"Hi, Theo!"

Theo flinched in surprise, blotting the notes he was taking on one of the books he'd borrowed from the very person who'd nearly just caused him to overturn an inkwell on it. He'd been spending most of his time this summer hiding from Cadmus here, in his bedroom (which he had warded himself with the excuse that he was trying out the design he was planning on using on his dorm room at school) with a pile of books from the Black library and no company at all. Which was exactly the way he liked it.

"Lyra. I don't suppose you'd tell me how you got in here, if I were to ask." Because he was pretty sure this was Lyra, not Eris, and she'd somehow managed to get into the Manor without alerting the house wards, and into his room without setting off any of the extra protections he'd been working on all summer.

She laughed, throwing herself onto his bed. "I did tell you I was learning shadow-walking," she told the ceiling.

Er...yes, she had, but she certainly hadn't told him she'd managed it. And besides, "You didn't appear in a shadow." She'd just...stepped out of thin air, in the middle of the room, about three feet to his left.

She sat up to give him one of those I know you're smarter than that looks she did so well. "Theo. We're inside. Think about it."

He was thinking about it, and he was pretty sure that was complete dragonshite. 'Shadow' wasn't really about the objective presence or absence of light, but the difference between the amount of light in the general area and the relative lack thereof in the shadowed area. It wasn't as though shadow-walkers could go anywhere at night just because the entire side of the planet was covered by its own shadow. And there were shadows in here, but the spot she'd appeared in wasn't one, even if it wasn't in direct sunlight.

"I'm pretty sure it doesn't count as a shadow if it's the brightest part of the room."

She grinned. "Sure it does. Granted, the shadows are...kind of thinner, there, so the Dark's harder to reach, but it's still there. And getting out is much easier than getting in."

"Er...right..." He couldn't really argue with the fact that she had just appeared there, even if it did go against everything he knew about the Dark Plane. (Well, except that it was easier to get back to the Mundane Plane than to step out of it, that was consistent with what he'd read.) If he tried, he was pretty sure she'd play the which of us has actually done this card again. He sighed. Well, at least that meant there wasn't some major, easily-exploited flaw in his wards...or at least not one that anyone other than Lyra and vampires could use. "So...to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I thought it was about time I bring you in on some things, since you're on the team now."

Theo frowned — was that supposed to make sense? "On the team?"

"Yeah, I mean...you have done your dedication by now, haven't you?"

Oh, so black mages were a team now, were they? He hadn't realised. "I don't see how that's really your business, Black, but no, I haven't."

"But..." Lyra stared at him for a moment, her expression completely absent. "It's been months."

He rolled his eyes, the motion as exaggerated and dramatic as possible, just to make sure she didn't miss it. "Yeah, we're not having this conversation again."

Her lips quirked in a childish pout. "Are you doing it on Lammas? That's just a couple days away, you know, Lammas is a good day to do it. If there even is such a thing, I mean, it's not like the Powers give a shite. Still not sure why you're being so bloody...whatever, you know what I mean."

He did. As far as he was concerned, he was the reasonable one. She might be able to take this sort of thing lightly, but they were talking about dedicating the rest of his life in service to a bloody god — he would do it exactly the way he felt was appropriate, when he felt he was ready, and not a second earlier. "I wasn't planning on it. I'm afraid you'll just have to wait."

Letting out her breath in a long, thin sigh, Lyra flopped back onto her back, hard enough she bounced a little on his on bed. "Fine, fine. If you must be a silly normal person, I guess I can wait. Though I hope you're not so bloody slow and wishy-washy with shite for the Conspiracy to Kill Not-Professor Riddle."

"What are you talking about now?"

"The House of Black owes a certain demonic Dark Lord a horrible, painful death, it's this whole thing. You're helping."

She... She didn't mean the Dark Lord, did she? Was she in— No, wait he knew the answer to that. "And...why would I do that?"

"Because I let you borrow my books, it'll be an interesting project, and even if I weren't around you'd probably oppose Riddle just to spite your father. Also, I asked nicely."

