Welcome back everybody! Neolyph is here once again to bring you more of A Broken Wizard and a Broken Magus! I apologize greatly for the delay for this chapter. It was a rollercoaster of depression, writer's block, death in the family, and working out a new direction for this story to go.

*Important Notice* Starting this chapter, this story will be changing a bit. I apologize if this makes the story seem a bit schizophrenic and there will be some retconning. I'm new to writing, and I'm starting to realize that certain aspects of this story aren't ready to be fully developed. Essentially, starting this chapter, Harry will be tying up loose ends and eventually pulling out of the Potterverse, and setting up events so that events happen roughly canon up until he pops back in. Once again, I'm sorry if this is a turnoff. Also, there may or may not be a several-year timeskip. Depends on how it goes.

Also, because even I kind of forgot about it, this story does have a discussion forum if anyone's interested. Linked on my profile.

That said, time for reviews!

AnimeA55Kicker: A Servant's magic resistance keeps them from being harmed by magic, not undetectable to it.

Generatedname: Harry's limitation is more crippling than you might think. I've somewhat based him off the idea of the Shakespearean idea of the tragic hero, all of whom are crippled with a single fatal flaw. Harry's is a psychological need for brutal vengeance. In his own way, he's just as broken as Sakura, Daphne, Assassin, or any of his other Servants. Because of this, he's physically incapable of willingly committing any action that might compromise his little masquerade. It's why what he's about to do this chapter pains him so much. Flamel is an interesting little character to work with. Let's just say that even in his current state, his legacy will come back to haunt Harry. Unfortunately, my greater plans for the Marauder's Map will likely not be realized, at least not for a long time. I was going to have them become an incredible thorn in Harry's side, but upon writing this chapter I realized that I needed to switch gears, part of which will mean an unsatisfying end to the map. I'm going to be time-skipping most likely, so we won't see the development, but there will be some character transformation in the Potterverse. Orion will learn his lesson (will be seen in the next chapter or two) and by the end of it will be on the track to becoming canon-ish Harry. With Hermione largely turned off to Orion, Malfoy will be taking her place in the Golden Trio. This may not sacrifice his role in the canon story though. Saber Alter is something I'm definitely considering. Thanks for the review, and hopefully thanks for reading the whole response. I'm doing my best to improve this story and salvage what parts I can.

Chapter 24: Priorities

Harry was fairly certain that if he possessed Mystic Eyes, he'd have already killed the Weasleys by now with the force of his gaze. The imbeciles had stumbled into a situation that placed them in a prime position to ruin him; and there was next to nothing he could do about it. Killing them was off the table. It might have flown during Riddle's schooling, but with a more wizened Dumbledore presiding over the school and on the lookout for Riddle, a massive investigation would be launched that might trace back to either him or the map. Even if he was fairly confident in his ability to deal with them without leaving anything that might lead back to him, he wasn't entirely sure Dumbledore wouldn't simply fabricate proof to incriminate him. He wouldn't put it past the old man to do that, especially if he believed Harry was responsible and endangering the students.

Obliviation might work, but it was risky and would be difficult to pull off based on how long those two had used the map. Not only could Obliviation be detected by certain objects like Remembralls, but the more memories associated with the idea you were trying to erase the more difficult it was. If the Weasleys suddenly turned into vegetables, or forgot all their schooling, it would be noticed, there was no question about it. Worse, with their family being one of Dumbledore's key supporters, the old man would be that much more intent on finding the one responsible.

His only real saving grace here was that the twins were curious, not suspicious. They wanted to learn more about these strange names showing up on the map as opposed to running straight to Dumbledore. What he needed to do was keep them occupied long enough to plan around them. Either swipe the map so that they would have no proof of their accusations or convince them that maintaining the secrecy of the information was in their best interests. Though as a Magus, he was tempted to forego the latter on sheer principle. Information shared with others was information you had no control on, and he didn't trust anyone outside of his little family to make good use of such incriminating data.

"Daphne," he whispered under his breath, not looking in his sworn vassal's direction, "what can you tell me about the Weasley twins."

She glanced up from her meal, raising one of her aristocratic eyebrows daintily and smirking.

"Fred and George Weasley," she drawled exasperatedly, "let's just say that their disciplinary file is the size of most textbooks. Absolute terrors by reputation and rumored to be the source of roughly half the pranks on Slytherin. Not kids you want to be on the bad side of. Said to be surprisingly cunning for Gryffindors though. Might have even made it as Slytherins if their house wasn't so rooted in Gryffindor."

Harry nodded irritably, "That's what I was afraid of."

