Harry Potter and the Physical Adept
Chapter 17: Snake in the Grass
"We should talk."
Myla Bletchley nearly jumped out of her shoes at the silky growl behind her; turning, she recognized the Boy-Who-Lived lurking in the shadows just outside the entrance leading out of the dungeons where the Slytherins laid their heads at night, barely visible in the gloom with his black hair and dark clothes.
It was the Saturday morning after the first meeting of the dueling club, and though she had exchange words with the Boy-Who-Lived after their practice duel, she had not expected to hear from him again, especially not so soon.
"Hungry?" asked the Hufflepuff, and Myla nodded. "Come with me; we can eat and talk."
Following the Boy-Who-Lived, the Slytherin girl found herself being led to an abandoned seventh floor classroom and braced herself as the door swung opened, not sure what to expect; behind the door, a spread of food had been laid out on one of the long, tiered tables, some of which she recognized from the takeaway her mother sometimes ordered when she was too busy to cook dinner.
She also saw the lower-form students in the room, recognizing the girl who had broken the Malfoy heir's arm and the Ravenclaw rumored to be the smartest student in the school; the other three present were people she did not recognize.
"What's she doing here?" demanded brunette with her hair in pigtails. "She's a Slytherin!"
"I invited her, Wildfire," said the Boy-Who-Lived. "This is Myla Bletchley, of Slytherin."
"Not by choice," Myla added. "I'd have much rather have been sorted into Gryffindor, or even Hufflepuff."
"Then why are you a Slytherin?" the girl the Boy-Who-Lived had called 'Wildfire' challenged.
"My mother, before she married my father, took his name and got disowned, was a Crouch," Myla said hotly, defending herself. "I love my father, who's a muggle, and I grew up with my feet in both the magical and muggle worlds, but the Sorting Hat barely touched my head before it declared me a Slytherin."
"I'm Hermione Granger, and we don't use 'muggle' here," said the Ravenclaw. "It's demeaning."
"Then what do you call people without magic?" Myla asked.
"Normal," said the boy behind her.
"Normal?" asked the Slytherin, confused.
"Considering the population of magicals compared to people without magic, having magic is the exception and not the norm," explained the girl named Hermione.
Myla nodded, understanding exactly what the Ravenclaw meant. She had visited High Streets numerous times, and the bustling always made her think of Diagon Alley as small.
"Sit, eat," said the girl who had broken Draco Malfoy's arm, nodding to the seat beside her. "If Bear thinks you're okay, you're fine by me."
Hesitantly, Myla sat down, wary of the pigtailed girl still shooting her dirty looks and piling food from the communal plate the one placed in front of where she sat. She was hungry, but she had never seen food like this at Hogwarts.
"Who made this?" she asked. "I didn't think house elves knew how to make Chinese food."
"Bear and I cooked," said the olive-skinned girl beside her between mouthfuls of rice.
"I helped," chimed in the blonde besides the girl who had invited her to sit down.
"And you are?" Myla inquired.
"Luna Lovegood," she said, extending a hand towards the Slytherin, who shook it.
"Lovegood, like Xenophilius?" Myla asked. "Of The Quibbler?"
"That's my daddy," said the blonde distantly, distracted.
"Huh," said the Slytherin, before taking a bite from the food. "This is good."
"I know," said the Boy-Who-Lived, who had taken a seat and was helping himself to a spring roll.
"So, what do you want to talk to me about?" Myla asked.
"You're thinking of recruiting her, aren't you?" asked the girl with the bushy brown hair beside her.
"Recruiting me?" the Slytherin asked.
"What's your thoughts on blood purity?" asked the Boy-Who-Lived, ignoring her question.
"It's pure bunk," Myla answered. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"What about You-Know-Who?" the Ravenclaw asked.
"Mother always called him a terrorist, for attacking innocent people who couldn't defend themselves," Myla said, "and I agree. There's nothing more cowardly than that."
"And if I told you he wasn't dead?" asked the boy who had invited her to breakfast.
"Then I hope he dies in a bloody ditch," spat the Slytherin.
