Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!

I really, really want to kick Henrietta.

Intermission: Henrietta's Game

Henrietta examined the cauldron of Polyjuice potion, but could detect no differences in it from what should be apparent at this stage, with just a little more than two weeks to go until it would be ready. She shrugged and stepped away from it. Let it bubble and steam for now. She had other things to attend to, including two guests in her house.

She moved from her private potions lab to the ground floor, and opened the second door she came to. The wizard inside was already on his feet, his wand pointed at her. Henrietta lifted an eyebrow.

"I could choose to take offense to that, if I wished," she said, and shut the door behind her.

The man said nothing, though he lowered his wand. Henrietta examined him thoughtfully; this room, a study equipped with shelves but devoid of books, possessed many subtle enchantments to remove glamours and other magical forms of disguise, so she could be sure she was seeing the real man. He had a blunt face and brown eyes that probably looked secretive unless he was smiling. He must smile often, then, in his position. His hair was blond and wispy. He was a Mudblood, and had managed to get as far as he had partially on skill, partially on luck, and partially because his last name sounded like that of a famous Light wizarding family.

None of that, though, mattered to Henrietta as much as the name he had adopted for himself. He had lately started writing Daily Prophet articles under the name Argus Veritaserum. In them were many entertaining untruths about Potter. Henrietta had found them the more entertaining because everyone else thought his identity was a great mystery, but she had found him out in a few weeks by comparison of his writing style to other Prophet reporters'. This only pointed out the stupidity of the rest of the world.

"Sit down, Argus," she said. "Before I tell you what I can procure for you in a few weeks, I have to know how committed you are to lowering Harry Potter's reputation." She moved over and sat down in a chair facing him. Argus followed her slowly down, never looking away from her face. He rarely blinked. Henrietta wondered if the old stories were true, that Mudbloods sometimes bred with frogs and lizards to increase the strength of their bloodline.

"Very committed," he said calmly. "Albus Dumbledore is my mentor, the one who taught me about the ethics of sacrifice at a young age, and the reason I survived the first war with You-Know-Who." Henrietta barely resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. Voldemort had both a name and a title, and either was better than that ridiculous appellation the Muggle-lovers had chosen. "I know that he has made decisions and taken risks that insured the survival of the wizarding world where no one else would have made or taken them. I will not see him accused by a child who ought to be flattered by the degree of personal attention he received from a Lord of Light."

How delightful. The Mudblood is flushing. Henrietta cocked her head and sat back in her chair. "And you think writing these articles about him will impact on him negatively enough to matter?"

"I am certain of it," said Argus. "I'm already receiving post telling me that I've swayed many readers' opinions. Now that they think of it, it doesn't make much sense that fourteen years of child abuse could have gone unnoticed. That means that it was not abuse at all, of course, but something the boy agreed to. Now that he is a teenager and petulant—now that Slytherins have poured their venom into his ears and convinced him he's special—he'd turn on those who sacrificed so much to make his life worthwhile."

Careful, Mudblood, Henrietta thought, but did not say. Of course, Argus himself was ultimately a sacrifice in her plans, a role he should have no objections to playing. "Will it be enough to release the Headmaster?"

"One can hope so," said Argus. "Albus's trial isn't until March, and by then, the truth about Potter will have reached everyone. And his parents' trial isn't for another month and a half. We may be able to clear Lily and James Potter from charges entirely." His face shone with hope.

You will not. Potter will destroy you. So nice that he'll owe your destruction and disposal to me. "Then I can promise that I'll pass along the evidence I'll have," said Henrietta, with a firm nod of her head. "Potter doesn't trust me enough yet to include me in all his activities. But I'm working on him. He has some extremely…nasty things planned for two weeks hence, things so nasty they turn even my stomach. He's hinted that he'll include me in those, and I can take photographs of them and bring them back for you."

"Why would you want to hurt him?" demanded Argus, his flush altering from one of hope to suspicion. "He's a Dark wizard, just like you."