Sakura, who had been listening in on this, chimed in concerned, "What's wrong? Are the Weasleys up to something?" Harry shook his head. Noticing that the twins had looked up from their map once again and were intently studying him, he surreptitiously turned to her and mouthed "later". Catching on, she smiled cheerfully and returned to her meal.

"Assassin," he ordered as the chiming of the clock announced the end of breakfast, "shadow the Weasleys. If they make any suspect moves or head in the direction of Dumbledore's office, I want to know. Understand?" He could practically feelher disappointment through the bond at not being permitted to kill them, but she replied in the affirmative nonetheless. Harry was content to know that she would never disobey his orders under any circumstance; the Weasleys need not fear an overzealous Assassin slitting their throats in the hallway, or worse sending them off to join her "reconditioning". Though the interest of that particular option was not lost on him.

Fortunately, the Weasleys were off to a different class than he, so he would have a brief respite before they came looking for his Servants again. He could use that time to plan. The second he was in Flitwick's class, he sat down at his desk and zoned out. Given how far ahead he was in his studies, he could allow himself to miss one measly lesson, especially since the girls would be more than happy to share their notes with him.

Closing his eyes to concentrate, he drummed his fingers and began reciting alchemical formulae in his head. It was an exercise Zouken had taught him to clear his mind. Though he was loath to use anything that worm had taught him, he could not deny its effectiveness. It allowed him to concentrate far more than his Occlumency ever could. Too bad wizards relied so much on the Mind Arts to see the interest of combining them with simple meditation exercises, but then again their mentality was really "if it works, there is no need to fix it".

Mentally, he began taking stock of his assets and detriments in his current situation.

On the negative end, two third years were in possession of a magical artifact that allowed them to monitor the names and locations of his Servants. Said third years were Gryffindors of the Weasley family, renowned for their association with Dumbledore. As Gryffindors, they would be inherently suspicious of a Slytherin, especially given recent events with Dudley. They also would have heard Orion's slandering of him, although their acceptance of it was debatable. Regardless, it would throw obstacles in the way of a diplomatic approach. Add to that their prankster nature, and anything they would learn on him would likely be used against him, so he couldn't afford to explain things to them either, not with a guarantee that they wouldn't use it against him.

He sighed at the depressing list. This was going to be harder than he imagined. Granted, far from impossible, just harder than what he had hoped for.

Perhaps he should take stock of his advantages. Primarily, the Weasleys were more interested in investigating his Servants than revealing them. Secondly, they didn't know what his Servants were, instead suspecting that they were ghosts. The twins were a potential match for Slytherins, so in the right circumstances he might be able to appeal to their reason. They also couldn't directly see his Servants, only their location within the school. There was also the fact that Assassin did not appear on the map, most likely a benefit of her A+ Rank Presence Concealment. At least one of his Servants wasn't compromised.

Idly, he wondered if Riddle would show up on that map? Caster was apparently concocting some elaborate blood ritual with the small amount he'd taken from the unicorn, but if he could find Riddle before that it would expedite things.

Regardless, the twins were his primarily concern at the moment. The stone Riddle was after was long gone by this point, so there was little to be concerned about on that front. As a matter of fact, he was technically wearing the stone in the form of Panzer, who by this point could actually hold a conversation. She very rarely spoke, but when she did it was important and often an eclectic mix of hopelessly naive and comfortably ruthless. Somewhat like Illya in that regard, he supposed.

He was losing his focus. The twins.

At the moment, they viewed his Servants as curiosities to be investigated, not threats. He could work with that, exploit their Gryffindorish need to stick their nose in things they had no business with. Perhaps lead them on a merry little chase while he worked out how to wrestle the map away from them without tipping his hand. So long as they didn't understand the significance of what they were seeing, he was safe.

Though, perhaps, deception wasn't the only option here... Molly Weasley had expressed some rather negative views towards his parents. Some of her views might have been passed on to her children, though if Ron was any measuring stick they hadn't. Of course, given that the youngest Weasley boy seemed to have the intellect of a stone and the conservation instincts of a suicidal lemming, it could just be that the boy was stupid.

Still, it was worth a check. And unfortunately he didn't have time to wait for the end of the day to make that check.

Even if this was going to be unpleasant.

He waited until Flitwick was turned around to make his move. The second the short man had moved to add something on the board, he pointed at his face and cast the tooth engorgement hex. Painfully, his teeth expanded until they stuck out of his mouth like a beaver.

"Someone hexed Harry!" shrieked Sakura, playing along with the deception as she started fawning over his injury.

