Quiet Preparation
As it should be, the Library was quiet and the students tended to roam on their own, forcing themselves to study away from the countless distractions that the castle so easily provided. The sun of the incoming spring had already brought a change to the otherwise asleep Hogwarts' Grounds: where before all life had been hidden under a thick handspan of snow, and the trees had merely looked like skeletal hands attempting to grab the clouds, now there was a hint of vibrant green readying itself to explode. The wind that skittered along the walls of the ancient castle was still chilly, but it had lost its bite.
Hermione fidgeted in the angle of the Library that Cedric's group had basically had claimed for t, themselves, her eyes running over the books that she should be studying only for her focus to slip back to the older Ravenclaw that was more or less sprawled into a clearly transfigured armchair as he read a tome that was, uncharacteristically enough, about enchanting.
The Twins had never made an appearance that morning, while Penelope left to meet with a boy almost half an hour before: she wouldn't have a better occasion to accomplish her self-imposed task. With a deep breath to collect herself, she quickly packed her things before turning once more toward the older Ravenclaw, and she asked: "You remember the topic Ron, Harry, and I asked you about, yeah?"
A slight nod, even as Cedric's eyes didn't leave his book, was the only answer she received, but she knew she had his attention.
"Hypothetically, how would you move a dragon, uhm, a small one, without being noticed?" Hermione briefly bit her lower lip before she turned her face towards the nearby window, hoping that her expression wouldn't give away just how much she needed an actual answer: back when she kind of pushed Harry and Ron into asking for a suggestion about what to do with the about-to-be-hatched dragon, the wizard had been helpful as she had expected him to be.
But the Gryffindor witch soon wanted to cringe at how transparent their attempt must have been, because the casual, absolutely-not-suspicious conversation that she had just tried to engineer immediately fell apart.
"Hypothetically," Cedric spoke with a strange expression in his grey eyes as he lounged into his armchair in front of the younger girl, "if there was a newborn dragon on the Grounds, I'd be hard-pressed not to report it, given how dangerous those can be." a wry smile appeared on his features while he kept reading a rather out of character tome about the enchanting of mirrors, "If I suspected that a friend of mine was involved, I'd ask my father for a favor to have the dragon quietly catered to a Reserve as property of the Diggory family, because dragons are Not-Tradable Goods when eggs, and extremely dangerous Magical Creatures once hatched."
Hermione bit her lip as she tried to parse exactly what she was being told, and she fought to hold back a telling smile at the relief that came with the older Ravenclaw's blasè attitude towards helping her despite the hot mess that the situation could drop him in. A soothing relief that warred with a brief spike of awkwardness: if Cedric had been literally anyone else, she would have been terrified at unwittingly revealing Hagrid's secret.
"But I suspect that such a hypothetical situation wouldn't be your secret to divulge, and given a certain great man's passion for dangerous creatures, I think that the Headmaster would be a good person to turn to in order to receive help." once more the Ravenclaw's bright grey eyes settled on her, "I'm forced to point out that students should not deal with such a creature on their own, and that 'sneaking in' people that are neither students nor members of the staff would trigger Hogwarts' rather formidable wards, and as such calling onto the hypothetical trespasser the closest professor."
With her mind swirling with contrasting feelings, Hermione's eyes nevertheless widened at the ease that Cedric displayed in picking apart the situation only from a question she had made a few days before, and she made a mental note to learn how to ask for help without giving away everything that was going on. Still, she had to know exactly how she had slipped up: "How did you figure it out?"
Another smirk was the only thing that accompanied his answer: "I thought about a hypothetical situation, remember? Charlie Weasley is a Dragon Handler, is he not? His youngest brother was with you when you made your request, and from what I hear from the Twins, he's hardly academically inclined, not nearly enough to research such a topic without a clear need for it, and at eleven years old, wisdom isn't really a common attribute for any wizard or witch."
"I'll think about it," the Gryffindor witch muttered as she started to wrap up the couple of books that she had wanted to read, "and I'll talk it over with the boys, Alternatively, I thought that Penelope and the Twins and maybe you could help, but this... this is actually better: can I get back at you later about that hypothetical favor from your father?"
Cedric simply hummed while his attention shifted back onto the tome he was perusing, but the slight nod of his head was enough to reassure Hermione of his continued support: "Hypothetically, I wouldn't know if the twins could resist the potential mischief that they could unleash with a newborn dragon, while Penelope is, at the end of the day, a prefect."