Henrietta let her lip curl and her eyes widen. "He is not a Dark wizard. He only plays at being one. And he is the son of a Mudblood. Can you ask why I would want to betray him?"

Argus frowned, then smirked. He must imagine that the similarity of his true last name to the more famous one had guarded his own dirty blood from her. No doubt he was now thinking that she would be chagrined when she found out that she'd helped someone like him.

Betraying him will be nearly as pleasant as getting Potter to submit to me in the first place.

"Then it is a pleasure indeed doing business with you, Mrs. Bulstrode," said Argus, and extended his hand. Henrietta barely let her skin brush his. His blood was less objectionable than his blind fanaticism. Henrietta despised people incapable of looking after their own interests.

She escorted him to the Floo connection by which he'd entered, blocked that particular one so it could not be used again, and then sought another room on the ground floor, three doors down from the study where she had met Argus. Her daughter Edith huddled on the bed, ducking her head and staring fearfully up at her when she came in.

Henrietta smiled and walked forward. Edith cringed, but did not move away as her mother stroked her hair. Henrietta had her well-trained. The new spell curved around her neck and branded into her flesh had something to do with that, of course, but Henrietta prided herself on the claws she had hooked into Edith's soul even more than the magical compulsions she could put her under.

Edith kept looking down. Henrietta at last murmured, "Good child. Little one. Do you know why I've called you home from Beauxbatons for today?"

A minute shake of the dark head.

"In two weeks," Henrietta said gently, "you will do me a great service. You will drink a potion for me, and then you will do what I tell you to, so that I may take photographs of you doing it. You will ask no questions. You will tell no one of this. If you do, you know what will happen." Her eyes flickered to the spell around Edith's neck. Regrettable, really. Mental control, of the kind Potter's parents used on him, is so much more elegant. At least I know that this will increase her fear of me, and in the future she may do as I say without this outside pressure.

Edith hastily nodded. Henrietta bent down and kissed her daughter's hair. Edith shook under her. Henrietta could feel her magic—the sympathetic twin of her own, which made Edith her heir, but so dimmed by crawling, creeping fear that she would never be a threat to Henrietta's position.

What pleased her even more was the fact that she still had years to work on Edith, who was only thirteen. Even when Henrietta died, her dominion would not end, because her daughter would carry her legacy forward into the future. She would not think a thought whose pattern was not set for her.

"You may leave for Beauxbatons in three hours," Henrietta whispered, and then stood and left the bedroom, her plan buzzing pleasantly in her mind.

Edith would become Potter for as long as necessary to take the photographs, and then Henrietta would send the pictures on to Argus. She would do it only once, though she would retain other photos. When Potter had undergone one round of despair and humiliation, she would offer him the knowledge of Argus's identity, and how to prevent the appearance of more photos. Probably the gratitude would not be sufficient to compel him to obey her. That was all right. The blackmail material of the other pictures would work well enough.

And if Potter refused even that incentive, Henrietta had Edith. She had seen Potter's sacrificial tendencies on full display in the beach battle. She knew Potter would never let an innocent suffer in his place. He would do what Henrietta wanted to spare her daughter, a child he barely knew.

Henrietta felt regret all the while that she pursued her plan, because fluttering through her mind like bats' wings went the hope that Potter could become like one of those ancient Lords, one she could be actually proud to follow instead of having to assume control herself because it was intolerable to bow to someone less fierce and intelligent than she was.

But what she knew of him, and what she read of him, sifting truth from lies, did not say it so. His lack of response to the Veritaserum articles was the last straw. A true Lord would have demanded an apology, at the very least, and dragged Argus into the light before Henrietta could get at him.

He is well-intentioned, but weak. But he is still a better option than Voldemort the egomaniac or Albus Dumbledore the Muggle-loving fanatic. Once he is tamed to bit and bridle and rein, I think he will do nicely.