Delphini was… enjoying herself. The "family dynamic" she had with her parents was atypical, but that didn't mean it was bad. While Euphemia Rowle was certainly capable as a legal guardian, she wasn't really a parent. Voldemort and Bellatrix were, just in their own fashions.

It was still embarrassing to have to deal with them, though, no matter how much Delphini enjoyed their company. Between Voldemort's constant attempts to be hip and Bellatrix's cooing, it could be emotionally taxing to be around them. In spite of their… everything, Delphini did appreciate their company.

Evening had become a sort of family time for them, where they would hang out in Voldemort's — and Bellatrix's — room. Sometimes they'd talk theory, other times she'd hear stories about their past, and sometimes they would just be in the same room without saying anything.

Delphini opened the door and slipped inside, surprised to find Bellatrix sitting on the bed looking disapprovingly at the corner. Said corner had Voldemort sitting on the floor, humming softly while petting an enormous wolf. Delphini took in the sight for a moment.

"Is that Greyback?" She asked.

"I prefer to call his wolf form 'Grey', but yes." Voldemort replied. "He feels more relaxed spending the full moon around me."

Right, it was the full moon… "And that's… safe?"

Voldemort hummed some more. "Define 'safe'. Are you an animagus or metamorph?"

"Um… no."

"Then it's safe to be in the same room as him, but not safe to pet him." Voldemort replied. "I spent decades training Grey, so he's not liable to go into any murderous rampages unless I tell him to. However, since he's not on wolfsbane, he is still capable of spreading the infection should he accidentally scratch or bite you. I'm immune due to being an animagus, but you should keep your distance."

Once again, there was a lot to unpack there. Did Voldemort enjoy casually dropping conversational bombs whenever she spoke? "You're an animagus?" Delphini said, deciding to start with the safest topic. "Why is that never mentioned in any of the literature about you?"

"I studied to be an animagus after Fenrir was bitten, with a little help from Dumbledore of course. All forms of Shifting Magic are mutually exclusive, so metamorphs and animagi are naturally immune to lycanthropy. My animagus form is that of a small green garden snake — cute, but hardly practical. I barely use it."

Voldemort mastering the insanely difficult animagus transformation just so she could be immune to lycanthropy was just so… her. "Can I see your form?"

"Probably not a good idea." Voldemort said with a small smile. "Grey would probably freak out if he thought I disappeared, and I wouldn't want to put either of you in harm's way."

Bellatrix crossed her arms. "I would feel more comfortable if he wasn't here at all."

"I know, and I hate to impose on you like this, but Lucius has been vehement in his insistence that I keep Grey in my room. I gave you a choice between staying here with me, or going elsewhere in the manor, and you chose to stay here,"

"Given the choice between a night with a werewolf and a night suffering through my half-sister's smothering affection, I'll take the werewolf. That doesn't mean I'm happy about having to make that choice in the first place."

"Grey is perfectly safe to be around." Voldemort insisted. "I was very meticulous when I trained him."

"How did you manage that?" Delphini asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

"Very carefully." She replied flatly.

"I don't care how meticulously you trained him!" Bellatrix exclaimed. "He's still a murderous beast!"

Voldemort crossed her arms in consternation. "Being murderous is kind of the point of having an attack dog, you know. What's important is that that murderous nature has been tempered to my command. Name one time Grey caused collateral damage."

Bellatrix glared back at Voldemort. "Remus Lupin."

"That doesn't count." Voldemort replied. "I didn't expect Lyall to literally throw his son to the wolves when he was attacked! Honestly, if he'd just withdrawn his anti-werewolf legislation like I'd asked him to in the first place, then that whole situation could have been avoided."

"You threatened him, Voldie."

"I never said I asked nicely."

"Hold on." Delphini said, interrupting their banter. "Isn't Remus Lupin that werewolf that taught at Hogwarts a few years ago?"

Voldemort raised an eyebrow. "You're familiar? Has Harry mentioned him?"

"No, but it's been mentioned in a lot of creature's rights debates in the Staatsministerie der Tovernarij. He's been something of a case study in terms of welcoming werewolves back into broader society. A lot of the pro-rights advocates are saying that one incident in which no one was harmed is an amazing early result that can be improved with further adjustments, while many of the anti-rights advocates are saying one incident is still too many. It's been going back and forth for the past year and a half."

"I wasn't aware his case was being studied internationally. Then again, I think you're the only one here who's been in a position to follow international debate. I really have a lot of catching up to do…"

Greyback whuffed from where he was resting against Voldemort's leg.

She chuckled and resumed stroking his fur. "Needy today, aren't you? Then again, you probably have missed me quite a bit. You never did like being alone."

Delphini sat on the edge of the bed next to Bellatrix. "I can't believe that you trained a fucking werewolf. I mean, I can, but it's something that only you would do."

"Do you know why Greyback has such a high bounty on his head, Delphini?"

Delphini didn't have time to reply before Voldemort answered her own question.

"He has a high bounty because he is a direct disproval of the narrative that werewolves are all mindless killers. Transformed werewolves are animals, yes, but they are not mindless and they can be trained." She grinned sadistically. "And in training them, they can become far more dangerous."

"I wonder if I still have the newspaper clippings of all the carnage you two caused." Bellatrix said with a giggle. "There were some very striking photos of the two of you standing amongst the carnage."

"And you claim you don't like Grey." Voldemort said teasingly.

"I don't have to like your wolf to appreciate the mayhem you caused with him." Bellatrix sighed wistfully. "And the arson. Gods, I miss the arson."

Family time also served as a consistent reminder that no matter how personable Delphini's mothers could be, they were both still psychos.

Harry was more than happy to put thoughts of yesterday's mind healing session to the side. He felt better after getting a good night's sleep, but the pain was still present, if less prevalent.

Of all his current activities, Trace research had proved to be the most relaxing, so he defaulted to that.

The most interesting thing about the Trace was that it wasn't a natural part of wands. While the specifics of wand creation evaded him, it involved binding part of a magical creature to wood which had… various qualities. None of the terms were ones he'd encountered before, so he was completely unsure what they meant.

The Trace, though, was applied after a wand was fully made. While almost every country mandated some form of Trace be placed on all sold wands, the spell was added after the wand was completed. It was a separate magic placed on top of the magic that gave wands their power. If he could somehow form a distinction between the two spells, he might be able to force them apart somehow…

That train of thought was pushed aside as an unfamiliar owl landed on the table and stuck out its leg. Harry grabbed the letter and opened it as the owl took off.

