"Black!"

Lyra turned from her conversation with Maïa to see Narcissa's poncy little brat hovering near the top of the stairway the Slytherins normally used to reach the Great Hall. She glared at him as she changed course, causing him to flinch amusingly. Pretty much the only amusing thing he'd done lately — Lyra was beginning to think she oughtn't have told the Slytherin prefects to make sure everyone knew Rachel was under her protection, because her plan to bait the twats she owed some form of retaliation for that little kidnapping incident last year into doing something she could reasonably use as an excuse to kick their arses and/or prank them into oblivion wasn't going very well. There had been an almost suspicious lack of activity on their part.

Though that could, Lyra supposed, be due to Cassie being terrifying, not just Lyra. She had made it very clear that she would not tolerate any bullying of the younger students. She hadn't actually done anything to anyone as far as Lyra knew, and she was pretty sure that any threat of violence against bullies was, in fact, a bluff — any potential bullies would, after all, also be "children". According to Cassie's rather silly definition, Lyra was a child, which she was pretty sure meant literally everyone else was also a child, given that she was undoubtedly the most competent student in the school. In the event that the twats ever did make a move, and Lyra did have an opportunity to exercise vengeance upon them, she was kind of counting on that fact to keep Cassie from squashing her like a particularly annoying acromantula.

But that was completely irrelevant, given that they would have to actually do something first, which was looking annoyingly unlikely. Clearly she needed a new plan.

"What is it, Cousin?" She was legitimately curious what he might want. Since they'd come back to school, he'd tried to avoid her as much as possible. Not really effectively since they were in the same Potions and Defence lessons now, but it was still obvious he was trying (even to Lyra) — especially when he spotted her in the corridors and there were no other Slytherins around to see him abruptly remember that he had something urgent to take care of in the opposite direction.

"I need to talk to you," he hissed, eyes flicking over to Maïa. "Privately."

"Lead on, then." She gestured toward the stairwell for him to find a room for them, linking her arm through Maïa's as soon as he turned his back, even as the silly girl went to excuse herself.

"Er, Lyra..."

"If you come with us, I won't have to tell you everything later," she pointed out, skipping down the stairs and dragging her explicitly disinvited girlfriend along with her.

Draco had stopped in the very first empty classroom, obviously anxious to get whatever this was done with. "What is— I said privately, Black!"

"You tell him." The whole point of Maïa tagging along was that Lyra wouldn't have to repeat things. And besides, she had privacy palings to cast, one or two of them she still had to think about. (Seriously, she'd cast these at least ten-thousand times in the past...however long she'd subjectively been here, now. It was bloody ridiculous.)

By the time she finished, Draco had stopped complaining, was just standing there glaring impotently at Maïa, playing nervously with what appeared to be a letter. Probably from his mum. Though why she hadn't just written to Lyra directly... She did know how tedious Lyra found her spawn, it was really better for everyone if she wasn't forced to spend too much time around him. If she killed him, even out of sheer frustration, Bella would be even more annoyed with her than she had been about the shadow-trap incident. She might actually come to Hogwarts to hex Lyra to seven hells if she made Cissy cry.

"Well?"

He held out the scrolled letter with a petulant pout. "Mother said to ask you about this. It comes out tomorrow, so there's not time to send an owl back to her."

"Why don't you have a— Oh, wait, if you had a mirror, you could go whining to her without..." She trailed off as she skimmed through what appeared to be a copy of an article formatted for the Prophet. "Circe's tits, Cissy..." She grinned at Maïa, passing it over. "And here I thought my dear auntie disapproved of my plans for Mister Riddle."

"'Malfoy Pulls the Serpent's Fangs'? Who wrote— Skeeter? Narcissa Malfoy gave an exclusive interview to Rita Skeeter? The gossip columnist?"

"She only does gossip when there's nothing juicier to go after."

It didn't take very long at all for Draco to get annoyed with Lyra and Maïa ignoring him. "Hey! Why did Mother want me to know about this before it came out?"

"I don't know, did you read it? Here, give it back, Maïa."

After undoubtedly several entire minutes of debate, the Wizengamot had voted almost unanimously to hold Lucius's trial in a closed session (or rather, a series of closed sessions, it had taken the better part of a week) — presumably because they hadn't wanted to cause a panic as the public realised Cissy's argument hinged on the Dark Lord still being alive and potentially on the cusp of making a comeback, and having influence over every person who bore his Mark. The sparks cast by that claim in the midst of her trial plea had been stomped out rather quickly — only the Prophet and the Herald had had reporters in the public observation area, and they were...easily influenced. Still, no one had wanted to risk allowing her to openly present evidence which might convince the general public even if it didn't convince the Lords and Ladies.

