out of the ordinary."
"If wand length is compatible within a quarter inch of a correct match, and cores of the same species were truly interchangeable which we know that they aren't quite. That comes out to about 6000 different possible wands, which I think is close to the same order of magnitude as how much inventory Ollivander has in the front part of his shop."
"Sure."
"And further suppose only one of those is compatible, but that all those that are the same wood and core and length would be equally compatible."
"Two bad assumptions that might get you in the general range of the correct number."
"That was my intent, Now, many families save up their 'legacy wands' and let the children try them out before making the trip to Olivanders."
"True."
"And some find something adequate," said Harriet, "Though I think some just find the first one to make sparks, even though it will never work again and it only made sparks because it had been months since the child's last bout of accidental magic."
Tom closed his eyes, "You're saying that a truly compatible wand doesn't happen often enough for there to be a tradition of making the child use that wand and only that wand."
"Partly."
"But it still happens often enough that families still feel justified saving up the wands rather than throw them away or try to sell them to a single second hand wand shop somewhere."
"Precisely," said Harriet.
"I don't disagree," said Tom, "I just missed what sort of fractions you were talking about."
Harriet nodded and cast, "Wingardium Leviosa," The tambourine jumped off the table and hung shivering in the air, humming out a thrumming, "oooOOOoooOOOoooh," she released the charm and it fell back to the desk.
"Quieter and lower pitch than it would have been with my wand," she said, "but still annoying."
Tom nodded, "Which might prove that you're skillful enough to use an unmatched wand, or it might mean that my wand matches you somewhat."
"Definitely proves that your wand matches me somewhat," said Harriet, "otherwise it would be a question of whether or not I levitated it, rather than whether it still amounted to a choice between vibrating it or tossing it all the way to the ceiling."
"Ah, yes I see," said Tom, "And what have you proved?"
Harriet shrugged, "less proved, more answered our wonder: probably I'm not more powerful than you were at my age, probably my wand is better matched to me, than yours was to you. Did you kill Harry's parent's with a wand made from the ex-headmaster's Phoenix? Not this wand obviously."
Tom blinked, "I don't actually know that, but I'd be … somewhat surprised to hear I used a different one."
Harriet nodded, "I think that was what made Harry uncomfortable about the first wand Ollivander tried to sell us."
"Ah!" said Tom.
"Not to mention, what has always made him … 'alert' about the ex-headmaster's presence."
Tom nodded, and closed his eyes. A few seconds later a gangly black bird appeared in his lap with a smell of ozone and burnt salt. Tom clutched the bird to his chest, then he opened his eyes, "May I have my wand back?"
"Oh, sure," said Harriet and handed it over. He conjured something smock-like across his lap and up his chest. Harriet wasn't sure if it was for modesty or safety. Not that anything seemed in danger of burning through.
"Do you mind if I question your brother about this rune diagram and how it is supposed to work?"
"I don't mind, but … don't be overbearing, he … likes to not be impressed by adults, if you want him helpful, respect is key."
"Of course," said Tom, and he and the bird nuzzled each other more … decisively.
The conversation seemed to be over for now. Harriet looked again at the diagram, it did seem to be split into six-subsystem triangles-with-tails like Tom pointed out, not the chaotic four cornered array it had turned into when she'd copied it larger.
She re-read each system and labelled the parts she knew what they did, and annotated them with the purposes that Tom had guessed for them.
She looked up Tom hadn't moved.
"Tom," she said, "Is the PDA a new thing for you?"
"And 'PDA' means?"
"Public Display of Affection," she smirked, "a mildly judgemental term that I often … expected you mean if you ever referred to Luna or I or Harry hugging each other or any of my other siblings or cousins."
Tom looked up with a hint of betrayal.
"Now that I think about it, I don't remember you ever actually disapproving of that."
Tom nodded, "I don't remember ever disapproving."
"So was it envy?"
"Envy and comperson are such similar emotions," said Tom, "both are approval of an event, the main difference is the type of distance you notice between the thing that you approve of and yourself."
Harriet narrowed her eyes, "You didn't eat Padma's mum while I wasn't looking did you?"
"Huh?"
"Who are you and what did you do with Tom Riddle?"
"Oh," Tom smirked, "perhaps I've merely let you see through another layer of armour."
Harriet blinked.
"Perhaps we've both learned something about each other today," smirked Tom, then frowned, "No … it turned out not to be true that you wanted a horcrux. Though you're still thinking about sacrificing something to augment yourself."
"True," said Harriet, "So anyway, this," she waved at the dense and prickly bird crouched between Tom's elbow and chest, "isn't as unlikely as my mind is telling me it is."
