apAiden: Yes, James does indeed fit the Gryffindor stereotype, and that's also why someone had to beat the idea that Jen is indeed a witch into his head; Jen's personal satisfaction is just a bonus. I'm undecided what to do with Hermione; on the one hand, I really like her and don't want to be constantly smacking her down, but on the other, she's going to need an intense reality check if she's going to be around as strong and jaded a personality as Jen. Cissy didn't tell Draco where she's been or what she's been doing, so he won't know who Jen is until the Sorting.

Muroshi: Heh heh, no. Bella's dedicated to Voldemort above all else (including family, since we know she doesn't care about her nephew being safe), while Jen cares about herself and then the other Blacks. Putting the two of them in the same room would cause a few fireworks, and not in the good way.

Haruchai: I don't want to sound rude, but if you'll look at the summary, I say that Danny is the BWL, not that it's a wrong-boy/girl/child/pumpkin-who-lived story; that position's closed, and he has the scar and Horcrux to prove it (and no, he doesn't know about that last part). The pseudo-squibdom had nothing at all to do with the KC. I'm curious if you'll think she has "goddess level power" by the end of the chapter.

Okay, folks and friends, I have good news and bad news. The bad news (for you) is that I started the first year of medical school on Monday, so my free time, a.k.a. my writing time, is shortly going to shrink down to a few hours on weekends and maybe – maybe – getting one chapter out a week. The good news is that over my vacation last week, I managed to get a lot written for each of my stories, and all that's left is putting everything together and polishing it. This means you'll have a few weeks of our regular schedule before the several-week-long delays hit.

Disclaimer: In his six years in Hogwarts, did Harry ever "network" besides teaching the DA? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

Chapter 8

Reconnaissance

From far above, the Hogwarts express could be mistaken for a long scarlet snake, winding its way from London to an ancient castle in the Scottish highlands. On September first, it would repeat the same journey it had been making for almost a century and a half. Every year, students would use their time on the train to recount exaggerated tales of their summer adventures, eat their body weights in overpriced candy, and place bets on who the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor would be and how they would be removed from the staff. On this particular train ride, two teenagers were plotting how best to improve their social standings.

"You said in Diagon Alley that you would elevate me in the Snake Pit if I gave you information on the other students, so what do you want to know?"

Jen cocked an eyebrow. "A Slytherin freely giving away her secrets? How strange this world has become today."

"Please. This isn't free and you know it. I just want to get my side of the bargain out of the way. So," Tracey leaned back into her seat, "who's first?"

"Let us pretend for a moment that I know no one at the school. Who are the major players? What have they done to earn their reputations? What strengths and weaknesses have you observed in them? You know, the basics."

The other girl groaned, "You're going to make me earn my keep, I can already tell. I'll start with my house, just because I know it best. Terrance Higgs is the role model for the older students. He's the Quidditch captain, and even though the team hasn't had a winning season since he started, that position still garners him some respect from the boys and propositions from the girls. His grades are like his flying and leadership, subpar. Honestly, if it weren't for his then-girlfriend Carol Runcorn, he would never have passed his OWLs, and I doubt he'll do well on his NEWTs this year.

"Much as I wish he weren't, Draco Malfoy is probably the main up-and-comer in Slytherin at the moment. He threw around enough of daddy's money to buy himself a spot on the Quidditch team as a Seeker, the same position as his 'rival', Danny Potter. If you ask me, it was a waste of his political capital; he's worse at playing the game than Higgs is at directing it. Of course, it's impossible to tell how much of the praise he gets in the House is due to his maneuvering his way into people's good graces behind the scenes and how much is their fear of his father Lucius."

"Based on what you've seen, which do you think it is?"

Tracey grinned. "Once Lucky Lucy is six feet under, it'll be fun to watch his son crash and burn. If he's already married to the 'Perfect Pureblood Princess Pansy Parkinson', so much the better. Her family has to have a male Head, so his fall will also bring down those bloody vultures."

"Bad blood between your family and theirs?"

