Special thanks to the folks on pa-atreon for making this possible. Now without further ado let's get into it.
Legilimency was hard. Stupidly so. For me, at least. Hermione found it easy as anything else, but for me, every attempt to get into Hermione's head was a battle. An uphill one.
On the positive side, though, my fears seemed unfounded. Hermione couldn't find anything in my mind regarding my second life or any memories of this one I shouldn't have. Her mind slid past those things like they didn't even exist. Another bit of evidence that confirmed there was a guiding hand influencing my presence here.
It was less far-fetched than me just happening to appear here, in a fictional world, in the body of what I felt was one of the most wasted characters. I always thought Draco could have been so much more, and suddenly waking up in his body couldn't be an accident.
After Hermione's attempt at reading my mind for that information failed, I started cataloguing other instances where I felt like my mind had been modified by an external actor. It was difficult telling what parts were Draco and what parts weren't. The only thing I've managed to pinpoint with any certainty was my sudden fearlessness regarding combat.
I'd lived my first life in the modern world, with all the luxuries thereof. I'd always been one of those people who felt like violence was unnecessary and abhorrent. In contrast, Draco was a fan of violence but a coward by all estimates. My willingness to stare down a lightning spell without hesitation, or even my sudden lack of hesitation to confront people in duels, was out of place.
Any other differences were hard to spot. Was I more socially adept, or was that Draco's influence? He'd never been a social genius, but he had charisma. It was difficult to tell if my ability to build a non-awkward friendship with Hermione was because of him or some external influence. But what purpose would an external actor have for giving me the capacity for friendship?
Giving me the ability and propensity to resort to violence would match up to what little MO I'd managed to figure out about extra-universal actors. They always sought entertainment, or that's what the fiction on the matter almost always said. It's also possible that I could be in some fanfiction or the other, but I had free will, didn't I?
Raise my hand, or don't raise my hand. I put one up and left the other down. That was my choice, wasn't it? Difficult to tell, and I decided not to dwell on that frightening possibility. If I didn't have any free will and was simply a character in someone else's story, there's nought I could do about it. I just had to live life knowing what I did. I'm real, and I'm here. Cogito ergo sum.
I heard a cough and turned to meet Hermione's amused gaze. "What are you doing, Draco?" She asked around snickers. I just realised how stupid I must have looked to an outside observer.
"Contemplating the nature of my existence in the universe," I answered seriously. She started laughing for a bit before she realised I was actually being serious about what I said.
"I didn't take you for the philosophical type, Draco. What did you end up deciding?" She asked and came over to sit on the couch next to me, leaning in to peer at me curiously. I tried to ignore the things her interest did to my heart rate as I prepared to answer her question.
"If there's something independent of me controlling my actions, there's no way to tell or prevent that. Since I have no way to determine whether my actions are being controlled by an external actor, I must live like I am in fact not being controlled by an external actor since the external actor would clearly intend for me to live like they didn't exist, or I wouldn't want to live like this." She looked at me after my exposition and broke into laughter again.
"That's ridiculous circular reasoning. What if this external actor intended for you to find out about them and discover their existence?" For all of Hermione's genius, conversations like these could stump her. She clearly wasn't getting my point.
"If the external actor was, in fact, controlling my actions and wanted me to discover them, then I would, of course, discover them," I said with a smile, pleased with my genius.
Hermione hummed and decided to move from the subject. Finally, a topic that Hermione Granger didn't want to pursue till the end. 'What a ground-breaking discovery.' I thought with a smile, and the way she ground her teeth told me she'd figured out the reason for my smile. Legilimency practice had that effect, the books said. Even with only a week of practice, we'd started reaping the benefits of the act.
"If you're done, Draco. We have practice to get to, and I'll need to leave early today. Ron and Harry have stopped being appreciative of my long periods of separation and have started becoming inquisitive as to my whereabouts." She said while turning to face me on the couch.