"I think her feelings are pretty clear," said the Boy-Who-Lived.
"Agreed," said the girl who had broken Draco Malfoy's arm. "All in favor?"
Myla looked around confusion as four hands were quickly raised; the blonde's, the bushy-haired Ravenclaw's, the arm-breaker's and the Boy-Who-Lived's hands all went up immediately, and only afterwards did the remaining two reluctantly join in.
"Once in, never out," intoned the Boy-Who-Lived ominously.
"I don't understand," Myla said.
"You don't have any friends in Slytherin, and hell, you don't even share the views of most of the house, so what do you have to lose?" the Boy-Who-Lived asked. "All it'll cost you to join this group of friends is a blood oath."
"What's a 'blood oath'?" asked the Slytherin suspiciously.
"It's just an old traditional normal people have," said blonde blithely.
"We've all done one," the Ravenclaw added.
"And what do I have to swear?" Myla asked.
"Just that you'll never betray the secrets of this circle," said the olive-skinned girl besides her.
"What secrets?" she asked.
"You'll find out after you take the oath."
Myla considered the proposition; she did not like getting into a situation she did not understand, but at the same time, she was tired of being an afterthought in her own house, never spoken to outside of Quidditch, and only scornfully even then.
"I'll take it," she said, determined to change the course of her school life.
"Swear you'll keep the secrets of the circle," prompted the Boy-Who-Lived, extending a hand.
"I, Myla Bletchley, swear I'll keep the secrets the circle," Myla said wholeheartedly, taking the boy's extended hand in her own.
Suddenly, pain shot through her hand, and Myla stared in shock at the knife stabbed through the back of her hand and out the Boy-Who-Lived's.
"What, what are you doing?" asked the Slytherin.
"Don't be a baby," said the pigtailed girl, visibly relaxing. "We've done various versions of this."
"You have?" Myla asked, feeling faint as the olive-skinned girl pulled the knife roughly out the back of her hand.
"Yep," agreed the other boy.
Myla's surprise grew as the olive-skinned girl waved her hand over her bleed one, and in a matter of moments, the wound knitted closed, leaving not even a scar. "How'd you do that?"
"She's a prodigy," said the Boy-Who-Lived. "She only has to see something once before she can replicate it herself."
"But she didn't use a wand, or an incantation," Myla protested.
"I can see magic when it's being used," said the girl who had healed her hand. "I just control it directly and copy what I see."
"You do what now?" asked Wildfire. "That's just absurd, Liv."
"Any magic?" the Ravenclaw asked.
To answer the question, the girl called 'Liv' picked up a piece of spare rib from a plate of sauce, then snapped her fingers, and the bone vanished from it, leaving behind only meat and gristle.
"You are ridiculous," Hermione said, shaking her head ruefully. "None of the rules of magic apply to you, do they?"
"I wouldn't know," Liv said, before turning to Myla. "Oh, I'm Liv, and I'm a dragon."
"A what?" Myla asked, flustered.
"A Norwegian Ridgeback."
"I must be dreaming, because I swear just heard her say she's a dragon," said the Slytherin Keeper, turning to Luna Lovegood.
"No, she's a dragon," said the blonde. "I've never seen her as one, but I believe her."
"And we know You-Know-Who isn't dead," Hermione said.
"I beg your pardon?" asked the Slytherin, even more bewildered.
"He was possessing Quirrell last year when we stole the Philosopher's Stone," said the Boy-Who-Lived. "When Quirrell died, he might have floated away in a puff of black smoke."
"Wait, you stole the Philosopher's Stone?" Myla asked.
At this point, she didn't know what to believe.
"Yes," said Wildfire, as she produced a glowing chunk of red stone. "This is a piece of it."
"Who are you?" the Slytherin asked.
"I'm Fay Dunbar from Gryffindor, and this good-looking fellow is Neville Longbottom."
"Wait, you said Quirrell died," said Myla, turning back towards the Boy-Who-Lived. "How?"
"I put a knife into him," said the Boy-Who-Lived.
