skywiseskychan: Except I do like the girls! That's what makes it so strange.

Riaan, Riskreader, TheWickedTruth89, Zarosian Chaos: Dumbledore chose Ron as Jen's hostage in an attempt to push Jen to the Light. His exact reasoning is kind of convoluted, but suffice it to say that he believes that redemption is a natural desire for those who fall off the path of Light, even if some of them need a bit of a push (i.e., potions of various sorts) to get started. He might also be counting on Ron's hormones combining with his obsessive tendencies to land the Black heiress.

WARNING! There's some gory material ahead.

Disclaimer: Did Harry mourn a boy he barely knew more than the owl who had been with him basically since he found out about magic? If so, 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 29
Tragic Announcement

Hostage Mix-Up: Foolish Mistake or Deliberate Sabotage?

Resurrecting the Triwizard Tournament for the first time since 1792 has turned into a string of black eyes for Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, writes Rita Skeeter. Between Danny Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, entering his name under a fictitious fourth school and the outing of Care of Magical Creatures professor Rubeus Hagrid as a half-giant, it would normally be safe to assume that the headmaster would start paying closer attention to his actions. Unfortunately, this proved not to be the case during the third Task of the Tournament, which required all the champions to rescue hostages who "they hold near and dear to their hearts", in the words of Ludo Bagman, head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports as well as a member of the judging panel.

Of the seven champions, five were tasked to retrieve the dates they went with to the Yule Ball that took place on Christmas Day this year. The senior Beauxbatons champion and Veela, Fleur Delacour, was after her eight-year-old sister, Gabrielle. For Hogwarts's junior champion Jennifer Black, on the other hand, the hostage chosen was one Ronald Weasley, the son of Arthur Weasley of the Ministry's Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and a close friend of Danny Potter. What makes this so unusual is that, as far as several students who spoke to this reporter were aware, Miss Black and Mister Weasley have never been seen in each other's presence aside from mandatory class attendance, and even then they have little to no interaction.

Why, then, was Miss Black assigned such an unsuitable partner, allegedly at the request of Dumbledore, and then penalized for continuing her search for someone with whom she was more than minor acquaintances? Some might say that this was clearly an honest mistake on the headmaster's part, just another sign of his diminishing mental facilities, but according to one source close to the situation, it is simply the latest in a series of actions geared to disadvantage the fourth-year student.

"Dumbledore has had it out for her from the very beginning," the individual, who wished to remain anonymous, told this reporter. Indeed, a look at the previous Tasks lends some credence to this suspicion. As some might remember from a previous article, when Miss Black killed the Antipodean Opaleye she faced during the Gryffindor Task (the first documented dragon slaying since Matthew Abbott's battle with a juvenile Welsh Green in 1836), she was not awarded full marks as would be expected, instead being ranked fourth alongside Danny Potter. There was no obvious discrimination during the Slytherin Task itself, but Dumbledore later confiscated the priceless secondary focus wielded by the girl, a pair of gloves allowing manipulation of multiple elements that have been part of her family's legacy for generations, and supposedly attempted to keep them for himself.

If successful, this action could have earned him ten years in Azkaban, a massive step down for the man credited with the defeat of Grindelwald.

Though Miss Black's parentage is not listed in the Ministry's Hall of Records, Lord Sirius Black, her legal guardian, has affirmed that she is a true member of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black and is, in fact, that House's heiress. Why, then, is Dumbledore so insistent on sabotaging a future pillar of our society? Is it to promote Danny Potter in the eyes of the public after his abhorrent display of arrogance and dishonesty? To bring low the House of Black, which has traditionally stood against Dumbledore's interests in the Wizengamot? Or is there some other reason? All that is sure is that the Daily Prophet will continue to seek answers.

Narcissa smirked slightly as she folded the morning paper; there were more ways to trash an old schemer's plans than direct attacks. A little gold here, a few hints to point her patsy in the right direction there, and she could sit back and relax while the reporter slung mud all over Albus-sodding-Dumbledore's sterling reputation. So you want to go after my niece, you old goat? Definitely not the smartest move you could have made.