"Certainly not," said Tom, "What did you think it would take for me to form each level of possible attachment?"
"Usefulness," said Harriet.
"Check," said Tom.
"Or status, perhaps in the other order."
Tom shrugged, "Also check."
"Person or object is completely under your control."
"Or worthy of me being completely under its control," said Tom, "and by the way, 'check' on what you said."
Harriet blinked, "seriously?"
"Yes, seriously, but my criteria is very stringent, so far I've found nothing, not even most of the gods described in literature."
Harriet blinked again, "Oh, … well alright then."
"Anyway," said Tom, "Keep guessing."
"No idea."
Tom frowned, "I'd have guessed you'd already figured out one more, or you wouldn't have sent this little guy to me."
Harriet looked at the bird, something … that should be obvious? And magma petrel related. … they weren't reputed to be all that magical… they had a passing legendary connection to phoenixes but not many features in common, except heat. One dealt with flame as purification, one with heat as part of the changeableness of metal and earth. Sometimes either one could be above melting point. They both had odd life cycles, a fire phoenix did not lay an egg but carried it to its funeral pyre. Magma Petrels … were born in earth and of earth and by magma, they didn't seem to be killable unless it was by drowning, but … there were hints that they could teleport, perhaps even drowning wouldn't work on them. The literature that Harriet could find showed them bonding to people slightly more reclusive but no less effective or influential than the equally rare phoenix. They bonded for the life of the other party, and then returned whence they came. Sometimes on foot like some sort of clockwork dirge, sometimes burrowing under the earth with a trajectory so precise that one magician who had a tracking charm on one used the apparent curve he traced on the map to verify the circumference of the earth, as well as the depth of the magma reservoir from which it had originally hatched.
"Something … even a phoenix doesn't quite possess?" said Harriet.
"OK, now you really are guessing," said Tom. He sighed, "invulnerability."
"Check," said Harriet, "though I wondered about drowning."
"He claims it's no problem," said Tom, "if he can't levitate out he can usually sink just as well, he can batter out of most containers given enough time, and even if he can't fuse out while below the correct melting point he can fuse magma in and boil the water away until it's gone, then he can fuse out, or until he's encased himself in magma hot enough that he can fuse out, or I infer until the boiling water explodes the container. Although he isn't quite smart enough to differentiate that from whoever trapped him getting annoyed with his tricks and deciding to let him go again."
"Oh."
"So invulnerability is a prerequisite to love?"
"Who said anything about love," said Tom, "I was talking about attachment."
Harriet blinked, "I'm not sure I can differentiate the two."
"Attachment is for favourite things that become part of your identity, love is meant to be for people with whom you share support based on social valuation rather than the politico/economic valuation that is foundational to alliances."
"I'm not sure I differentiate those things the same way, or that even if I did, I wouldn't explain them like that."
Tom shrugged, "OK, attachment is meant to be for parents, parents are supposed to take care of you, not be taken care of by you."
"And that —"
"He."
"And he is your first one?"
"First living one," said Tom, "first one since a certain wizard taught me that everything can be taken from me in a moment."
"Oh," said Harriet, "I'm suddenly extremely happy for you, and sorry for you, and want to apologise for not realising any of that sooner."
Tom grinned, "And the best part is that I don't care if everyone knows, because they can't hurt me through him. They can't keep us apart, except by killing me, which is … a danger that existed before he came along, and in spite of what they might wish to do to him."
"Yeah, I see," said Harriet, "Why haven't we all seen him on your shoulder everywhere, like in the dining hall?"
"He gets lonely in crowds and in rooms that big," said Tom, "He often visits me during classes."
"Where does he go the rest of the time?"
"Kitchens, the original fireplace is now more of a place for house elves to entertain meetings that require a certain ambience. They apparently can communicate with him well enough that he knows he's welcome to nest in that fire, as long as he doesn't kick anything out onto the hearth to make room for himself."
"Cute," said Harriet, "I'll have to remember to look him up when I have reasons to visit the kitchen."
Tom nodded, "I suppose it would also be an amusing message drop."
"Nice," said Harriet.
"Speaking of messages," said Tom, "Tempus." He glanced at the time and seemed to calculate something. "How long until when you came in?"
"About five minutes," said Harriet, and yawned, "Good point, I guess I should head to bed."
"You do that," said Tom, and lifted his familiar to his cheek, paused for a moment, then tossed it over his shoulder, it didn't hit the floor except as a few scattered sparks, which bounced too heavily and hissed and popped like burning iron.