She hadn't asked nicely, in point of fact, but she wasn't exactly wrong. Sighing helplessly, he stood up, glaring down at Lyra, where she lay stretched out across his bed, smirking to herself. "You're completely ridiculous, you know that."

She grinned. "You love it."

...He didn't hate it. Even if she could be rather overwhelming at times. "Was that what you were doing on Walpurgis? Something to do with this suicidal quest of yours." He hesitated for a second but, fuck it, laid down next to her. There was plenty of room, and it'd just felt sort of odd looking down at her from halfway across the room. (Also, it was his bloody bed.)

"Oh, no. Well, sort of, I guess — I thought it was related at the time, but it turns out I understand nobody, not even myself."

...Okay, then? "I don't think anybody understands you, Lyra."

Turning her head to grin at him, the insane girl drawled, "I choose to take that as a compliment."

He would say it hadn't been meant as one, but Theo was planning on dedicating himself to the Infernal Power, so he had absolutely no right to talk.

"Anyway, I do actually know that it worked now. I said something then about not wanting to explain before I knew, I think? But, yeah, I know it worked now, and I guess we can talk about that. There's nobody else I can tell, you know, and it's fucking neat — what's the point in bragging about something if nobody understands what you did? I mean, I told Blaise, but I don't think he really gets how totally awesome it is."

Theo cocked an eyebrow. "I see the muggle slang is contagious. You've been spending too much time with Zabini."

"Yes, well, I do have a muggleborn girlfriend now, so I'm pretty sure I'm a lost cause already."

A muggleborn girl... Were Lyra and Granger dating now? Huh. That was going to be hilarious or horrifying to watch, or perhaps both at once. From a safe distance, of course. "What was this thing you wanted to brag about, now?"

"Right, that. Anyway, so you know how... No, wait, let's not start there. Erm..." Lyra frowned up at the ceiling for a moment, chewing on her lip. "You know how using compulsions on a child is Unforgivable?"

Well, there was no way that was a segue into anything pleasant. "Yes."

"Turns out the reason why is, if you do, they turn out like Bellatrix."

"What does..." He trailed off, his unfinished sentence abandoned as he belatedly realised Lyra was talking about the fucking Blackheart. "You mean... Are you trying to tell me Lady Blackheart was a victim of childhood mind-molding?"

Lyra giggled, which, that didn't seem at all appropriate, given the present topic of conversation. (Not that he honestly expected Lyra bloody Black to ever act appropriately, but still.) "I still think that name is silly. I mean, honestly, Lord Voldemort, Lady Blackheart, the Boy Who Lived, You Know Who — the pseudonyms people throw around in this timeline, it's ridiculous."

This timeline...?

"But yeah, that's exactly what I mean. I'm told it explains a lot, apparently, I obviously wasn't around back then. Riddle started throwing compulsions at her on her fifth birthday, and never really stopped. Made her his mind-slave, pretty much." (Theo didn't even want to consider the implications of that.) "That's what we were doing on Walpurgis, Eris and I, restoring Bella's autonomy."

Theo nearly said it was impossible to reverse deep-seated childhood compulsions, reflexively, but the Powers hadn't a reputation for caring what mortals considered impossible — he didn't doubt that, with Eris's assistance, they could have come up with something. He wouldn't think Eris would be particularly suited to...fixing things, but maybe conceptualising it as "restoring Bella's autonomy" made it easier. (High magic was often a matter of perspective more than anything else.) Lyra had already implied she'd been successful, so there was no point questioning whether it was even possible.

Of course, this also suggested the Blackheart wasn't dead — which, he'd sort of assumed that already, she was the fucking Blackheart. Honestly, Theo doubted very many people believed the official announcement of her death. They'd said she'd been killed attempting to escape, but anyone who knew anything about the fucking Blackheart knew there was no way they could possibly have managed that, not with the paltry few Aurors they'd stationed at Azkaban. Most everyone he'd heard mention the news — a few Lords and several children with the Allied Dark and Ars Brittania, mostly — had all expressed serious doubts. Everybody feared her, and nobody would believe she was dead until the Ministry presented a corpse. And probably not even then.