Harry,

I hope you're doing well after yesterday's session. As I said then, healing is rarely pleasant, but that doesn't make it any less important.

I didn't go into this at the time because I wanted to give you space to compose yourself. We'll be meeting at the same time and place every other Saturday until the end of the term. I felt that giving you a two-week break between sessions would give you enough time to cope without giving you any time to regress, as some patients are wont to do.

I know you're probably not eager to talk about your life more, but please show up. I will be very annoyed if I have to track you down and drag you to the hospital wing.

Tina Rowan

Harry barely resisted the urge to groan. He knew that his session with Tina wasn't a one-off, but he was perfectly content with pushing that fact out of his mind until they actually happened. Now he'd be dreading this appointment for the next two weeks.

Thankfully, his train of thought was once again interrupted by the arrival of another owl bearing a new letter, this one in Delphini's familiar handwriting. Eager for any distraction from his impending appointment, he tore open the envelope and began reading her letter.

Hey Harry,

Things are mostly boring here. There's not been much for me to do besides lessons and hanging out. While Barty and my moms are good company (don't tell them I said that; they'd never let me live it down), it's kind of annoying not having anyone my own age around.

There are more people around after the breakout, but most of them are being treated for long term effects of dementor exposure. Honestly, I'm amazed that the ICW didn't do something about Azkaban sooner. There have been some heavy sanctions and embargoes against Magical Britain in the past for their continued use of Azkaban, but never anything beyond that. I wonder how those will be dealt with moving forward? I mean, they can't keep using Azkaban since it's gone, but it was destroyed by a "terrorist insurgent" rather than through reforms to the criminal justice system, so I doubt they'll be lifted right away.

Anyway, I should probably change the subject before I bore you with details about international politics. So, most of the recovered prisoners are borderline comatose, but one of them is completely fine. Their name is Rookwood, and apparently they worked in the Department of Mysteries for some time before Karkaroff sold them out.

I kind of feel conflicted about that, honestly. I mean, I feel bad that they got caught because of what Karkaroff did, but he did it to get me out of the country, and I rather like being alive.

Anyways, Rookwood is cool, if a bit… incomprehensible? Like, their entire personality is weird but they can behave completely differently at the drop of a hat, so I never know what to make of them. The cool thing is that they're not only a master of mind magic, but all forms of conceptual manipulation. Apparently, they were one of the first people to cast a fidelius on a conceptual secret instead of one tied to a location. Rookwood used this groundbreaking discovery to put their birth sex under fidelius, so no one can tell if they were born as a guy or a girl. You have to admire the commitment to androgyny, if nothing else. Seriously, you look at Rookwood, and it's like an optical illusion where your brain keeps flipping between seeing feminine and masculine traits every time you blink. It's cool, if a bit unsettling.

Anyways, enough about that. Voldemort actually taught me something cool! You know how most languages have a few exclusive spells? Well, she finally got around to teaching me what she insists is the only useful parselmagic spell. The incantation is §fleshweaving§ and the wand movement is a single tightening clockwise corkscrew, and you can use it to stitch severed muscle fibers back together. Apparently, a huge advantage of parselmagic healing is that it can be used on wounds created by dark magic without leaving the usual scarring. I hear you get in a lot of trouble, so I'm sure you can make good use of this spell.

This letter is already far too long, so I'm going to cut it off here.

Cheers,

Delphini

That did sound like a useful spell. Harry stared at the weird squiggles for the incantation, wondering how it was that he could read them. He didn't know parseltongue even had a written form, let alone that being able to magically speak the language meant that he could read it.

Weird.

Harry decided to try that spell out when he had a chance. It probably would be useful, and would help distract him from his appointment in two weeks.

Two weeks were over much faster than Harry would have liked. He couldn't ignore the knotting dread in his stomach as he walked towards the hospital wing. Pomfrey nodded at him as he walked back to the office where he'd met last time. Tina was already there waiting for him, scribbling something down in her notebook, though she looked up and smiled when he closed the door.

"Harry, I'm glad to see that I don't need to track you down. Do you want to take a moment before we begin?"

"If you don't mind." Harry mumbled.

"Good. I'm going to cast the privacy spells in the meantime. Let me know when you're ready." She pulled out her wand and waved it repeatedly, pulses of magic coming out again and again. Apparently satisfied with her work, Tina nodded and went back to her notebook while Harry tried to calm his breathing.

"So, what are you writing?" He asked.

She looked up and turned her notebook towards him, revealing a large number of symbols and numbers that Harry couldn't even begin to parse. "Calculus. I find it equal parts relaxing and engaging. Are you ready to begin?"

Harry sighed. "I guess."

Tina flipped to a new page in her notebook. "Lovely. Well, last time we talked about your childhood, and while I'm sure there's a lot more that we could talk about there, I think it would do us some good to return to that later. For now, let's talk about your return to the magical world. What was it like, finding out about magic?"

Harry shrugged. "I mean, it was… overwhelming? I feel like on some level I'd always known magic was real, but it was, um…"

"Your aunt and uncle have a pathological fear of magic." Tina said, pulling a document out of her bag. "The legilimens assigned to your case just got back to me about it last week."

"Pathological fear of magic…?" Harry asked.

She sighed. "It's an uncommon but well-documented phenomenon. Some muggles just… can't accept the existence of magic. It too thoroughly contradicts their worldview, so their brains reject reality."

"But magic is real."

Tina smiled. "I know that as well as you do, but the human brain can't handle ideas that too thoroughly upend their understanding of the world. Take blood supremacists, for example. There have been countless studies published proving that being muggleborn has no correlation with magical power, yet blood purists ignore every one of them. They've built their entire worldview around the belief that they're better than muggleborns and that they would be better off with them all gone. If they were to accept the reality that their 'pure blood' doesn't make them better, then they'd also have to accept that they aren't as good as they've been told they are. It's easier for the brain to reject such realities, even if it means living a delusion. They rationalise reasons why the contradicting evidence can be dismissed and go on their merry way."

Harry thought about how disoriented he felt when Voldemort's behaviour and kindness towards him upended his whole worldview. It was easy to see how someone's brain could reject something like that. Hell, he practically had rejected reality at first. He'd convinced himself that he'd gone insane.