"You killed him, Harry?" Fay gasped.
"He was going to kill me, so I just did him first," Harry said, shrugging.
"But, killing him?" the Gryffindor girl protested. "He was a professor!"
"I did what I had to to come home alive," Harry said. "Push come to shove, you would have done the same, or we wouldn't be talking right now because you'd be dead."
"And that's why I don't trust the headmaster," the Hufflepuff continued. "He let who some call the 'most powerful dark wizard in modern history' into Hogwarts, to teach Defense! Can you imagine how much damage that might have done to an entire generation of students, to have the enemy they might have to one day face in battle also be the one teaching them how to defend themselves?"
Myla conceded to herself that the Boy-Who-Lived made fair points.
"And all these are secrets of the circle?" Myla asked.
"Yes," Harry said. "Now, next time you see me in the halls, you need to call me a 'blood traitor' and kick me in the bollocks."
"What? Why?"
"It'll establish your cover in Slytherin and give you credibility," Liv said. "There's no better way to earn the trust of those who believe in blood purity than to assault the one who killed their leader."
"Is that what I am, your in with Slytherin?" Myla asked the Boy-Who-Lived, horrified at the prospect of being used as a tool.
"Yes and no," Harry said. "Yes, you are an in to Slytherin, and I do need to know what's going on in that house, but I also genuinely like you as a person and agree with almost everything you've said about blood purity and You-Know-Who, so I think we could work together to make the world a better place and also be friends who secretly spend time together when there aren't any other Slytherins or blood purists watching."
Myla considered the proposition for a long moment; even if it involved sneaking around, it was still better than having no friends at all, and besides that, she really did not agree with a lot of what was expressed by her housemates, particularly when it came to those without magic, like her father, who she truly loved for his warmth and kindness, and she was enjoying the warmth and banter that was accompanying the meal.
"I'll do it," she finally said.
"Good," Harry said, before placing a piece of raw fish on top of a lump of rice on her plate. "Have some nigirizushi; Liv made it, and it's delicious."
Myla took a bite from the thing the Boy-Who-Lived had placed on her plate with trepidation and was pleasantly surprised by its rich, mellow flavor. "It's good…"
She felt Harry slap her on the shoulder, piling more food onto her plate as he described it to her.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked between mouthfuls of food.
"This is how it's like with us cooks," Harry explained. "We don't have much money, but we have our skills, so the least we can do is feed our friends great food."
"It's really delicious," Myla said, as she bit into a crescent-shaped fried dumpling and was pleasantly surprised to find its crispy shell was filled with ground meat, cabbage, garlic and ginger; it was like one of her favorites, as good as the dim sum she had eaten with her family when they went out to dine at a Chinese restaurant, except the filling was different and she had never had it with the tangy, dark brown sauce before. "That's not what I meant, though; why are you going out of your way to be friends with me?"
"There's something about you that just feels... right," Harry said. "Besides, nobody should ever be friendless."
"Thank you," Myla said gratefully.
"If you give me your phone number, I'll give you a ring and we can meet during the Christmas break," Harry said, handing her a pen and a small notepad, and the Slytherin happily wrote down her information.
~ooOoo~
"You filthy blood traitor!" Myla shouted, punting the Boy-Who-Lived between his legs.
It was Sunday afternoon, the day before the Hogwarts Express was due to take students home for the Christmas holiday, when she had met Harry in the halls, and she had immediately remembered what he had told her to do.
Harry Potter's eyes bulged and went wide for a moment. Then, he crumpled to the floor, clutching at his groin as he twitched and spasmed.
"Harry!" Hermione shouted, rushing over to Harry.
"Shut up, you mudblood whore!" Myla shouted back, then immediately regretted her words as the Ravenclaw gasped, looking genuinely hurt at the insult.
There was a momentary hush in the halls as students passing by in the hall froze and stared at what had transpired. Then, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to see Marcus Flint grinning and guiding her towards the Slytherins' quarters in dungeons.
"Bletchley here just kicked Potter in the bollocks, called him a blood traitor and called that mudblood who's always with him a whore," announced the captain of Slytherin's Quidditch team.
