The weeks after their little excursion to the mythical Chamber were mostly normal. Each Friday, Lucretia ran them to the ground in the Dueling Club, but she hadn't challenged them to another duel directly against her yet. Instead, she had started to put them in individual fights against multiple opponents at the same time. Jasmine was sure that the heiress was having some form of sadistic pleasure out of this, as she repeatedly paused her own training to watch them fight.
The duels were much harder than what they would have been if they were an actual one versus one, as the multitude of angles and directions from which a straight spell could come made it hard to even realize what was happening. Truly it was a form of barely controlled chaos. However, the training was already giving fruits, they definitely were doing a good workout, they were getting better at sensing magic and they were becoming more efficient at putting their shields around them in order to block the barrage of spells sent at them.
Violet had tried to copy the same technique that Lucretia had shown them during their first duel, creating reinforced mirrors that could be used and reused to redirect the multitude of spells. However, knowing where the mirrors had to be put in order to correctly redirect the spells proved to be much harder than what she had been expecting. The first few times she tried even with a single mirror it proved to be almost completely impossible. Even now she barely could do it with two. They both had gained a new found respect for the proficiency that Lucretia showed with the technique.
Meanwhile, their other extracurricular activities became even more demanding when, soon after they went to the chamber, Jasmine was surprised by an unexpected guest in her room.
"Come in." she said after hearing someone knocking at her door despite the late hour.
The door opened revealing Eileen, her hands behind her back, still wearing her school uniform and fidgeting slightly "Good… night." she nervously murmured.
"Oh! Eileen, what a surprise, please come in." said Jasmine with a soft smile. With quite a lot of trepidation the young girl entered Jasmine's room, the poor girl looked as pale as a ghost. What was going on?
"Emm…Jasmine…I wanted to ask you…something." stuttered Eileen clearly anxious for what she was going to ask. Jasmine tried to give her an encouraging smile prompting her to continue talking. "I want to learn runes." she meekly asked.
Jasmine was quite surprised by the request. She remembered that Violet had created the excuse that they were learning runes to explain why they had disappeared for a good part of the day when they went to the Chamber. They had reused the same lie in order to go to Knockturn every few weeks to sell the venom and skin that they had gotten and they had even ended up actually studying runes a few times during that time when they didn't have anything else to do.
"Eileen, I would be delighted to help you if you want, but I can't do much until you learn the script. Before that there isn't much I can help you with." gently explained Jasmine not wanting to deter the young girl.
"Oh well…but you see… Jasmine…I have been practicing… learning runes for the last few weeks." she timidly said.
Jasmine's eyes widened in surprise, so she had already started on her own even before they started the actual class that Hogwarts offered, which was really impressive.
"Then, if you want to, tomorrow I can look at where you are at the moment. If you are as ahead as I'm sure you are, I could organize some study sessions together."
Eileen's smile brightened up considerably to the point where her eyes seemed to shine.
"I would love that."
"Then see you tomorrow."
"Until tomorrow." said Eileen before exiting the room.
The next day after the end of classes, Jasmine joined Eileen in an abandoned classroom where she could evaluate her abilities without anyone intruding in.
"Let's see how far ahead you are right now, first write for me every rune you know already, I want to see how good your calligraphy is." said Jasmine.
Eileen seemed quite nervous but with slow delicate movements, she wrote every one of the twenty-four runes that constituted the Elder Futhark script on a stone block that Jasmine had conjured. It was quite telling of the way that Eileen saw Jasmine that she didn't even bat an eye when she saw her doing fourth year magic.
"Some of these are a bit sloppy and it would be better if you were able to write them quicker, but it's nothing that more practice can't fix." she said, making Eileen beam at the praise, the small girl was really adorable when she was happy.
"Then... can I join you in your study sessions?" she asked excitedly.
"I think you can, it's a good point for you to start learning Goth and in a few months, you are going to actually be able to start embedding your magic in the runes. I will talk with Violet to see if you can join our study sessions or if she prefers that we study only the two of us."
The girl seemed completely delighted to spend more time with her, in a way that made Jasmine question if that wasn't the main reason she had decided to ask for these sessions. Nevertheless, she was very obviously trying her hardest to learn even if that wasn't her main motivation.
"I would love it, thank you so much." she said with stars in her eyes. They spent the rest of the time they had before dinner introducing Eileen to her first few Goth words.