"The worst. My great-great-uncle Reginald Davis created the recipe for Butterbeer, and one of the Parkinsons murdered him, stole it, and started marketing it. The Wizengamot passing a ban on Blood Feuds is the only reason we weren't at each other's throats." She sighed. "History lessons aren't what you're paying me for, though. Neither Higgs nor Malfoy have any real talent other than picking fights and running away before they get smacked down like naughty puppies, and Parkinson doesn't even have that. Weaknesses, where should I start? They're living stereotypes of the overly indulged, overly proud, overly confident, and overly inbred Purebloods. Insult their heritage, force them into a duel, be the instigator in any way, and you'll have total control of the encounter."

"Wonderful, that makes Aunt Cissy's request that much more difficult to honor."

Tracey gulped. "So I was right, that was Narcissa Malfoy with you in Madam Malkin's."

"Yes, I've known her a long, long time. I promised to give her son a chance, but I suppose that it's his own fault if he squanders it.

"So, the bigwigs for the Snakes are Higgs, Draco, and Parkinson. Who else commands the school's attention?"

"Gryffindor has three interconnected sets of 'leaders'. The Quidditch team is the main one. If their former captain Oliver Wood hadn't been so obsessed with the game, he could have been just as big a playboy as Higgs. The second group is the prankster twins, Fred and George Weasley. If you change color or sound like an animal, they're probably to blame. The more stress people put on them, the more they act up; last year was their OWL year, and the school was a bloody war zone. They and their buddy Lee Jordan are dancing around dating the Lions' Chasers.

"The third bunch is the 'Golden Trio', who are in our year like Malfoy. That's Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. They consider themselves 'heroes', and whenever they act like it, I would have put them on suicide watch. All the flaws of Gryffindor House are represented: impulsive recklessness, a sense of superiority due to their House, and incredible self-righteousness, respectively. The only one that I would even bother speaking to is Granger – she at least has more than two brain cells to rub together – but she's not much better than the others."

Jen nodded, connecting all the information she had been given so far. "If Draco's arrogant and the Gryffindors are reckless and morally superior, how often do they butt heads in public?"

"All the damn time," Tracey growled. "I can't tell you how much I've wanted to curse all of them to get them to shut their bloody mouths."

"If you do lose it and curse them, make sure you're not spotted. I can't have my walking dossier being expelled, now can I?"

"Yeah, yeah. Ravenclaw doesn't have much of a social structure; too many lone wolves. If I had to peg someone as being in charge, though… Roger Davies and Cho Chang. He's number one in his year, has been every year he's attended. Smart guy, but very reliant on what's been written in books; he'd drown if you threw him in a pond without letting him read how to swim. Chang's a bitch, no two ways about it. She bullies the younger girls until they join her little clique and treat her like the queen bee. She rules through fear, though, so if you want to have a devoted little entourage, take her down a peg or ten."

"How old are they?" Jen asked.

"Davies is a seventh year, Chang's fifth."

"No one our age in charge of the 'Claws?"

"Nope," Tracey replied, "that's only in Slytherin and Gryffindor. Hufflepuff has only one leader, and that's Cedric Diggory. Sixth year, Quidditch captain and Seeker; cute, too, if you're into the whole 'goody-two-shoes, pretty boy' look. That said, his grandfather was a professional duelist, and his father was almost that good as a young man, so I doubt he'd be a slouch if he ever got in a tiff."

"So Higgs and Davies in seventh, Weasley twins and Diggory in sixth, Chang in fifth, and Draco, Parkinson, Potter, Weasley, and Granger in our year. These twelve are the most popular?"

Tracey nodded. "Pretty much. There are some rumor mongers throughout the Houses and years – Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, Lions, and the Badger Megan Jones are the ones in ours – but they can be avoided or neutralized."

"Anything I need to do to avoid social suicide?" Jen wondered.

"Depends."

"On?"

"Well," Tracey drawled, "mostly on what House you wind up in. If you're sorted into Slytherin like I expect, you'll be able to interact with any Snake freely because you're a Black, but there will be some difficulty if you want to get to know someone from the outside. Make it into one of the other Houses, and being seen with me could get you a few strange looks.