His mind wandered back to the conversation he'd had with Daphne, how the Greengrasses had been the only members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight who survived an encounter with Voldemort without joining her. Voldemort was, as unbelievable as it seemed, a reasonable person. Was her goal tied up in something that contradicted their worldview? Something where the families would rather die than admit they were wrong? Harry was feeling glad that he came today, if only because that felt like another piece of the grander puzzle.

"We're getting off topic, though." Tina said. "Your aunt and uncle have both been diagnosed with having a pathological fear of magic and have been placed on the appropriate ICW watchlists. I debated whether or not I should even tell you this, but I narrowly decided that I should. I don't want you thinking that whatever actions they took towards you aren't their fault because they had a pathological condition. I thought it might help if you learned that there was a reason behind their actions, however unjustified and despicable it was."

"Was it really their fault, though?"

"Yes." Tina said firmly. "Pathological Magiphobia is something that only occurs in people already prone to extreme closed-mindedness. They were never good people, and their treatment of you was abhorrent regardless of what their 'motivation' was. And before you get any silly ideas about their condition being your fault, you should know that your aunt has suffered from this condition ever since she found out about magic when your mother turned eleven. Your uncle was prone to it as well due to suffering from similar neuroses to your aunt. It isn't your fault. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded.

"Good. Now, what was it like, finding out that magic is real? You said that you already felt like you knew, but…?"

"They didn't like magic. At all. All of the few times they refused Dudley anything were times when he asked for something involving magic. They never got him the VHS of The Sword in the Stone that he kept asking for, and they also refused to get him anything involving magic tricks. I learned to not even allude to it after a certain point."

Tina nodded. "What you're describing is a common tactic known as 'avoidance'. It's an extremely useful survival strategy in childhood for people raised in situations like yours, but it can become a hindrance as you move into adulthood. We can return to that later, though. I'm sure that it was quite a shock to not only leave the abuses of your relatives, but to enter a whole new world where you're famous for a deed that you supposedly committed at the tender age of one."

Harry shrugged, still prickling over her use of the term "abuses", but not wanting to fight her over it. "I mean, I just felt overwhelmed by everything? I feel like fame just sort of took a back seat to everything else."

"Did it ever stop taking a back seat?"

"I… what do you mean?"

Tina took a drink from her water bottle. "I mean… fame isn't something that children cope well with. For all his faults in keeping you with your prior guardians, Dumbldore did make the right judgement call in that keeping you away from fame was better for your development. He obviously failed by placing you with magiphobic guardians in the process, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as the muggles say."

"I honestly just tried to avoid the fame — I never liked being in the spotlight. I was only forced to confront it last year."

"And the stress of that resulted in you having a public breakdown in the middle of a courtroom." She took another sip from her water bottle. "This ties back into the avoidance defence I was talking about earlier. While it has served you well so far, this is an example of a time where it backfired on you, and I'm sure there are other examples as well."

Harry scoffed. "So what, I should just give the press anything they want and let them invade my privacy in whatever way they desire?"

"You absolutely should not do that." Tina said as she crossed her arms. "My point is merely that you can't just ignore problems and hope they'll go away without doing anything, because they often won't. You did your best to ignore your fame and wound up being taken off-guard when said fame got you publicly slandered in the press for almost a year. At the very least, you could have mentally prepared yourself for such an outcome. Many people who default to avoidance as a coping strategy struggle with proactive behaviour, and I think it's important that you don't suffer from that same pitfall of avoiding all of your problems until they blow up in your face."

Harry felt himself flinch slightly. "I can be proactive."

"Could you list some examples of proactive behaviour you've engaged in?"

Harry paused as he thought it over. He wouldn't say he was passive in most of his actions, but he didn't think he could say he was proactive either. He did have several things he could cite from this year, but most of them weren't exactly… above board. "I've been researching the last war with Voldemort."

Tina nodded and gestured for him to continue.

"I realised that I don't know many details about the conflict beyond Voldemort attacking the Ministry and having the support of a lot of blood purists. Everyone I've talked to gives me the impression that there was something deeper happening."

"That's an excellent example. Taking the initiative to look beyond the commonly understood narrative is a good choice to take in any major conflict, be it military, insurgent, or political. Are there any other examples you can name?"

Harry hesitated before speaking again. He wasn't sure if he should mention the other things to her.

"I will remind you that I am only obligated to share information about you if it involves direct or immediate harm to yourself or others. I know that you haven't had the best history when it comes to adult figures in your life, and I want to emphasise that there is very little you could tell me that I would not keep secret. Trust is key when it comes to mind healing." Tina smirked. "Besides which, some laws are unjust and deserve to be broken."

Harry gave her a suspicious look. "Were you reading my mind just then?"

She laughed. "Harry, I don't need to read your mind to know what you're thinking right now. One doesn't spend decades as a mind healer without learning to read facial expressions and body language."

He let out a small breath. "After the debacle at my trial, I've been trying to break the Trace on my wand. I figure that being able to avoid legal trouble when I defend myself is a good idea."

"I'm sure that being able to cast magic freely would be a huge boon for one as prone to ending up in trouble as yourself. I do have to ask, though, have you actually been researching this, or is this an 'I've committed myself to doing this task but haven't actually started it yet' situation?"

"I've been researching it." Harry said defensively. "I've spent most of my free time reading various bits about wandlore and what books I can find about their construction."

"Okay, I just wanted to be sure." Tina leaned in. "Between the two of us, I was very prone to committing myself to projects but not doing anything to progress them back in school. It was a bad habit that took me a long time to break. I just wanted to make sure you weren't doing the same."

Harry nodded as she leaned back in her chair.

"I am pleased that you show signs of being able to break away from avoidance, which is good. You just have to make sure that you stick with it. I've dealt with people twice your age who still default to avoidance whenever things get tough. Of course, you're young enough that you have the advantage of neuroplasticity to help you."

He raised an eyebrow. "Neuro-what?"

"Neuroplasticity. It's a muggle psychology and neuroscience term referring to the brain's ability to rewire itself. Younger brains are inherently more plastic."

That was the first time Harry had heard the term "plastic" used in such a context.

"Well, I think we can wrap up this session here. We did get sidetracked quite a bit, but I'm pleased to know that you're making progress on your own."

"Yeah, that… wasn't so bad." Harry reluctantly admitted.

Tina pulled a piece of parchment out of her bag — the first time Harry had seen her use the material at all — and a fountain pen to write a note. "Here. I'm not technically supposed to be using my position as a mind healer for this, but I am allowed to write passes for you to use the Restricted Section. If you want to learn how to break the trace, you're going to have to look a bit beyond wandlore."

