Chapter 25
Harry blinked. "A ball?"
"Yes," McGonagall said. "The Yule Ball takes place every Tri-Wizard tournament. It is compulsory for all champions to attend." She looked pointedly at Harry over her glasses, and he responded with a dismissive wave.
"I'll be there." McGonagall looked skeptical, but Harry ignored her and continued to eat his breakfast. If she wanted to stand there all day, he didn't particularly mind.
'So, a ball. Have you decided which one of your legion of fangirls you'll take?' Loki asked.
Harry thought for a moment before suggesting, 'Fleur?'
'I don't think she counts as a fangirl.'
Harry looked up to the Ravenclaw table, where Fleur was sitting. For a moment, she looked back at him, glaring. 'You're probably right about that.' Harry sighed. 'You'd think she'd be attracted by my awesome trickery of her...but no.'
'It is a problem I have faced many a time. Well, I would have if I cared for the follies of flesh,' Loki corrected himself. 'I have long since passed the stage where such a thing was entertaining. But nonetheless, it was a slight problem in my youth. Even with my tremendous attractiveness, women didn't like the fact that I would occasionally vanish all of their clothes in public or illusion myself as Thor to sleep with his current girlfriend. They simply couldn't understand my sense of humour!'
Harry snorted. 'I'll be sure not to do either of those things, then.'
'It'll be easier for you to get away with them. The Imperius Curse makes everything easier - not to mention already being given an army of fangirls.'
'I think I'll divert you back to the topic of the girl before you go off on a tangent about the last thousand years of your life.' Harry thought it would be best to discuss it now, rather than in a few hours time.
'As I said, your options are practically limitless - not Fleur, though.'
Harry glanced around the hall, observing his peers. In the weeks since the First Task, not much had changed in their opinion of him, but that might've been due to the fact he had been avoiding interacting with the general populace in order to maintain an air of mysteriousness. Most of Gryffindor remained firmly in awe of him. Ravenclaw's curiosity had only increased, and, if anything, Hufflepuff, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang hated him even more. His performance in the task had been spectacular to the level that it had completely eclipsed that of the others, even if he had won the least points.
The media coverage had reflected that. Rita Skeeter hadn't even referred to him as a budding dark lord once, though that was probably due to her being terrified of him, or more precisely, dream-Darth Vader. That said, quite a few people had interpreted him as "dark," though that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Being perceived as evil had made quite a few Slytherins like him more. It combined with the fact he had been widely thought of as unintelligent due to events such as his forgetting of the egg made him a rather easy target for manipulation. And if the Slytherins thought they were good at anything, it was manipulation.
Harry cast his gaze over the Slytherin table. 'Perhaps a Slytherin would be a good acquaintance to the ball. It would be good to start building connections within the house; a spy too, perhaps,' he said.
'Maybe. Purebloods also seem to be more attractive than average,' Loki observed. 'That's probably due to centuries of breeding - and inbreeding, of course, though I'm unsure the latter tends to provide good results. And as you were saying, a spy or someone like it might be useful. We must find a way to do it without the Gryffindors turning on us, however.'
Harry looked back to the table he was sitting on, and didn't doubt that it wouldn't take too much for these people to dislike him. 'Perhaps I should beat up Malfoy,' he suggested, 'or maybe say whichever girl I choose - if I choose a Slytherin, that is - to take is Malfoy's crush and I'm only doing it to hurt him.'
'That might work, but the Gryffindors have a tendency to not keep their mouths shut, so you should probably inform your spy that you are merely deceiving them.'
Harry sighed, and said, 'This sounds like a lot of unnecessary work.' He looked over to the Ravenclaw table. 'Maybe I should just go with Maria.'
'If you do, you'll still have to work on the spy. The one who put your name in the Goblet of Fire and paid Rita to slander you likely has connections to Slytherin. And with the lack of cunning Slytherins seem to have, it's hard for me to imagine anyone who knows anything not bragging or letting something slip.'
'Not all of them will be that stupid. Well, they hopefully won't be if we're to have a spy operate within their ranks.' Harry leaned back in his seat, glancing towards the Slytherin table once again. There was no way it wouldn't look suspicious if he just randomly approached them. He would have to be creative.
Making first contact with Slytherin was quite a bit easier than Harry had expected. As he had predicted, many a Slytherin sought to have him in the palm of their hand. He had decided on going to Hogwarts' library, which would hopefully bear students slightly more intelligent than Malfoy was.
Whenever a student who wasn't a Slytherin approached Harry, a very subtle illusion of fear easily drove them away. It wouldn't work if their resolve to speak to him was even slightly strong, but most were terrified to speak to Harry anyway, and any willpower they might've had easily crumbled under a fraction of his power.
Harry had spent his time pretending to read a book concerning defensive spells, most of which were utterly rubbish. What was the use of a five-syllable curse that tickled you?! He was resisting the urge to incinerate the useless text when, finally, a Slytherin approached.
Harry didn't take his eyes off of the book as they approached, or at least he didn't look like he did. His eyes, after all, had been some of the things he had focused on where illusionary were concerned. It was vital if he desired to conceal Loki's presence or look like an angry god, but it also proved useful when he was trying to make himself appear to be looking in one direction when he was actually looking in the other.
The person approaching was a girl. That necessarily been vital, seeing as he could take Maria to the Yule Ball, but it was still useful. Manipulation was considerably easier when he could take advantage of his good looks and any romantic feelings. From what he could see of the girl and the fact that she had approached him, it wouldn't be too far-fetched a guess to say that she also thought manipulation was easier when you were attractive, for she certainly was.
She was nowhere near Fleur's level, and maybe not even at Maria's, but those two were not Slytherins. Long blonde hair flowed halfway down her back, and her eyes were a blue light enough that it verged on grey, and might have been called icy.