From what little Emma had told Lyra, it had been a shit-show when the Wizengamot finally accepted that undead-Riddle was...not dead. There had been a bloody panic, enough some of the stupider members of Ars Brittania had actually, seriously suggested electing a Lord Protector, which was just...ridiculous. (Funny as hell, honestly, but completely absurd. Riddle had never posed that substantial a threat. Nor had Bella, frankly — being at war was way more fun than actually taking over.) And the Wizengamot was made up of a load of old buggers who'd rather sit around and talk at each other than actually do anything. If they'd been broadcasting the trial on the wireless, there might have been riots in Charing.

There might still be riots in Charing, when this hit the streets. Well, assuming people weren't curious enough about the title to read through the end, because Cissy had kind of undermined the threat (Undead) Dark Lord Riddle posed, even if mostly incidentally.

The trial had been derailed for almost twelve hours before Cissy and Emma managed to steer them back to the issue at hand. Because the crux of Cissy's strategy, from just a quick glance at the resolutions which had been passed before the trial concluded, hadn't been to convince people that Dumbledore wasn't just a paranoid old goat with his claims that the Dark Lord was still out there somewhere. It had been to fucking neuter every surviving Death Eater in her bloc.

"Of course I read it!"

"And you don't see how forcing every one of the Marked Death Eaters to recuse themselves from all positions of power and submit, in effect, to house arrest, for the foreseeable future, might have some political implications here at Hogwarts?"

"Erm..."

"Honestly, you are such an idiot! Even Lucius is better at politics than this! Lucius!"

Though Lucy's value to Narcissa wasn't really in his political acumen, but his ability to sell sand to an Egyptian — to convince a majority of the Wizengamot that he had been compelled to go out into the riot, as though in a dream, my limbs moving of their own accord, driven by hate and rage to– to do the sort of things, to cast the sort of spells I have not cast in thirteen years. It was...unsettling, my Lords. Deeply unsettling. And that he had only managed to resist the urge to use lethal curses through a supreme effort of will.

His testimony had been (according to the article) corroborated by Snape, who claimed those sufficiently well-practised in occlumency likely would have been able to resist such a compulsion. He 'speculated' that the resistance of the others, those who had caved to the fictional compulsions, had been weakened by the consumption of alcohol in the wake of the Irish World Cup win (and potentially other, less-legal substances, though that was Skeeter 'speculating'). Lucius, celebrating privately with his wife and son, had been sober enough to at least partially resist. (Though of course, that was only speculation, because Snape was very good at technically not perjuring himself.) And Snape's testimony that the Mark could be used to influence the minds of those branded with it in such a way — and that Snape himself wouldn't necessarily have been impacted at all, given that he was a natural legilimens and thus especially resistant to such things — was corroborated by an expert from the Department of Mysteries; John McKinnon, St. Mungo's Senior Mind Healer; and a Gringotts Cursebreaker.

Then had come the presentation of a series of photographs of Lucius's Dark Mark, demonstrating the degree to which it had darkened even in the past six weeks — with the Department of Mysteries and the Cursebreaker again corroborating Narcissa's claim that this was indicative of the Dark Lord becoming more active, potentially even that he had managed to find a vessel to possess — and the argument over whether the former Death Eaters had done anything prosecutable in not reporting this phenomenon.

That had been answered with a claim that this had happened before, most recently in the winter and spring of '92, but none of the Death Eaters had known for certain what it meant. All of them had been leery of allowing Mysteries to examine it for fear that they would be preemptively detained — or worse, that their examination would trigger a trap and kill the Marked man, which was the same reason they'd declined to a man to let Mysteries try to find some way to get rid of the bloody thing, back in Eighty-One. Lucius had only allowed the Cursebreaker (and Mysteries) to examine it now because it seemed to be actually affecting them (a fate far worse than death, he claimed, not that Lyra disagreed). And in any case, in the past, nothing had ever come of the Mark occasionally growing dark, so it had not seemed an urgent concern.