Harry accepted the offered parchment and looked it over. It seemed to be a typical restricted section pass, giving the name of a book with Tina's signature at the bottom. "You won't get in trouble for this, will you?"

She laughed. "As I said, Harry, some laws deserve to be broken. Technically, I'm only supposed to use this ability to help students gain access to reading material that will help them overcome whatever trauma is ailing them. That said, there's no way to enforce that specific use of this privilege, so this is a violation of the spirit of the rules, but not the letter. Besides which, that book is very good. Magical Trackings and How to Avoid Them is the only contemporary book on the subject. The fact that it was banned by nearly every magical government within a month of its publishing should be a testament to its thoroughness."

Harry blinked and looked down at the pass in his hands. "Are you sure you won't get in trouble for this?"

"Some laws deserve to be broken, Harry!" Tina replied in a singsong voice. "I really do need to get going, though, I have other patients I need to see. Put that book to good use! Ta!"

And with that, she rushed out the door, leaving Harry alone.

Well, at least he had a new lead to follow in terms of breaking the Trace. He glanced down at the pass and read over the book's name and title once again. Magical Trackings and How to Avoid Them by Julius Aristata. Harry just had to hope that it was worth his time.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Hermione?" Ron asked. "I mean, as suspicious as Malfoy has been, I don't think stalking him is the best idea."

"Well, Harry doesn't believe us, and he refused to let us use the map or cloak to keep track of Malfoy. Since he won't take this seriously, we have to do it for him." She insisted.

Ron sighed. "When I said we should keep an eye on Malfoy, I meant in a vague, superficial sense. This involves work. We're busy enough as is thanks to the prefect stuff."

She whirled around to face him. "Ronald Weasley, this is serious! For all we know, Malfoy is trying to… I don't know! What if he's bringing Death Eaters into the castle, or trying to kill Dumbledore, or some other horrible thing?"

Ron held back a laugh. "Well, I doubt any of those are remotely within Malfoy's capabilities. Hogwarts is notoriously impenetrable for good reason."

"That didn't stop Sirius or Pettigrew from getting in two years ago." Hermione said as she peered around the corner to watch Malfoy.

"Yeah, but Bill was telling me how…" He shook his head. "I don't remember the details, but apparently there were a lot of circumstances that had to line up to make that possible, and Dumbledore's removed that as a possibility. And last year, the only reason that the fiasco with the tournament happened was because the perpetrator was the head of IMC, so the gates were literally opened for him. I doubt Bill could find a way into Hogwarts even if he had a whole year to prepare, and I trust his skills way more than I trust Malfoy's."

She turned back around to face him. "Alright, then. What do you think Malfoy's doing?"

"Espionage." Ron said instantly. "He pulls the stick out of his arse, starts acting nicer, showing doubts about blood purity, and everyone starts reciprocating. Next thing we know, he's able to have friendly conversations with Harry, and can feed whatever information he learns straight to Voldemort."

"You don't possibly think that Harry would tell Malfoy anything important, do you?"

He shrugged. "I mean, probably not, but if Malfoy keeps him talking then he's bound to pull a Hagrid sooner or later."

The corners of Hermione's mouth twitched upward at Ron's mention of "pulling a Hagrid".

"Besides," Ron continued, "Malfoy doesn't technically need to wait for Harry to spill something important. I'm sure Voldemort wants any information that helps her understand what Harry's like and how he thinks. It's like that one bloke said, 'Know your enemy to win' and such."

"Sun Tzu." Hermione corrected. "And the quote is 'If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.'"

"Yeah, that's basically what I said in more words. Honestly, there's not much we can do. We just have to make sure that Malfoy doesn't do anything extreme like kidnapping Harry and we'll be fine."

"Why didn't you mention that as a possibility earlier!?"

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Because that already happened last year, and there's no way Dumbledore's just going to let it happen again?"

"Are you two alright?" A new voice asked. "You're being rather… loud."

Hermione jumped and turned around. "Malfoy, we were just, uh, arguing."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Uh-huh. Well, can you do everyone a favour and deal with," He gestured vaguely at them, "All that in private?"

"It's just a matter of discipline." Ron said, pulling a story out of his arse. "We had a disagreement about what the appropriate severity of punishment for a specific infraction would be. You know, prefect stuff."

Malfoy's expression turned to exasperation. "Tell me about it. Pansy keeps getting on my case about being 'too strict' with my point docking."

"Growing tired of your old arm candy, Draco?" Hermione sniped.

"No, I'm just learning that her superficial exterior runs to her core. There was someone else I was interested in, but she's made it clear that she's not interested."

Ron laughed. "What, did your cousin not react well when you proposed to her?"

He had intended it as a joke, but Malfoy's face actually flushed slightly.

"Holy shit, did you actually hit on your cousin?"

"Shut up." Malfoy protested, his blush deepening. "I've got to go. See you two around."

As Malfoy walked off, Ron continued to grin. "I can't believe that my joke was actually right. I am never going to forget this day."

"Except we've completely blown our plan of keeping track of Malfoy. Who knows how much he heard?"

Ron blinked. "Right, I didn't think about that. Maybe he'll be more hesitant to act now that he knows we're onto him?"

Hermione looked unconvinced.

He shrugged. "Whatever, I'm going to go back to basking in being right. I am totally going to tell everyone about this."

She just rolled her eyes.

Harry looked down at the pig that Mcgonagall had conjured for him. He'd asked Pomfrey what the best way to practise healing spells was, and she directed him to McGonagall. McGonagall had then told him that conjured pigs were considered ideal, as pigs had a surprising amount of anatomical similarities to humans, and conjured ones could be made without the ability to feel pain. Harry had barely managed to make it out of the classroom before she started going into a long lecture on the transfiguration principles involved.

He laid out the notes he'd gotten from Delphini about the spell. She'd managed to coax Voldemort into giving her copies of the notes she used in the lesson, as well as a few on a second parselmagic healing spell called "skinstitching". Voldemort had apparently insisted on its uselessness, but relented after constant pestering from Delphini.

Harry took a deep breath to steel himself before beginning. He pointed his wand and the pig. "Diffindo."

The cutting curse created a fairly deep gash in the pig's skin, but it didn't react in the slightest. Some part of Harry felt that its inability to feel pain actually made this more uncomfortable, but he really didn't want to do a comparison to find out.