"Something interesting, Narcissa?"

She waved off her husband's inquiry. "Just Rita Skeeter roasting Dumbledore for his recent behavior. She might be a sensationalist muckraker, but she can be amusing when the mood strikes her."

"Irritating gossip-monger," Lucius replied uninterestedly from the opposite side of the table. "Pass me the sports column, would you? I have a hundred-galleon wager riding on how badly the Bats flattened the Cannons yesterday."

"Hey, my parents need a babysitter for my little sister this summer. You interested, Black?"

A humanoid figure, its face malformed, had its skin violently shredded before it collapsed into soil.

"How many kids do you think you'll have? Or would even one be too much for you?"

Another's intestines ripped their way out of its abdomen and wrapped tightly around its throat before it joined its fellow in nonexistence.

"Probably a good thing you were an only child, Black. I don't think you'd have survived growing up with siblings!"

Jen spun around, magic rushing out of her in waves, and the third and final simulacrum exploded into dust from the effect of a blood-boiling curse. She took deep gulps of air as sweat poured down her bare skin, her blouse discarded after becoming drenched within the first half-hour.

According to her watch, that had been nearly an hour of virtual carnage earlier.

Do I want to eat in the Great Hall or the kitchens?, she wondered as she conjured a fluffy towel and began drying off. The former offered time to socialize with her friends, who she knew had been worried about her of late, but it also promised having to deal with everyone else, which was probably not the best idea considering her current emotional state.

The lone door leading into the training room chose that minute to creak open. "Miss Black? Are you all ri— Oh, my!" The diminutive Charms Master whirled around and faced away from her. "I am terribly sorry, my dear. I would have knocked if I had known you were… well…"

"It's fine, Professor," she sighed, cutting off his babbled apology. Vanishing the moisture on her flesh despite how it left her fiercely desiring a warm shower, she finished the rough toweling of her hair. No matter how hard she tried, magic simply could not get rid of all the water clinging to the kinked strands. A crooked finger summoned her shirt to her, and a few moments later she said, "Okay, I'm decent now."

Flitwick turned cautiously, as if he were unsure that she was dressed as she claimed. He uncomfortably cleared his throat. "Well, this is certainly a more awkward situation than I expected. I had no intention of finding you in that state of undress, Miss Black, I assure you."

"As I said, don't worry about it. If I was that concerned about someone walking in on me half-naked, I would have locked the door or not taken my top off at all." She snapped her fingers to conjure a pair of overstuffed armchairs. Sinking gratefully into one, she asked, "How did you even know I was in here?"

He grinned weakly and leaned back in his much-smaller seat as he waved his hand to indicate the entire dueling room he had brought her to before the first Task. "You aren't the only one who occasionally uses this room to blow off some steam; in fact, I think I spend an hour or so in here after nearly every staff meeting. I am curious about one thing, however. What's with the dirt?"

She gestured lazily, and yet another figure rose from the earth she had flown up to the open balcony. A second later it collapsed, a sharp shard of ice splitting its head in half. "Much more effective in releasing pent-up aggression than casting spell after spell at the shields on the walls." She conjured a glass and filled it with cold water wrung from the air before taking a sip. "So… Why were you looking for me?"

"I may not have started off the year keeping as watchful an eye out for my Ravens as I should have, but that is something I am attempting to change. I've noticed that you have been distracted for the past fortnight or so."

Her short guffaw was mocking. "'Distracted' is one way to describe it, I suppose. I swear, if I have to hear one more person make some 'scared of children' joke about me, I don't think I'll be able to stop myself from tossing them out the nearest window."