She was probably off on the Continent somewhere, that would be the smart thing to do. Even if they managed to capture her, by some inconceivable miracle, Theo could count the magical nations that would even consider extraditing her back to Britain on his fingers — civilised people considered throwing prisoners into a box filled with dementors a crime against humanity.

So, since all that was simple and obvious, Theo went right back to the actually interesting part: "How did you do it?"

"Right, so, to put it in the simplest possible terms, Eris let me possess her and—"

"What?!" Lyra stared at him, blinking in surprise and confusion. Which was completely absurd, that she wouldn't get why he was being, a bit— She'd just said she'd possessed a god! "I'm sorry, I must have misheard you, because I swore you just said you possessed Lady Eris."

"Well...yeah? I mean, not all of her, obviously, just a little sliver of her she let me borrow. It's not like I took it, that would be ridiculous."

Theo barely managed to hold in a shocked laugh. There was no part of what she'd just said that wasn't ridiculous!

For a few seconds, questions flew around, none more prominent than another, before he could decide what to ask the realisation started settling over him. Possessing a sliver of a god, that just, shouldn't be possible. It wasn't done. Unless... Unless the person was already a sliver of a god, unless...

A wave of tingles swept across his skin, his throat clenching, feeling abruptly all too light-headed.

What she'd just said, it would make sense, if she were an avatar.

Lyra was a bloody avatar of Eris.

"...I think I need to lie down."

"Er, Theo? You are lying down."

"Oh. Right."

Yeah, he was already lying down. He was lying in his bed.

With Lyra.

A bloody avatar of fucking Eris.

Theo honestly thought he might faint.

If he hadn't been determined to continue their association as long and deep as possible, this alone would have been enough to convince him he should. He'd already known she was a black mage, and brilliant, but... She was...

He'd never had very many friends — he'd never really felt he needed or wanted any — but one of them was an Avatar of Chaos.

(He was never letting her out of his sight again.)

Lyra gave him a peculiar look, somewhere between confused and uncomfortable, but he hardly saw it, he was too busy processing the realisation that Lyra was apparently a fucking avatar. Before long, she apparently brushed off his little moment, started rattling off about...something about...feeding the Blackheart's memories through her...or viewing them simultaneously? Some trick to rebuild her mind without letting the compulsions reform, he got that. And that was fascinating, yes, but it wasn't...

He meant, from what he understood, they'd exploited the connection both of them had with Eris. He'd hardly blinked at the revelation that the Blackheart was also a black mage dedicated to Eris — she did clearly lean far more into Destruction than Lyra did, but it wasn't a surprise. But anyway, this little trick they'd pulled off, it sounded like it should only work between a dedicate and an avatar of a single Aspect. So, it was interesting, but it wasn't really something that could be applied to anything else.

Though, it was possible a similar technique to break childhood compulsions could be designed using solely mind magic. Hmm...

That was an interesting thought, actually. He'd have to talk to Blaise about it.

"So...it worked, is what you're saying." Yes, Theo, focus on the fascinating magic, what could very well be an entirely unique phenomenon that would never be replicated ever, not on the fact that Lyra was apparently an avatar, that, don't think about that.

...Or about the fact that the Blackheart was free and sane for, it seemed, the first time in her entire life.

Son of a bitch.

Lyra let out a thin sigh, glaring up at the ceiling. "Yes, it worked. I hardly remember any of it, though — I think Eris was worried I'd end up too much like her, wiped my memory of most of the night."

"Well, that does make sense." Experiencing all her memories would essentially make Lyra a copy of the Blackheart in a younger body, and Theo would go out on a limb and assume Eris, of all possible Aspects, would prefer her dedicates not be all exactly the same. It seemed a reasonable guess that a goddess of Chaos would find that boring. (Not to mention, presumably the Powers would be more attached to and protective of their avatars, and Lyra was an avatar, apparently — he was trying to stay calm, but it was fucking difficult.)