"Let's get to it then. I don't see why you still remain with them, though," I replied while also turning to look her in the eyes and preparing myself for the pain to follow.
"We've gone over this before, Draco. Ron and Harry are my friends. They truly are. Want to go first, or should I?" She asked while taking out her wand.
I hummed non-committedly to her reply before taking out my own wand and snapping it forward at her head with a muttered legilimens. Her moment of surprise at my sudden attack allowed me some room into her mind. I rifled through her memories of childhood with ease and started to search for today's goal. She'd written some numbers on a piece of paper, and my mission was to find those numbers.
I thought the words number, paper, and test at her and her mind didn't disappoint. I was battered with thoughts and memories. I started searching for what I needed before I realised I was being herded away from my target. I started seeing memories I'd already gone through more often, and I seemed to be running a treadmill. Fuck it. I decided to brute force it, and instead of wielding my mental presence like a surgical knife, I hammered into her mind with the force of a sledgehammer. I watched her resistance reel and managed to get a glimpse of the paper in her instant of distraction.
I left her mind with a smile on her face. "63578912," I said with a smirk, and she simply glared at me while rubbing her forehead in pain. Oops. "Sorry about that," I said while resisting the urge to rub the back of my head awkwardly.
"My turn," She said without replying to my apology and dove into my mind without even using the incantation. She started trying to find my own series of numbers, but my mind was more ordered than hers. She tried baiting out the information, but I kept things under a tight lock. Instead of bombarding her with information, I fought her for every scrap she gained.
We battled through my mind for what felt like hours but were probably only minutes in the real world. Time had a weird way of slowing down when we were in the mental realm like this. She kept going and, eventually, managed to get the figures she sought. We both came to, and she glared at me in even more irritation.
"I,2,3,4. Really?" I just raised my hands in surrender with a sheepish smile. "I don't think the numbers themselves matter much," I said in my defence. I looked at the clock and got up to stretch.
"We'll have to end things here today. I have a session with Snape tomorrow," I said as I prepared to leave.
"I'll be wearing white, find something to match", Hermione called out to me over my shoulder. I turned to look at her in confusion. "To the Yule Ball," She clarified. "You'll be taking me as your date," She said with impressive self-confidence.
"Very bold of you to ask like that. I don't think it would be the wisest choice though" I said in lieu of an answer. I wanted nothing more than to go to the ball with her and twirl her in my hands all night. I couldn't, though. There were too many factors working against us.
She gave me a searching look before relenting. "You're right. It was short-sighted of me to even suggest it. Have a good night, Draco," she said while turning around and walking deeper into the room.
As I walked back to the Slytherin commons, I realised I'd probably made a mistake. I couldn't see how I could have said yes, though. We'd been in each other's heads. I knew what she felt for me just as she knew what I felt for her. We'd never acknowledged it until today, though, and I'd gone and fucked that up.
I couldn't have said yes, but there were better ways to say no. I should have told her about my precarious position in Slytherin or my father's possible reaction. I should have spoken about the reaction she'd have gotten from her housemates, but I didn't do any of that. I'd just called it unwise and left it at that.
I fell asleep with thoughts of Hermione on my mind and a bittersweet smile on my face. A forbidden love, indeed. I didn't feel rested as I walked into Snape's office first thing in the morning. He didn't even have the grace to acknowledge my presence before he moved to the duelling room.
I stood across from him with fury in my belly. It wasn't his fault, Snape had never done anything to me, but I still wanted to take it out on him either way. As he sent his first spell at me and I batted it aside, I channelled my anger into my magic.
The spells I used came so quickly. It was easy to form the intent to blast, cut or bludgeon when the only thing I felt was a wave of red-hot anger in my veins. I got even angrier as I watched him deflect my spells with minute movements of his wrist. No matter how quickly I cast or pushed myself, it was for nought.
Even as I tired, I kept going until I made the inevitable mistake that would end the duel. I wasted more than a second switching wand movements and felt my legs get swept from under me. I was exposed to a few seconds of disorientation before I looked up and saw the disappointed gaze of Snape looking down on me.