"That last bit doesn't exactly look affectionate," said Harriet, "not that you care for my critique of your aesthetics."
Tom snorted, "Sure, I'm going to go through the bother of putting flame freezing charms on my hands and clothes for the tenth of a second it takes him to reach temperature and fuse out."
"Fuse?"
"Weld and smelt sound wrong, burn sounds more like what a phoenix does, fuse sounds like Star-Trek."
"You're aware of Star-Trek?"
"I'm aware of a great many things."
"I'm beginning to comprehend that."
"Good. Anyway, using their word for vanishing things 'phase' implies untrue things about how both physics and magic actually work. So I used something similar that sounds like it's a personalised reference to his heat, instead of a reference to bad physics." He crossed to his side of the table and began packing up his notes as well.
"Alright," agreed Harriet, "I second your aesthetic assessment. Is it still called aesthetic when it's about etymology?"
"I think it means the philosophy of goodness or beauty or some such, and I think it was originally about poetry. I think you're safe."
Harriet pretended to mop her forehead.
Tom rolled his eyes in a not unfriendly manner.
"Anyway," said Harriet, "Star trek?"
"An American, No-maj, movie series."
"I know that," said Harriet, "How do you know that?"
He stared at her for several seconds, then rolled his eyes, "Helena and I toured the globe over the summer to see how the various magical cultures had changed since we each were alive last. We were both surprised at what the muggles have managed since turning the technical progress that they made for scrying and breaking codes to more practical uses."
"What?"
"RADAR?" said Tom, "cooks birds by accident or dinner on purpose, they call it a microwave oven. Their little code breaking arithmancy circuits can be put together differently to make the darnedest little automatic accountants' assistants, or just about any other ward you can think of, except recognising names or intentions or voices, though if you believe the writers of star-trek they'll be able to do that too once they work out the arithmancy a bit more. Oh and the least straightforward of all, they form plaster between paper in factories, and ship it in fragile, already formed panels all over the world to build army bases in a couple weeks, instead of months or years. They call it 'Sheetrock' or 'gypsum wall board' or whatever and now they can build houses almost as fast without magic as our best builders can do with magic."
Harriet blinked at him, "They haven't invented all of that in the last 12 years."
"No," said Tom, "but they have started mass producing them to the point that anyone can buy them in the last forty."
"Oh!" said Harriet, "Right, I forgot."
Tom nodded, "my grandfather wasn't nearly as curious as he should have been, after he lost touch with me."
Harriet nodded.
"Oh, I almost forgot," she said, "Mrsers Rowe and Grumms wrote back: They say that a dragon slayer is entitled to his reward and the carcass as long as the dragon ceases to be a problem to the jurisdiction which requested aid. But is also liable for damage done by the dragon and by the slayer's weapons and any other part of the fight, if he had a reasonably feasible method of preventing it. So far that has only been proven three times, all were based on poorly thought out uses of confundus or imperious. Fighting a dragon is hard enough without scaring away possible helpers by piling up liability clauses ahead of time."
"Good, and who is responsible for the rest of the damage, and for, I don't know… returning the rented dragons in good shape?"
"The Governments of Britain and France, the other three schools rented theirs without aid from their governments. They've already put up security deposits for half the value of each dragon, comparatively the eggs are worth more than the dragons are."
"Eggs?"
They blinked at each other.
"Nesting mothers?"
Harriet shrugged, "I guess so?"
"We've got to warn the others right away."
"How bad is it?"
"Very very bad," said Tom, "Who comes after me on your list of people to swear by or at or whatever?"
"I … don't know," Harriet shrugged, "I only … invoked your past future self the once."
Tom smirked, "See that you don't make a habit of praying to me … for anything trivial."
Harriet tried not to roll her eyes, "Yes, cousin."
Early November
"So … did you find out what he wanted?" said Hanna Abbot.
"What who wanted?" said Georgina Smith.
"The 'huge slytherin' who stopped half the first years and ordered them to tell you he'd found 'something else' of yours."
"Oh," said Georgina, "I … That was Tom, and I think he only stopped Clarke Lenheim. But they all insisted on being the one to tell me. In case I'd been panicking about having lost something."
"Tom … Tom Riddle?" exclaimed Hanna, "the handsome slytherin? 'The Hogwarts champion?' I mean."
"Yes."
"Oh, So … what did you lose?"
"I didn't lose anything," said Georgina, "He just wanted to show me his new revising location."
"Oh, Where?"
Georgina smirked, "You know the corridor with the teacher's lounge on one end and the prefect's lounge on the other?"
"You mean the Prefects' washroom? Yeah I know which corridor you're talking about."