The next day, Jasmine decided to explain to Violet what had happened in her room and the results of her evaluation of Eileen's abilities just to avoid another repeat of what happened at the beginning of the summer. The girl obviously didn't like it and she had insisted on participating in the tutoring lessons, but she kept quiet for the most part, reading a book in her corner or practicing her hieratic script. Jasmine found it decidedly cute how possessive Violet could be sometimes, but she sincerely hoped that her two friends would actually talk to each other. Eileen seemed quite intimidated by Violet, like a mouse in front of a large snake. Meanwhile, Violet seemed to completely disregard Eileen as if she was beneath her notice.
One late afternoon, the three of them were in one of the abandoned classrooms where they had taken to practice their runes when Eileen was with them. Violet was quite vehement that she didn't want anyone else to know about the Room of Requirement and Jasmine was inclined to agree. Even in her past life, she could count with the fingers on her hands how many people did actually learn about the very useful room. So they had searched an abandoned room which they warded temporarily every time they used it.
Jasmine had become quite tired of the constant tension between her two and had decided to take the matter into her own hands.
"Eileen, do you remember the project that I told you we would be working on?" she asked innocently enough.
"Yes of course."
"Well, I was thinking that maybe we could work on it together the three of us," proposed Jasmine,
"You mean with Miss Riddle?" she asked nervously.
"Indeed, I think it would be a good way to take on a more complicated project."
"But I haven't embedded my magic on any rune yet!" squeaked Eileen.
"But you already know enough Goth to write some runic sequences. We can help you if you don't know how to continue and we would be the ones embedding our magic so there wouldn't be any risk of an explosion. Come on, it will be fun." said Jasmine with her best smile.
Eileen bit her lip anxiously before hesitantly nodding. Jasmine smiled more widely at that and took her hand to drag her to the corner where Violet was completely absorbed in her book. She seemed to not have realized at all that they had been talking about her.
"Violet." said Jasmine, making the girl finally tear her gaze away from her book. "We have something that we would like to discuss with you. We want to make a project together along the two of us. I was thinking that we could make a small extension charm in a couple of purses. It should be possible if we work together."
In reality Jasmine was pretty sure that she could do it by herself, she had already done something similar for the Horcrux hunt in her past life. So it was the perfect little project for them to do and it may prove to be useful for their little party by the end of the month.
"It seems quite complicated." said Eileen, earning herself a nasty glare from Violet.
"I think it seems doable." argued Violet. "Don't tell me that all these hours we have been spending together have been for nothing."
Eileen seemed to shrink into herself making her already small frame look even smaller. Jasmine gave Violet a look to which she just huffed in annoyance.
"Don't worry we will be helping step by step." assured Jasmine.
"Well, I think that we could try…. We could begin by using Fehu and Ōþalan before the actual script." proposed timidly Eileen.
"Those runes wouldn't be able to gather enough power for the script to actually work, we would need Ansuz to actually make it able to hold enough power to extend space."
"Yes, you are right of course… But if we use Ansuz it would need to consume more power from the get go, couldn't we try to add more sources of power in the script itself?"
"Of course, we could if we had tons of space available, sadly we are talking about purses here, they aren't big or durable enough to hold large scripts."
Eileen seemed to want to say something but she hesitated and decided to remain silent.
"You seem to have another idea Eileen." said Jasmine, not wanting the flow of ideas to stop.
Eileen's eyes widen at being inserted into the conversation once more. She looked nervous but she timidly said.
"Well... I was thinking that we may not need so many if we imbued them with magic while Aquila is visible? If we are facing west... we should be able to better gather magic into the runes."
Violet was already opening her mouth, probably to refute the idea, when she stopped and actually listened to what Eileen said.
"That may work but we would need to incorporate something into the script so that it is actually influenced directly by the constellation." she said thoughtfully.
Jasmine smiled fondly at the two of them and she stepped into the conversation once more. They spent the rest of their time until dinner there, just brainstorming as many ideas as they could regarding how to do their little project. Jasmine was quite glad to see that at least Violet wasn't ignoring Eileen's ideas out of hand anymore.
As the end of the month approached and with it the renowned Samhain ball was hosted by the Blacks. Jasmine and Violet both started to prepare for it. First, they had to ask permission from Slughorn for them to leave the school in the middle of the week. The fat professor was more than happy to allow his two favorite students to go out to make connections and he even proposed to accompany them as their escort. In other words, he wanted to remind all of those who interacted with them who had the easiest time influencing them.