"Being too friendly with the first and second years will also cause you problems; people will wonder if you can't handle people your own age. Hufflepuff is practically a commune, and Gryffindor supposedly has parties every weekend and no internal curfew, so you would need to spend a lot of time mingling in either one. Also, since those two houses are filled with the children of Light families, you'd have to cozy up to Potter and his gang—"

"That," Jen interrupted, "is not going to happen."

Her vehemence rendered Tracey speechless, but only for a moment. "Would it be too forward for me to ask why you are so against building a rapport with them?"

"No, it's not. I suppose I need to tell you, anyway. My name wasn't always Black; I was born Jennifer Lily Potter."

Tracey blinked. Then blinked again. "I'm sorry, I think I went insane for a moment. Did you say that you're related to Danny Potter?"

"Unfortunately, I'm his twin sister. After their wonderful son became the Boy-Who-Failed-At-Dying, they decided I was no more than a squib and chucked me into the Muggle world." When the other girl did not respond other than gaping like a fish, she gave Tracey a light poke. "You in there?"

"Everyone talks about them like they're perfect, like they can do no wrong, but no one has any idea that they had two children, let alone that they got rid of you. Twins are always equal magically, so why did they consider you a squib when Potter obviously isn't?"

"Core dissonance; for some reason, my magic had trouble synchronizing with the rest of my soul, so tests would say I was a squib even though I performed accidental magic. I had a French Healer correct it, so their actions do not endear them to me."

Tracey sneered. "As well they shouldn't! If it was fixed that easily, they have no excuse for what they did. If you ever decide to take it out on Potter, though, give me some warning; that is one duel I won't want to miss.

"The best way to avoid any unnecessary conflict – with him, his posse, or the sheep that worship him – would be to get sorted into Ravenclaw. There are a few social 'Claws, but that is only in comparison to their Housemates, and no one pays much attention to why they associate with the people they do. You could keep your distance from Potter, make an attempt at getting to know Malfoy, and still have the chance to network with members of other Houses. The only restriction would be that you can't start any fights in front of everyone, especially with Potter, or you'll be painted with the same brush as Slytherins. 'Claws are supposed to sit back and analyze every option before they make a move."

"I like that plan," Jen said, turning it over once more in her mind. She had no need to make friends with every individual in the school, as long as she had a few she could trust. All she wanted from the masses was respect, though lust would do in a pinch; either would give her the recognition and admiration she would need later to continue the rise in power the Black family was experiencing as they retook their place in Magical British society. "It will allow me to keep some secrets from the school at large, and perhaps even hide some backdoor deals. Do you have contacts in the other Houses that I might use?"

Tracey's grimace prompted a raised eyebrow. "Not really. Even though staying out of the limelight keeps the other Slytherins off my back, it means that all the other students know about me is that I'm a 'sneaky, slimy Snake'. You, well you're the first person to actually sit down and talk to me since my Housemates made it known I was a half-blood."

She frowned, she had been so focused on extracting the information she desired that she had forgotten that she and Tracey were in, if not identical, similar situations: no one had ever met them, at least not personally in Tracey's case. It would not matter how much they plotted and schemed if they couldn't put their plans into practice. She reached into her satchel and pulled out a slim silver pocket watch, which Cissy had given to her after they returned from Diagon Alley. Apparently, while it was an English tradition for parents to present one to young men on their seventeenth birthdays, Black children received theirs when they turned thirteen, signifying the responsibility they now bore as representatives for the family in Hogwarts. That custom was so deeply ingrained that Cissy actually apologized for it being a year late!

Before she opened it, she gently ran her thumb over the emblem embossed on the front. It was exquisite, and when she had looked at it through her scrying mirror, she had marveled at its beauty, black onyx and white opal set in contrast to form the family crest. On the inside of the cover was a simple inscription, one she had listened to so many times in private that she did not even need to touch it to hear her aunt's voice. 'To Jen, from your family.' Swinging her attention to the watch itself, she noticed that it was only ten to twelve. "How long is the train ride to Hogwarts, Tracey?"

The girl shrugged. "Six hours, maybe a little more. I thought you knew that."

"I knew it took a while, but not the exact length. Unless there is something you desperately need to tell me, I think we should take the opportunity to put our plan in motion."

