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Through a Half-Breed's Eyes

Finally.

Hey, let's play a game of good news, bad news. Okay?

Good news: Apparently, my heritage protects me against instant death by staring at a basilisk.

Bad news. I still was paralysed.

Good news. The antidote worked.

Bad news. The antidote was even necessary.

Good news. I didn't miss much, because I was aware the whole time.

Bad news. I WAS AWARE THE WHOLE TIME.

Anyway, I got ambushed in the corridors by possibly one of the ugliest-looking bus-sized snakes I've ever seen (Although it's not like I've seen very many of them). Unfortunately, I managed to make eye contact, and was treated to a first-class experience of having my body seize up and no longer listen to me.

When they found me the next morning, I was less than pleased by the amount of time that my discoverer (I didn't know who they were, since they were behind me) laughing, rather than dragging my petrified ass out of the hallway where it was causing a disturbance.

Anyway, they ended up dragging me to the medical wing, but not before dropping me a few times, and commenting on how weird it must be to be in the "Cannon Fodder" house.

Honestly, that's going to stick with me for the rest of my time here, isn't it.

They put me down in a bed, facing skywards.

Occasionally, someone would wander into the hospital room, and either insult me, or check on the other students.

Apparently, I had made quite an impression on the school, and a few people now hate me. Nothing new.

And that was my next month.

I'm honestly amazed I'm still sane. I'm not sure whether it's entirely wrong to say that, sometimes, I hate my immunities.

Anyway, I came up with a couple of conclusions during my month of enforced bed-rest.

One: The diary was definitely evil, but I do not regret messing with it.

Two: Being petrified sucks. Like, really, really sucks.

Three: Redo wards again, someone might have dispelled them.

Oh, and at some point, a bunch of regular-injured students were carted into the hospital wing, and judging from the quality of slurs being uttered by said students, they were higher-year, too. Cho, the only one who I could recognise the voice of, continuously murmured about how a 'crazy little bitch' had teeth, and was absolutely evil. Judging how I'm in the hospital, it can't be me.

Huh. Second, Ginny's staring at me like I'm about to bite her.

Ginny's over in the corner giving me wide eyes, because I'm still scribbling in MY diary, which, while evil, isn't a soul-eating abomination.

It's just a regular abomination.

Yes, I am indeed in my room. As if they'd be able to keep me in the medical wing after that. I split as soon as I could move my body.

So anyway, according to the gossip I overheard while immobile (you wouldn't believe how annoying it is to hear people talk, but not be able to identify who they are!), Ginny snapped, evoked the true power of the evil diary, and then fled into the depths of some dungeon under a washroom to summon a gigantic snake. This apparently happened about two minutes after I left my room, because she was apparently lying in wait for me to leave. I manged to run into said snake, got my ass petrified, and was brushed aside as a 'less-important' case, so I just was put into stasis for a bit until the antidote was done.

According to Ginny, however (Well, mostly from Potter, actually, because Ginny wasn't really in the mood to talk to me about the whole topic), Ginny was possessed by the world's most chinzy evil diary (worth it), got forcibly put into an incomplete soul drain, and was narrowly saved after Potter pulled off the standard 'hero succeeds against all odds' move and killed the diary with giant-snake venom. Oh, and the snake the venom was from.

No clue how he did that.

Note to self, point Potter AWAY from allies.

So Potter rescues his princess and drags her away from the dungeon, to safety.

Actually

Totally worth it.

I got slapped, but it was so, totally, perfectly worth it. If she tries to bring it up later, I'll blame whatever sludge the nurse would have tried to feed me making me loopy.

Apparently, Ginny got offended when I insinuated that she set the whole thing up to be rescued by her prince charming. I even saw her tear up a little bit.

I mean, there's no way that fate wasn't on her side here.

Not only does she have no lingering effects from being in a soul drain, which, almost every time, is fatal even when aborted, but she's gotten completely free from being accused of attacking students, which, despite possession, is still her damn fault. Not to mention that, since I know that the diary was to blame, I don't have a reason to hunt her down either.

She's entirely scott free, had a perfectly good reason to kiss Potter, AND got to attack people while commanding a giant snake.

No idea why she's offended.

Right. So back to my daring escape from the hospital.

Anyway, I sat there for a month, before someone finally got the antidote, and started handing it out. I was sorta afraid that I would be immune to it, and thus would be stuck there until I regrew my nervous system (which'd suck, but I'd probably be able to do it by the end of the school year), but to my luck, it worked fine.