With the reflexes of a practiced duelist, Flitwick whirled around, eyes ablaze with fury.

"Who was it?" he demanded sharply, taking in Harry's injury with a grimace. It was likely that this was one of the first incidents in his teaching career of in-class hexing. Fortunately for Harry, he shared this class with the Hufflepuffs, who were notorious for both defending muggleborns and not squealing on one another. It was in their character to rashly respond to an attack on someone like Dudley, and also not fess up as to who did it; which meant that even if no Hufflepuffs confessed, Flitwick would not believe them.

"I don't know," Harry said, shrugging. The words came out slightly distorted due to his new oral arrangement, but understandable, "I didn't see them."

Flitwick sighed, leveling a livid glare at the assembled students, who were watching the goings-on with a combination of interest and horror. "Go to the medical wing and have Madam Pomfrey give you a potion to fix that."

"Yes sir," Harry acknowledged, rising from his seat and exiting out the door. As he retreated, he heard Flitwick proceed to tear a strip off the entire first year Hufflepuff class. It was regrettable, as most of the Hufflepuffs were good kids, but they also made good scapegoats.

He needed to move fast. Flitwick would be checking in with Pomfrey later to ensure that he arrived there, so he would still have to stop there once he was done. Layering his invisibility and presence concealment on himself, he made a rapid beeline for Dumbledore's office. Arriving at the gargoyle door, he just started cycling through wizard candies until it opened. The Sorting Hat had informed him of Dumbledore's penchant for rotating the password for his office through various wizard candies. The primary flaw of this, was that due to the small size of the wizarding world there were only two dozen or so exclusively wizard candies. It didn't take long to go through all of them.

His attuned magus senses allowed him to physically feel the old man's wards lock onto him.

"Panzer, would you mind activating prana dampeners?" he asked his armor. There was no response from the taciturn armor, but sure enough he was quickly wrapped in a magic-absorbing barrier. It prevented him from disturbing the ambient prana that most of the wards used as a detector, allowing him to bypass the majority of them.

His mental link with Archer had already informed him that Dumbledore was out dealing with Wizengamot business, so he casually opened the door and strolled into the empty office.

"Bit early for a visit to the Headmaster, isn't it?" came a throaty voice from off to the side. Harry turned and grinned at the Sorting Hat, sitting on a shelf by Dumbledore's desk.

"Well, I have to make an active investment in my education, don't I?" he joked back.

It was somewhat hard to tell due to the burlap nature of that hat's face, but he was sure it was grinning as it perked up and got down to business with a, "So, what can ol' Sorty do for you?"

"I'm here about our agreement," Harry explained, "I need information about two students."

The hat rose its equivalent of an eyebrow, "Really?" it asked, "Surprised you actually need to resort to that level. Which kids? No. Wait. Let me guess... Parkinson? No, Malfoy! Wait, wait. It's Longbottom, right? I know that h-"

"Weasley," Harry interrupted the hat's rapid guessing, "the twins, to be exact."

"Oh them," said the hat with a knowing voice, "I could fill a book with the stuff in their heads. 'Course, it's been years since they actually wore me. Might be outdated information. You try Legilimency yet?"

Harry grimaced. "It's risky. Right now, they're in a position to compromise everything I've built here so far, only they don't know it yet. Given that they spend the majority of the time irritating the Headmaster or breaking into the restricted section of the library in search of prank books, they might have picked up Occlumency. It's unlikely, but if they do have and pick up on the probe, they might just run to Dumbledore."

The hat raised its brim, it's equivalent of raising an eyebrow Harry supposed, "This is quite a significant amount of effort to go through just to minimize a negligible risk. From the looks of your face, you hexed yourself just to get out of class and sneak up here."

"I don't think you quite appreciate how precarious my current position here," Harry explained tersely, "These twins have the potential to bring my entire operation down on my head. The second Dumbledore catches wind of something strange going on in the school related to me, he's going to start pulling the thread until my entire plot unravels."

"And besides," Harry glared at the hat, "I don't take risks."

The hat chuckled darkly, "Yes, I suppose you really don't leave things to chance. Have you ever considered that your life would be much easier if you just dropped the charade and were direct?"

"You've been in my head," shot back Harry, "You tell me."

Although it didn't respond to this challenge, Harry and the Sorting Hat both knew the answer to that question. So long as he still had air in his lungs, Harry would not let this grudge go, nor would he let a single ounce of his enjoyment of it be stolen from him. He was a bored prodigy granted the powers of a demigod and a harem of women who could quite feasibly exterminate all life on the planet. It was well within his power to wipe Wizarding England off the map and have his revenge that way, but he would never do so.