"Yeah, but Bella's life was just fascinating, and she knows all kinds of interesting magic, you don't understand, Theo. I still have a few flashes here and there, but nothing really substantial." Lyra's petulant glaring — directed at her Patron, he guessed — shifted into an irritated grimace. "I do know she still kind of likes Riddle, which is just— She's not his mind-slave anymore, but Eris says she's not convinced he actually did anything wrong, and we have no idea if she's taking the piss — she's much better at mind magic than I am — annoying, obnoxious, ungrateful cunt. I'm still going to kill him anyway, though. If she has a problem with it, she can go fuck herself."

That was almost funny, honestly, but Theo somehow doubted Lyra would much appreciate him showing it. She was obviously taking the Blackheart's disinterest in Eris's vengeance against the Dark Lord on her behalf personally. (Which, well, Theo thought one of the Powers going out of their way to liberate someone from mind-molding and destroy the person responsible deserved a little fucking appreciation, but this was the Blackheart they were talking about.) But anyway, "So, is she actually opposed to our...Conspiracy to Kill Not-Professor Riddle — was that how you put it?"

(He had no idea why she was calling the Dark Lord Not-Professor Riddle, but he also didn't particularly care, on a scale of...everything she'd said over the course of this conversation already.)

Lyra grinned, clearly amused with him borrowing the phrase. "I knew I liked you for some reason."

"I'm flattered, really."

One of those incongruously girlish giggles of hers, those always struck him as odd. "But no...maybe? I don't know. I wouldn't if I was her, but as this little exercise has made abundantly clear, I'm not. Last I heard, she was meeting up with Greyback's people on the Continent. I'm not actually sure what she's doing, like, if she has a plan. Apparently they're friends. But as far as I know they haven't really been doing anything — Greyback, I mean. For a terrifying werewolf revolutionary, he's surprisingly boring."

Well, yes, the propaganda surrounding Greyback did exaggerate his atrocities rather a lot. As philosophically opposed as the two sides of the war had been, most of them were still upstanding, pureblooded sons and daughters of British Noble Houses — werewolves, on the other hand, one could say pretty much whatever one wanted about werewolves without anyone objecting. Some of the stories flying around about Greyback and his people, even now, a decade and a half after he'd left Britain, shite about blood magic and cannibalism and paedophilia, whatever awful crime the teller could imagine, on and on and on...

Which wasn't to say the Dark Lord's werewolf allies hadn't done anything morally questionable at all, of course they had. They were simply also a convenient target to pin every horror story imaginable on, socially-neutral propaganda to motivate people to oppose the Death Eaters. As much as Dumbledore might be inclined toward benevolence in this particular case, most of the Light strongly disagreed — shite, as he understood it, the faction in the Wizengamot most supportive of greater rights for werewolves was Ars Publica, the traditional Dark. (Which, despite the Death Eater propaganda he'd grown up with, was obvious when he thought about it; after all, the Dark wasn't likely to start using "dark creature" as a pejorative, were they, that just didn't make any sense.) As far as the Noble Houses were considered, the werewolves were an acceptable target, demonising them far more politically safe than their peers — after all, they would likely be forced to work with each other again once the fighting was over, it wouldn't do to say anything too extreme.

(He really did hate the nobility sometimes.)

"Let's see, what else has been going on lately... Oh! You know about the Tournament this year, right?"

"Yes, obviously." It still hadn't been officially announced, but Theo hadn't spoken to anyone who hadn't known about it already for months — the Ministry was constitutionally incapable of keeping secrets, this was expected.

"Well, I was going over Zee's — I mean, the Zabinis' — wards back in the spring. I redid the whole thing for them because, really, Zee is not a wardcrafter — she didn't do a bad job for an amateur, I guess, but honestly it was a sloppy mess. If I'd written that script, Ciardha would have scrapped it and made me start over."

...Ciardha? Was that supposed to be her 'travelling cursebreaker' guardian? He'd been under the impression that story was a lie too... "I'm sure you'll be getting to the point eventually."