Emma, brilliant, perfect proxy that she was, had pegged that as corresponding to the period wherein Riddle's wraith had possessed Quirinus Quirrell, and had asked Dumbledore himself to testify regarding the events of that school year — the ones which had culminated in Harry burning Quirrell alive, because Dumbledore either couldn't be arsed to do his bloody job or was too stupid to recognise major possession when it was sitting four seats down at breakfast. (Snape had cast a cushioning charm for his one-time saviour in corroborating his claim that Quirrell's visible symptoms had also been consistent with some exotic, sexually communicated disease he claimed to have acquired on his summer travels.)

And then they had been faced with a conundrum because, if the Dark Lord was truly still alive and able to influence the Marked Death Eaters, they could not be held accountable for their actions and imprisoned with dementors, because being boring for the rest of their lives would be torture — that would be unconscionable. But they could also hardly allow them to walk free, able to influence the Wizengamot and the Ministry, to provide money and other resources to the Dark Lord or his associates, or even sabotage the usual state of affairs in such a way as to render them vulnerable to physical or political attack.

Narcissa had been willing to accept practically any penalty short of Azkaban, and the captured Death Eaters weren't exactly in a position to refuse when they were given the same choice as Lucius. They hadn't liked swearing Unbreakable Vows to keep themselves from knowingly helping the Dark Lord, whether "against their will" or not — or even further involve themselves in politics in general, in case the bugger tried something more subtle — but they had done it. Rendering every lord of the Allied Dark who had opposed Narcissa's direction effectively powerless (or mentally damaged, or dead), and their heirs and proxies under the impression that she would find some worse fate for them if they dared put a toe out of line from now on.

Coincidentally, the Malfoys were hardly impacted at all. Lucius, of course, had had to take the vows alongside everyone else, and so could no longer haunt the Ministry charming and bribing various members of the current administration, but the restrictions wouldn't unduly inhibit his maintaining their other business interests, so long as he worked through a proxy. And Narcissa herself wasn't Marked, so there was no problem at all with her continuing to vote their seat.

"Congratulations, Malfoy," Maïa said drily, reading over Lyra's shoulder. "By tomorrow morning, you might be even more unpopular than me."

"Eh, only with the other Allied Dark twats. Everyone else will probably be slightly more okay with him, since this is actually big, and public, and working against the Dark Lord. I mean, Emma was right—"

Her argument to give the Malfoys a trial had been re-printed word-for-word in an article all shocked about the only muggle in the Wizengamot supporting Narcissa Malfoy, speculating over whether Emma knew what the Malfoys had done in the war or believed the pile of shite Cissy was pushing. She'd given them a comment to the effect of, You know I work for the Blacks, right? Do you know what Bellatrix did, in the war? Which had sparked off a round of articles debating whether she was insane, or if it was just that she was American and therefore obviously must have the morals of a pirate. (It was great.)

"—they might have been able to play off denouncing Riddle to stay out of Azkaban. Don't know, depends on how stupid he is. You know, we were just staying in a position to support you when you came back from your bloody holiday, or whatever, but there is no way anyone looks at this and thinks it's anything other than a blow to his potential forces, if he should try to make a come-back. Like, everyone he could have forced to help him is now dead, in Azkaban, or has a fucking guillotine hanging over their necks if they do so much as lift a finger for him. And I didn't get the impression he was terribly popular with the footsoldiers, at the end."

"But Malfoy does live in Slytherin. With all of the other, er, children of the Allied Dark Houses," Maïa reminded her.

"Right, yes. And some of them might be upset about Cissy getting their fathers and uncles by the bollocks. Probably most of the ones who understand that she didn't get them taken out of power — because their Houses can still have all their money and power, it's just the Marked Death Eaters don't control it anymore — but put a fucking spike in the heart of pureblood supremacy."

"What the hell does that mean, Black?"

"Er...it's dead?" Really, she'd thought that metaphor was pretty fucking clear.

"No, I got that, but—" He darted a quick glance over at Maïa.

"You can't possibly offend me any more than you have over the past three years," she informed him.

He glared at her. "Well it's nothing personal, people like me are just better than people like you."

"Our exam scores suggest otherwise, Malfoy." That wasn't really fair. Draco ranked third in their class academically — fourth counting Lyra, but she didn't, because she really didn't care about that shite, wasn't even trying — and Maïa was a bloody genius. Probably cleverer than Lyra, really, she just had a head start, and fewer distractions thanks to a literal god burning out the tedious emotional shite. So, it was almost as unfair to compare the other fourth-years to Maïa as it was to compare them to Lyra, they weren't really operating on the same level.