Because it wasn't about power, it was about control.

It was about making his enemies dance to his tune without them ever realizing the strings he was using to make them do so. It was about becoming the very architect of their reality and then making it collapse around them. It was about seeing their faces as the great monuments to their accomplishments were toppled and their very lives lay in ashes.

It was all for the moment where they would look up and, in their last breaths, realize that it was him.

Harry was a sadist of the highest form. Mere physical pain nor mental domination were simply not enough for him. It had to be deep, it had to be personal. They had to feel every twist of the knife yet still not realize who was twisting it, nor that there was even a knife in them. All of which explained why Harry's personal nightmare was a situation in which this was ruined for him. It wasn't just pleasure for him; it wasn't just revenge.

It was a need, as real as a fish's need for water or a wolf's need for prey. Harry was just as broken as everyone else he associated with, he was just better at putting on a smile.

This was why the hat both respected and pitied him though. By any rational mind, Harry was a wild beast that should be shackled or destroyed for the good of all, and as someone who had delved into the far reaches of the boy's mind, the hat knew better than anyone just how dangerous the boy was should he let himself go. What had stayed the hat's hand was something else, hidden far into the boy's soul.

Love.

Despite everything the boy had been through, deep down, something was keeping him from simply turning on humanity as a whole, who had left him to the tender mercies of the likes of the Durleys or Zouken. It was that unquenchable love, hidden and atrophied though it was, that was the reason Harry was limiting his revenge to those who had wronged him directly.

That was what had separated Harry from Tom Riddle. In his orphanage, Riddle had no friends or anyone that cared about him to kindle the dying embers of humanity in his blackened heart, and so it had consumed him entirely.

Harry meanwhile had Sakura the entire time he was undergoing his transition into something dark and terrible, and although she had her own demons, the two kept one another anchored. He truly dreaded the fate of the world if a single hair on her head was harmed by anyone with magic in them. It would not be pretty.

With a snort, the hat finally gave up and abandoned its impromptu staring match with Harry, "So what do you want to know about the Weasleys?" Harry grinned back at the hat, pleased to have won.

"What are they likely to do with the information they have, and how can I convince them to give it up?" he asked succinctly.

The hat hummed and mumbled for several moments before finally formulating a reply, "The two of them look at everything through the eyes of rambunctious children. Don't try to manipulate them, as if they catch even a whiff of it they'll turn on you. Your best bet is probably coming out with most of the truth, and then buying their silence by offering something... entertaining. Prank opportunities are a good, and they'll likely have a good impression of you from their mother. Just don't let them in on your... darker ambitions, they're in Gryffindor rather than Slytherin pretty much solely to a pretty well-defined moral compass."

Harry was about to reply when Panzer's soft voice spoke up in his mind, "Master, time."

He swore. Madame Pomfrey might get suspicious if there was too large a time discrepancy between his departure from class and his arrival at the hospital wing. Already, he was pushing it with his intended claim of having gotten lost, so he needed to move fast.

With a prayer that the Weasleys weren't currently watching the map, he thanked the hat and Kaleidoscoped to a closet just outside the infirmary. A quick touch of his aching teeth confirmed that they were still hexed, so he knocked on the door softly. Several seconds passed, before the stern face of Madame Pomfrey appeared in the doorway, and with a disapproving cluck she ushered him inside and set him up in a bed while she prepared the counter potion.

She knew better than to ask questions. When pranks were played on Slytherins, very rarely were professors ever involved. Either the victim was pranked by their own housemates as retribution for stepping out of line, and thus wanted to keep quiet, or they were pranked by another house and wanted to get revenge in person.

Instead, she just fixed him up and told him to take a nap. The potion to counter the tooth engorgement hex had a side effect of causing drowsiness, so sending him back to class would be fruitless.

Looking to the left at the adjacent bed, Harry couldn't help but laugh at seeing its occupant: a still-comatose Dudley. Irritated as he was with the situation, at least that was something positive. He had intended to use this time to slip out and get some side projects done, but several days of sleep deprivation combined with the sedative effects of the potion quickly put any notions of that out of his mind and he drifted off the sleep.

-Break-

It was perfect timing.

This was the moment Orion had been waiting for.

Many thought that he'd forgotten the insults his "brother" had thrown at him, but not Orion. He still remembered the constant humiliations he'd faced when that git had first arrived. Before Harry, his life had been perfect. Then everything had changed; suddenly his parents were angry at him, he was being humiliated in the press, and among his peers he was an outcast. No matter what anyone said, he knew the one responsible for his fall from grace was Harry. It was just too convenient that the moment he was reunited with his "brother", strange things had started to happen to him.