"I'm getting there, Jesus." (Was she trying to sound like a muggleborn?) "Anyway, going over the wards, and I found her papers on the Tournament, and it turns out their panel of judges was all wrong. Just the three Headmasters, and Crouch and Bagman from the Ministry. Three out of five from the British government — in what universe could that ever be considered a neutral panel?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if the organisers were stacking it on purpose." That sort of thing did used to happen with the original Tournament, though the other schools were usually pretty good at catching it. "Who did you invite, then?"

Lyra pouted at him. "Am I really that predictable?"

"It was obvious from context, Lyra."

"Right, well. I expanded it to seven, because obviously. Anyway, I kept the three Headmasters — I looked into it, and apparently the Headmasters are almost always on the panel of judges, and each school gets one, so. I sent a letter to the I.C.W., inviting them to send a representative. I heard they picked some bloke named Régis Delacour — diplomat, never heard of him before."

Theo hadn't either, but, "Delacour, like veela Delacour?"

Lyra shrugged. "I guess? I think the I.C.W. would know not to send a veela to Britain, what with all the racist idiots around, he probably just married in or something."

Because a 'blood traitor' was so much better than a 'magical creature'. The I.C.W. was clearly fucking with somebody, Theo just didn't know whether it was this Delacour chap or the entire bloody country.

"I sent an invite to Cassie Lovegood, apparently she's already dropped out of an open in...Sri Lanka? Is that what it's called now? Whatever, she's in the country, apparently, I'm sure she'll show up."

There was something inherently funny about Lyra, an avatar of Chaos, inviting Cassie bloody Lovegood back to the country. And looking positively giddy about it, even...

For a moment, he considered commenting — they were both black mages (or, she was and he would be soon, anyway), inviting a famous light warrior with a long record of hunting down and murdering people like them seemed, just, completely reckless, even on a scale of Lyra Black. But, when he thought about it, it was...probably fine. Lovegood was known to be selective in her targets, had openly associated with ritualists and (suspected) white and black mages around the world. So long as they didn't do anything extreme — and avoided doing anything too awful to their classmates, victimisers of children were usually the targets of Lovegood's bloodiest hits — they should be safe.

Really, Theo wasn't likely to draw her attention at all, and Lyra was pretty good about picking socially-acceptable targets. They'd be fine. Probably. He hoped.

In any case, Lyra was already moving on. "And I haven't heard about Perenelle Flamel yet, but—"

"Wait, aren't the Flamels dead?"

Lyra shrugged. "Officially, yes, but I'm sure she'll show up anyway."

... He had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to respond to that.

"And the last one..." Her face splitting into a bright grin, she chirped, "You'll never guess who the last one is."

As though he would have guessed any of the last three. "No, I won't. I guess you'll just have to tell me."

"Oh, poo, you're no fun. I sent a letter, much like the one to the I.C.W., asking them to choose a representative, to a certain...educational institution in the Americas."

It was obvious what she was talking about. It took Theo some moments to find his voice again, staring blankly back at Lyra — she looked ever so pleased with herself, the bloody madwoman. "You invited...Miskatonic to join the judges' panel."

"Yep!" Popping the bloody P again, like an overexcited child...

"Are you insane?!"

"That's what they tell me. But anyway, have you heard of Angel Black?"

"...You mean, Angélos Black, Avatar of the Dark, Angel Black? Wait, Misaktonic is sending Angélos Black to judge the Tournament?!"

And Lyra kept grinning, as though she had absolutely no comprehension of how absolutely absurd this was. "Yep! She's great, makes the air around her all tingly. She dropped in on us in California to confirm the invitation was legitimate — Zee was very annoyed with me afterward, it was funny."

Gods and Powers, this Tournament was going to be a fucking disaster. Having one Black avatar kicking around the school was plenty — there was absolutely no way having two was going to end well for anyone. From some of the stories he'd heard about the Avatar of the Dark, she was far less...civilized, than Lyra. They were probably equally likely to make a horrible mess of the revival of the Tournament, but Angélos fucking Black was almost certain to make it much, much worse. After all, unlike Lyra, her messes tended to have a body count.