He moved closer and held his wand over the wound. He moved his wand in the way Delphini had described and hissed the incantation.

"§Fleshweaving.§"

He felt the magic grip the severed fibres of the muscle. He tried to focus his will on pulling the fibres back together, but the spell dispersed after a few seconds of trying.

Harry sighed and looked back over the notes that had been sent to him. One of them appeared to be photocopied from a very old book. For someone who claimed to not like muggles, Voldemort sure seemed infatuated with their technology. The parselscript was awkward to read — being able to intuitively read a language he couldn't consciously read made his brain feel like it was constantly sending mixed messages about whether or not he was able to understand it.

Ah, it seemed that moving the wand in a weaving motion helped with reattaching the muscle fibres. That made sense — the spell did have "weaving" in its name, after all.

Harry moved back towards the pig and cast the spell a second time, this time weaving his wand through the air as he focused. Slowly, the muscle fibres tugged themselves back together and fused. There was a faint cut still visible on the skin, but with the muscle damage healed, it was incredibly faint, the sort of scratch that would heal in a day or two. He understood why Voldemort thought that the skin healing spell was useless if the flesh healing one was this extensive.

If it could be this thorough on a cut, what could it do to a more extreme wound, like a deep gouge or rough tear? Harry wasn't going to test that, though, as he knew no spells which could cause that sort of damage, and didn't think he'd be able to stomach the sight if he did.

Still healing of this magnitude was bound to be useful, especially with his unwitting proclivity for getting into dangerous situations.

Voldemort held her hands out in front of her and shot several dark elemental fireballs at Barty. The volley missed him, but three managed to eat holes through his shield. She fired some minor inconveniencing hexes through the holes before the shield restored itself. Not enough to stop Barty, but enough to slow him down for her next move.

The stormy skies were building to a crescendo, which meant it was time to harvest. Voldemort held her hand up as the stormcaller runes she'd carved into the ground lit with bright blue light. Lightning struck her hand with a staggering boom and entered her core, where she held the energy tightly. This repeated again, and again, and again, the lightning coming down several times per second, until she held all its power within her.

Her hair whipped around as she called upon the energy, electricity arcing up and down her body. A bolt of lightning flew out of her left hand, curving through the air and striking at Barty's shield. The blow staggered him, leaving her the perfect opening.

Voldemort Blinked into the air behind Barty and called upon the rest of the energy. She fashioned the remaining lightning into a vaguely blade-like shape, and slashed down through the shield, nailing Barty right on the head. He groaned as the electricity shot through his body, falling to the ground with a slight smell of smoke and ozone.

"Keep up this losing streak of yours and I'll start thinking you enjoy it." She remarked.

Barty grinned at her from where he was lying. "Maybe I do. Maybe I really, really do."

She sighed. "Wow, way to kill the mood."

"Oy, assholes!" A voice shouted from across the lawn. "Are you two busy?"

Voldemort bit back a groan. "Yes, Rookwood, I've finished indulging in Barty's masochistic streak, so we're free if you need us."

Rookwood gave a cocky grin and put their hands on their hips. "Awesome! I need each of you to do something for me. You," They pointed at Voldemort, "Need to come with me. I had an actual breakthrough with Peter, and your presence would help with the next step."

"And what do you need me for?" Barty asked.

They snapped. "Right! I need you to get me a cup of tea. Lapsang souchong. The stuff Lucius has in his pantry is crap."

"Really? And is there any reason you can't do this yourself?"

Rookwood put their right hand on their hip. "I am in the middle of an important mind healing session where the patient is in a delicate state. Leaving now would be beyond horrible. Do you truly hate Peter so much that you want me to just abandon him?"

Barty grumbled. "Fine, I'll get you your damn tea."

"Lovely! Off you go then, darling."

Barty grabbed his wand and apparated away, leaving Voldemort alone with her least favourite person in the entire universe. "Well, let's get on with it."

Rookwood turned to her as the two of them began walking towards the house. "Am I to gather that you don't appreciate my company, Voldie? Whatever could have made you feel that way about little old me?"

"Your entire personality." She deadpanned.

They snickered. "I will forever admire your ability to never break composure. Now, onto serious matters… Peter is dealing with a lot of guilt. It's been an ordeal to work through it all, but his guilt over the deaths of James and Lily has not been easily shaken. He feels heavily responsible for what happened to them, and I think that guilt needs to be absolved by an external party. As you're the only living person with a memory of what happened that night, you're the only one who can do that for him."

"Ah." Voldemort was never exactly comfortable with any sort of mind healing or therapy. Her guardian had made her see a mind healer when she was thirteen or so, and the experience had not been a pleasant one. Given that he'd been more focused on "fixing" her rather than helping her, it has only taken three sessions before she'd put her foot down and refused to go back. Thankfully, her guardian had acquiesced. Still, even though she knew that was an exceptionally poor example of what a mind healer should be, and had been the result of an era before modern psychology, the experience left a bad taste in her mouth.

"Don't start moping on me, Voldie." Rookwood remarked from beside her. "We can always work on unpacking your emotional baggage later."

"If there comes a day when I decide to see a mind healer, you can rest assured knowing that you are at the very bottom of the list of people I'd choose."

"I consider that a great personal accomplishment, truly. Earning one's way to the bottom of a list can often be more impressive than earning one's way to the top."

She rolled her eyes. "I liked you better when you were locked up in Azkaban."

They just gave that infuriating smirk that they often had plastered on their face. "Well, I'm afraid that I won't be returning there anytime soon thanks to your handiwork."

Voldemort mumbled something about being more than willing to send Rookwood to hell herself, but her heart wasn't in it. No, she had to calm herself so she could talk about Samhain 1981. Fun.

Rookwood stopped in front of the door to the room where Peter had been staying for the past few weeks. "Now remember that while he is more stable than he has been for some time, he is still in a very delicate state. I've been doing as much as I can without resorting to legilimency, but some of the severe trauma from spending too much time in his animagus form has necessitated it. So no matter what, be sensitive. I know that's a lot to ask from a woman who doesn't have emotions, but I'm demanding it anyways."

Voldemort rolled her eyes. She had emotions, just not the normal ones. Still, it was always a relief to have Rookwood default to their professional persona — it made them so much less aggravating to be around.

Rookwood opened the door. "Peter? We're back."

Peter looked skittish, but otherwise composed, more so than he'd been for the past year and a half. "A-ah. It's good to see you. Both of you."