No more.

He'd worked out how to get back into the good graces of his house. His cousin Dudley got beaten up in the middle of the night, and the entire Gryffindor house was looking to get back at them for it. Whoever was first to throw a punch was going to be the big man in Gryffindor for a while, and Orion was going to be that man.

The best part, since many in Gryffindor viewed the attack on Dudley as proof that the Slytherins' recent rise in reputation was unearned, it wouldn't even matter which Slytherin they got back.

"It's a bad day to be wearing green," he sneered to Ron, Dean, and Thomas as they lay in wait in one of the first floor corridors, and he was rewarded with some cruel chuckles. Word was that Slytherins often took this corridor as a shortcut when they were running late, which meant that whoever came through it would be both alone and not paying attention to their surroundings in their haste. It was a pretty clever place to get some revenge in, if he did say so himself.

The sound of rapid footsteps coming down the hallway silenced the quartet. As sneakily as four first-year Gryffindors can be, they stacked up around a corner, out of sight form the corridor the steps were coming from. Dean put his mirror around the corner just long enough to confirm that the person coming down the hall, a girl by the brief flash he got, was wearing green. Turning to the other boys, Dean gave a nod and pulled out his wand, quickly joined by the other three.

Once the footsteps were close enough to be heard clearly, they made their move.

Fucking snake didn't even know what hit her.

She screamed and flailed as she was hit with everything from stinging hexes to tripping jinxes. A solid fifteen seconds of casting later, the boys turned and ran away, wanting to make sure that it was not noted that they were late for class. It wouldn't do for a teacher to get suspicious of their absence once this got out.

They were halfway to History of Magic when Orion realized that he hadn't even see who they'd just assaulted. In his haste to do as much damage in as short an amount of time as possible, none of them had actually paid attention to their victim.

Personally, his hope was Pansy Parkinson, that Slytherin whore Draco was always bragging about being engaged to. Face like a horse she had, though it probably looked significantly more bruised after they'd gotten through with her. Turning, he high-fived Ron, Dean, and Thomas. They'd gotten their house's revenge, and would be lauded as heroes for it.

All according to plan.

Looking at his sleeve, he plucked a stray purple strand of hair from it before dashing into the lovely Professor Caster's class.

-Break-

Harry knew that something was wrong when he awoke to Assassin shaking him. Considering one of her favorite hobbies was watching him sleep, a practice she still continued to this day he might add, she would never awaken him unless it was an emergency.

"What's wrong?" he mumbled, still groggy from the effects of the potion.

"Sakura was attacked, Master," she answered with what he identified as murderous intent in her eyes. Like a switch was flipped he snapped up in bed and flung the curtain surrounding it back. Assassin astralized the second she saw what he was doing, and took up a post at his shoulder. She knew that when her God has those eyes, someone was going to die, messily and slowly.

On a cot across the room lay Sakura, flanked on both sides by Madame Pomfrey and Dumbledore. They'd been having a quiet conversation, but paused when the curtain was flung back. Looking at the cot, Harry's rage overwhelmed his Occlumency like a malevolent hurricane. Answering his call for blood, his circuits unconsciously activated, flooding his body with prana and creating a noticeable temperature change in the room.

Sakura was a pitiful sight. Her entire face was a mass of bruises from stinging hexes, and what teeth hadn't been knocked out had been engorged to painful proportions. It looked like her entire set of teeth would have to be painfully regrown. Blood welled from her left temple, where it seemed she had been tripped and her head collided with the floor; possible concussion as well. Her breathing was harsh and jagged, indicating at least bruised, possibly broken ribs. Small nicks and cuts dotted her extremities from minor slashing hexes. Her once prized purple hair had evidently been the victim of a scalping hex, as it had been brutally shorn off straight up the middle.

The worst though... the worst was her eyes.

They had returned to the soulless, purple pits of emptiness and despair that they been before he had met her. The eyes she'd borne when she was nothing but an empty shell ready to be used up and discarded by her grandfather.

They were the eyes that he'd sworn he would never see again. Ashamed, he turned away.

Overall, she almost looked worse than Dudley in the bed next to her.

With an enormous slam, the doors of the hospital wing flew open to reveal Leanna, Monica, and Joy, who had taken up a tight defensive position around Daphne and Illya. The second they spotted Sakura, the made a beeline for her.

