Author's Notes:
Thanks for the last few reviews. Now that Banished in Distortion is finished, I will try to write more often for The Burning One after the longer break.
Forged Alliances
When Percy sat down at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall the morning after Bellatrix's betrayal, he was confronted by an unusual cabal. Bellatrix, Shafiq, and Selwyn sat huddled close together, whispering in a worryingly secretive manner. Since Bellatrix sat in the middle between them, which was unusual in itself, Percy had the opportunity to sit next to his male classmates for once.
Ciogach looked so sleepy that to speak of wakefulness was probably an exaggeration. Birch, on the other hand, was talking animatedly with Amory about the essay due that day for Flitwick. He made a few brittle comments on their conversation while watching Bellatrix.
As yet he saw no clear signs that his enchantment had done any overt form of harm. Even if her behavior was obviously already modified. For Bellatrix did not actually like any of her female classmates overly much. There was almost something of a friendly rivalry between Selwyn and her in particular, though he would use the word friendly with caution here.
Percy would normally be happy about this development, after all, it potentially kept Bellatrix away from him. On the other hand, he didn't quite see what compulsion this new behavior resulted from. Was it because she no longer had any reason to maintain contact with him without a desire to get married?
He could not know. He was anything but an expert on the turmoils in Bellatrix's head. Perhaps it was more obscure and the other compulsion was making itself felt. It could be that she was merely scouting to see if her sudden sympathy with Muggle-born was really as unusual as she probably expected.
In fact, both Selwyn and Shafiq seemed to be suitable contacts for this. Selwyn because all that mattered to her was wealth and class, and Shafiq because she seemed to be a mild person in general. In any case, from Percy's point of view, it was welcome if she expanded her social circle a little.
Across the tedium of mindless small talk, Percy's gaze brushed several people for whom he still had plans. One of them was Lucius Malfoy. The second grader was important, and the more he thought about it, the more significant it became for Percy to get him under his control. The lad was his best chance to get the diary.
Percy had already explored the situations in which he could catch the snob alone. Unfortunately, there were not too many of them. For as was to be expected from the heir to a wealthy house, the boy surrounded himself with others who respected him as their leader. Not unlike his later son, in essence.
There was one way, however, that Percy thought was promising. Almost always after Friday's Herbology class, when most of Lucius's Slytherin classmates returned to the common room to shower or at least put on clean clothes, Lucius was nowhere to be found.
Percy discovered that he was hanging out with a group of Ravenclaws during this period, which may have been something like the seed of a study group for Transfigurations. Apparently the boy had his difficulties in the subject. The group always met in a room not far from the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room.
It was a relatively long distance from the greenhouses to there. It would be easy for Percy to intercept the young Malfoy on his way there. Percy had to suppress a shudder at the thought.
That it had gotten to the point where he would be kidnapping and hurting children was a haunting thought. He felt almost like a psychopathic stalker lying in wait for his innocent victim. And unfortunately, it was true that the boy was an innocent. Yet.
But wouldn't he become a better person after Percy improved the arrogant snob's personality? Of that Percy had no doubt. For Malfoy Senior had been such an insufferably self-absorbed man in his day that it was hard to imagine worse.
The rune design he had created for these purposes was considerably more restrictive than what he had used for Bellatrix or even Lestrange. For it included the aspect that Malfoy would obey Percy's orders without fail. Here, unfortunately, it was not certain that this trait would disappear again, even if the enchantment dissipated. The implications were gruesome.
It would be little different, so to speak, than a lifelong self-reinforcing imperius curse that could not be adjusted even by Percy. Like a genie out of the bottle, it would be impossible to reverse. Sure, he could end up ordering Malfoy to simply be himself, but the possibility of giving him new orders didn't disappear so easily.
Even if he ordered him to stop following Percy's instructions, the problem would not be banished. His victim's subconscious would continue to look for instructions, such as through body language. Or even interpreting Percy's actions, along the lines of what would my master Percival do?
