Disclaimer is in chapter 1.

After classes the next day Xander found himself summoned, literally summoned, to the library by Wednesday. He went, both out of a certain measure of fear of what she'd do if he didn't and curiosity. She'd never particularly cared if anyone showed up before, so he really did want to know what this was all about.

Hermione was already present at their habitual table in the corner when he showed up and took a seat, they both turned to look at Wednesday.

"So what's this about?"

Wednesday gazed on them evenly for a long moment before she spoke, "Were you aware that we had created a cabal for control of the students here at Hogwarts."

Xander blinked as Hermione's jaw dropped.

"What?"

"Weird, I think I'd remember doing that." Xander tapped his jaw idly.

"Indeed. I as well." Wednesday confirmed, "However apparently not, as I was informed last night."

"Oh yeah? Who 'informed' you?" Xander asked, grinning but curious.

"Miss Patil." Wednesday replied, "And her evidence, while circumstantial, is persuasive."

"Well if I don't remember doing it, and YOU don't remember doing it…" Xander mused, slowly turning to look at Hermione. Then he pointed at her sharply, "Admit it! You're a Dark Lady in training."

"What? No!" She hissed in reply, "I don't know what she's talking about!"

"Sure. Pretending to be our friend just so you can take over the school." Xander sniffed, "Gryffindors… you just can't trust em. I always knew your house was hiding some dark secret. I mean, at least we Slytherin's come right out and tell you we want to rule the world."

Wednesday rolled her eyes, "Right. Now, if you two would please cut that out for a moment."

Hermione glared at Xander, but her response died in her throat as she turned back to Wednesday. "Fine."

Xander shrugged, "Sure. Go for it."

"She pointed out that Hermione, by befriending Potter, established herself in Gryffindor early on. With him taking your advice, Hermione, you DO have a certain degree of influence in your house."

"Well of course, but that doesn't mean…"

"While Xander has been undermining Draco's position in Slytherin…"

"Hey, he makes it EASY." Xander said in his defense, then frowned, "Why am I defending myself here?"

"I'm certain I don't know." Wednesday replied dryly, "However, as a result, you have a certain following in your own house. Plus a degree of respect in the others, though it is muted because you rarely take the lead as it were."

Hermione frowned, "Ok, I guess I'm seeing that. What about you? I presume that Padma had something to say about Ravenclaw?"

"Indeed. She pointed out that with my cessation of neutrality this year, I have inadvertently unseated the reigning clique within Ravenclaw." Wednesday said with a mild frown, "I find myself not displeased with the result.

Xander stared at her strangely, causing Wednesday to pause and stare back.

"What?"

"Did you know I don't think I've ever heard you talk this much?"

"Did you know I am fully aware of the portkey coordinates for your bedroom?"

"Shutting up now."

"Intelligent decision." She said, turning her focus back to the two of them. "Miss Patil approached me with a request to… join our cabal."

"What!?" Hermione shrieked.

"Quiet!" The librarian growled in their direction.

"What?" Hermione leaned on, hissing. "Well she… she can't."

"Why not?" Wednesday asked, one eyebrow raising.

"We don't have a cabal, that's why not!"

"On the contrary, we obviously do. The question isn't whether we have it, it is whether we adjust our actions from unintentionally developing it, to INTENTIONALLY developing it."

Xander shrugged, "I'm in."

"But… but…" Hermione blinked, "We can't. Right?"

"Why not? Hogwarts tradition, really." Xander replied. "The Marauders, The Coven, hell the Founders themselves… Moldy's Death Eaters were born as a group in Hogwarts, I'd bet."

"That last one is hardly encouraging."

"I fail to see why not. They were remarkably successful." Wednesday countered.

Hermione gaped at her, jaw kind of moving but no sounds coming out, until Xander chuckled and came to her rescue.

"I don't think Wednesday is approving of their ideology, Herms." He said, "She's just saying that they did become pretty influential. If Harry hadn't gotten his big forehead in the middle of things, they would probably be running things in the open now. As it is, they're still running a lot of things from the shadows."