A few weeks before the ball, they took the secret passageway to Hogsmeade once more and went to the Alleys to shop for their dresses. No heiress of a Noble House would ever think of going to a ball with the same dress they had used the last time so they had to spend quite some time, and quite a lot of money, once more ordering new dresses made specifically for them. They even went out of their way to buy new jewelry to complement their new clothes. They actually had to sell another batch of their Basilisk issued items in order to buy such expensive clothing.
Their most important accessory were two purses that Jasmine enchanted over a weekend so that they were bigger on the inside. She refused to tell Violet how she had done it, wanting her to continue their little project with Eileen, which had been advancing much more quickly than what she had anticipated.
At last the night of Samhain finally arrived and they pampered themselves before going to Slughorn's office. There they were surprised when they saw Lucretia wearing a beautiful long green dress with a small bag on her hand.
"Huh, I'm a bit surprised that my parents actually listened to me and invited you two." said Lucretia.
"You were the one who proposed the idea?" asked Jasmine incredulously.
"Indeed, this year's ball is primarily to present me to the rest of the Wizarding World, now that I'm officially of age. I had a lot of sway over the list of attendants, but I didn't think they would actually accept you two."
"Why so?" asked Violet drily and maybe a bit aggressively.
"More than anything because my parents don't believe that you are a half-blood." she said bluntly. "But also because neither of you is of age yet, this is quite a more serious affair than that little party the Malfoy's threw out, just to let their heir see all his friends before going to Hogwarts. They must think they will have a source of amusement from you two."
"And why would our presence be a source of amusement?" replied Violet with more bite than it probably was proper.
"I'm sure you already know." answered Lucretia with a slight smile.
That's when Slughorn came in from a door on the side of his office wearing some quite obnoxiously bright robes, that despite their clear great quality weren't too appealing in Jasmine's opinion.
"Good evening everyone, I see that everyone is here already. Perfect, then we can go immediately." he said with a wide smile.
Without any delay Lucretia took a bit of floo powder and went through the floo. Following proper protocol Jasmine and Violet let Slughorn follow her a few minutes afterward and then after another similar wait she stepped into the fireplace. Jasmine took a deep breath before clearly saying.
"Black Manor."
Immediately, she felt the strange sensation of being trapped in a wild vortex as she was transported thousands of miles in the blink of an eye. With a large effort of concentration, Jasmine was able to step out of the fireplace with just the slightest of hesitations. Floo travel may never be her favorite method of transportation but she thought that she had improved a lot since the times she just tripped over completely every time she tried it.
The Black's reception room was as beautifully decorated as she could have expected from a most ancient and noble family. It was thrice as ample as the large hallways back at Hogwarts decorated with patterns of black roses and leaves that seemed to swirl by a nonexistent breeze. Many impressively large portraits decorated the walls depicting what Jasmine supposed were some of the great feats that the Blacks had accumulated during their long existence.
Before her was the tall figure of Lord Sirius Black, he was dressed in finely made silk robes presenting an imposing figure. Jasmine curtsied with the elegance that can only be obtained after many hours of practice.
"Greeting my Lord, I'm heiress Potter. It's a big honor to be invited to this renowned event." she said with a steady and polite voice.
"Good evening heiress Potter, it's a pleasure to have you here with us."
"I present before you the traditional offering for the Samhain bonfire, I hope you have a good harvest and a prosperous year." said Jasmine while getting a finely decorated piece of wood from her magically expanded purse. She and Violet had collected, refined, and decorated the pieces of wood personally, with images and words inscribed on them for their deceased loved ones and ancestors, as was tradition.
If Lord Black was surprised by her knowledge of traditional Samhain practices he didn't show it. With a quite exceptional showcase of wandless magic, he vanished the piece of wood, probably to the bonfire with just a slight gesture.
"Your well wishes are greatly appreciated Miss Potter, we hope that you enjoy the evening." he said with a slight nod. "Please follow our elf to the premises where the party is going to take place."
Jasmine bowed slightly before taking her to leave. She excited the reception room following the short elf to the ballroom, they stopped just before the doors as Slughorn seemed to be waiting for her. The sound of chatter and music was able to be heard even behind the massive wooden doors.
"Oh perfect you are already here, we shall wait a few minutes for Miss Riddle to join us before entering together. How was your meeting with Lord Black?" asked the jolly professor.
"He is a very imposing man sir, but I think that it went well."