Though, the thought of Dumbledore realising exactly who he was sitting next to was bloody hilarious, it was almost worth it just to see the look on his face.

Wait a second. "Let me get this straight: you invited Cassie Lovegood and Angélos Black to the same event."

The grin on Lyra's face didn't even twitch. "Do you think they'll sit them next to each other?"

... No, there was absolutely no way this was going to end well. None at all.

"Let's see, what else is going on... Nothing that interesting, I guess? I'm still working with Sam, Zee's muggle Ravenclaw, but that's a long-term project, don't really have much to talk about there. Oh, I am working on a theory unifying magic and muggle physics, but I'm still putting it together, I'll get back to you when it's closer to done."

It was amazing just how casually she could say that. Oh, I'm working on revolutionising both magic and science, no big deal, just this thing I'm doing in my spare time. He thought he would have gotten used to Lyra being Lyra by this point, but he wasn't certain he ever would — the head-spinning rush of mad Lyra-ness never seemed to stop, or even slow down.

(It sounded like he was complaining, but he honestly thought he might love her a little bit. Which did make sense, her being a bloody avatar, and all — he loved Magic, always had.)

"There's the stuff with Sirius and Harry and Dumbledore, but I'm sure you know all of that..."

"About that, what happened with the vote to expel Dumbledore?" He hadn't been present at the vote itself, of course, and his father hadn't spoken of it, but he'd been certain Dumbledore was finished. In the days since, Theo had gotten his hands on a record of the vote, and it was...baffling, to put it mildly. Now, he'd admit he didn't pay as much attention to Wizengamot politics as an heir of a Noble House probably should, but there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to who had voted which way, fault lines split through factions and alliances that made absolutely no sense.

"Well, he would have lost, that's sort of the problem."

"What?"

"Apparently, the vote wasn't going the way Cissy expected — prominent people in Ars Brittania and Dumbledore's Light started voting up, so the Dark panicked, ran all over the floor to get their own people to flip and sabotage the vote. I'm told Cissy and Ingham are scrambling trying to find out what the fuck is going on, but neither of them exactly have many friends in the Light, so it's not going well."

That even the leadership in the Wizengamot had no idea what was going on wasn't exactly reassuring. "Maybe he's just fallen so far even the Light is done with him." It was hard to imagine the so-called Light Houses, at least, turning on their hero. Dumbledore did have somewhat more liberal views on being rights than they preferred, and had a mildly populist bent in economics and family law few among the nobility in general were comfortable with — pretty much just Common Fate, honestly, half of them were considered a step away from class traitors by the rest of the nobility — but they had practically deified him in the decades after Grindelwald. His disagreements with Ars Brittania were more serious, but they'd always supported him as well, it certainly wasn't in their interests to expel probably the most unapologetically Light Chief Warlock they'd ever had. But, well, Dumbledore had been buried in scandal lately. It wasn't out of the question their betrayal of their figurehead was entirely personal, political considerations aside.

Lyra shot him a doubtful look. "I don't know about that — you might have noticed, the Light is completely irrational about Dumbledore. Cissy thinks their willingness to vote him out suggests they don't need him anymore. The worst case scenario, they think they can control the vote for the next Chief Warlock. But that doesn't seem possible — with the Allied Dark, Ars Publica, and Common Fate all together, Cissy is positive they have enough of a margin to ram through whoever they like, as long as they're not too controversial — so Ingham and Longbottom are thinking the alliance isn't as solid as it seems. Longbottom says there must be traitors in the Allied Dark, Cissy says the same thing about Common Fate, and Ingham thinks they're both planning to stab her in the back, it's a mess."

Theo opened his mouth to say something sarcastic about how very good everyone involved was at their jobs...and froze. "Fuck."

"What?"

"Er... You know my father challenged Lady Malfoy for leadership of the Allied Dark a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah, she told me about that. Didn't she win though? With just how smug she was telling me about it, I assumed she'd completely flattened him."