Rookwood swept into their chair with the sort of unnatural grace that required at least a dozen different cosmetic flair charms. Voldemort always thought it was stupid that for all their mastery of magic, a solid chunk of Rookwood's skill was dedicated exclusively to their appearance. It was a damn waste of potential.

Voldemort sat down in her chair as normally as she could, because it was all the passive aggression she was willing to risk at the moment. She'd have to get the rest out of her system later.

"Now Peter," Rookwood said as they pulled out their notebook, "As I said before I stepped out, you're obviously dealing with a lot of undeserved guilt over your role in-"

"Undeserved!" Peter yelled, raising his voice for the first time in… Actually, Voldemort didn't think that she had ever heard Peter raise his voice before. "I sent them to their deaths! I-" He choked on his words, seemingly unable to continue.

Voldemort stepped in before things spiralled too far out of control. "It's not your fault, Peter."

He turned to face her, anger etched into his features. "That's easy for you to say! You're the only one more accountable than I am! You're the one that actually did the deed!"

"They knew you were the traitor, Peter!" Voldemort said, raising her voice.

"They…" He faltered as he processed that information. "What?"

"They knew you were the traitor." She repeated. "When they made you the secret keeper, what exactly happened?"

"They…" Peter trailed off as he thought back on the memory. "Sirius had noticed he was being tailed on several occasions, and recommended changing the secret keeper. He was worried that he'd be tortured until he gave up the information, and offered to act as a decoy, with me acting as the true secret keeper."

"And James and Lily went right along with it, didn't they?"

He nodded. "Yes, they said that it sounded like a brilliant idea. Dumbledore was the one who had originally cast the fidelius, but James and Lily vanished into their workshop for half an hour and came back out with a ritual that could transfer the role of secret keeper from one person to another so long as both parties consented."

"I know that James and Lily were both prodigies of frankly insane talent, but doesn't that seem a little fast to have designed a whole new ritual specifically suited to your needs?" She asked. "Especially for a spell as complicated as the fidelius charm? Moreover, didn't they seem a little too eager to switch the role of secret keeper to you?"

Peter paused once again to process that information. "It did seem a little quick and hasty on their part, but they brushed it off. But… if they knew that I was the traitor, then why would they have wanted me to be their secret keeper?"

"Isn't that obvious?" Voldemort replied. "They wanted to kill me."

Both Peter and Rookwood seemed surprised to hear that. Voldemort was pleased that she now needed two fingers to count the number of times she'd made Rookwood visibly surprised. Still, neither of them seemed willing to add anything, so she continued.

"Lily and James were very skilled — skilled enough that they forced me to retreat from battle on three separate occasions. That wasn't good enough for them, though, not with a prophecy placing a target firmly on their son's head. No, they wanted me dead, and if they wanted to kill me, then they needed to do it in their territory so that I couldn't escape like I usually did whenever they pushed me too close to defeat."

"They… knew I would bring their location to you." Peter said slowly.

Voldemort nodded. "They did. James said as much before trying to impale me with every object in their family room. He came damn close to finishing me himself."

Rookwood nodded. "And under different circumstances, he might have succeeded. Unfortunately for him, the machinations of Fate are not so easily subverted."

She rolled her eyes. "A bit melodramatically stated, but true. I can honestly say that I hoped to sway James and Lily to our side that night, but they never gave me a chance. I don't think James expected to win, but I do think he felt obligated to try. When I finally killed him, Lily initiated their backup plan — a way to kill me that technically allowed Harry to be the one doing the 'vanquishing'. When I killed her, it fueled a ritual that allowed the creation of a reflective shield capable of blocking everything up to and including the killing curse."

While Rookwood's demeanor was professional, their eyes were glimmering with curiosity.

Voldemort did her best to ignore them. "Well, you two know the rest. I turned my wand on Harry Potter, cast the killing curse, and had it thrown back in my face."

"There is one detail I'd like clarification on, actually." Rookwood interjected. "The killing curse doesn't cause explosions, nor does it reduce those it hits to ash. Care to fill in this hole in your story?"

She sighed, really hoping that she wouldn't have to elaborate on that. "Before my soul was fully separated from my body, I discharged all of my magic. Lily and James had… developed an anti-Blinking ward, and I needed to destroy it before anyone figured out how to replicate it. I originally planned to dismantle the ward scheme after killing everyone, but dying obviously put a stop to that plan." She shrugged. "I panicked, and in retrospect, discharging all of my magic at the moment of my death was not a good idea and honestly caused more problems than it solved."

The three of them sat in silence for a few moments before Rookwood cleared their throat. "Peter, I'm sure you need time to process these revelations, so I think we should end things here for today. While I know that this won't magically absolve you of your guilt, my hope is that this can serve as a turning point for you. There were obviously a lot of factors in play that you weren't aware of."

"I… I need to be alone for a while." Peter said, audibly dazed.

Rookwod nodded and gestured for the two of them to leave the room. They both let out sighs of relief when the door was shut.

"Thank Fortune, I was beginning to worry that I'd never make any headway with him." Rookwood said.

Voldemort just slumped against the wall. "I'm glad it helped him, but I really don't like dwelling on that night. Now, I'm going to go burn something down."

"Defaulting to your usual healthy coping mechanisms, I see." They replied sarcastically. "Well, don't let me keep you!"

She didn't need to be told twice. Voldemort stretched her arms and began walking down the hallway, only stopping when she passed Barty.

"I finally got Rookwood their fucking tea. Given that you're done, I don't know why they couldn't have waited a few minutes to make it themself."

Voldemort shrugged. "Whatever. When you get done with that, do you want to burn something down? I can grab Bellatrix and we can make an occasion of it."

His eyes lit up. "After this? You bet I do."

Harry had to say that whoever Julius Aristata was, he really knew his stuff. Harry had learned more about the Trace from this book than all of the previous ones combined.

The version of the Trace that was placed on wands had several components to it. It started with wands, as each wand had a Tracing charm placed on it shortly after its creation. When an adult mage was chosen by a wand, the Tracing charm would automatically detect that they were of-age and break. When an underage mage was chosen by a wand, though, then the Tracing charm was able to scry the name of the mage and send that information to the Ministry.

Each magical government across the world had a country-spanning ward that automatically picked up on any signals sent from Traced wands. The monitoring devices would automatically record the name of every underaged wizard who claimed a wand, and associate that name with the corresponding Trace. The Trace would then detect any discharge of magic from the wand and report it to the monitor. The monitor would then filter the results to exclude stray discharge and report any instances of "structured" spells to the government responsible for governing underage magic usage.