"Now hold on ladies-" began Dumbledore as he stuck an arm out to keep them back, before Joy grabbed it and twisted it painfully behind his back as she pushed him face-first into a wall.

"You don't get to speak," she hissed at him dangerously.

Madame Pomfrey looked on the verge of interfering, but a warning look from Monica convinced her to just let it go and continue healing Sakura. Illya instantly took Sakura's free hand, rubbing it soothingly and whispering comfort in the sobbing Sakura's ear.

Harry couldn't bring himself to move. How could this have happened? Who could have done this?

He didn't know, but he would find out. The immediate priority however was Sakura. Jerking himself back into movement, he stumbled over to her bed and took up her other hand, rubbing his thumb across its back in an attempt to comfort her. With his other hand, he emulated what he used to do when she was upset at Zouken's and began combing her hair with his fingers. The choppy cut it had been given made this tricky, but he managed.

"Who was it?" he asked once she'd calmed down a bit from his presence.

"Gryffindors," she choked out between sobs.

That was all Harry needed to hear.

-Break-

Orion, Ron, Dean, and Thomas were living the high life. Once word had gotten around Gryffindor that they'd put a Slytherin in the hospital wing as retaliation for Dudley, they were set up as heroes.

Sitting around the common, they once again regaled their rapt audience of how they'd encountered one of the slimy Slytherins as she was regaling three passing "friends" about how she had bullied a bunch of Hufflepuffs earlier and how she thought that it was about time someone put that uppity mudblood in his place. When they had politely interjected as to how rude the Slytherins were being, the snakes had drawn wands.

Being the brave Gryffindors that they were, they drew wands in return. Seeing Orion's master dueling stance taught by Dumbledore himself, three snakes fled in terror. The fourth stood her ground, sneering arrogantly.

"I'm telling Snape that you attacked me," she had sneered.

"It doesn't matter," Orion had responded heroically, "the truth will circulate and your lies will never carry."

Then a duel had commenced between the five, with the Slytherin flinging dark spells, no doubt invented by the Dark Lord himself, at the four innocent Gryffindors. Fortunately, the power of light was on their side and they had managed to turn the tables against the Slytherin and her underhanded fighting.

They had only stopped when it was clear that their opponent had been subdued, upon which they had left to fetch an adult to ensure that the Slytherin's wounds were treated properly. Apparently however, some other Slytherins encountered her first and sent into the hospital wing, sowing some rubbish about an "assault".

The truth would prevail however.

-Break-

Two hours later, Harry's room closely resembled the wake of a natural disaster. The furniture lay in pieces, the bed in halves, and the mirror in dust. It was taking every particle of his self-control to avoid decimating House Gryffindor. As angry as he was, he knew that he couldn't hold an entire group responsible for the actions of a few, no matter how much his anger clouded his judgment. It didn't mean that he would be nice, however. Sakura was his family, and she had been attacked out of the blue, simply by prejudice. So yes, decimating the House of the Lions was very much tempting right now.

And when he said "decimating", he meant it in the Roman sense, where they would line up underperforming soldiers and force nine to watch as the tenth was brutally tortured and killed. Sometimes, the other nine would also be killed as an example to other legions.

It seemed an ample job for Assassin, who had been hovering at his shoulder ever since the attack, eagerly awaiting the order.

Restraint was the word of the day, however. Despite every instinct telling him to kill, he was holding himself back. Part of it was Sakura, who had tearfully begged him to at least leave them alive. Sometimes she was too sweet for her own good. Cowardly ambushed while she was alone, hexed dozens of times, and then her attackers had fled before she could even get her wand out.

Despicable. Disgusting. Cowardly.

His mind went to a dark place as he thought of the other reason he had not marched down to Gryffindor and started slaughtering students from the first years on upwards.

It would interfere with his plans.

As much as he hated himself for thinking it, as much as he hated the idea of putting himself over Sakura, he had to acknowledge that this would be an irrevocable act. Hastily committed, it would well and truly cause the little house of cards he had built to crumble.

And he hated himself for it.

Never did he wish that he could change his nature as much as he did then, but it would be an act of self-denial to fail to admit that he needed to see his revenge carried out.

This contradiction of needs and desires, the conflict of his higher love for Sakura and baser lust for vengeance had externalized through action. Caster at least had the presence of mind to put a seclusion bounded field around his room before he had extended a whip from Panzer and rendered his dorm room to its current state.

Allowing his heavy breathing to die down, Harry collapsed into a conjured chair provided by Caster. Typically, he would have used the one provided with the room, but it was currently embedded six inches into one of the walls.

"Master?" asked Rider as she slid on to the spacious seat next to him, putting a comforting arm around him.