His grey eyes rose to meet hers then, and she saw his lips twist in a sardonic smile: "Our friendship is still too new to be stress-tested by such a task, I think: we're a bit too old to be immediately ready to die for each other, and handling dragons illegally skirts very near that line."
The Gryffindor witch swallowed at the never-far memory of the troll, and she pointed out the obvious: "But you did risk your life, and you didn't even know me then."
She almost blurted it out: 'Why?' That was still something she didn't understand, she could get why a student would try to get the younger ones to safety, but standing and facing down a Troll was something that sounded straight out of some silly children' book. Why had Cedric Diggory, a virtual stranger at the time and a now distant friend, if a steadfast one, decided to stand his ground and fight back?
Even if she hadn't voiced her question, since it sounded terribly rude considering that it boiled down to a rather ungrateful 'Why did you save my life?', Cedric seemed to get what was gnawing at her, and he answered: "There is a difference between acting deliberately and acting on impulse: the night of the 31st October, I simply found out something that I didn't expect."
"And that thing was?"
The expression of the older wizard seemed oddly pleased as he returned his attention back to his book: "A child was in danger, and so my body moved on its own."
Hermione's cheeks went beet red at those words, and as quickly as she could without looking as if she was running away, she said goodbye and left the Library.
She was undecided between being outraged at being referred to as a child, and going dreamy at the odd light in Cedric's bright, bright grey eyes.
I tilted my head towards Hermions' retreating shoulders with my thoughts awhirl with what I wanted to do: the regular syllabus didn't take all that time, even if I had been forced to tone down my personal research into the matters related to reincarnation in order to keep up with the monstrous -and I suspected malicious- amount of work that McGonagall had dropped onto me. Now, I had more or less been forced to add the baby-sitting of an accident-prone trio of first years.
That will teach me to keep my nose out of other people's business. Metaknowledge might have given me an unfair advantage, but three first years that try to be hush-hush about suddenly researching how to transport newly hatched dragons would have raised big alarms in anyone's head. I didn't want to take over completely: even if I had figured out -again, already knowing about it gave me an unfair advantage- I felt like betraying Hermione's trust by acting by myself would damage also her relationship with Harry, which drastically decreased his chances of survival, which obviously increased the damage that Voldemort would inflict on the world.
Also, if If Hermione choose to reveal to Harry and Ron that I had figured it out, they would either clam up and never ask anyone for help for the rest of their days of clandestine doings, or, given that I was still willing to help them, they'd be more likely to turn to me, and I'd be able to steer them where their attention was needed most.
It was a risk, but a calculated one: even if they decided to keep me out, I still had my metaknowledge to help me set the course, and in any case, I'd have taught them a valuable lesson about being actually circumspect. But mostly, I worry because they are children being puppeteered by Dumbledore. It might have been for the Greater Good, or even for the kids' own good, I didn't know, and I couldn't really bring myself to care all that much.
Was I terribly selfish? Maybe. Was I malicious in my half-hearted attempt at manipulating the situation? I didn't think so. Then again, since my impulsive decision of stealing the Philosopher's Stone, mostly to keep it from Voldemort, but also because knowing that it would end up destroyed sounded like such a waste, I was kind of conflicted about just how much I should butt in into Harry Potter's standard future. Also, how do I know that the Stone is the real deal, and not an elaborate scam to allow Flamel the rest of eternity in anonymity?
There were many pieces moving about, many points of view about what was better in the long term, and about acceptable risks versus absolutely necessary evils. If Potter had to be the one to defeat Voldemort, and Dumbledore had decided that it was impossible for the young Gryffindor to cover the gap between him and the genius Tom Riddle that had decades of learning on his shoulders, I wasn't all that eager to stop the canonical shaping of our personal Jesus Christ.
Yet, the only thing I see is children being put in mortal danger. I sighed and closed my book, realizing that I wasn't able to focus with my mind revolving around the mess that would always rumble around the Chosen One: "What to do, what to do?"
I needed to do something different than sitting alone, thinking in circles about things that I couldn't yet be decisive about, and studying wasn't an option. But Penelope had entered fully the pre-O.W.L. mentality, and as such she was busy, even if the Marauders Map let me know that Percy Weasley was studying with her, Hemione had just gone away, and that cut neatly in half my circle of friends. If that isn't depressing, I don't know what it is.