"Wonderful, just as expected from one of my star pupils. And here comes Miss Riddle!" he chirped happily.
Violet made quite an impressive figure with her beautiful purple dress and matching purse. Her height was even more apparent thanks to the heels she was wearing. All in all, she looked quite older than what her twelve years would suggest.
"Hello professor you were waiting for me?" she said with a charming smile.
"Indeed my dear now let's go. I will be delighted to present you to some of my old students." he said before entering the ballroom. The room was even more splendid than the receiving room, dozens of finely dressed witches and wizards were already happily talking and dancing with each other. Jasmine didn't fail to notice that they were the only ones here that seemed to be underage, just like Lucretia had warned them.
Slughorn immediately fetched both of them, presenting them with many of his old alumni; they even danced with a few of them. He seemed to be quite acquainted with a large part of the people in the room. From Quidditch stars to renowned curse breakers and heirs of British and European families. It was clear that, despite the fact that he hadn't been a professor for as long as he had been by the time Jasmine met him in her first life, he already had quite the network. He even presented to them an owner of a newly created magical farm in Siberia that was more than glad to talk about his contacts in the west, contacts that may prove quite useful in order to sell their basilisk products.
Though it didn't escape Jasmine's notice that he had tried to steer them clear of some key individuals. The reason was made obvious when they were cornered by a middle aged man with pitch dark black hair and a rather thin and tall frame.
"Oh! Mr. Black, it's a pleasure to see you here. Violet, Jasmine, this is Mr. Arcturus Black he's Lucretia's father. I'm sure she has told you much about him. Mr. Black these are my new star pupils, heiress Jasmine Potter and Miss. Violet Riddle." he jovially introduced them. The other man's stern expression didn't change at all, as he stared at them as if he was staring directly at their soul.
"Heiress Potter, Miss. Riddle my daughter has told me much about you two and your abilities, you have very clearly impressed her." he said with a very deep and rich voice. Jasmine struggled to see Lucretia actually praising their skills with how much she seemed to enjoy pointing out every mistake they made every Friday, in that torture that she called training.
"Thank you Mr. Black your daughter is a very excellent duelist and a very good mentor." thanked Violet politely.
"She is indeed. I'm quite relieved that Hogwarts will have something to present in next year's competition, now that my daughter will participate as an adult. The current abilities of the rest of the members seem to be quite lacking." he said in a condescending tone. "I'm glad that you have captured the eye of professor Slughorn too, he can be quite a big help for those who don't know much about this world."
"You flatter me too much , Jasmine, and Violet are both quite knowledgeable about our world from what I have heard. I'm just there to give them that little push they need to achieve their greatest potential."
"You are too humble professor, even just this night you seem to have presented them to quite a large part of the wizarding elite." he mentioned casually. "This is a lesson that is best learned young, no matter your talent, connections are everything. The youth have always struggled with their hubris." he said while looking directly at them both.
"It is a lesson that we know quite well already, after all, we seem to have caught your attention haven't we?" said Violet with the slightest hint of mockery in her voice.
"Attention isn't something that is hard to get young lady, on the other hand holding that interesting can prove to be quite a challenge."
"Yet we seem to have held yours for most of the night." continued Violet without pause.
"A night which is quickly approaching its end, we should go outside, the bonfire will start soon. Witches and Wizards traditionally lit up a bonfire on Samhain, to celebrate the end of the harvest and the start of a new year."
"Indeed, it is a good moment for cleansing ourselves in the revealing light of the fire." said Jasmine with a polite smile.
Lucretia's father simply ignored her last comment before making his way to one of the doors at the side of the ballroom that led them to the main garden. The enormous garden was illuminated by thousands of small green lights that floated above it. Jasmine thought for a moment that the lights were thousands of fireflies flying freely in the garden until she had a closer look and she saw that they were only small orbs of magical light.
The garden itself was magnificent despite the season. The primly cut grass and bushes extended in front of them in a geometrical-like pattern, accompanied by the occasional tree, that despite having its leaves already orange not a single leaf was in the ground. There were even bushes cut in the form of animals, both muggle and magical, that moved on their own as if they were alive. In the middle of the enormous garden was a circle, made out of bushes, and in its center, there was a massive pile of wood. All of it was finely decorated just like their own.
Standing next to the bonfire pile was Lord Black and Arcturus quickly went to join him. They made quite an impressive image and the similarities between father and son were evident to anyone to see.