Theo nodded — she had, obviously. Cadmus wasn't a slouch in a fight, but the Blackheart had ensured her favourite baby sister could protect herself, he was entirely out of his league. "Has it ever occurred to you that who's the better duellist is really a terrible way to select a faction's leadership?"

Looking rather bemused, Lyra said, "Well, obviously. That is stupid, but, I guess I assumed it was carried over from when the Allied Dark were still the Death Eaters. I didn't really think about it that much, just that it meant Cissy had her people well in line..."

"Wait, really? I thought..." He'd thought Lyra would be on board with that sort of thing. It was no secret that the Blackheart had had a significant influence on the culture of the Death Eaters, he'd assumed this was...well, a Black thing.

She shrugged. "Honestly, the way the Circle of Agastya does things seems the most reasonable to me. But I'm not the one running things, so, just been going along with it."

That...made a lot of sense, when he thought about it. The Circle of Agastya represented a...sort of quasi-anarchist strain of thought among the Dark — they were most well-known for the "Circles" themselves, groups of dark mages cooperating to achieve one goal or another (usually, murdering a local Dark Lord), but their general philosophy had slowly seeped through certain segments of the Dark around the world. Ars Publica had been becoming increasingly Agastyan over the last generations, though they didn't use the word.

The Circles themselves, traditionally, were brought together in free association, with no real internal hierarchy. It usually required a mage (or several) with enough influence to "call" a Circle in the first place, and their members most suited to strategy would often slide into an organising/command role, but they didn't really have leaders in the sense most people would think of the term. They didn't believe in systems of coercion, where one person could give an order and another was obligated to follow it, considered such things to be inherently immoral.

They were, to oversimplify things, the Chaotic side of international Dark culture. It wasn't at all a surprise that Lyra would appreciate their way of doing things.

"I'm guessing Cissy beating the shite out of him didn't actually get Cadmus to give up."

"Ah, no, er..." Theo winced, glancing away to stare sightlessly at the opposite wall. "He's been dragging me along to political meetings, you know. I don't sit in on them, of course, relegated to side rooms with the other children, but... The Parkinsons are usually there. I've seen Rowle, Wilkes, Yaxley." He took a breath. "Young and Carpenter. And...Llewellyn is always there. And usually Brown and Diggory."

He wasn't looking, but Theo could almost feel her level stare, the magic around her turned unpleasantly sharp. "Those are Light families. And, isn't Lord Llewellyn the leader of Ars Brittania at the moment?"

The surprise on Lyra's voice was completely justified. Ars Brittania was sort of like the Allied Dark of the Light — extreme and intolerant, the most radical restrained from open violence by a hair. The two factions had similar ideas about nonhumans and muggleborns, but otherwise the Allied Dark and Ars Brittania had virtually nothing in common. "Yes, he is."

"They... Huh." She was quiet a short moment, the cold tension slowly fading out of the air. "That does make sense, I guess. I mean, the Parkinsons, Rowles, and Yaxleys were with Ars Brittania in my old universe. The Notts too, actually, now that I think about it."

Theo was saved from coming up with how to respond to the suggestion that families that had been Dark for generations could have anything to do with Ars Brittania by what Lyra said immediately afterward. "Your old universe?"

"If we assume everyone who was with Ars Brittania back there will flip here, that means... Hang on." Lyra sat up, reaching into the empty space around herself — shadow pockets? how the fuck... — to pull out some papers, a muggle pen. Propping himself up on his elbows, he could see she had split the page in half, filling out a row of tally marks on either side, then listing the names of Noble Houses under those, muttering under her breath.

Which, he realised this politics stuff might be important to other people, but Theo really didn't care who the Chief Warlock was. Especially when Lyra went saying things like, "Your old universe? Lyra?!"

"Did I not mention that?" Lyra shot him an exasperated look over her shoulder, before turning back to her whatever that was. Projecting a vote based on the assumption that half of the Allied Dark would leave their new alliance with Ars Publica to join with Ars Brittania instead, which was...just absurd. Thankfully, he didn't have to ask again — she sounded distracted, but she did actually answer. "That's why no one can figure out where I came from, I didn't exist here before last Lammas. I'm the Bellatrix Black of a different universe. I meant to go back thirty years, to make Grindelwald's revolution actually happen — he wasn't released from prison in Twenty-Eight, it didn't get off the ground without him — but Eris fucked it up on purpose somehow, and I ended up going thirty years in the future instead. In a universe where Grindelwald's revolution did succeed...sort of...so I guess that's something."