As she arrived at his table, she smiled and asked, "I don't suppose you mind if I sit?"
Harry looked up to her face for a brief moment, before letting his gaze wander down to her breasts. Her lips twitched into a smirk for an amount of time so small that most wouldn't have noticed, but Harry did. Now she thought he had taken her bait, it would be far easier to feed her his.
Grinning, he turned his attention back to her face. "Sure," he said with a wink. "You probably know who I am."
She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Of course. I'm Daphne Greengrass."
'Wizards and their bloody idiotic names. Greengrass as opposed to what? Redgrass?' Harry demanded incredulously.
'I know, and I should probably remind you that your surname's Potter.' Before Harry could retort, Loki continued. 'Anyway, I've seen her in classes, so she's in your year. Greengrass is an old pureblood family, if you couldn't already tell by the silly name. I don't recall seeing any Greengrasses on the list of excused Death Eaters, but the majority weren't caught to begin with.'
'Anything else?'
'I feel as though we should be innately against her because of her Greek mythological name, but other than that, no.'
'Her name's from Greek mythology?' Harry asked. 'I know just how to seduce her.'
Loki groaned. 'Am I going to wish that I hadn't told you that?'
'I'm going to become a swan animagus.'
'I don't think that's how animag-'
'It worked for Zeus!' Harry mentally yelled. 'Are you admitting inferiority to some imaginary Greek god who uses lightning of all things! That's practically saying Thor's better than you!'
'Stop trying to annoy me,' snapped Loki. 'Pay attention to the mortal. Turning her into your spy, plaything, slave, thrall, or whatever you want to call her will require some effort at first.'
With a snort of laughter, Harry once again embraced reality, glancing up from the book he had resumed staring at when Daphne had sat down. She returned his gaze for a mere moment, before blushing in a way that was certainly false and looking back into her book. She was so obvious that Harry was unsure as whether he wanted to laugh at her, punch her in the face, or yell at her. He settled for leaning back and seeing how this played out.
Daphne had chosen not to make any overt moves that day - not that a single one of her actions were covert - and Harry had returned to the Gryffindor common room. He needed to continue planting the roots of his plan if he were to maintain Gryffindor's trust while infiltrating Slytherin.
He walked over to where Ron was chatting to a few other boys, and asked, "So, what do you think of Daphne Greengrass?"
The boys looked slightly so surprised, though as whether the reaction was to him actually speaking to them, or the odd question, Harry didn't know.
"Um," Ron began awkwardly. "Well she's kinda - well you know..."
"Kinda?" a boy with an Irish accent said. "More like really, 'well you know.'"
Harry grinned. "Malfoy seems to think the same," he said, "and I'm gonna take advantage of that."
Ron frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well, we've already seen that I can beat Malfoy physically, so the next step is emotionally, yes?" Harry's grin grew even further. "If you want to mess with the snakes, you've got to play like a snake, so I'm gonna take Malfoy's girlfriend."
A slight gasp sounded from behind him, and Harry turned to see a red-headed girl looking slightly mortified. When she saw him looking at her, she turned and fled towards the girl's dormitory.
Confused, Harry turned back to Ron and the other boys. Ron scratched his head awkwardly. "That's my sister, Ginny," he said. "She has a huge crush on you and I suppose she's a bit annoyed that you like other girls."
Harry blinked. "Well, okay then."
After a brief warning to Ron and the others not to disclose his plan to anyone, Harry departed the Gryffindor common room. He had barely left before the sharp tap of shoes against a stone floor followed. Harry let his wand fall into his hand, but did nothing else but louden his footsteps.
As he turned the corner, his follower was only a small distance behind. When they followed him around the turn, Harry found himself looking at a rather angry Hermione Granger as he leant against the wall, rolling his wand in his palm.
'Another Greek name,' Loki said. 'I'm already irritated with her.'
"Anything I can help you with, Granger?" Harry asked, eyebrow raised.
She glared in reply. "Ginny told me what you were talking about."
"And?"
The intensity of her glare increased. "And it's completely unacceptable!"
Amusement rose within him, and he took a few steps forward so that they were a foot apart. Even from this range, he would easily be able to block a spell from a school child. "And what are you going to do about it?" he asked.
Hermione flushed red. "I-I'm going to tell her."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "I don't think you will."
"I will."
"Coming here wasn't wise," he said with a smirk. For good measure, he added, "Mudblood." While he didn't care about blood supremacy, it was apparently rather insulting.
Hermione's eyes flashed with fury, and her hand flew up in what Harry wasn't quite sure was a punch or a smack. It surprised him, as what kind of witch didn't use magic? However, he wasn't surprised enough that his reflexes failed him.
Before he had time to think, Harry plucked her hand from the air and squeezed. Bones crunched in his hand, and as a scream built in Hermione's throat his hand shot forward and grasped it. Lifting her by the neck, he slammed her against the wall and stared her in the eye. Loki's might roared within him and he surged forward mentally. An agony equivalent to being set on fire descended upon her, and instantly knocked her unconscious, as Harry had intended.
Harry almost drove his wand into her gut before he gained control of himself and dropped her to the floor. Pressing his wand to her near-destroyed hand, he muttered a few rapid yet powerful healing spells, mending the bone.
He glanced around to make sure no one had seen, and then looked back to the unconscious girl and muttered, "Enervate". Pushing back any panic he might've felt at the risk of getting caught, he smirked. "Go ahead and tell Daphne my intentions, if you like. Just know that next time I feel as though you have attacked me, whether physically or not, it will be the last time."
A/N: Sorry about taking ages to update guys, I got obsessed with the Battlefront beta, updated my other fic, and then homework kept getting in the way. Anyway, tell me what you thought.