It was another bit of sullying himself with injustice. But sheer necessity opposed his concerns. How else could he get da diary? If it were only the financial question, as draining Voldemort's resources, then Percy might have considered trying to get Malfoy on his side with plain unenchanted words. But that was simply no longer practical with the knowledge Rowy had revealed to him.
And he did not want to rely on Dumbledore. Percy doubted that the old man would be able to break into Abraxas Malfoy's home and steal anything. Percy didn't know much about the man, but what he did know made Percy want to approach the matter cautiously. The dark wizard was considered ill-tempered, paranoid, and reclusive. Such a person would push the building's already powerful protective spells to absurd heights.
And that was completely regardless of the protective measures Voldemort must have taken after he put a part of his soul there. No, the best method was to have the diary stolen by someone who would not even be suspected. And who was better suited for this than Abraxas' own son?
But that was a worry for tomorrow. Percy let his gaze wander further, letting it rest briefly on the three girls, who were still talking in hushed voices. Selwyn eyes found his curiosity and she smiled at him for a moment in a way she had to think was flirtatious. Percy turned away and to the remains of his breakfast that he had eaten over his musings.
The Hufflepuffs Cup was a problem of an entirely different nature. While Rowy had been able to give a good description of the Selwyn estate where the Horcrux was supposed to be, that still didn't ensure that he knew exactly where it was and how to get in there. And even if he did find out, it was dangerous to steal something that the dark lord was about to relocate. That is, if the damn thing was still there at all.
One way in, of course, was through Camilla, who didn't seem averse to him. But playing with hearts was... distasteful. And he had no significant experience in manipulating people through intimacy. It would be easier to cut open her head and chisel a certain behavior into her skull. And wasn't that another one of those treacherously insidious thoughts he'd been having lately.
The world was just too chaotic. And people didn't voluntarily do what they were supposed to. Since he had learned how to fix this problem by force, he had become very quick to consider it. With Malfoy, he could justify it. But with Selwyn? In the end, she was just a small fish from a house that would be extinguished in internal power struggles in a few years. Voldemort had no real use for her, why would Percy have one?
Of course, it would be a sensible thing to position another significant house clearly against Voldemort's crusade. But to do that, he would have to root out and pull the weeds, namely the dead eaters in this family. And do so without attracting attention. Almost impossible, as Percy found.
On the subject of Selwyn, he consequently remained undecided and postponed his eventual action until much later. His eyes continued to wander through the ranks of Slytherins, lingering on one more person for a few seconds until he looked away again. Kreios Pyrites was an odd case for a future Death Eater. The quiet man had become the head of the Department of International Magical Co-operation after the regime had consolidated its power. A smooth-talker and appeaser, he presented the new regime in the friendliest colors abroad.
Percy probably would have liked him as a supervisor when he was younger. Because to his employees and even to the disgraced Percy himself, the man always seemed to remain professional without fault. Outwardly, the man showed no malice, no sadism, and no self-importance. If he had to classify people according to their preferred use of Unforgivable Curses, as he was in the habit of doing with Death Eaters, he was lost when it came to Pyrites.
Not even the more innocuous Imperius curse would fit, for Percy had never known the man to be a control freak. All the more this impression was contradicted by the horror stories about him that were only told behind held hands. He always worked alone and supposedly never left any traces when he became active for his master. His targets simply disappeared as if they had moved to Antarctica without a word about it. Not even signs of resistance were ever found.
In short, Pyrites was a man who scared even the Death Eaters. He knew from Marcus that the Aurors, however little influence they had, were at least informed about the activities of the Death Eaters, who were something like a Muggle secret service in the new regime. They took care of enemies of the state, terrorists, and other undesirables, as they called them. And Pyrites was apparently one of Voldemort's favorite enforcers, a weapon that did exactly what it was ordered to do without vanity.
How Percy was supposed to deal with someone like that, he didn't know. Why had the man become a Death Eater in the first place? Was he a true believer or just an uncaring exploiter of the situation? In this timeline, Percy had not yet interacted with him or even consciously heard him speak.