"Well, you're a fucking swot, aren't you. Anyone can spend all day with their nose in a book if they haven't got any friends to talk to."

Maïa's eyes narrowed. "Pot, meet kettle."

"What?"

"Oh, for fuck's sa— It's a muggle idiom. Pot calling the kettle black — means you've no room to talk. Or hadn't you noticed no one really likes you, even in Slytherin."

"No one likes anyone in Slytherin, Granger." Draco sneered at her as best he could. Didn't really pull it off. "Besides, I don't need friends, I have more important things going for me! Like money and class."

"If you had class, you wouldn't have listed money first," Maïa snapped back. Which, well, she wasn't wrong. And also seemed to have won their little spat, since Draco failed to come up with an immediate rebuttal.

"Point to Granger," Lyra informed him. "What were we talking about? Oh, right, pureblood supremacy. It's dead. Cissy just killed it."

"Er... I'm afraid I don't see that connection, either," Maïa admitted. "Unless you mean working with my mum...?"

"Ah, no. Or, well, that's part of it, I guess, their whole coalition. But no, Cissy's been shifting the House of Malfoy's politics toward Ars Publica since she married Lucy, and the Allied Dark as a whole almost as long. And now they're all headed toward Common Fate, because democracy is coming for us whether we like it or not. Which means embracing not only commoners, most of whom don't give a shite about marrying half-bloods or muggleborns, but also the muggleborns themselves. Which means pureblood supremacy is now politically stupid, as well as just stupid stupid. And there are Houses in the Allied Dark that have been opposing that direction because, well, they're racist dickheads, but every one of their lords is now dead, brain-dead, or under an unbreakable vow. And their successors are fucking terrified that Cissy will do worse to them if they don't fall in line. Which they should be — Cissy is brilliant and ruthless and has that Lovegood knack for improvisation which is just unfair—"

"What? What Lovegood? Mother's not related to the Lovegoods."

"Yes, she is."

"No, she's not! You know the family tree as well as I do, Black—"

"I know the family tree better than you do. Narcissa's a bastard, sired by a Lovegood."

"You take that back!"

"Can't. It's true. Also, really fucking obvious — you did know that's Cissy's natural hair colour, right?" Well, she charmed it a lighter, Malfoy-ish white-blonde, when it was really closer to the golden Rosier blonde, but still. Definitely didn't look anything like a Black.

"I am not related to Loony Lovegood!"

"Oh, you definitely are. And Cassie." Not that she actually knew the degree of their relationship, she couldn't even remember Narcissa's sire's first name off the top of her head...and they were probably more closely related through the Ollivanders anyway — wasn't Xeno and Cassie's mother Sophiana Ollivander? She distinctly remembered some big scandal over Lord Ollivander's youngest daughter running away with a Lovegood, and Cassie had said... Well, not important.

"Bu— Wha— Does Father know?"

"I'd be shocked if he didn't. Not that it matters, really — we still claimed her and raised her as a Black. Actually, Cassie notwithstanding, Lovegood madness tends to be a lot less violent than Black madness, so Lucy probably thinks a Black without any actual Black blood is a better match. You should ask him the next time you see him. And make sure you get a picture."

"'Your move, Alexander,' What does that mean?" Maïa asked, interrupting Lyra's teasing and Draco's fish-like gaping.

"What's that?"

"When asked to comment on the message she intends to send to You Know Who with this shocking revelation, Lady Malfoy said, quote, 'If he reads this, and I hope he does, I would remind him that I was but a child the last time we matched wits. If he wants to play another round, he will be facing a far more formidable opponent than Albus Dumbledore. Your move, Alexander.' End quote."

Lyra snorted. Yes, she'd already known they used to play Autokrátores — Meda had mentioned something in passing, while catching Lyra up on the witch Cissy had grown up to become — but she'd kind of assumed that would have been when she was about Lyra's age. The idea of Professor Riddle playing children's games (or what passed as children's games in their household) with a little eight or nine-year-old version of Cissy, both taking the thing very seriously, because of course they would, was just too funny. Also, British politics was significantly less complicated than that particular strategy game, which was funny in its own way.

Draco actually managed to answer civilly. Might've been a first for him and Maïa. "It's this stupid game Mother likes — like chess, but about twenty times more complicated. One side is Alexander the Great, and the other side is Persia."