To Myla's disgust, the Slytherins in the common room cheered and gathered around her, clapping her on the shoulders and telling her how she was one of them now.
It was in that moment that she realized she truly despised her housemates; up until now, they had treated her like she was beneath them simply for having one parent who couldn't use magic, even though that parent loved her as much as a parent could love a child, and, if she hadn't been twice as good as the previous Keeper and made half as many mistakes as he did, she probably wouldn't have been even allowed on the Slytherin Quidditch team, not just because she was a half-blood, but also because she was a girl.
Yet now, for no reason other than her attack on the Boy-Who-Lived, they were congratulating her and treating her like she was one of them all along, even though who she was hadn't changed in the least.
She felt anger welling up inside, tying her stomach into knots, and she decided joining the Boy-Who-Lived had been the right decision. She couldn't change where she was, but she could certainly do something with it that could make the world better.
~ooOoo~
"Hermione, dear, you've a call!"
"Coming, mum!" Hermione called back, hurrying down the stairs.
It was the night of the twenty-first, and she had only been home a few hours, so she wasn't expecting a call from Harry, Fay or Su-Jin, but Hermione couldn't think of who else would telephone her since she no longer attended a school with normal children her own age.
"This is Hermione speaking," said the Ravenclaw, after she brought the phone to her ears.
"I'm so sorry for calling you a 'mudblood'," said the voice on the line, and it took Hermione a moment to realize the caller was Myla Bletchley, the Slytherin girl she had eaten breakfast with two days earlier.
"I forgive you," Hermione said without pausing. "Harry told me it might happen, that you might insult me and told me to react like it was real."
"Harry thought I might call you a 'mudblood'?" the Slytherin asked, shock clear in her voice.
"He thought it might happen in the moment," the Ravenclaw explained. "He told me, when you're undercover and the situation is fluid, sometimes the words that come out of your mouth fit the situation even if they aren't what you believe, like that time he told Draco Malfoy he was You-Know-Who."
"He did?" Myla asked. "Is that why Malfoy didn't want to face him in dueling club?"
"I imagine it must be," Hermione answered.
"But everybody knows Harry can't use magic," said the Slytherin. "How did he convince Malfoy he was the Dark Lord?"
"I don't know, but if I were to guess, he lied," the Ravenclaw said. "He's really very good at that."
Author's Notes: And that is how recruiting and handling a covert asset should go. I have many criticisms of Snape as a spy (as I previously mentioned), and while original drafts had Harry using him as one as well, I realized that Snape has no real qualifications as one, and being an arrogant bastard, he was going to be unlikely to change his ways on the say so of a child, particularly one he didn't particularly care for, whereas somebody who was Harry's peer and considered him a friend would take his advice into consideration. And yes, Harry is being manipulative again.
The Chinese have a phrase literally translating to "bitter meat scheme" which refers to a strategy where a friend falsely takes some physical pain in order to gain the trust of somebody they will later betray, and that's basically what Harry has set up here to get Myla in with the Slytherins.
I enjoyed writing most of this chapter from Myla's perspective; it was a nice change of pace from writing from Harry's. I know the chapter's a bit shorter than some, but it didn't really fit with the preceding and following chapters given the nature of who the primary subject was.
I have just finished writing the final chapter of Physical Adept and it is now in editing with Romantically Distant; after a short turnaround, I plan on starting work on the next book. Thus, I am looking for people who lived in any of the following areas—New York City, Dallas/Fort Worth, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Manila, Paris—during the summer of 1993 and can remember what it was like living there at the time; I'd like to interview them and pick their brain about those cities felt during that time, as well as maybe use some specific events, since primary sources are way better than secondary and tertiary ones. PM me if you're interested in being interviewed, and we can talk through Steam messenger, Trillian or Discord.
Once again, many, many thanks to my long-suffering editor, Romantically Distant, for all their efforts in reading and proofing my writing. And now you've read this chapter, feel free to leave a review or just PM me, and, with the WARS pandemic still on-going, stay safe.