Percy would still have to find a way to sniff out Pyrites. The problem was mainly that he had to maintain the appearance of a dedicated student. His schedule was quite full compared to that of the seventh grader. If he wasn't studying runes or arithmancy himself, he might have had some leeway to go after the potential wrongdoer.
Shaking his head, he got up and headed for the Charms classroom ahead of time. He was way too early, of course, but he would hardly be able to make anything out of the last fifteen minutes. On his way out of the great hall he let his eyes roam once more through the other houses. Dave Macmillan had been one of the few dead eaters from Hufflepuff until he had been mortally wounded by Moody. Moody had called this case a tragedy in an interview because Macmillan had shown a strangely chivalrous and fair attitude in duels and might still have been reclaimed for the right side.
Of the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, he recognized no future Death Eaters. But that was not surprising, after all, never had all the names become known. That the villains wore masks had helped them quite a bit in the end. Unlike other, more naive people, Percy wasn't under the illusion that all Death Eaters were from Slytherin. There were purebloods in all the schoolhouses, and it was no stretch to assume that pureblood fanatics could be found in all of them as well.
When he arrived at the classroom, he had to stifle a grimace. The only students present were Sarah Fields and Binita Patil. While the chubby Patil was rather indifferent toward him, Fields had become increasingly hostile toward Percy over the past few months. She hadn't liked him much to begin with, but whatever she saw in him seemed to be getting rather more intense.
He sat down as far away from Fields as he could and dug a book out of his school bag. It was "The Semblance of Life," which Lucretia had recommended to him. It hadn't helped him much with Rowy's new binding, admittedly.
But it did cover some points that might be of importance in the future. Percy found the philosophical debate about whether a sufficiently sophisticated simulacrum was capable of developing something like a soul and how to deal with it particularly fascinating.
Unfortunately, Percy didn't get far before he heard Field's sneering voice say, "Oh, all alone today, Prewett? Did Black tell you to go to hell at last?"
Fortunately, Percy knew how to rattle the girl, "Bellatrix? She obviously had other plans today than hanging out with me. I'm glad she finally decided to expand her social circle a bit."
He didn't even try to dispel the silly rumor that Bellatrix and he were a secret couple. Well, maybe it wasn't as silly as he'd believed after learning Bellatrix's unfortunate future plans yesterday. In any case, Fields was always pretty inept in handling it when he was being friendly to her.
"I'm sure your concern for her love life will please Bellatrix. You know how highly she regards you," Percy continued to remark.
Okay, that was a little venomous right there. After all, Bellatrix treated all Muggle-born like crap. Fields always seemed to look particularly affected when Bellatrix was insulting her. The only surprising thing was that Fields herself always seemed rather bashful when such a tirade started.
"If people like you didn't drip poison in her ear, maybe things would be different," Fields said unkindly. "You Slytherins are all chauvinists, aren't you? You let true potential rot for your games of nobility. Instead of promoting powerful and intelligent witches, you want her to become some servile matron. Let their greatness wither away. It shows that you wizards are not a bit better than the muggle men."
She said the last sentence almost somewhat challengingly. For a moment, Percy didn't quite know what she was getting at. But then he remembered the time he was in. As far as he remembered, this period had seen major upheavals in the behavior of the sexes in the Muggle world.
The magical world had never been so divided. While it was true that wealthy families placed a high value on good matches, it usually had little effect on women's career choices. It simply wasn't the same playing field as in the Muggle world. Wizards and witches had never been different in their magical powers in any significant way. They put them on an equal footing. Apart from normal individual variations that could not be applied to the masses, of course.
Families such as the Blacks, the Ollivanders or the Smiths were perhaps more demanding in this respect. For example, they made allowances from the family fortune dependent on a certain quota of born children. But this did not usually prevent witches from learning a magical craft or starting a career. Children were highly respected in the magical world and were not a woman's but a family matter.
To that extent, Fields was guilty of misjudgment, uncritically transferring her own experiences to the magical world. But he did not believe that she would be even remotely willing to see his perspective. People like her made a judgment once and then never let it go, no matter how nonsensical it became over time.