"Way to undersell it. I think I've mentioned it before. You've seen an animated chess set, right?" Maïa nodded. "It's kind of like that, but with about a thousand individual pieces representing twenty different cities and regions between Macedonia and India. One player is Alexander. The other assumes command of one of these cities or regions, and the rest are animated to react certain ways if you do certain things. But then— I've mentioned Dru hates kids, right?" Maïa nodded again. "Yeah, well, she modified ours to make it more complicated, on the theory that it would keep Bella and Meda occupied and out of her hair longer the more complex it was.

"So you don't just direct your armies, you have to convince leaders of these regions to give you supplies or outright ally with you, putting more men under your command. As the conquest progresses, you can be betrayed by your allies, or the cities you've already captured can muster resistance movements if you annoy them too badly — you have to administer the ones you take over, of course. And the whole thing gets more difficult the further you get, because you can see everything going on — you could scry it in real life — but there's a time-delay between giving orders and your armies acting on them based on the geographic distance between your command and theirs. There are at least fifteen-hundred variables, which is completely absurd. And they don't just pertain to in-game choices. I spent four months picking the thing apart so I could modify it and actually win for once, and that just tripped a condition causing random pieces to act as spies and deliver my orders to the defenders of the nearest city instead of the commanders they were meant for!" And when she'd finally figured out how to counter that, Dru had changed the language inputs so she'd had to give all of her orders to her pieces in Koiné. And her speeches convincing the tiny automatons to ally with her. Only hers — Meda was still allowed to use French.

(Bella hadn't even spoken Koiné back then, she'd learnt it specifically because Dru was not going to win their contest, Bella was going to find a way to cheat at that stupid game. Or at least, she had been pretty determined to before she went to Hogwarts and kind of forgot about it.)

"So, it worked, is what you're saying. Keeping you occupied."

Lyra pouted at her. "Yes. I never said Dru isn't fucking brilliant, she just really hates kids. And completely wasted her potential spending all her time on politics instead of arithmancy. Because arithmancy isn't ladylike, or something." Well, specifically, artificing wasn't ladylike. Nor was enchanting, and definitely not wardcrafting — Dru had only approved of Ciardha teaching Bella anything he damn well pleased because it kept her busy when she was little and even more annoying. Theoretical arithmancy was fine, elegant, even, but Dru, like Lyra herself, preferred actually doing things with magic than just describing how to do things with magic. Which meant other than tweaking their games and inventing new spells on the fly to force Bella to shut up, Dru had hardly ever done anything with her talent for the subject. "Though it is, apparently, ladylike to know more about history and military strategy than any three actual historians."

Maïa gave her a rather peculiar look. "I don't think you've ever told me anything about Druella at all. Certainly not that she's a brilliant enchanter."

"Well, you didn't think Bella got her brains from Cygnus, did you? I mean, yeah, there have been some really fucking brilliant Blacks, but that's more madness and audacity and cunning than actual...intelligence, I guess. Most of the time. The Rosiers tend to be better at interpreting and solving problems, and arithmancy and shite." She shrugged. There wasn't really any better way to put it. The Blacks didn't tend to be stupid, but they weren't the same sort of geniuses that the Rosiers tended to be. (Maïa would fit right in with the Rosiers. Dru would probably like her, actually, given her tendency toward quiet bookishness. Lyra hadn't actually asked, but she'd be willing to bet Maïa hadn't ever been loud and obnoxious, even when she was little.) And now Draco was giving her a weird look. "What?"

"Were you— Did you actually grow up with Grandmother?"

Shite. "No."

Honestly, she'd completely forgotten about Dru when they'd been trying to think of potential fictional foster-parents. Pity, that would probably have made sense to anyone who didn't know Bella...or Dru. On the other hand, Dru was still alive and (Lyra assumed) not all that hard to track down. People would definitely ask her if she really had raised Lyra, and people annoying her about children she was supposedly raising was one of those things that Dru hated about children. Which meant she would probably tell them that she'd had nothing to do with Lyra. So, maybe... Yeah, never mind. Mickey was definitely the better choice.

"That's— Just 'no'? You did, didn't you!"

"No means no, you poncy little twat!"