Too bad it tasted horrible.

As soon as they dosed me, I was out the door running.

A month in a bed completely immobilized drove me a bit stir-crazy.

At first, I was running just because I needed to stretch my legs, but later, that changed into running away from the furious nurse, who was screaming at me to return to my bed.

At that point, you wouldn't be even able to get my dead body into that bed. I'd probably end up combusting if I went down. I mean, they'd probably be able to scoop my ashes into a jar and put THAT in a bed, but what'd be the point?

I lost her a half-hour later (damn! That lady is fast! And she didn't even seem to be out of breath. She could probably take up cross-country running.), eventually due to running outside, then, when no one was looking, pulling my wings out and flying into the Gryffindor tower.

It was cheating, yeah, but as I said, I wasn't willing to spend another minute there. Besides, otherwise I'd be on the run forever. I've been chased by hellhounds. Those hellhounds were NOTHING compared to Madame Pomfrey.

I'm so glad I put my wings away before I climbed into the window, though, because Ginny was inside the room.

Needless to say, she reacted accordingly.

I'm glad I dodged whatever spell it was she threw at me, because I didn't feel like explaining away my immunity right then. Instead, I double-checked my things, was happy that my wards weren't removed, and pulled out my diary.

So yeah, after that daring escape, I'm happy to be in my own bed, able to move my own limbs again.

Ginny's sitting in her bed, obviously exhausted, but occasionally I look up, and she's rocking back and forth with her arms around her legs, reassuring herself in a quiet voice.

Huh, maybe not entirely untouched by the whole soul-drain thing.

I'm probably going to need to be a bit nicer to her: even I'm not cold enough to make fun of her for that ordeal.

There was a break from classes today. Mostly to 'allow the students a short respite.'

I think they were mostly doing it to let the kids who got petrified stretch their legs, catch up to studies, and blubber incoherently.

I mean, I'm probably the only one who was aware the entire time.

At least... I hope. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

Scratch that. I'd find a way to weaponize it, to use on my worst enemy. My bad.

I don't seem to have any real lingering effects from my paralysis. Which is good.

The nurse gave me an evil eye when I passed her in the dining hall, but a cheeky grin, an exaggerated stretch, and the statement 'If I needed more bedrest, you'd have probably been able to catch me.', were enough to diffuse the situation. At least, I thought it did, I could hear the nurse approach her boiling point as I skipped past her. Gotta love professionals and their restrictions. If combat was allowed, I'd probably would have had to defend myself.

I fell on my meal like a starving animal. Which I was. Quite honestly, the only other person who ate nearly as much as I did at our table, was that redheaded guy Potter hangs out with. Ronniekins, yeah.

Classes are winding down, exams are coming up, and it's highly unlikely some other trouble will show up before next year: it takes time to set those things up, and with only one month left to go, I doubt they'll be able to move things in before we leave for the summer.

Speaking of which, Potter's acting a lot different than I'd expect.

Rather than lord over his peers due to his (rather impressive) snake slaying, he is instead laying low, pretending it never happened. I mean, he obviously is still shaken, but I don't understand not taking credit...

Anyway, I don't think I'll be comfortable interacting with them very often, for quite a while. Being near Potter still makes me feel uneasy, and I can't really connect to Ronniekins or Hermione.

I guess Ginny will do.

Moral of the story: Do not steal Luna Lovegood's special medicine.

I finally heard the gossip about what had happened while I was unconscious.

Luna Lovegood, who was having quite a bad day, finally lost it on Cho Chang and co, who previously had been in the habit of stealing her personal things. Apparently, Luna had retaliated with a barrage of curses that were STILL in the process of being identified, and had managed to incapacitate two of the four thieves, before the other two wisely beat feet, and escaped to the safety of the common room.

The whole exchange had taken the excess of twelve seconds.

It's always the quiet ones, isn't it.

The moral came later.

Today, Luna stopped me in the halls. Her eyes, were not her normal eyes. Rather than that sorta-creepy 'stoned-out-of-her-mind' eyes, they blazed with quiet, cold fury. She then proceeded to throw my back into a wall with a spell, and threaten at wandpoint to harm me quite severely if I should ever pull that stunt again.

Now, normally I wouldn't be thrown around like that. But she actually referred to me as a demon, and actually do a decent job at threatening me with a wand. I'm not sure if she knows for certain, but either way, you don't pick fights you can't, or don't want to win.

I had to apologise quite severely, before bringing up that her 'medicine' was required to stop whatever evil spirit was killing Ginny.