"That's not a good thing!" Hermione hissed.

"Perhaps, but we aren't speaking of following their philosophy." Wednesday countered, "I'm speaking of using the influence we've gathered to help ourselves, and those within our group, advance our own plans and agendas. I rather suspect that pureblood ideology won't be on our lists."

Hermione tried to find an objection, she really did, but she couldn't seem to find anything wrong with what they were saying. Not exactly, anyway. "But… but it's wrong to form groups to try and manipulate people…"

"Says the founder of SPEW." Wednesday rolled her eyes.

"That's completely different."

"Indeed, we're not suggesting that we try and force anyone to adapt to our opinions." Wednesday said, "We're merely proposing a… mutual aid association."

Hermione sulked, "I guess that's alright then."

"Indeed. Miss Patil has offered to share some of her family's magical books with us in exchange for similar consideration."

"I don't really have anything like that…" Hermione said haltingly.

Xander snorted. "Right. You've got at least partial credit on almost everything I've done over the years, including the new shield spell you and Wens helped me on."

"Indeed. Plus, I suspect that if you were to ask Mr. Potter, you could turn up a tome or two that none of us have seen or could easily access." Wednesday replied.

Hermione looked horrified, "I'm not going to use Harry that way."

"Good. So in turn, if you learn something that could help him with his problems," Wednesday rolled her eyes, "Lord knows he has enough, then it would be a fair trade. No?"

"I… I suppose." Hermione was still pouting. It sounded right, but… Cabals were evil, weren't they?

"So, are we in agreement, then?" Wednesday asked.

Xander shrugged, "Padma's cool."

"I… yes, I guess."

"Excellent. I'll inform her later." Wednesday said with satisfaction.

"Cool." Xander grinned, "So, you wanna start planning to take over the world?"

"Xander!" Hermione hissed, appalled with his sense of humor.

Wednesday rolled her eyes, "Hardly. The last thing I want is to be responsible for this pack of sheep."

"Wednesday!"

Xander grinned wide, shaking his head. Hermione was just too easy sometimes.

Harry frowned to himself as he skimmed through the Prophet, noting that the TriWizard tourney was still getting more than its fair share of headlines, as was he much to his annoyance. It wasn't too bad, though. He'd been prepared for a lot worse, but apparently Andromeda had been serious when she told him that she would handle the press.

He hadn't been misquoted too bad, and after the first article from Skeeter making him look like a spoiled brat, he hadn't read anything else from her at all. There was tons of speculation on his personal life, and Harry had noted that Skeeter was writing about him a lot in Teen Witch, but thankfully it stopped at speculation and didn't actually name any names.

Not that it had to, Harry supposed. Parv was clearly described, as was Hermione. People outside of Hogwarts may not recognize them, but he was quite certain that everyone at school saw it for what it was.

He set aside the paper, picking up the rest of the package he had received from Andromeda via Owl Post.

He groaned when he saw that most of it was paperwork.

"Why do I have to fill out tax reports for 1982?" He asked himself, staring in horror at the documents. "I need Hermione."

He paused, looking at the papers again for a long moment. "I need an accountant."

When had his life gotten so bloody complicated anyway?

He looked askance at the paperwork again, then shook his head and put it aside. There was no bloody chance in hell that he was going to try and do that himself.

"This taking responsibility stuff blows."

Xander grunted in annoyance as he again failed to cast his new spell. He really didn't understand what was going wrong, as far as he could tell everything checked out and the damn thing SHOULD work.

Except, you know, it didn't.

Spell Crafting wasn't a straight forward step by step thing, unfortunately. He'd known that going into the project, but had gotten probably a little too cocky about his successes, Xander supposed. The idea had seemed sound, but he was starting to think that maybe he'd just overreached himself, or maybe he just wasn't on the track to a workable spell.

He hated the idea of admitted that, though, cause it would basically mean flushing a ton of work.