"I don't think we can stay here," Harry sighed. Both Caster and Rider raised eyebrows. They both knew well how much Harry's revenge meant to him, along with how much Sakura and Illya wanted the relative normalcy that Hogwarts would provide them with. It was not a decision he would reach lightly.

Finally, Caster posed the glaring question, "Why?"

Harry looked up, and his expression was miserable, "I can handle the attack on Dudley. It's a simple matter of having the council take care of an internal affair."

Caster nodded, all told it was not a severe blow. Dudley was more of a side project than anything else, something they hadn't planned for but could easily be planned for. At the very worst, if it came down to it, the obese boy could be disposed of easily. A single mention of a mistake using a spell and some hypnosis to the right people, and nobody would look any further. So the matter wasn't all that important.

"I can handle the drop in Slytherin's reputation," he continued, "Irritating as it would be, I could schmooze with some other houses, Hufflepuff probably, and maybe teach them some spells until Slytherin was back in good standing."

Rider stroked his hair with one hand, literally feeling his anger and frustration through their mental bond.

Harry sighed once again.

"Root, I can even handle the bloody Weasleys having a magical map that you show up on. I could likely persuade them into silence, and failing that simply steal it so that even if they went to the Headmaster they would have no proof. Given their reputation, Dumbledore would in all probability dismiss it as a poorly-attempted prank."

"But Sakura presents a different problem," Caster deduced. Harry nodded once more, his knuckles gone white. With one soft hand, she took one of his and began massaging it until he loosened the tightened tendons.

"I understand," she comforted, "You can't compromise your own vengeance by taking proper revenge on the Gryffindors, but at the same time you have to acknowledge that the world of Wizards is simply too hostile and threatening for you to keep both Sakura and Illya protected. Your maids can only do so much."

Unable to muster further words, Harry dropped his head miserably.

Despite her inclination towards stoicism, even Rider couldn't refrain from adding her own piece:

"They have a basilisk in their basement, one which had actually been used before to kill students. The administration has failed to discover or even acknowledge its existence, deflecting the casualties to a nonsensical explanation of magical arachnids with dissimilar means of attack. Should another speaker of my tongue have set the beast loose and it were to encounter either Sakura or Illya, not even your maids would be able to save them from its gaze. I should know."

At the end, she self-consciously adjusted her blindfold. She loved the glasses Harry had given her, but when astralized she typically reverted to her blindfold out of habit.

"Not to mention that an ancient and homicidal magus had infiltrated the school, at the same time I might add, and added his own tally to the disappearances of students," Saber tacked on, astralizing into the room, her regal face twisting to show disgust at the school's negligence. Notwithstanding was that Flamel reminded her far too much of Merlin, which just left a bad taste in her mouth. At least Merlin, for all his mischievousness, wasn't evil, he simply had a rather twisted sense of humor and a tendency to humor himself using people, which at most involved humiliation. Not the best person, but still better than someone willing to use human children as fuel for his experiments.

"Perhaps..." Harry began, the words dragging themselves out of him with great reluctance, "Perhaps it's time for a step back, from the Wizarding world, I mean."

Saber was genuinely surprised, "A withdrawal? To where?"

"The Clock Tower," Harry answered through gritted teeth, "Much as it pains me to admit it, perhaps I was a bit... hasty when it came to carrying out my vengeance, overextended myself."

"Perhaps a bit," Caster agreed.

"Overestimated myself," he admitted at the end, "thought I could account for all the variables, keep all the balls in the air."

He chuckled to himself bitterly, "Forgot I was standing under a ceiling fan."

Saber smiled sympathetically, joining the others in placing a hand on his shoulder.

"That is a mature decision Master, to admit fault is an important aspect of a ruler."

"One I often lacked," she thought to herself silently.

Harry shook his head violently, "I should be doing more than admitting fault," he snapped, "I should be doing something about it. But I can't, because I can't let go of this hatred, this burning fire that keeps me going. Sakura is suffering at this very moment, for my pettiness."

"Don't trivialize you past Master," warned Saber, "or by doing so you trivialize the man we fell in love with. I have sworn myself to you, Master, in body and mind. To dismiss your past as immaterial is an insult our love. When we fell for you, Master, we fell for all of you."

Slumping in exhaustion, Harry let out another sigh of defeat. Angst was simply not in his nature. He could worry and fret about himself all he wanted, but he would eventually feel obligated to action. Mistakes had been made, but that didn't mean he couldn't take steps to remedy this error. As he'd admitted earlier, perhaps his ill-conceived run at the Wizarding world had been hasty. It wasn't a matter of threat, but he simply lacked the experience to properly manage all potential variables, and until he could do that effectively he simply could not risk Sakura and Illya.