"Insult me all you want, but—"

"Was already planning on it, mon cher bougre vénal. Anyway," she said, over his red-faced objection to her perfectly accurate characterisation of his general...Malfoy-ness. "Cissy's apparently putting up an active defence against Riddle this time around. Which I hadn't really expected, but I guess it is kind of the only reasonable position to stake at this point, and no one was going to let her stay neutral if it actually came out he's trying to make a come-back. Not that I expect he would've made it very far anyway, but she definitely just cut his knees out from under him, so. As Emma so eloquently informed everyone, House Malfoy is definitely, unequivocally anti-Voldemort, now. Not that anyone puts that much effort into an exit strategy if they're really confident they're on the winning side, anyway, so I would argue Cissy was always kind of anti-Voldemort, but blaming that riot on Riddle is really, really not the same as throwing Bella into the path of a rampaging quintaped via fake Imperius."

Bella wouldn't care that Cissy had used her to escape Azkaban, especially since she'd already been going there anyway. She might have cared about Cissy denouncing Riddle back when she was still his mind-slave, but she probably would've accepted that Cissy and even Lucius were more useful to the Cause if they maintained a position of influence in society.

"Fake Imperius? What the—"

Lyra grinned at Draco's entirely sincere outrage. "Good boy, keep that up."

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

"Exactly."

"Er...I think he actually believes his father was Imperiused."

Lyra sniggered, mostly because she realised that — that's why it was so funny. "He was. You can't have an Imperius Defence without an actual Imperius. Just, Bella didn't cast it. And he definitely became a Death Eater of his own free will. Well, because Candidus and Brax told him to, but."

"And you're suggesting...what?"

"I'm not suggesting anything, baby cousin — I'm flat out telling you that Cissy, in true House of Black tradition, fabricated evidence to subvert the course of justice by Imperiusing her own husband and blaming her sister. Fucking brilliant, really."

"Wha— Why would you say that?" His eyes darted over to Maïa again, obviously enough that even Lyra could pick up that he meant why would you say that in front of her?

Maïa just scoffed at him. "Oh, relax, Malfoy. I'm not going to tell anyone, much as your parents deserve it. We're political allies now, or hadn't you heard?"

More to the point, Lyra would be obligated to break Cissy out of Azkaban — making Cissy boring was even worse than making most people boring. That was, she was pretty sure, the same reason Sirius hadn't fucked her over, perhaps by showing up at the trial and offering evidence that Lucy had been a Death Eater forever, and therefore Cissy was lying about everything. Not that Sirius didn't believe she could break Cissy out of Azkaban, but the dementors would probably rat her out, so she'd have to go on the run and never see Maïa again (unless she could be convinced to come along for the ride, but somehow Lyra didn't think Maïa was really suited to life on the run), and then Sirius would have to run the House by himself. He might just lie in bed until he died or run off to spend the rest of his life as a dog instead.

"Remember over the summer we had a conversation about not babying Draco?" He nodded warily. "Cissy lied to you about Lucy being a Death Eater because she didn't think you could fake believing the façade. But you really do need to learn how to lie, so. Maybe practise that." Also, if Cissy wanted her to explain politics to Draco, that meant it was totally Lyra's business to teach him shite he really ought to already know. She couldn't have it both ways. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we have places to be." Not that she actually wanted to go to Transfiguration, but this seemed as good a place to end the conversation as any. She had answered his stupid question, anyway.

Maïa, unlike Lyra, did want to go to Transfiguration, but had apparently forgotten that until Lyra said something. (Damn it, they probably wouldn't have had to go at all if she'd kept her mouth shut and let her stay distracted.) She cast a tempus and yelped, turning very quickly toward the door. "Come on, Lyra! We're going to be so late!"

"It's not like you don't already know everything in the lecture, you know," she grumbled, but did follow her — she had been bored with Draco, after all. And Minnie was always so delightfully peeved when Lyra showed up halfway through her lessons.

Tee hee.

And Narcissa manages to single-handedly cripple Voldemort before he's even resurrected, get her friends out of trouble, and regain total control over her political faction, allowing her to hold together their alliance with Ars Publica and Common Fate so they can kick out Dumbledore and take over the Ministry. Because she's fucking scary. Rosier brilliance plus Black audacity plus Lovegood instincts is just cheating.

The start of the Tournament arc begins with the next chapter. Because we're absurd, this will be ridiculously long — there are eleven scenes over three days plotted out right now, because there are too many characters to introduce and too many things going on. It's possible we have a problem. Chapters will continue to be posted as we finish them.

—Lysandra