He was still grumbling over it when Harry surprised him, entering the room of requirement for his normal practice sessions.

"Hey, Xan, what's up?"

Xander almost jumped out of his skin.

"Jesus, Harry! Don't DO that!" Xander growled out as he settled a bit and turned to look at the other boy. "I swear, I'm going to put a bell on you!"

Harry blinked under his think glasses, "Pardon me?"

"You're way too quiet for your own, or my own, good." Xander growled.

"Right." Harry said slowly, "And you're all twisted up over what exactly?"

Xander sighed, shaking his head, "Just a spell I'm trying to cast."

"Oh?" Harry perked up, that sounded more interesting than his current tax issues. "Anything cool?"

"Sure, if it worked." Xander said dryly. "I can't get a fizzle though."

Harry blinked, "Oh? Must be tough, I mean the Patronus is really hard and I got a BIT of a reaction when I first tried that one."

Xander shrugged, "It shouldn't be THAT tough, it's a bit of a mix-up though, so I may have crossed some equations and nullified something important."

"That doesn't sound good."

"Tell me about it." Xander snorted, shaking his head. "It's probably going to mean tossing out the Arithmancy equations and starting over, cause I can't find any error."

"What does the spell do?"

"Nothing." Xander laughed, his tone a little bitter. "It should be a shield spell, but it does nothing."

"Cool. Well, I mean what it should do and all. Can I try?" Harry asked, "I'm pretty good at Defence, despite the teachers trying to kill me every year."

Xander grinned, but eyed Harry speculatively. Harry wasn't blowing smoke, he knew. The boy was a powerhouse, and had an instinctive capability with fighting spells that was frightening. He considered it for a moment, then shrugged, "Sure. Here, the wand motion is a bit tough, it's a three point gesture with a spiral flick to the center of the points…"

Harry watched intently, nodding as his hand involuntarily twitched to match what Xander was showing him. "And the incantation?"

"Protego Facetus." Xander replied, "Roughly it translates to Faceted Protection… about as much as any spell actually translates anyway."

"Huh?" Harry asked, confused, his hand still twitching.

"I just mean that Wizards make a lot of shit up." Xander grinned, "Then pretend it's always been real."

Harry just nodded, still confused, but more interested in the spell. "Ok… so we just sweep the wand in three points, then swirl flick…"

Harry did so, sweeping out the triangle in three equal motions, then flicked the wand to the center as he called out, "Protego Facetus!"

Xander was surprised when there was a glimmer of power from Harry's attempt, and took a step back as he eyed the fizzling spell. "Do that again."

Harry frowned, but nodded and repeated his actions.

Xander moved closer this time, making mental notes as the spell fizzled again. "You've got a lot farther than I have… Ok, part of this spell is based on conjuration techniques, so I want you to try focusing on forming a very hard shell across the Protego…"

"Alright…" Harry frowned, focusing hard. Conjuration wasn't his forte, and they hadn't really started on any serious forms of the discipline.

Xander seemed to read his uncertainty, "It's just plain elemental conjuration, don't worry about the form. Just imagine it covering the shield."

Harry nodded, focusing on the spell again.

"Protego Facetus!"

Another shimmer erupted from his wand, this time coalescing into a misshapen silver mass in front of him. Harry blinked, staring at it in confusion as the mass followed his wand around. "What is it?"

Xander chuckled, "The ugliest chunk of elemental titanium in Scotland, I'd guess."

Harry shot him a hard look, "Is it supposed to look like this?"

"Not hardly." Xander laughed again, "But you're doing heads and shoulders better than me…"

He paused, considering, "Torso, arms, waist, legs and feet too actually."

Harry rolled his eyes as Xander tapped on the mass with his knuckles, listening to it echo slightly. "Is it supposed to float like that?"

Xander nodded idly, examining the results of the spell. "Yeah. It's tied to the shield spell. Ok, let it drop."

Harry did, and was mildly surprised to see the titanium mass clunk to the floor.