I packed up my stuff with a sweep of my wand and left the Library until I reached the nearest bathroom: once in a stall, I opened the Marauders' Map, as always marveling at how the ink displayed the entirety of the castle and the grounds. After a brief consultation, I spotted the names of Fred and George: they were huddled next to each other in an otherwise empty room on the fifth floor, and I tucked away the map in order to seek them out.
Soon enough, I knocked on the closed doors of an abandoned classroom, and when only silence answered me, I sighed: "It's me you berks, open up!"
The door cracked open by a silver, and one of the twins asked: "Password?"
I rose an eyebrow challengingly: "How far can I throw your wand up your own..."
"Welcome, shady teacher!" the twin that I was going to call Fred for the duration of that encounter took a full step back, opening the door to allow me in, and immediately, my eyes zeroed in on the two bubbling cauldrons set on opposite sides of the room, only to turn towards the steaming pile of brown candy that was placed under an open window.
"Tell me that you didn't turn actual shit in a prank." I kept near the door, glancing distractedly at the second twin while my wand landed in the palm of my hand: "Because while I'm happy about the inventive you keep showing, and the implicit grown skill in your transfiguration and charms, this is really in bad taste."
The smell of the room was a mixture of bitter herbs and wood-fire, so I didn't truly think that they were playing around with actual shit, but I wasn't going to put limits on the kind of disgusting stuff the duo could be up to.
"How dare you!" started George.
"We have taste, thank you very much!" continued Fred with a mock-outraged expression while he closed the door behind me.
"Even if that is a potential idea." the first twin eyed whatever-those-things were with a thoughtful expression, but for the first time, his always stalwart companion hesitated.
Apparently, there were limits to what George considered acceptable: "What?!"
"Well, not... you know." Fred gestured helplessly at the steaming pile of light brown candies, "But stuff that looked like..."
"I veto that." I butted in before they could start spiraling out of control, "how about poker instead?"
The Twins' eyes alighted immediately: since I had first explained how it worked, the duo had understood the immense potential for scamming those that didn't think too much about losing a bunch of sickles. I for one, had enough pocket money -that I never got around to spending- that to them it'd look like entirely unreasonable. Of course, I didn't much care about losing a few galleons here and there, but just like the two tried to cheat in order to win and put away money for their far away dream of a joke shop, I had my own secondary purpose.
Soon enough the three of us were seated at a desk that was transfigured in a circular shape, and we began to play.
Maybe because of the years spent dealing with their overbearing mother, and likely because of necessity -after all, without the Marauders Map, they got caught far more often than not because of their pranks, especially in their first years at Hogwarts-, they had developed impressive poker faces. But it wasn't the faces that I was interested in, not at all.
If Occlumency was the art of being aware of one's own thoughts, something that eventually granted a measure of control over our own minds, Legilimency was the exact science of finding information. As each mind was unique, and based on my non-existent experience, 'reading minds' there were as many different approaches as there were differences between yourself and the one you were trying to read.
The human mind, as Snape had succinctly put, wasn't a book to be opened and closed: our consciousness was an endless stream of associations. Each instant a collection of memories repurposed and turned into imagination, an echo of a smell here, the ringing of an ear there: without using my wand, as I'd hardly be able to do so without being spotted, I simply looked.
Cards were dealt, bets were called, and I slid into the strangely dissociative state that defined my brand of Occlumency. I was simply aware: aware of myself as I couldn't be in any other situation, and slowly, I attempted to become aware of the Twin sitting on my left. I registered with a distracted eye the multitude of contrasting signals that his body sent: those that he likely commanded in order to trick me, and those details that instead escaped human control.
For all of the wizards' and witches' theories and books, some magics lent themselves to a structured approach, while others were entirely individualistic: eventually, each practitioner had to discover them for themselves.
My eyes landed on Fred's when it came to calling his bluff, and consciously, but passively, I felt that his cock-sure smile was honest, but displayed in such an open way as to push me to believe him a liar.
I blinked owlishly, and the awareness that had accompanied that unquestionable instinct snapped into nothingness before I could recall it. Fred, No, it's George, I corrected myself with a certainty that I would need to analyze later, had a reasonably good hand, helped along by his brother: I had a flash of diamonds in my mind's eye, and considering the cards on the table, I folded.