The Servants, they could handle themselves. In a physical fight, even Assassin, the theoretically weakest of his Servants, could wipe Wizarding England off the map. Sakura however was just an above-average magus with a peculiar element, and Illya had lost much of her former power when the modifications to her had been undone. Prepared, they could deal with adult wizards easily, but unprepared they were at too much risk, especially given the potential of Wizardry magic for destruction. How those idiots couldn't see that any spell taught in first year could be used for murder was beyond him, but he was willing to bet it had something to do with Dumbledore having faith in his students to act responsibly. A very misplaced faith, of course.

"We have to go back to the Clock Tower," he sighed out, "it's home ground."

Saber, Rider, and Caster all nodded at the tactical sense of his words.

"Indeed," agreed Rider, "it is difficult to protect you from a position where even being perceived endangers your plans. The Clock Tower would provide an environment wherein our presence and the gravity of our nature would be easily recognized and accepted." Harry couldn't help but snort. Only in his life was the Clock Tower considered a safer environment than Hogwarts.

Then, a horrifying thought occurred to him. "Oh sweet Akasha..." he muttered.

He still had to finish his apprenticeship with Zelretch. When he'd left for Hogwarts, they'd made an agreement to put his education in the Kaleidoscope on hold until summer break at minimum. To this day, he was still the barest of novices when it came to manipulating the Second True Magic. All he could really do was move himself and inanimate objects between this universe and his home one, in addition to using it as a more sophisticated version of Apparition.

Now, he'd have to continue Zelretch's twisted ideas of "tutelage".

Caster snatched the thought from his head, and a truly wicked grin stretched across her face. "Before we get to any of that," she reminded him, "we need to plan our withdrawal from this world."

"Quite so..." Harry agreed, he gaze trailing to the ceiling in thought as he subconsciously leaned back into the embrace of Rider and Caster. He missed Saber's put out expression in his contemplation.

The chiming of the clock marked the time Madam Pomfrey retired for the night, so Harry tabled his thoughts for another time. He had to make recompense to Sakura.

-Break-

The hospital wing was quiet, even as a swirl of colors announced the arrival of one Harry Potter. The nurse had long retired by this point, having dosed her patients with enough potions to get them through the night. Leanna, Monica, and Joy were still standing vigilant around her bed, and bristled at his arrival before recognizing it as him. They obediently stepped aside to provide him and Sakura some privacy, although they only strayed just far enough.

Harry had already had a discussion with them as to why they had not been protecting Sakura during her attack, and was at least somewhat mollified by their response. Professor Flitwick had apparently held her behind after class to ask her privately if she'd seen who'd hexed Harry, and so she'd sent Illya, Daphne, and the maids on without her. Since there had not yet been a single incident of animosity against Sakura this year, the three homunculi had felt comfortable leaving her to her own devices for a class period.

It seemed they were still beating themselves up over their perceived failure, despite having received absolution from both Harry and Sakura, if the paranoia they were exhibiting was any indication.

To them, they had a single purpose for existence: serving Harry. For them to fail in their task of protecting Sakura was a major blow to their sense of worth and self-esteem.

Letting them indulge in their paranoia for a while was a small price to pay if it meant bringing them back to their former selves, as opposed to these automatons. Even getting more than a "Yes, Master," or "No, Master," was difficult at this point.

For a long time, he sat in the chair next to Sakura's bedside, simply watching her fitful sleep. He preferred it this way, he couldn't see her eyes, those hollow orbs that seemed to scream his failures at him. Those eyes haunted him, more so than anything done to him by the Dursleys or Zouken. Those eyes told him that Sakura, the human incarnation of kindness, sweetness, and devotion had placed her faith in him.

And he had failed her.

Her face was still swelled somewhat from now fading bruises, and the hair regrowth potion she'd been given had not quite run its course. Her teeth had at least been given proper care, along with the various cuts she'd been given.

He couldn't bring himself to look at the full medical chart at the foot of the bed, the full list of his failures. Every single notation on that parchment was a sin on his back.

A soft hand squeezed his own, bringing attention to the fact that he'd unconsciously held her hand, like they had done back in Zouken's pit. Against his screaming instincts, he turned his head to look into her eyes.

They were the same alluring violet ovals he'd fallen in love with.

Words were not exchanged between the two. They were not needed.

They sat there until dawn, holding one another, content in the knowledge of the other's presence.