My anger returned, and I raised my wand to cut him down for his impudence. The words were on my lips, the green glow in my wand when I felt a spell smash into my gut. I went flying back, and I watched my wand get wrenched out of my hand by Snape's spell.
"That black blood of yours has finally decided to shine through," He said with a look I couldn't quite place. "That rage on your face. I've only seen it on one other face, and she's currently enjoying a lengthy holiday at Azkaban." His comparison was like being doused by icy water. I felt my anger slip away from me. Bellatrix? Was he comparing me with Bellatrix?
"Leave. When you come back next time, I expect you to have dealt with whatever is bothering you so much." I didn't reply to his statement as I took off from his office. I rushed to the Room of Requirement, and I felt something crack in me when I noticed there was no door in front of me and walking across three times didn't bring forth a door of my own. She was inside, and she didn't want me there with her.
It was ridiculous to feel so attached to someone I'd only spoken to for such a short period. I cloaked myself in my disillusionment charm and made my way to the room on the third floor. If I was going to spend the day locked out of the room of requirement, I might as well get something useful out of the day.
I used every bit of Occlumency I'd picked up in the past few weeks to push all thoughts of Hermione to a distant corner of my mind. The book on human transfiguration couldn't maintain my interest for more than a few minutes, so I left the room behind and took a walk to do something I'd sworn to get around to doing eventually.
I walked across the castle and made my way to the library. As a champion, I had unlimited access to the restricted section, and I hadn't made much use of those resources when I had the room to rely on them. With that avenue of distraction locked away from me, I had to focus on entertaining myself the old-fashioned way.
I walked into the restricted section under the watchful eyes of the irritable librarian. She wasn't pleased to give me access. Still, I was a champion and denying me the library resources could interfere with the tournament. The goblet was known to punish such infractions very strictly.
It was dark and dreary even at this time of day, which was shocking. I picked up the lantern by the side of the entrance and lit it before going further inside. Madam Pince had been very clear that magic wasn't to be used in this section of the library for any reason. When I asked why her reply had been a vague statement of how it 'excites the books'.
I had no idea what was in the library, but excited books didn't sound very positive. If there's one class of objects that shouldn't ever be excited, it's books. I had a good laugh at my wit before I sobered up and started browsing the titles. One would think there would be no books on the dark arts within the restricted section with Dumbledore as headmaster, but they would be quite wrong.
Any book added to the library was part of the library. It was old, sympathetic magic. When Draco had asked Lucius why the ministry allowed Hogwarts to keep tomes of dark magic in their walls, he'd said that the contents of the Hogwarts library were beyond the ministry's governance. At over a thousand years old, the library was filled with books and scrolls from all eras.
I kept looking for something interesting when I found, Come ye who dare. Opening the book was probably one of the more stupid things I'd ever done, but I couldn't resist it. Luckily, it wasn't a screaming book or even a cursed one, but it was morbid.
The author was a psychopath that was too smart for his own good. It chronicled his experience using hundreds of pain curses and other torture methods on captured muggles. It was a despicable book but an oddly enjoyable read. The author was also a talented writer, and he kept my attention on his writings from beginning to end.
It wasn't until my stomach began growling that I realised I'd probably spent more time in the library than I'd planned to. I decided to drop the book off and head to the kitchens for breakfast. As I got up to walk and return the book, I was surprised to find myself in the restricted section with the book still in my hands.
I leaned heavily on my occlumency and exerted iron will over my mind as I walked back to the shelf I got the book from and returned it. With my attention on what was happening, I noticed the whispers telling me to leave with the book. I noticed my legs about to turn around and head back. It took a few deep breaths and another application of will to return the book to its shelf.
I didn't run from the library because that went against everything I'd been taught from a young age, but it was a close thing. All the warnings Pince had given about the nature of the books in the restricted section started making sense. I'd asked her why they hadn't just walled off the restricted section, but apparently, that had already been tried. It led to the tomes in the restricted section appearing among the more mundane books in the general library.