"Welcome everyone, it is a pleasure to have you all here with us, united to celebrate the end of the harvest here together and to honor our ancestors." said Lord Black with a booming voice that reached everyone in the garden. "Now I would like to give the honor of liting up the traditional bonfire to my firstborn and I'm pleased to announce that he will be taking on my duties as Lord Black in the Wizengamot starting next year."
Everyone clapped politely at the shocking announcement. Sirius Black wasn't that old for a wizard, he barely had reached his seventh decade and they all knew that the Wizengamot had members much older than him. Jasmine wondered what had prompted the old lord into letting his son succeed him in the wizards' council. She pondered if that meant that he would also be taking a step back from his role as familia princeps or if he would still be active in that role. After all, the position of familia princeps, or leader of the family, wasn't something he could formally retire, as the position was until his death.
She saw Lucretia who was at the front of the group clapping happily at the announcement. As if she had sensed that someone was watching, she turned around, locked eyes with her, and gave her a cheeky smile. So it wasn't a surprise either, they had already informed at least the main branch family. Jasmine thought that she needed to ask Dorea to see if she knew more about the shocking news.
The soon to be Lord Black opened his hand and without using his wand he created a small flame. With much elegance he made it float towards the bonfire pile letting it grow bigger and bigger as it approached. When the fire touched the pile of wood it quickly lit it up. The raging flames of the bonfire illuminated the whole circle in a reddish light and Jasmine saw that the floating orbs of light slowly drifted away.
The whole display had obviously been a showcase of wandless magic designed to impress the audience and it had worked as all in attendance clapped excitedly.
"Now let's cleanse ourselves." announced Arcturus with the same booming voice his father had used.
One by one all the attendants walked through the smoke of the bonfire that was blowing to the east away from the manor, probably by a magically made breeze. Some of them threw hazelnuts at it and pronounced a short incantation afterward. Jasmine idly speculated what kind of prophetic visions they would be getting. When their turn arrived Jasmine and VIolet solemnly crossed the smoke, subduing the reflex to cast a bubble head charm, as it would be badly seen by the attendants. They immediately started to cough up and their eyes watered down, after passing through the smoke. Jasmine silently cursed the ancient tradition between coughs. Although, she couldn't deny that the whole thing certainly felt magical even if for most intents and purposes it wasn't.
"It is always the worst the first time my dears, you get used to holding your breath afterward." said the annoyingly cheerful voice of their professor.
Violet turned to glare at the professor who was seemingly enjoying the spectacle. After a few more minutes all the attendants had made the traditional crossing. Arcturus went to stand beside the bonfire, on the west side to avoid the smoke.
"Now please eat and enjoy the rest of the night." said the Arcturus, immediately tables and chairs appeared around the bonfire. People happily took their seats and started to eat the delicious food prepared by the Black house elves. Slughorn and Violet happily chattered with another potioneer about some kind of new potion that had been recently put forward by the guild.
"Congratulations," suddenly said Lucretia's harmonious voice. "It seems that you haven't made a show out of yourselves yet."
"You expected us to do it?" asked Jasmine a bit incredulously.
"Of course not, you're too smart to not know these kinds of things already. Although, I must admit I'm surprised you haven't even stumbled once from what I have seen, almost as if you had experience in this too."
Jasmine shrugged trying to appear nonchalant. "Muggle traditions don't differ too much from those of the Wizarding World in this instance."
Lucretia raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "Of course, because Wool's orphanage is clearly known for its lavish balls."
Jasmine clenched her jaw, wondering how much she knew already.
"I don't plan on doing anything with the information, don't worry, I doubt that I would be able to get much evidence of your obvious wrongdoings by this point anyway. However, I hope that this works as a token of trust, I don't think you are amassing all these skills just to get an O in your N.E.W.T.s after all." she said before going back to her own table.
So she wanted in on their plans? Was that why she had been investigating them? No, if that was the case she would have gone in a more straightforward way, she also wanted to know how they learned their skills. She didn't like the idea of revealing she had been reincarnated to other people. She had told Violet more than anything because she trusted her and it would have been impossible to lie to her for all the years they lived together.
Jasmine mulled over that for the rest of the night, they continued talking and dancing but in the end, she was physically and emotionally exhausted. Once they took the floo back to Hogwarts she went directly towards her bed and she slept comfortably there. She was sure the next day she would suffer for sleeping so late but for now, all she could think of is how soft her bed was.