She said that whole absurd thing without the slightest hint of self-consciousness, as though she didn't realise just how completely insane it was. Not to mention, "Lyra, you can't travel forward in time. That's, just, impossible."

She shrugged. "Sure you can. You just can't aim very well — it's hard to hit a target that doesn't exist yet, you know. Besides, once the Powers get involved 'impossible' doesn't really mean anything. Though I understand we owe Mystery one, whole reason Eris and I decided to expedite your dedication, which you should really get on with, by the way."

"...You're being completely serious. You're not just fucking with me?"

Slowly, Lyra's eyes were drawn away from her papers, fixing Theo with a doubtful frown. "Er...no? Why would I make that up?"

"I don't..." Well, he couldn't think of a reason, really. She'd gone through multiple cover stories to explain her existence and her sudden presence in Britain, and while some of them had been...problematic, if thought about too hard, she couldn't exactly go around telling people she was a time-travelling black mage.

"I really thought we talked about this already, when we talked about our dedications..." Lyra trailed off, blinking. Then she shrugged, turning back to her papers. "Oh well, not important."

Oh, yes, he could see that, why should anyone think it was worth discussing the fact that Lyra was an alternate Blackheart from a different universe? Clearly, there was just something wrong with him! "How did you... What was it like, crossing over?"

"Nauseating, mostly." Lyra hissed, growled what was probably a curse of some kind — it wasn't in English. "It's going to be tight, we are so fucked. I need to go talk to Cissy." The papers disappeared again, Lyra bounced up to her feet, the bed hardly jolting in her wake.

"What? No, Lyra, you can't just run off after springing something like that on me! We have to talk about this!"

Lyra rolled her eyes — rolled her eyes, this crazy girl, honestly... "You need to work on your priorities, Nott. When fall comes around, I'll still be me. Preserving our brand new majority in the Wizengamot long enough to actually do something with it is a far more pressing matter."

"Lyra, don't you—"

"See you later, Theo, get on with that dedication thing while I'm gone." And then, before Theo could get another syllable in, Lyra was gone, disappearing without a sound or a flicker from the middle of his bedroom — slipping away into shadows despite the fact that there were no shadows there, the lights were on, how the fuck was she doing that...

Theo wanted to say he was angry at her. Honestly, dropping things like that on his head and popping off without even explaining a single bloody thing, it was very frustrating. He hated not getting proper explanations for things. Especially fascinating magic things. But...

She was a bloody avatar, who'd come here from an alternate universe, thirty years in the past. And she apparently wasn't going anywhere, involving herself in the political life of the here and now as she was.

He'd get his questions in eventually. Especially since she expected him to help her kill the Dark Lord — she'd have no choice but to sit down and actually fucking explain herself for once eventually. In fact, no matter how tedious and frustrating the bloody girl could be, Theo could feel a smile pulling at his lips anyway.

His life had quite abruptly grown far more interesting than he'd had any reason to expect.


Oh Theo, silly magic nerd xD

Anyway, we're starting to come in on the end here. Looking at...seven more summer scenes — four of them are finished, and two are partially done, so should get out consistently.

Just before posting the last one, I'm planning on rearranging the summer scenes into chronological order. Not going to be changing anything, so you don't have to go rereading it. We were just writing these as we felt like it, so we weren't getting them written in anything like the order they actually happened in, so, kind of mess. You'll just get a notice for the last post, and everything well be rearranged, shouldn't even notice it happening. The reviews will end up attached to the wrong chapters, and it will probably be confusing for anyone partway through when it hits, but, eh.

After that, we may or may not take a couple weeks to get some momentum going, and then it'll be straight into year four. Woo.

—Lysandra