I took deep breaths as I walked to the kitchens. The elves were more than willing to allow me to take my lunch there. Lunch. I'd been in the library for almost five hours. That fact helped drive home the point that the restricted section was dangerous.
I walked back to the room, surprised to find the door waiting for me. I walked in and saw Hermione looking at me with a guilty smile. "I'm sorry," we both said simultaneously before breaking into laughter.
"You first," I said with a smile on my face.
"I'm sorry for asking you like that and locking you out of the room this morning. I just needed space to think about things for myself, and I think I understand where you were coming from yesterday. You're a pureblood, and that comes with all sorts of expectations. Attending the ball with someone like me would probably lead to all sorts of bad outcomes," she said with a sad smile.
"No, no, don't take it like that. I'd still love to go with you but we don't live in a vacuum. You know how I feel about….well, things. I had a different idea though. I've gone through the rules for the tournament and I could find nothing mandating me to attend. We could have our own dinner and dance right here." I said reassuringly.
"Oh. I'm sorry, Draco. I already accepted to go with Harry but only as friends." She added the last part as she saw my eyebrows raise.
"It's fine. We could do something the day after, if it's alright with you," the last part of that sentence was phrased more like a question, and I enjoyed watching how she brightened up.
"Yes, definitely. I'll arrange dinner with the…elves," She added that last part hesitantly. She wasn't completely comfortable with the idea of house elves. Still, I'd had an easy time averting her worries by telling her about all the ways they needed us to survive. House elves fed on wizards' magic. It was necessary for them, and their nature required them to work in exchange for that magic. It was a difficult conversation to have with someone as stubborn as she was. Still, I ended up winning the debate, and she was much less radical in her desire to free the elves and start some insurrection among them.
I'd lied in the debate, though, even if only by omission. I strongly suspected that house elves were a genetically engineered species. Still, I didn't know it for sure, so I couldn't be blamed for keeping it from her, could I? Suppose she started thinking that house elves only thought the way they did because some wizard programmed it into their species. In that case, she'd probably dedicate a stupid amount of time to trying to free them from that programming.
This Hermione was quite different from the one in canon, but she was no less stubborn when it came to her ideals. She wasn't a goody-two-shoes by any means. Still, even the most morally neutral people could agree that slavery itself was bad. We moved on from our conversation about the dance to our individual magic practice. I went to the practice range and drilled my accuracy and speed. Snape might have released me from training for today, but I had no doubts that he'd be even more ruthless with our next training to make up for it.
I spent time going over the blasting and piercing curses. It wasn't until my stomach grumbled that I was forced to quit due to hunger. When I turned to Hermione, I found her snacking on a platter of sandwiches. I shot her a betrayed look before I took a seat across from her and began to dig in. The house elves were truly amazing cooks. Even these sandwiches tasted like they'd been prepared in a five-star restaurant, not the kitchens of a boarding school.
After lunch, I just sat down and relaxed. The classic food daze came over me, and I spent half an hour seated there, lost in my thoughts. It wasn't till Hermione came over for legilimency practice that I gained consciousness.
Today's goal was colour. We both had to think of one colour the other had to guess at. Hermione went first, and a wave of her wand with a muttered incantation took me to the mental realm. Her skills got better every day. I almost didn't notice when I started thinking of the colour I was supposed to be hiding, but a last-second bolt of clarity helped prevent that.
She sensed that her subtle attempt failed and decided to be more overt with her activities. She thought the word colour at me, and I felt thoughts of her eyes and the night sky come to the forefront of my mind. Instead of my usual methods, I just tossed everything at her. Every thought I had on the topic. I watched her falter for a second before she began to go through the memories and thoughts. I looped them around as she was fond of doing.
Using her own tactics against her proved very effective as she struggled to find the colour I was hiding. Eventually, she gave up and left my mind. "What colour was it?" She asked irritably.