"There are a bunch of little offices down both sides, you can tell by the carvings that it used to be prefects down one side and heads of houses down the other side. Except now most of the heads of houses just keep whatever office they had been using before they became head of house. Anyway, he figured out how to break into the slytherin head of house office suite and set up shop there."
"Anything interesting?"
"Apparently no one but house elves have been in there for a hundred years or so. And whoever was there before was breeding rats to feed to his snakes."
"Ew."
"Yeah, it was pretty awful, he'd cleaned up the front two rooms, and was working his way through the last two. But there were still some things he couldn't just vanish. And he has a thing for history so he wasn't vanishing anything parchment or metal until he was sure it was in fact worthless."
"And he picked you to show off to because?" said Hanna.
Georgina smiled, "Because I'm not insanely in awe of him like the girls in his own year."
"And all the years in between, no doubt."
Georgina shrugged.
"Um, do you have a reason why you're not in awe of him."
Georgina shrugged, "I'm not in awe of my brother or my father either. Maybe that gives me practice."
Hanna blinked, then shrugged, "Oh, alright, whatever."
Moit
"Mr. Red, may I borrow some of your time?"
Moit Matirni, rune specialist in training, skin walker extraordinaire, looked up from his library book to see … "Tom! What's up?"
"I was talking to your sister about a certain ceremonial rune diagram."
Moit blinked, "and?"
"She said you could explain it better. And given that she seemed excited to learn some of the things I could tell about it without knowing what it really did, I believe her."
"Which diagram … Oh, a particular sacrificial ceremony I suppose."
"Quite," said Tom.
"What do you want to know?"
"I just want to make sure I understand the purpose and placement of each rune, and perhaps how the arithmancy of certain parts of it were derived."
"I haven't memorised all that, only how all the parts are supposed to work, not how they were originally designed or the hows-n-whys of how they were refactored into compatibility with each other."
"That's fine," said Tom, "I just want to know what you know, I … apparently will have to change parts of it, I know your brother's … ancestor changed parts on the fly to get it to work the way he wanted."
"I hadn't realised that," Moit said, "But it makes sense that he'd have had to."
"Can you two talk somewhere else, this is the library."
"Right," said Tom, "Come into our rune workshop, said the snake to the…"
"Asp," said Moit. Several people looked up, hinting just how many people they were disturbing.
"I'd heard fox," said Tom.
"That too," said Moit.
.
"So what exactly is special about this room, other than the sign on the door and the fact that everything has been dusted recently?"
"This is where Harriet and I worked out that bracelet on your ankle."
"Ah!" said Moit, "Thanks for helping her with that by the way."
Tom blinked at him several times, "Don't mention it."
Moit blinked, "It was more than just 'helping her' wasn't it."
"It might also be illegal," said Tom, "or will be someday shortly after knowledge of its existence is released to the public as a general technology, rather than kept in the back room of a semi secret clinic where people can clandestinely bring their squib children to be treated."
"Oh, yeah probably," said Moit.
"So seriously, don't mention it, especially don't mention who made it."
"Fine," said Moit.
"Now then," said Tom and laid out a piece of parchment, "These are the changes I think that I want to make, but I need to see the whole diagram again, so I can verify that it will even fit, then I'd like your critique of whether it can and should work."
"Alright," said Moit.
"I'm also interested in whether certain animagus related charms and hexes work on a skin walker's forms in the same way as on an animagus.
"That is something I've also wondered, ever since coming home and finding out that Pa— certain fellow circus performers were animagi."
"The Patils, or is there another family of magicals in your circus?"
Moit stared at him for several seconds, "Yeah, … assume I'm talking about them."
"I didn't know you were capable of that," said Tom.
"What eliding? Couldn't have anything to do with the fact that my first two forms were fox and snake, we'll see if I tend back toward my normal self when I have a wider range of animals."
"Anything is possible," said Tom.
.
"So what's next?"
"I want you to turn into one of your animals, if it's your snake form we might even be able to communicate."
"Fine," Moit shifted and slithered up the back of the chair he'd been sitting in, "§-And now?-§"
"Can you also understand English?"
"§-Yes, but not enunciate it, when like this.-§"
"I'm going to cast the anti-animagus jinx on you, the first time I want you to resist the change, the second time, just relax how hard you control your magic, (presuming the first time is not effective), and the third time, I want you to relax your vigilance and see if the jinx only attempts to persuade you to return to your human form."