The actual grimace on the face of the Twins was all that I wanted to win in the first place in any case. This is not legilimency, not even close, not yet. But it will be.
"I have no idea how he does that!" Fred grumbled as he shuffled the cards, but there was a challenging glint in his eyes as he did so.
"You aren't natural liars, it is that simple." I sardonically grinned as the three sickles on the table changed hands between the twins with my pockets losing the total of a single knut.
"We thought that only Slytherins were like that." the -listening to their daily comments at least- uglier twin of the two tried to rile me up in order to make me take my eyes off the deck of cards, but he would have been luckier in trying to move a mountain range.
"Logic applied to a conversation can use rhetoric to turn the sun into the sea." I shrugged uncaringly, my eyes unblinking and fixed on Fred's hands, "If you want, it is its own brand of magic."
"If we lose again, we try to organize a pick-up game of Quidditch." George decided suddenly.
"Agreed." the cards were dealt, and I was left outnumbered by a couple of Weasley Beaters that were sporting matching grins.
"I am sure that there won't be any revenge involved." I felt my lips twitch upwards despite myself. I didn't exactly love Quidditch, but flying could be exhilarating. In any case, I wasn't brooding on my own, a behavior that I knew was simply unproductive, and given that I was using the pretext of playing poker to learn Legilimency, I felt like I owed them something more than mere knuts.
The twins expressed the fakest innocent look that I had ever seen, but I snorted nevertheless: "Okay, okay, after this hand, we try for Quidditch."
It had been three days since my last chat with Hermione, and given the amount of time she now spent with Harry and Ron going back and forth from the castle to Hagrid's hut, I strongly suspected that the three first years would be more likely to ask Dumbledore for help than myself, or clever enough to walk the dragon into the Forbidden Forest, just beyond Hogwarts' wards, and that they'd meet the Dragon Handlers led by Charlie Weasley there.
It wasn't that I was pissed at the likely lack of a dragon under Diggory's possession, I hardly knew what to do with one, I didn't think that there were many ready-to-use rituals that would turn me into an invincible wizard that somewhat made use of a baby Norwegian Ridgeback. After all, if that was true, and the process feasible, it wouldn't have faded into obscurity: Dragons were kept in reserves because they would fuck up the Statute of Secrecy, and because once they got old enough, they were rendered into stuff useful for wizards. From their heartstrings to be used as wand-cores, to their blood as an alchemical reagent, to their skin for protective gear.
Even taming one, as useful as it sounded, wasn't exactly a clear-cut process. In any case, it's out of my hands.
"I still have to find the time to corner Potter about Parseltongue." I muttered to myself as I strode purposefully up the last ramp of stairs and reached the infamous 7th-floor corridor that housed the Room of Requirement, in front of which I started to move back and forth, my thoughts focused and my determination clear. I need the room of the Hidden Things.
I repeated that thought as I walked back and forth on the wall facing the tapestry of a man trying to teach trolls how to dance, and soon enough I entered a hall that was as immense as it was cluttered with rubbish and whatever had been left behind in the almost thousand of years since Hogwarts' founding. As I walked, I let my self-imposed focus go, my eyes widening as I realized that the memories granted me by my metaknowledge didn't make it justice: from the piles of discarded chairs and desks, to the rolls of tapestries left to collect dust, to the occasional enchanted trinket, to... well, it was well stocked with pretty much anything one could imagine was counted among lost or abandoned items.
Just like the idea of owning a dragon appealed to me, for the uniqueness of the situation if nothing else, the impulse of raiding the Room of Hidden Things of everything sang strongly within me: I had absolutely no need for anything that I was likely to find here. I did think about taking all the knuts, sickles, and galleons that had likely been lost in the course of the past millennium, but I already had all the money I could need for reasonable expenses. Not that there was much I was interested in buying, after all, the idea of making my own enchanted items appealed to me much more than simply purchasing them: Amos was unsurprisingly very open to me buying whatever struck my fancy, even if it was likely because I had never been one to be unreasonably attracted by futile expenses. I briefly fantasized about getting started on a treasure hunt among the piles of discarded items, one never knew what could become useful, but while I wasn't under surveillance, I was on a more or less strict timetable.
"I should probably get around to take the vanishing cabinet in Borgin and Burkes." I made a mental note of it as I passed by a section of armchairs with the stuffing ripped out at the seams, "And of course Ravenclaw's diadem."