"The colour of your eyes," I said smugly. She let out a muffled scream of frustration before she gestured at me to make my own attempt. I entered her mind with ease and tried my best to locate any of her thoughts on the subject. She proved that I wasn't the only one who could change their tactics when she decided to copy my earlier strategy of fighting me for every scrap of information I gained.
Thoughts were complex things, and this stage of our practice was dramatically more difficult. What we had to do was identify a concept that the other party had placed additional importance on. It wasn't a specific memory or a thought. It went deeper than that. I wasn't completely clear with the theory on the subject. All I knew was that by the time we were done for the day, neither of us had managed to figure out the colour the other was hiding.
Hermione left to head for Herbology class, and I could finally look through a book I'd been curious about. I like Hermione, don't get me wrong, but there were just some areas of study I could never pursue in her vicinity. Given that this Hermione was quite different from the one I read about, there were two possibilities; either she's completely disgusted with the magic or absolutely fascinated by it.
Either of those options could be disastrous. I don't think having Hermione Granger addicted to performing rituals would be a good thing at all. Enough of that, though. Time to focus on the book. The Power Of Sacrifice by Phineas Niggellus Black. It was just a manuscript and not an actual book, but when I asked the room for the best text on rituals, this was what was offered to me.
The book read like a dry textbook, all things considered. I was impressed the former headmaster somehow managed to make a subject as entertaining as this one sound boring. I slugged through it and was glad I did when I got past the first chapter. He spent the first chapter essentially teaching about the basic principles of magic itself. In the next chapter, he got into the meat of the matter. Every ritual is a sacrifice. Every spell is a ritual. Those were the basic assumptions of the text, and he had a good logical justification for those assumptions, though.
'A ritual is a sacrificial exchange of one thing for another', he claimed. Apparently, there could be a ritual to do virtually anything. The only limit to ritualistic magic was the law of equivalent exchange. The offered sacrifice must be equal to the desired boon. He also went on to talk about the various things that could be sacrificed. The most powerful of which was a willing sacrifice of human life.
Human life, in general, was the most powerful sacrifice that could be offered and could be used for a whole series of boons. Anything was possible with rituals; increased magical capacity, faster healing, durability, speed, and more could be gained with the right ritual. Now, you're probably wondering why everyone doesn't do at least a few rituals.
Spoiler alert; it's not because they're illegal. If wizards could gain so many benefits, then I doubt even the law could stop them. The reason rituals were rarely performed was because the thing being sacrificed had to be of value to the person performing the sacrifice. It was the most basic principle.
This means all the fanfiction I ever saw of people sacrificing random animal parts and taking on traits of those animals couldn't ever happen. Unless the animal being sacrificed was familiar, of course. Those were usually too useful and important to use in an ambiguous ritual.
The value didn't have to be literal. It could also be ideological. It's why Voldemort's resurrection ritual worked. He sacrificed the bones of his father, a figure of protection in most cultures, the flesh of the servant that had been protecting him for almost a year and then bound it all with the blood of the person of most danger to him.
It all had the effect of showing magic that he was giving up his means of protection so he could have a means of protecting himself. This was only my personal theory for why the ritual worked. It made sense to me, so I'd probably accept it as true or mostly true till I saw some contradictory evidence.
Now, all I had to do was plan a ritual of my own. I had a few ideas at this point. But before that, I had a duel to watch. It was almost six pm, meaning Delacour's duel would be happening soon.
I donned my disillusionment charm and made my way to the stadium. Today's duel was going to be between Fleur Delacour and Harry Potter. Potter's duelling skills had grown tremendously in the last few months, so this would be entertaining.
I watched from my position in one of the rafters as the duellists stood across from each other and prepared to begin.
A/N; How's this looking guys?
Thanks for reading. We're halfway through chapter 14 on the pa-atreon page. Feel free to join me there if you can. Same username as up here. The link's on my profile.