"I don't push Bellatrix on anything. Our conversations are almost always academic in nature. To that extent, it is silly to accuse me of impeding her advancement. What I don't understand, though, is why you would defend a girl who already detests you because of your background."
"She's only that way because you people made her that way!" she angrily enthused. "Besides, she's just an example of the oppression of women in the magical world by pigs like you who only want them as trophies to show off to their drinking brethren. A woman like Bellatrix deserves better."
Percy tilted his head to the side and began to realize that this was about something else entirely. Percy blinked at his insight. Why hadn't he seen this before? Because she obviously meant herself.
Field's annoyance with him had nothing to do with Percy at all, but with her inability to gain Bellatrix's attention. Percy had never understood such unfulfilling, toxic infatuations. How could anyone fall in love with a person who behaved so unpleasantly and maliciously toward oneself? Sure, Bellatrix was a beauty. But that could not be enough.
He did not know if Bellatrix could ever have considered desiring women. She was so set on meeting her family's demands that Percy couldn't tell if the girl would even care. But perhaps Fields represented a way to distance Bellatrix not only further from himself but also from Voldemort.
It was worth a thought. After all, Fields' advances didn't have to be heard by Bellatrix, but the possible friendship with a Muggle-born could be a positive influence. But with his mediocre social skills, he wasn't sure he could make that happen. After all, Bellatrix's compulsion was still fresh; there was no telling how much it could already override her actual behavior.
"She certainly does," Percy acknowledged amiably, which rattled Fields, who was now looking at him skeptically. "You made some faulty assumptions. She is a friend to me. But we are not engaged, nor do I or my family aspire toward that. The only person who desires such a union is apparently my deranged aunt, and thankfully no one takes her seriously anymore.
"Further, no one, not even my grandfather, as head of the family, has the right to dictate anything to her in this regard. While betrothals and arranged marriages are common in our circles, they require the consent of all parties involved. If Bellatrix does not want to marry a man, she can always stop such a union.
"I don't know what's going on in your head and what kind of things you're putting together there. But I don't think you have a sufficient grasp of magical society. Maybe you should sit down with a pureblood sometime who can explain to you how things really work and not how you assume it works without any basis.
"In fact, the inner state of my family is none of your business at all, Fields. I only say this because I am increasingly irritated by your irrational anger and hostile behavior. I'm not looking for a fight with anyone, especially obviously misinformed people."
At this, his eyes fell on Patil. He didn't know if the girl was pureblood or half-blood. But since he had never heard of a Binita Patil before his time travel, he had to assume that she had either died, or simply never made waves in the sea of destiny. A pureblood fanatic she obviously was not. But perhaps that was exactly why she had told her friend exaggerated stories.
"That's not what other purebloods from less depraved Houses tell me," Fields countered snootily. "When a girl is groomed from childhood for a role, the only way she can break free from that web is with help. They only think they are free, but they are so entrenched in their acquired mindset that they no longer see the shackling chains as such. What this out-of-time, backward patchwork you call society needs is an upheaval. The systematic oppression of the weak must end. People like you, symbols of the repressive aristocracy stand in the way of that."
"In other words, you couldn't care less what I say, you wouldn't listen and would turn a deaf ear anyway," Percy replied in disgust. "All you want is for your delusions to be followed. No matter how stupid and uninformed that drivel is.
"People like you give the Muggle-born a bad name. The pureblood fanatics are boostered by this kind of thing. They have always believed anyway that Muggle-born were nothing more than invaders from a foreign land who don't accept their values and want to force them to follow another culture that is repugnant to them. Congratulations. With your ill-conceived desire to make the world a better place, you're making sure it gets worse."
Oddly, Fields just looked at him in irritation, but said nothing more. Probably the only reason she didn't reply was because at his last sentence the first other students were already dripping into the room. It didn't take long for Bellatrix to enter the room as well, who now, as if she hadn't acted strangely in the morning, took a seat next to him and began to chatter enthusiastically about how the Water-Making Charm could best be used to drown people. It was going to be a long day.