I didn't even start to seek it out, even if my metaknowledge and my more esoteric studies gave me a leg up on the topic, messing around with a piece of Voldemort's soul sounded like a spectacularly bad idea. Besides, it wasn't like that I had a safer place than Hogwarts: it was the same reason why I hadn't bothered with making copies of every book that I had studied since I 'learned' how to read. Until Harry Potter's fifth year, the Room of Requirements was my own private section of anything I could need.
Before venturing further into the Room of Requirement, I closed my eyes and focused: after all, the bare bones of a plan that I had would mean nothing if this wasn't going to work. I need a secret passage that only I can see to the room holding the Mirror of Erised, I need a...
Struck by a sudden bout of paranoia, I stopped, reiterated all that I needed from the Room, and began anew: I need a passage to the room holding the Mirror of Erised, unplottable and invisible by any but myself, large enough to comfortably take away the mirror, without triggering any ward or trap. I need a passage to the room holding the Mirror of Erised, unplottable and invisible by any but myself, large enough to comfortably take away the mirror, without triggering any ward or trap. I need a passage to the room holding the Mirror of Erised, unplottable and invisible by any but myself, large enough to comfortably take away the mirror, without triggering any ward or trap.
When I opened my eyes, the Room of Hidden Things had somewhat rearranged itself: where before I could scarcely spot the far-away wall, it was now in front of me, and in the gray stone stood an archway leading to a circular room: a place where the ultimate prize rested uncaring of those that sought it out. With a golden, important frame and an infamous script etched above the reflective surface, I immediately recognized it. The Mirror of Erised.
It would be easy enough to simply pluck it out of the room, but I really wanted an alibi in case it was needed, and I had no idea if the Philosopher Stone could be tracked by Voldemort: after all, he had attempted to steal it in Gringotts.
Another instant with closed eyes and sharpened focus made the newly sprouted secret entrance disappear, and I immediately set out to find another necessary part for my plan among the immense piles of assorted junk in the standard Room of Hidden Things.
When I found a large, cracked mirror, I smiled wanly: that was exactly what I had been looking for. A wave of my wand and a silent reparo later, I levitated the object so that it stood in the center of the path formed between the endless piles of assorted rubbish: it was a three meters times one and half meter frame of bronze holding up a silvery reflective surface. There were random grooves etched into the frame that flowed one into another, while the reflection in itself was perfectly mundane.
Brown hair, grey eyes, high cheekbones, Ravenclaw tie: that was me all right. With the second wave of my wand, I started to try out the spells that I had memorized just before my last chat with Hermione.
Preparation was half the battle, and I wasn't going to place myself between Voldemort and his prize if I could help it. I was going to take the Mirror and what it held for myself, but leaving behind something to keep Voldemort guessing was only good manners: after all, Dumbledore was more than welcome to deal with the shade of the Dark Lord.
I'd still need to figure out what to do about Potter's involvement. Or rather: should I stop him altogether, join him, or let the events play out?
AN
I know that the first 3k words of this chapter are kind of boring: they are all about preparation, with little to no action. Yet, I wanted to underline how this MC isn't one prone to taking risks unless he's put on the spot (sudden risk of death for someone): he's a Ravenclaw with a lot of information to act upon, and so he prepares until it's the right time.
About Hermione:
Yeah, considering Hermione's reaction to Lockhart, I found it mandatory to have her crush on the MC, who of course isn't going to act on it: I'm really bad at writing relationships, but even I can see how toxic something like that between a reincarnated fourth year and a 12 years old girl that has been 'saved' by such a gallant knight in shining armor could be.
About the Dragon:
I really didn't know what to do about the dragon: the standard instinct that I had is to cook up some ritual to make use of a newborn Ridgeback, but this MC doesn't quite have the ritualistic know-how that Hagrid enjoys in the Meddling Giant (at least for now) and I wanted to simply use Norbert as a plot device to tighten the relationship between Cedric and Amos, as well as validate the sort of trust that Hermione put in the older student that (in her eyes) saved her from the troll.
About Legilimency:
Legilimency is something that I had yet to explore, and while I'll give a proper explanation much later, I wanted to dust it off in a soft way: Cedric is by no means a master. As I've already set up in this fic, in the HP-world some magics can simply be achieved by hammering your head on it until you succeed despite the insane difficulty or claimed impossibility of the charm in question (I decided to turn Harry-related bullshit plot-learning into a standard).