That lightened Luna's mood a little bit. She explained that she was one of Ginny's older friends, and that, while stealing her trauma medicine was a low blow, if it helped in the long run, she wouldn't hold it to me personally.

But if I did it again, they'd be cleaning pieces of me off of the ceiling.

With that threat out of the way, I'm going to have to work to get onto her good side: if she's as powerful as I think she is, she'll be quite a useful ally to have in a fight.

Anyway, no major harm to me or the castle, and I've defused a potentially dangerous situation. Everything's looking good.

Main wand? Check. Slotted into pouch on my left shoulder.

Secondary wand? Check. Will be holding it in my hand the entire time.

Emergency escape rune, keyed through dimensional travel? Check. Slotted onto back of right hand.

Rest of my stuff? Check. I've got a summoning lodestone underneath my belongings chest, which I've keyed to my blood. If things go south, I'll be able to summon my things from home, and then flee the country. I heard that Long Island has a decent training ground, and I'm pretty sure I fit the criteria to get in. Won't quite get the magical training I'm hoping for, but it'll be good for my melee combat, at least.

Now the only question is whether to immediately flee, or to actually go through with this.

Context: the headmaster stopped me in the hallway today. Old guy, grey beard, reeks of magic. Like, Gandalf's slightly-less-skinny cousin levels of magic. I had the urge to ask him if I was going to pass, but bit the comment back. Angering powerful mages never ends well.

Anyway, he pulls me aside, asks how my time as a living statue was, except in his own words.

I said that it was the worst month of my life. First mistake.

He brought up that he had come over to find me to ask about that. He asked if I was free today, to meet with him in his office.

I said I had no plans. Second mistake.

When I asked him what it was about, he said he wanted to talk about my family.

Alarm bells ringing in my head, I fled back to my dorm, and here I am.

I'm headed to his office now. Going to store this diary in my trunk, and be ready for anything.

Here we go.

Let's look at what can possibly happen.

I've been doing my research: Dumbledore is potentially the biggest living figure in the magical world today: There are actually cults devoted to him, if you look hard enough. He's powerful by himself, but not only is he magically skilled: He's gone memetic.

Explanation of magic incoming.

Magic is inborn power, multiplied by belief.

Simple as that.

The more belief in an individual, the more magic they receive.

Usually, this belief comes from the mage themselves.

Two of the most common methods for belief in themselves are Ignorance, and Pride.

The Wizarding world seems to run off of Ignorance. As long as nothing shakes their belief, a wizard has plenty of power to draw off of.

The purebloods seem to bolster this with an excess of Pride, which really explains why purebloods seem to outpace those without magical blood.

The third, and rarest source is Confidence: Massive amount of power in that one, but the easiest to destroy. While Ignorance will work fine until faced with something it cannot deal with, and Pride is exceptional until they make a fatal mistake, Confidence is easily affected by spells. Any sort of fear, hallucination, or even poison are enough to reduce its effectiveness.

The three sources are all interlinked with one another, and it's pretty hard to be completely devoted to one. They tend to sorta even out, after a while.

Dumbledore, from what I can tell, is high off of Confidence, and Pride.

Not even going into Memetic.

Not all belief needs to come from the caster. Some can come from outside sources. And the sources don't even need to be magical. If enough individuals believe in a caster, their power receives a significant boost. Memetic power multiplication is what causes cults and religions to form – after enough belief is bestowed upon a target, it gains a magic of its own. On the other hand, if a caster is disgraced and no longer believed in, the loss of power could serve as a final nail in the coffin for the mage's career.

So, Dumbledore has immense inborn power, augmented by Confidence, Pride, and has the Memetic power of an entire nation.

Does that explain why I'm terrified of him?

Not to mention that he's got a seat in the Justice system, meaning it'd take only a single sentence to have my case brought up before the court, and

well

Wizards don't exactly like my kind.

I wouldn't even get a trial before they would kill me. Creatures like me are a bit too dangerous to lock away

And now I'm walking directly into his lair, because if I don't, I've as good as given myself up.

Worst thing: he's the leader of the 'light'. Yes, he's fully identified himself as a white wizard, defeater of the darkness, protector of the just. In other words, as anti-demon as they get.

Two outcomes from this:

One, he doesn't know what I am, and I get off scott-free, but need to hunker down on my alibi

Two, he knows. After that, there's really nothing I can do.

Why do I find myself in these situations?

I'm stowing my diary now.

It's do or die.

I hope it's do.