In the end, it wasn't much of an effort to take Malfoy into custody the next day. The child was careless and strutted around the school as if it belonged to him. As if no harm could come to a Malfoy.
All it had taken was a couple of temporary Wards, which kept other students out of the second floor hallway. Then a Stunning Spell, Disillusionment, a little levitation and the brat was in the same chair Bellatrix's compulsions had been formed in. It was downright underwhelming. Maybe he really had gotten really good at covert operations by now.
To be fair, most students at Hogwarts believed that such a sneaky attack was out of the realm of possibility. Bellatrix had shown him how foolish that thought was. But what did the blond-haired fool know of such things.
Percy now began his little operation almost in routine. The row of runes he carved into the inside of Malfoy's skull was incomparably longer than the previous ones. It relieved him of too much drain if he better predefined the command and merely fine-tuned it by the spoken compulsion. Besides, it was probably not as easy to give a complex order as to get Percy the Horcrux out of his home and keep quiet about it.
He was not totally committed to his decision to make these compulsions resemble an imperius curse. This method brought some imponderables into play that he would rather do without. For Percy did not know if a compulsion that an enchanted one knew about, could be fought with willpower. But he was also concerned about the fact that the compulsion could end up being too noticeable.
After all, enchantments tended to create positive feedback loops in the psyche of those affected. And in this case, it would possibly lead to a servile idolizing behavior, which would be profoundly strange and conspicuous, especially for Lucius Malfoy. It would be unfortunate if anyone made inquiries about this conduct.
"Are you looking forward to your very own slave?" asked Rowy mockingly, making her projection appear behind Malfoy. "A devoted servant might be useful in the future. We could send him ahead as we search for Tommy's soul shards. If he were to trigger some fatal trap it wouldn't be a big deal. Of course, only after he brings us the diary."
"First, that would be a waste of his resources. After all, he will unquestionably gain great influence in the Wizengamot and the Ministry in general. Second, despite his already bad character, he is still an innocent. Just doing this here is actually bad enough."
Even worse was that he didn't really feel guilt for this. He knew it should burden him more. As a young dynamic ministry worker he would have been horrified, but over the years of Dead Eater rule he had simply become numb to such things. Cruel actions didn't seem as horrible to him as they had before.
But he wasn't doing all this for fun, like Voldemort's henchmen. If he had to sacrifice a few more innocents to save far more of the same, then that was a fair trade. And if it was someone like Lucius Malfoy, who at least had the potential to kill his eldest brother, then his compassion was even more limited.
After placing the compulsion and completing the healing procedure, he turned to Rowy: "I know he won't be able to see and hear you. But I can. So please be quiet for the next steps of instruction."
He poked Malfoy with his wand and muttered, "Enervate."
Even as Malfoy's eyes fluttered open rapidly and looked around disoriented, Percy began to command in a firm voice, "You will follow my orders. You are not troubled, and nothing about your current circumstances seems strange."
Here Percy waited a moment to see how effectively the enchantment worked. He saw the face relax, but Malfoy eyed him skeptically. He said, "Prewett, is there a deeper reason for this meeting? I have very important things to do."
Percy had to stifle a snort at this. How a boy like him could believe that anything he did was important only showed the latter's lack of self-reflection and arrogance. Percy shook his head.
"You will trust me unconditionally. You will not question my orders," Percy determined. "You will tell no one about them. You will tell no one about this meeting. You will say you practiced alone today in your free period. And you will do this as if you really did.
"When you go home for winter break, you will look in your house for a diary. It says that it belonged a Tom Marvolo Riddle. You will be careful about this. No one must see you or suspect that you might steal it.
"You will not write in it. You will take it to yourself on the last day of your stay at your home and smuggle it unobtrusively to Hogwarts and hand it to me here in this room."
Malfoy just blinked rapidly while Percy spoke as if the boy's mind had to process his commands first. Almost involuntarily, she seemed to slide Malfoy's hand to the front of his head. He began to massage it lightly. But he did this only for a moment.