Jen ignored Tracey's murmuring of "Our plan?" and opened the compartment door. Drawing her blank wand, she examined the hallway in more detail than she had at the station. Wood and steel, not the best materials for what I want, but with enough force, they should work. I'd kill for some aluminum or titanium, though, even copper. Wood was slightly magically resistant, hence its use in wands to focus spells in a straight line, while steel contained enough iron to disperse some of the magic fed into it. The coaches themselves probably aren't magical. They wouldn't have to be, only the locomotive itself would need to be able to work around Hogwarts. Hell, the school could very well have stolen the actually passenger coaches from other train stations.

Deciding to go with quick brute force rather than efficiency, she settled herself and widened the connection she shared with the planet. Energy, viscous and reminding her of the smell of soil and grass, flowed into her feet and up her legs, created a momentary flash of heat in her loins as the two streams merged at her hips, and travelled further up her body along her spine, causing goosebumps to form on her skin and her breathing to hitch. At her collarbones, the additional magic she was channeling split into three tributaries, two going down her arms and out her fingers, while the last circled into her head, briefly sharpening her hearing, smell, and taste before they adjusted, and spilling through her scalp and down the length of her hair. She waved her wand in nonsense patterns even as she collected much of the magic moving through her flesh into her left hand. Come, she silently intoned, all who feel alone in the crowd, drifting in the sea of Hogwarts. Come to me. Restricting her compulsion to those students around her own age, she laid her hand against the walls of the coach's hallway and released the spell, sensing it move down the hall as a pulse. When it reached the ends of the coach, she smiled as the magic remaining was sufficient for it to leap to the adjacent coaches, where she knew it would continue, broadcasting her command to all in its path.

"What the bloody hell was that!" Tracey shouted. "I could feel the magic coming off you; I almost saw it! No one our age should be able to use that intense a spell without being put in a coma!"

"It was tiring, but nowhere near enough to knock me out," Jen responded as she barely kept herself from falling into her seat, her body shaking slightly before she closed most of her connection. It was true that the spell wouldn't give her magical exhaustion, but for a completely different reason than she had implied. Exhaustion occurred when a witch's core was emptied and she no longer had magic running through her form. Jen's problem was the exact opposite: she had to be cautious about channeling enormous amounts of magic. Her soul was in no danger, but it affected her flesh the same way high voltages of electricity would. Every time she tapped into more power than she was accustomed to, it left her aroused yet also in pain from the damage she inflicted to her nerves and soft tissues. If she ever lost control of the forces she had access to, her death was a foregone conclusion.

"As to what I did, I decided to send a little, invitation, you could say. Let's see if there is anyone at Hogwarts so lonely that they submit to my compulsion and visit us."

It took a few minutes, but Jen had healed herself and recalled Loki, and Tracey had regained her composure, when the first person came through the door.

I'm looking back on Tracey's speech patterns, and I think she's more Southern than any other character I've written so far. Oh well, I knew it would happen eventually. I admit, there's a lot more going on with the semi-canon trio than Tracey is privy to, so don't get pissy until you see them yourselves.

Wondering who Megan Jones is? I've used Rowling's "Original Forty", a copy of Sorcerer's Stone, fanfiction, and my own discretion to come up with the distribution of students from the 1991 sorting. The list is now up on my profile.

Take a good look at Jen's birth name, it's probably the only time you'll ever see it. By the way, while we're talking about Jen giving out information, I hope you realize why she's only telling Tracey half the truth. She will be more honest when they've known each other for longer than one day.

Before anyone asks how no one knew that Lily Potter gave birth to twins, she went into hiding (not Fidelius, but heavy wards) while she was still pregnant. They reappeared in public after Halloween '81 and shipping Jen off to the Dursleys.

A few chapters ago, Honest Lunar Raven asked if there were any downsides to the ritual to tap into the world's magic; this was one of the "few other risks" I mentioned. For anyone who needs a hint about what would happen to Jen if she reached too far, reread the third scene in chapter 6. What happened to that poor wand is what she faces every time she pushes the envelope.

Silently Watches out.