"§-I understand, proceed.-§"
Tom cast wordlessly and Moit was suddenly human again and situated on and around the chair in an uncomfortable and overbalanced position. Half way to the floor he managed to turn fox and leap away before the chair crushed any part of him. When both landed he reverted to human form. "That was unexpected," said Moit, "Now that I know what's coming I have a chance of being either vigilant or wilful about it."
"Alright," said Tom, "But we do know it can be effective on skin walkers."
"Definitely," said Moit, "Changing again."
He reverted to fox form. Tom cast again. Red tensed but did not change.
"Again?" said Tom.
Red nodded. The next cast left Moit crouched on the floor, "So partly not possible to resist, by also possible to appear to resist it by being prepared to chose which shape I'm going to be forced into, rather than just going along with the default, which is human."
"So you could just as easily use my spell to turn into your snake form or more generally, any of your other forms rather than just into your human form?"
"It felt like it, do you want to try it?"
"Sure," said Tom and cast.
Moit blinked, "I wasn't expecting that yet, and yes, it felt like it forced me to change from human to human."
Tom nodded, "Again?"
Moit blinked.
Tom cast and this time Red was left. "Again?"
Red nodded. Tom cast. The asp was left, and a second later Moit reappeared, "anything else we needed to cover?"
"Did it feel like 'persuasion to shift' or outside control of your magic?"
"Felt like outside control of my magic that was impossible to resist at the beginning but very easy to … divert at the … crossroads between of my forms."
"Sounds good," said Tom, "Let me show you the arithmancy of the spell, I want to make an amulet that can force a change when it detects certain dangers."
"Sounds complex enough to be interesting," said Moit.
"You really do belong in runes don't you."
"I guess," said Moit, "It's fun. Puzzles are."
Tom rolled out another parchment. Moit started tracing his fingers over the runes and lines.
After a while he sat back, "I see what you're doing," said Moit, "But might not it be easier to borrow from the 'hostile intent ward' rather than include the arithmancy identification of all the unforgivables and this other … fire portal spell?"
"I suppose it is possible, but suppose I'm minding my own business and someone casts the tickling jinx at me, not because he intends harm with the tickling jinx but because he suspects this amulet will turn me into … a dragon or something huge or dangerous that will pose a danger to my immediate surroundings."
"Like if the transform jinx could actually choose the next form and we turned Dietrich into his horse or goat form in the middle of breakfast. It might really mess up the day for people around him."
"Precisely," said Tom.
"Which would be plenty hostile but not aimed at Dietrich."
"And Dietrich could avoid being used as a weapon by choosing to change smaller rather than larger," said Tom, "or I could avoid being used as a weapon by guarding against certain spells rather than all spells cast by someone fostering hostile intent."
"Yeah, I see," said Moit, "It looks right, but new things always do until you try them out, then half the time the failure modes look obvious."
"Do you mind helping me test it?"
Moit stared at him for several seconds, "Imperious only, I always wanted to know if I could resist that."
Tom frowned, "good point, but … we'll need to save that for another time, the school wards detect the unforgivables and we'd have company very shortly. Of those I'm trying to detect, I think only confundus, Fiendfyre, and obliviate are possible to sneak past the wards, and I'm not casting Fiendfyre anywhere near wards as powerful as Hogwarts' or opesflumin deep enough to keep those wards powered."
"Oh. Confundus then, make me think it's tomorrow or something not too disorienting."
"Not yesterday?"
"Then you could get obliviate to have the same effect."
"True," said Tom. "Anyway, Second, I was only planning on casting nearby not at you, and you could tell me if it felt like it triggered and also we'd figure out whether it caused you to transform."
"You know you can add the trigraph of luminance anywhere you're trying to tell whether it's activating or not."
"Good point, but … it doesn't seem complex enough to warrant that."
Moit shrugged, "You may feel otherwise after a couple hours of trying to figure out why it's not working."
"True, but … test run now, adjust once we have an idea how much we have to deal with?"
"Sure," said Moit and tossed the parchment on the floor then slithered over to sit in the middle of it.
"Did you already power it up?" said Tom.
The snake nodded and swayed in a way that Tom felt might be a bit mocking.
He cast above and to the side as if over the snake's 'shoulder'. The snake switched to Fox form and twitched until the spell had sparkled past and impacted the wall, then transformed back into Moit. "Well that was excruciating," said Moit.
"What went wrong?"
"It stayed active for as long as the spell was detected, rather than just long enough to make the transformation inevitable. Also next time please cast a little more to the side if you want to not impact my human form if that's the direction I choose to transform."
"Oh, sorry. We may need to expand the radius of protection a little more."
"Good point." Moit moved the parchment back to the table and they returned to work.
{End Chapter 4}