Presumably the enchantment of the skullcap caused pain only when it became too active. Percy could not say how many commands he could give before the pain became so strong that he could no longer carry out his instructions. However, he had hope that after sufficient exposure time, the commands would no longer need to be reinforced, making room for new commands.
"But... But what if it's protected?" wondered Malfoy aloud. "It must be important if you want it. My father wouldn't just leave it lying around."
It was almost painful to Percy how naive and obedient Malfoy had now become after just a few sentences. Had Voldemort felt the same way when the Death Eaters were almost groveling at his feet? Had he felt the same contempt for their submission?
At least the pity that was mixed in had never wafted through the dark lord's mind. Nor was self-loathing to be expected from his greatest enemy. Percy did not even want to think about what a completely amoral person could do with his technique.
Freedom of the mind suddenly seemed to him a very fragile commodity. The Imperius gave the outsiders at least some familiar indicators by which the curse could be detected. The blank, glazed look victims of an unprofessionally executed Imperius curse got had probably saved some people's lives in the first conflict.
No one would associate Malfoy's recurring headaches with a method of mind control. In this respect, Percy's way of securing Malfoy's loyalty was not much worse than an imperius curse performed by, say, a master like Voldemort. It didn't really fill him with pride, though in the back of his mind he felt a certain satisfaction.
"You will learn some diagnostic spells by winter break, which will make your task easier. I will give you a list. It should surprise no one if you show an interest in such magic and ask me, as a known extremely capable wizard, for help should you have difficulty in this."
Malfoy nodded eagerly and seemed very pleased with himself. As if it were a great honor to learn from Percy himself. Percy involuntarily grimaced. Behind Malfoy hovered Rowy, who, without making a sound, bent and shook with laughter. He was sure, however, that she was amused not so much by Malfoy's mental subordination as by Percy's awkwardness.
Percy turned away and strode to one of the tables he used for storage. There he grabbed a piece of parchment inscribed with a small set of spells, along with the necessary references to books as far as he could remember them. He then handed the list to the interested looking Malfoy.
It had occurred to Percy, of course, that a second grader did not necessarily have the necessary knowledge to steal such an object. But it was not clear to him how well the diary would be protected in the first place. After all, the threshold to Malfoy Manor was already a very difficult border to cross. It would not surprise Percy if the diary was simply openly in their library.
On the other hand, Voldemort, for all his arrogance, was not entirely careless. It was quite possible, despite everything, that he had surrounded his soul shard with further protective measures. And those would not be overcome by an eager, but also still very uneducated Lucius Malfoy.
"If you find that this diary is protected in a way that you can't get to it, could you let me into the house without anyone knowing?"
Malfoy swallowed and thought. Finally he said, "I can invite guests. But as soon as my father, or my grandfather checks the Wards, they will know that an unauthorized person has entered the premises. That would not end well."
"Hmm," Percy hummed thoughtfully. "Maybe we should try a feint in that case. You'll invite me then, officially. You'll pass it off as continued tutoring. You'll tell your parents about your new interest in diagnostic spells, and then they shouldn't be surprised if you ask an educated older classmate for advice. How would they react to such behavior on your part?"
"I think they would be pleased that I have found a genuine interest in a particular school of magic," the boy now replied somewhat sullenly. "So far I'm slipping through with acceptable grades, but nothing really catches my interest. And transfigurations are especially hard for me.
"If I could get a tutor from another prestigious house to sponsor me, effectively saying indirectly that I had talent in the field, it would take a load off their mind. So would it be for me, by the way. I do hope I'm good at these diagnostic spells."
"How good are your charms?", Percy wanted to know with a raised eyebrow.
"Defence is my best subject, then Herbology, and then followed by Charms. Is that enough?" replied Malfoy uncertainly.
It was strange to see the child so human and doubtful. Completely different from his adult self, or even the facade he put on for the school. Was it just Percy's enchantment, or did he really have such deep-seated insecurities? Perhaps he could continue to have a positive influence on the boy even without his enchantment, now that it was no longer necessary.