"I don't know how much I can help with that, but if you want, I can have a talk with your housemates—"

"Except it's not really the jokes in and of themselves that are irritating," she interrupted. "It's the ignorance behind them. I have no problem dealing with children. Hell, before I enrolled here, I had a dozen or two kids, mostly orphans, calling me 'Mama Jen'." She had, admittedly, been shocked the first time she was addressed as such; most nine-year-old girls would be. After some reflection, however, she knew that such a title was not undeserved. Richard, the owner of Candyland, viewed the club purely as a profit engine, but to her and the other prostitutes, it was also the closest thing they had to a home. She had been the one keeping the books so they would have food and clothes, healing injuries when clients got a little too boisterous, and hiding them from the bobbies who refused to keep their noses to themselves. Entirely unintentionally, she had fulfilled a maternal role in many of her younger coworkers' lives, a number that grew to encompass all of them when Richard had realized her magic and intelligence made her much too valuable a resource to throw out like he did all the other staff undergoing precocious puberty.

I really should stop by sometime this summer and check how everyone's doing, especially considering how suddenly I left. It's a good thing I trained Drew and Paula so they would be able to run the place without me.

She shook herself from her reverie as she felt the curiosity wafting off the head of Ravenclaw house. "My boggart represents a period in my life when I was in the midst of a number of unfortunate events occurring near-simultaneously. It is not a time I like reminiscing about, yet every quip and comment, however humorous they are meant to be, cause me to do just that."

While admiration and respect from the student population as a whole was one of her ultimate goals, she only realized how far she had truly progressed when noting just how few people were using the opportunity to attack her. Draco was an obvious one; he had not forgotten the very public humiliation she set him up for after relaying his deplorable behavior to Cissy, and though Slytherin house had amused themselves greatly by taking their pounds of flesh, he had eventually begun climbing his way back up the social ladder to reclaim his former place. Potter, too, had launched a few barbs, though his lacked the practiced bite of her cousin's. Lions generally fought with their wands, not their words. Even the French boys had joined in occasionally, goaded into it, of course, by their darling Veela champion.

Another main source of condescension was, unsurprisingly, Daphne Greengrass. The heiress of that Most Noble House had developed an intense dislike for Jen upon her discovery that Tracey had abandoned her for the Black scion. Though Greengrass disdained the Davis girl for her Muggleborn mother, she had apparently derived some sadistic amusement from keeping Tracey all to herself. When Jen arrived on the scene, however, Tracey switched allegiances without even a hint of hesitation, leaving her bereft of her favorite game. She had stayed out of Jen's way for the most part, demonstrating the self-preservation instincts the house of Snakes was known for, but this was excellent timing for her to needle the girl disturbing the school's status quo.

In general, however, it was not truly a shock that relatively few legitimate insults were loosed in the wake of her boggart's reveal. The politically-minded among the students, even those who did not know her or who disliked her for whatever reason, were unwilling to insult a member of the Darkest of the three remaining Ancient and Most Noble Houses. For those who cared not for politics…

Well, disparaging someone who had demonstrated the ability to slay dragons as a teenager was rarely a good idea.

The two sat in silence for several minutes, Jen reclaiming the fluids that she had lost during her exercise and Flitwick sipping from a cup of tea a house-elf had brought him. Finally, she vanished the glass and gathered the soil scattered about the floor, compressing it into a cube and transfiguring the surface to metal to contain it until the next time she desperately needed to kill something. "Professor, I've been meaning to ask you something since the last Task but never got around to doing so. At what age is it no longer considered impossible for powerful witches and wizards to start displaying wandless abilities?"

"I'm not really sure," he said thoughtfully. "So few people have the potential for it at all, and even then it is rare that they progress beyond a few simple spells such as summoning and finishing charms, not to mention that that timeframe would shift depending on power level. I do know that accomplishing a little wandless magic only a few years after reaching magical maturity isn't impossible, exactly, just extremely uncommon; managing a wandless Protego used to be a requirement for enrollment in the final year of Auror training before the war against You-Know-Who, which is one reason they have always been such a small group. There is just a certain level of raw power necessary to fight the Dark Arts effectively.