Harry vaguely recalled Voldemort using the term "structured spell" when she talked about freeform magic, but any hopes of understanding what that actually meant was dashed when Harry looked at the appendix, which included so many equations that it made his head spin.

The biggest weakness of the Trace was that it was deliberately easy to suppress. Diagon Alley, Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and the Ministry all had Trace suppression wards around them, as such areas were deemed "safe" for children to use magic without endangering the Statute of Secrecy. It also had the practical effect of preventing the Ministry from having to manually sort through hundreds of reports of spells cast in Hogwarts.

Still, this was more information than he'd gotten anywhere else, and if the previous chapters of the book were anything to go by, then the next segment would explain how the Trace could be blocked or broken.

"Why the hell are you reading that?" An unfamiliar voice asked him.

Harry looked up to see the same auburn-haired Hufflepuff who'd been shooting him glares periodically. "It was recommended to me by my mind healer."

She crossed her arms. "It's banned. It's banned for a good reason."

"Yes, well, my mind healer thought that a definitive guide on how to avoid being tracked would help me, and I've found that it has. Now, please leave me so I can keep reading."

She continued to glare at him. After this continued for a few seconds before Harry sighed and looked up at her again.

"Look, is there something you need? Also, I didn't catch your name."

"Susan Bones."

Harry took a moment to process that. Amelia Bones had been the prosecutor at his trial, or whatever the magical equivalent thereof was, so Susan was probably a relative. Harry had no idea what he'd done to earn the ire of either of them. Really, was destroying one dementor so bad when Voldemort killed a whole island of them?

"The Ministry uses tracking charms for the good of all of its citizens, and being able to block them severely hinders their ability to act." She said firmly.

Harry scoffed. "From what I've seen, that can only be a good thing."

Susan slammed her hands down on the table. "You take that back!"

He glared at her. "It might have escaped your notice, Susan, but I was put on trial for defending myself from soul-sucking abominations that the Ministry failed to control. The Ministry didn't do anything when I was entered in a potentially lethal tournament against my will, they didn't do anything when dementors nearly sucked out my soul back in my third year, and they didn't do anything when I had to kill a basilisk in my second year. No, the Ministry only cared to act when I had to defend myself from yet another threat that they failed to prevent."

"And if you'd just given the name of your accomplice in the trial, then you would have gotten off much easier." She replied, ignoring his other points.

"I fail to see why I had any obligation to do so." Harry said, turning his attention back to the book, only to jump as it was ripped from his hands.

"Twelve aurors died during the attack on Azkaban prison!" Susan hissed. "An attack that could only have been carried out by someone with the ability to destroy dementors!"

Harry took a deep breath and tried to organise his thoughts. He really did not want to have this impromptu debate, but clearly wasn't being given a choice in the matter. "Whoever attacked Azkaban prison was able to destroy the entire island without leaving a trace. Would knowing this person's identity actually have changed anything for the Ministry, if they were already capable of that?"

"It might have changed something! At least the aurors wouldn't have been going in blind to whatever conflict awaited them!"

He sighed and stood up from the table. "Look, if you want to delude yourself about the competence of the Ministry, then be my guest, but don't try to foist responsibility for any of this on me. Maybe if the Ministry was less focused on denying the reality of their situation, they could actually do something right." He tried to grab the book back, but Susan just held it higher.

"You really are some kind of dark lord in the making, aren't you? You think I don't know your type? You're just as bad as Voldemort — you're some kind of… anarchist!" She said the word anarchist like it was some kind of swear.

Harry didn't justify that with a response. He really didn't want to deal with this anymore, so his priority was on getting his book back. He thought back to what Voldemort had told him about freeform magic, how it was pure will given form. Well Harry needed his book back right now.

He felt a spark in his magic and pushed it further, the book jumping from Susan's grip into his waiting hand. Harry didn't want to give her any further chance to accost him, so he tried replicating the aversion charms he'd apparently been casting for years without realising. He focused on the need to not be noticed. While the reaction from his magic wasn't as strong, Susan seemed dazed as she looked at him, so Harry grabbed his things and left the library before she realised what was happening.

Honestly, the nerve of some people. Still, even as he walked away, that last line she'd said to him stuck in his head.

Harry didn't know if he was necessarily an anarchist, but Voldemort, on the other hand…

Delphini popped a CD into her portable CD player and put the headphones on.

Contrary to popular belief, magic didn't interfere with electricity. Rather, it interfered with the properties of semiconductors used in many modern electronics. It was possible — albeit expensive — to create electronics that were compatible with magic by using space expansion charms and replacing the semiconductive components with their analogue counterparts.

This CD player cost more than a new car. It was Delphini's favourite thing.

She did her best to lose herself in the music, but it was impossible to ignore the trio of Voldemort, Barty, and Bellatrix entering through the backdoor, giddiness coming off of them in waves. The three of them smelled strongly of smoke, and not the drug kind.

"Gods, I haven't felt this alive in years." Bellatrix gushed.

"I know, right?" Voldemort said. "We should do this more often."

Delphini turned up the volume on her music. She didn't know, and she didn't want to know.

There were multiple reliable ways to break the Trace, as Harry had learned. Some involved rituals to break the Trace outright, others involved transferring the trace to a wand owned by an adult wizard, upon which it would break.

Many of the methods involved a lot of materials that could be hard to obtain. Others required the cooperation of someone else. Yet more methods involved things that Harry couldn't even understand, let alone perform. In the end, he'd found one solution that he was pretty sure he could do on his own, and that was what led to him standing on the Astronomy Tower on a stormy November night.

The simplest theoretical way to break the Trace was to overload it. The amount of magic a wand could safely channel was far, far higher than the amount of magic the Trace could safely channel. If one channeled a large amount of magic through a wand, then the Trace would break and the wand would be fine.

Harry needed to cast a spell that overloaded the channelling capacity of the Trace for at least ten seconds. That required a spell that was cast continuously, like the fire stream charm that was covered in second year, but on a much larger scale.

Spells that actually consumed enough magic tended to have a decent chance of collateral damage, hence why Harry was currently in the most elevated position in Hogwarts. It was a Sunday, so there was no astronomy class, and it was raining, so there were no couples using the area as a makeout location.

The book recommended several different ones, but Harry settled on the Plasma Storm, which fired a wide beam of pure energy for as long as the caster fueled it.