"I expect you to work hard on the spells I teach you. I think we'll start with a simple spell. It's sometimes taught in fifth grade at Hogwarts, when the class is one of the brisker ones. I don't suppose you know Homenum Revelio?"
Malfoy shook his head, but seemed very eager to learn it. Percy demonstrated the spell to him, explaining, "It indicates the presence of a soul. Compared to less specialized revelation spells, it is fixed on human souls.
"There are others that can detect other types of souls. Spiritum Revelio, for instance, has a wider range than Homenum Revelio, but cannot distinguish between different types. The latter can at least distinguish between human and non-human souls. Anima is able to do so, but its range is minimal.
"Why don't you try out Homenum Revelio? The wand's movement is usually about an inverted omega, executed forward. Make the movements nice and fluid with no pauses."
He let the boy practice the spell for about fifteen minutes, giving him assistance as much as was feasible. Malfoy finally managed a very weak and short-lived detection spell. With sternness in his voice, Percy finally ordered him to continue practicing the spell on his own and to demonstrate it to Percy in better form next week.
The boy finally left the room on his own, looking deeply pleased with his small success. Percy, on the other hand, saw all this as another complication. He had, of course, often offered to help other students in the past, but these arrangements rarely lasted for more than two sessions.
"You might as well have ordered him to sneak you into his house," Rowy remarked, looking at him with a tilt of her head. "You can't expect a child to become good enough at such spells in less than two months. That's wasted effort."
After a short yawn, Percy replied, "I don't expect him to. But at the same time, it's like I explained it to him: It gives me a good reason to enter Malfoy Manor. I didn't know Abraxas Malfoy in my time. He died before I could have had the opportunity.
"But if you know one pure-blooded snoot, you know them all. At best, the man is so ignorant and disinterested that he just lets me teach his son without even supervising. At worst, he insists on it, but then I have the opportunity to put him out of commission with a few tricks until I get what I want.
"If Lucius succeeds in stealing the diary, it shall be fine with me, whether it is due to Voldemort's negligence or the boy's surprising progress. So I have a plan with several possible ways in which it can lead to success. I think that should be sufficient."
"Your dark mirrors aren't ready for that yet," Rowy noted skeptically.
He grimaced at that remark. For Percy needed something to replace the Horcruxes so that the dark lord wouldn't know about Percy's hidden war against him. He was pretty sure that the dark lord would never have access to the tiara again, so it wasn't so sure with this one. But he could well imagine that he would check the diary at Malfoy Manor more often. At least he had the opportunity to do so.
A dark mirror, as Percy had called his solution to this problem, was a lesser reactive simulacrum. The user would sense a dark magical object on the one hand and perceive a reflection of its own self on the other. It would know what it was supposed to be because the unwitting user was transmitting that very knowledge to it.
The diary would write back about what the dark lord himself would expect as an answer. He thought this was a resourceful concept. For he doubted very much that the dark lord would actually check whether the object was a Horcrux or not.
The problem with dark mirrors was that it was incredibly difficult to change their shape greatly after enchantment. And although he knew roughly what the diary had looked like, who didn't know precisely. And he also had no feel for the haptics of the leather and paper.
So he needed an object-imitating dark mirror that could be set to look exactly like a certain predefined other object. And unfortunately, transfiguration via runic enchantment was an incredibly difficult undertaking. He had a functional prototype, unfortunately it was a cubic meter in size and could not lose mass.
Matter entropy in Transfigurations was a concept you suddenly had to think about a lot more with enchantments. Where did the excess mass go? How did you bring it back? With wand magic, these were academic but ultimately irrelevant questions because it just worked. But with static magic, it was pure horror to conceptualize it
The size of the object itself was due to the amount of rune rows required. Either he had to make those much smaller in size, or he had to find a way to accomplish a magical reduction of the object to be enchanted per se. The latter he had not succeeded in doing so far, and the former had the problem that runes became weaker the smaller they were painted or carved.