Xander stood over it, frowning, "That's not supposed to happen."

"What?"

"It's conjured titanium, Harry… it should have vanished when you dropped the spell."

"Oh. Why didn't it?"

"How the hell should I know?" Xander nudged the material with his toe, then shot Harry and distrustful glare. "You aren't breaking the laws of magic are you?"

"Hey! It's your bloody spell, Xan!"

"Uh huh." Xander muttered, still eyeing Harry skeptically. "Ok, try it again but focus on the triangle motion of your wand, and push it out into a pyramid shape in your mind as you cast."

Harry raised an eyebrow, that actually made sense to him, made him understand the wand motions better, so he nodded. "Ok…"

"Protego Facetus!" He called out, slashing his wand through the tri point motion, then stabbing through the center with the swirl flick.

The spell exploded from his wand this time, forming into a three point pyramid that pointed cleanly out from the tip of his wand and hovered there, twitching in response to Harry's wand motions as if waiting for a command.

"Ok, hold that for a bit…" Xander said, drawing his own wand again and stepping in front of Harry.

"Here now, wait a second…" Harry suddenly felt more than a little nervous, what with the untested shield between him and the guy he knew to favor bone splitter curses.

"Stupefy!" Xander snapped his wand out, not bothering to wait.

The red blast crossed the distance easily, splashing off the dull silver pyramid, and glanced off without effect.

"Bugger." Harry whispered, blinking. "I don't feel any drop in the shield."

That shocked him. His shields were pretty effective, if he did say so himself, but Harry knew that Xander could drop one of his Protego shields with three or four stunners, and he always noticed the drop.

Xander, however, just nodded. "The spell didn't penetrate the titanium, Harry. The Protego wasn't even touched. It's a two layer design. Hold your wand out to the side, will you? I don't want to catch you with this one if the spell fails."

Harry grimaced, but held the wand WAY out to the side, pointing it at Harry. The shield followed it easily, the pyramid shape eerily floating there and kinda creeping him out honestly.

Xander nodded, then took aim at the far side away from Harry and snapped his wand in a curse slash.

"Reductor!"

Harry flinched as the spell crossed between them, but it hadn't been aimed at him. When it contacted the shield it exploded, shattering the titanium shell along that angle of the pyramid. Harry was surprised when the power of the curse slid off the shield, along with the shards of metal, and scattered across the room off to the side.

When it settled, Harry breathed out a long sigh as Xander stepped forward, nodding.

"Right. How's the shield, Harry?"

"Still… still pretty much full power." Harry admitted, surprised.

"Good. Good. So far it's to spec," Xander said, at once happy, elated, and very, very frustrated. "Now I just have to figure out why I can't cast it. Still, not too shabby. The titanium shell should be able to handle most curses without problem, the Reductor notwithstanding."

"Not too shabby?" Harry blinked in disbelief, "I think it's bloody brilliant!"

Xander rolled his eyes, "It's a largely untested spell, Harry. Don't get carried away. Besides, it's not much use if you're the only guy who can cast it."

"Useful to me." Harry grinned, before faltering a bit. "I mean, if you don't mind me…"

"Go ahead," Xander waved him off, "Just remember it's experimental, ok? It should be better than a Protego and all, but who knows?"

Harry nodded, "I'll remember."

Xander sighed, glaring at his own wand thereafter, annoyed.

"Now if I could only get the damn thing working for me." Xander sighed.

Harry grinned, embarrassed slightly, and let the spell drop again. Xander glared at him as the remains of the titanium shield clanked to the ground and gently rocked where it lay.

"Damn it Harry! That's not supposed to stick around like that!"

"It's not my fault! It's your damn spell!"

"My ass." Xander muttered, "I'm good, but I'm not good enough to violate the laws of magic and thermodynamics with a mishmash spell like that."

Xander shook his head, nudging the remains of the two shells with curiosity. "I wonder if titanium has any magical properties I can use?"