Harry took a deep breath and pointed his wand towards the horizon. "Ardor Procella!"

The resulting beam was pure white and far brighter than he'd expected. Still, that wasn't going to be enough. Harry pushed more and more energy into it until he finally felt something catch. He could feel something in his wand that was straining against the amount of magic he was channelling, trying to keep him from pushing further, each second requiring him to push harder and harder to maintain the flow. Right when Harry felt that he couldn't keep it up any longer, something snapped, and the beam coming from his wand was brighter and wider than before. He stepped back in shock from the sudden lack of resistance, only to slip on the slick stone floor. He was worried that he was going to hit his head, but something caught him halfway through falling.

"Normally, when I catch students up here at this time of day, this isn't the sort of illicit behaviour they're engaging in." Dumbledore said serenely.

Harry felt himself lifted back on his feet. The wand in his hand felt like it was humming. At first he was worried that it might be broken in some way, but it felt lighter… freer. He felt absolutely exhausted, an ache that stretched through every part of his mind and body, but at least he'd done it. He turned his attention to Dumbledore. "I didn't expect to see you here, professor."

Dumbledore smiled. "Ah, going with the 'calm and collected even though I was just caught red-handed' routine? I rather like when students do that one."

Sometimes, Harry had no idea how to interact with Dumbledore. This was one of those times.

Dumbledore laughed. "You're not in trouble, Harry. You're far from the first student to break the Trace in their years here, and I always did find the strict enforcement of underage magic to be silly."

"It's illegal, though, isn't it sir?"

"While what is just and what is legal are often one and the same, they do not always overlap. There are times where the only just action to take is an illegal one. If the Ministry passed a law banning muggleborns from the magical world, then teaching them magic would be illegal, but it wouldn't be unjust, now would it?"

Harry didn't have an answer to that question. "Tina, um, my mind healer, said something similar. She said that 'Some laws deserve to be broken'."

"Yes, that does very much sound like something Miss Rowan would say. I'm never certain if I should be grateful or remorseful that she never attended Hogwarts. She would have certainly been an interesting student, but I can already imagine the amount of headaches she would have caused me and the rest of the staff." Dumbledore said wistfully.

"But where does one draw the line? How does one decide if an action is just even though it's illegal?" Harry asked.

"That's a question that you're going to have to answer for yourself. If you look to philosophy expecting clear answers to your problems, then I daresay you'll often be disappointed. Sometimes, the journey to attempting to find an answer is the answer itself."

"Er… What?"

Dumbledore just chuckled. "My apologies, I rather enjoy philosophical debates, and I rarely get to have them. Back when I taught transfiguration, I frequently engaged in such debates with students, both in and out of class."

"Even Voldemort?" Harry asked, remembering her comment about Dumbledore being her favourite teacher.

"I…" A pained expression crossed Dumbledore's face for the briefest of moments. "No, not with her. Now, you'd best be getting back to your dormitory. I'd normally dock points for being out after curfew, but I appear to have mysteriously lost my pocket watch, so I can't check the time to confirm that."

Harry swept up his belongings and disappeared under his invisibility cloak. Well, that was one goal for the term accomplished.

Now he just had to make good on the others.

A/N (Tendra): There are a lot of reasons this chapter got delayed so long, but a big one is that I got distracted by playing Corruption of Champions II. It's a good game. Any game that lets me mommy-domme an elf princess and romance the demon queen gets a big seal of approval from me.

Vernon and Petunia having a pathological fear of magic wasn't planned for this fic, but as I was writing the scene, I thought about SAPHIR from the SCP Universe, and realised how well the concept would work here.

Avoidance is something I have a real problem with. Whenever I found myself faced with a problem I didn't know how to solve, my only options were to either do nothing and pretend the problem didn't exist, or acknowledge the problem and be so crippled by anxiety that I couldn't do anything about it. Needless to say, this did not work well, and is the biggest reason I was given a prescription for tranquilisers.

I don't ship Ron and Hermione. I like both of their characters, but I don't think that they (or any two members of the golden trio) would work well in a relationship. That said, as I was writing the "HBP Role Reversal" scene, the way Ron and Hermione interacted really made me understand why some people ship them.

Unseen Perspective has a lot of differences from canon. Voldemort and Pettigrew's discussion provided the first real look into some of the alternate history in play here, but it does go beyond that. Prodigies, as they are defined in this fic, also don't exist in any of my other works. A side effect of a small but significant portion of the population being low level reality benders means that UP's magical world is much more technologically advanced. A device like Delphini's magic-proof walkman wouldn't even exist in any of my other stories, let alone be purchasable from a small yet thriving magitek industry. I mean, you'd have to replace every single transistor in the device with a triode, except triodes burn out over time, so they'd also have to be enchanted in some way to prevent that as well.

James and Lily setting up a deliberate plan for killing Voldemort is an idea that I really liked once I came up with it, but they clearly forgot a few details, like "telling people about their plan".

I really love morally grey plots where there isn't a clear villain, and this chapter starts to get into that. I tried not to seem too preachy in any of the scenes, but damn was it hard. Susan was also difficult, as she's meant to be a subscriber to authoritarian beliefs (which I am very much opposed to), but I also wanted to avoid strawmanning her in the process. I'm sure I'll get complaints about it regardless, given that Susan is rarely shown in such an unfavourable light.

You can join my discord server at 6YwQewK to get early access to my fics on the rare occasions that I actually update.

E/N (Xgenje): I got so distracted reading this that I barely had the attention to actually edit the chapter. Ten also got distracted/stolen by the new Path of Exile league. Which is entirely understandable. If anyone wants to join us they can message us on discord.

But with the self plugging out of the way, I really enjoy how Ten manages to draw parallels to canon or even to call it out.

E/N (Foadar): The Susan scene steers uncomfortably close to fascism, but I think that is a good thing here. One must consider the different developments in regards to freedom of press and democracy in this almost completely separate micro-society, to understand the differences in beliefs. Getting some degree of insight into both the minds of Voldemort and Delphini and how Voldemort really is just operating from about as much sanity as Pettigrew humanizes her in an important way, I think.

James and Lily scream mad geniuses. Perhaps it was for the better that that part of their deaths wasn't told to Harry. Dumbledore's morality remains ever a bit on the grey side, but I think there's a good depiction of ''he's really trying'' seen here.

Rookwood is an enigma. I find it hard to crack their code.