He was pretty sure by now that the matter entropy was actually a spatial outsourcing into a generated autonomous dimensional bubble, connected to the transfiguration but detached from the main reality. And this broke the context of the enchantment. As soon as the object lost mass, runes were lost, and that could have sometimes catastrophic effects.
"I know," Percy admitted, "but I have long enough to solve the problem, after all."
With a strange gentleness in her simulated features, Rowy advised, "I've already advised you to fixate more on what you can solve. Transfiguration was a nice idea, but there are other options. Look at me."
At that moment, Rowy's figure changed. Although her eyes still remained in the wine-like hue, she lost her ethereal shape and bluish coloring. She now stood before him like a solid figure, a real person. A naked person, but by now Percy could only roll his eyes at that. She liked these kinds of games.
He understood what she wanted to tell him. She wanted him to look more at the art of Conjuration. Illusion magic that cheated not only perception, but reality itself. After all, a conjured chair was never really there either, but everything around it was forced to acknowledge its feigned existence.
Permanent illusions were easier to create with enchantment. But they required more magical energy to sustain themselves. Just a small disturbance in the inflow, could cause them to flicker. If that happened to his dark mirror, he was busted.
"You know the problem with this suggestion. Even if I took high magic reagents like dragon blood, it probably wouldn't last much longer than a few years. Animal sacrifices could, maybe drag it out a bit. But it's just not lasting enough."
"My shell keeps me alive, too," Rowy countered defiantly. "You're just too cowardly to call on other sources."
Percy gave her a disgruntled look and said, "So you want me to create a predatory object. As you are one. An object that feeds on the life of its environment. Or maybe you want to advise me to use human sacrifice. Even if I did that, it would be only slightly stronger than an animal sacrifice. But a greater damage to me."
"As for human sacrifice, don't need to act so hypocritical. After all, you've used one before," Rowy replied snootily. "And as for the other idea: it might even contribute to making your result more like a Horcrux. After all, they are greedy for magical essence."
Percy crossed his arms. He really didn't want to create any more dangerous dark magic objects. There were far too many in the world as it was. He knew that all too well from his father, and he mostly just dealt with jinxed Muggle objects. But considering what the old families were hoarding of abominations. Even in the Weasleys' Gringotts dungeon there were a few problematic heirlooms hidden away.
On the other hand, he had little choice but to at least try Rowy's suggestion. The closer the source item was to the imitated Horcrux, the less ravenous the conjuring enchantment would be. It would need an essence extraction field that could satisfy its hunger over the entire building in which it was stored, on the people present.
This field had to be designed so that the withdrawal of magical energies would be unobtrusive and unnoticed by the Wards. With such a design, the enchantment would probably still fail eventually, but here he could expect decades rather than years.
"Very well, Rowy. I'll try your suggestion, but that means I'll have to rewrite almost all the rows."
As he sat down and began scribbling down his ideas on a blank parchment. Rowy's now again bluish translucent figure hovered close to him, the tip of her nose just inches from his face. She smiled widely and whispered, "You still owe me another hour today, Percival."
For a moment Percy closed his eyes and a cold shiver ran down his spine. He already feared the long-term effects her amulet might have on him. He had kept his promise the last two days and already on the second day the resulting cold had taken less of a toll on him. In fact, the experience was turning more into a pleasant exhaustion.
And that frightened him. Vampires, after all, had found ways to bind their victims to themselves. And Rowy would try that, too, if she got the chance. She would twist the depletion so that Percy enjoyed it. Obviously, it wasn't something she could do instinctively. But he feared that she was learning.
It occurred to him, of course, to simply not wear the amulet and to go back on his word. But the magical implications of making someone swear an oath and then not fulfilling the other person's counterconditions for it were anything but rosy. What exactly would happen, he couldn't say, but he didn't want to risk it. And even if nothing happened, Rowy's help was useful enough to justify keeping her happy.
He would hold out for five more days. After a deep breath, he stood up and, to Rowy's delighted chuckles, walked to the casket that contained her amulet. After a moment's hesitation, he took the amulet in his hand and put it on.