"If you're asking when people would develop the skill to use magic as freely as you do, however, the answer is never. Even amongst witches and wizards considered to be the strongest of their generation, you are an anomaly."

She huffed in displeasure. "Damn. I was hoping for an answer more along the lines of 'Oh, they first start harnessing their powers at sixteen, seventeen', or at least some time close to that. This wand-waving business is becoming," she laughed mirthlessly, "no offense, but a major source of irritation. And it's not like there is a plethora of other options for a primary focus."

"There isn't much variety, is there? Wands, staves, rods like those used by the Egyptians… I believe the Gypsies have rings and bangles that aid them in their unique runeless enchanting, but those don't perform active casting. A confluence of ley lines can function as a focus according to some sources, but only at certain times and with the proper preparation. Potions, runes, and rituals if you wish to be technical. Whatever other foci people used before the Romans spread their culture and their wands across Europe have been lost to the mists of time."

"What about goblins? What do they use for their magic?" she asked.

"Miss Black! I cannot reveal the secrets of the Goblin Nation, no matter that it represents only a quarter of my blood." He leaned closer and whispered, "Rune-engraved hammers to imbue magic into the metals being forged into weapons and armor, along with a number of secondary foci for more esoteric purposes. Goblin magic is not as flexible as a human's."

She chuckled in return before her soft smile faded. "So what would you suggest I do? While blowing things up is a good distraction, I'm not sure it will be enough for another three years here, and then there's being in the public eye afterwards."

"The first step would be to stop asking questions when you already know the answer," he replied with surprising confidence. "You don't have a problem with pretending to use a focus; your dislike is centered around the intricate movements wielding a wand requires. Tell me, Miss Black, with a family history spanning longer than a thousand years, how many secondary foci do you think are inside your vaults?"

At his question, her mouth dropped open in shock before a wicked grin formed. "Oh, given summer vacation to look through them, I bet I could 'find' a fair few."

"See?" he asked as he patted her hand gently. "It won't give you all the freedom you desire, I'm sure, but I'll let you in on a little secret to keep you going in the meantime. Once you graduate Hogwarts, no one is going to care what motions or words you use – or more importantly, don't use – for your spells."

On Wednesday, the twelfth of April, the Headmaster stood solemnly at the podium during the tail end of breakfast, and the whole school grew silent in preparation for his announcement. "It is with great regret that I must tell you all that we have tragically lost a member of our Hogwarts family. Blaise Zabini, fourth-year Slytherin, slipped beyond the Veil last night in his sleep."

Jen stilled. She knew that this was coming, that Zabini would eventually attempt to prey on another student in person or their dreams and thereby violate the magical vow she had ensured he did not remember; she just hadn't known when.

"Many of you were not close to Mr. Zabini, but I know you feel his absence just as keenly as I and the other members of staff do. Therefore, please stand and raise your glasses in remembrance of the loss of this life, so young and with such promise ahead of him."

Loki, I really need you to be in my room when I get there. We don't have a whole lot of time before the DMLE starts poking around. They're possibly on route right now.

Dumbledore nodded at them while magic washed over the drapes behind the staff table. "The other heads of house and I will be busy contacting Mr. Zabini's family, so classes are cancelled for the morning. Please allow his friends the space with which to grieve."

"You okay?" Lisa Turpin asked gently. "I mean, you did go to the Yule Ball with him."

She waved off the girl's words. "Thank you for your concern, but I'm fine. We only had the one date; we just weren't right for each other. His death is certainly a shame, though." Flashing her housemate a comforting smile that was just weak enough for the circumstances, she stood and left with the other students taking advantage of the canceled classes. It's obvious that the old man is long removed from his teenage years if he honestly thinks most people here give a damn about Zabini keeling over. He's not their friend, so why would it matter to them? She slipped into an alcove and bent the surrounding light around her to render herself invisible before lifting off the floor. No longer earth-bound, she quickly flew outside and up to the warded dormitory window she habitually left open for her familiar to pass through as he wished. It took some self-transfiguration to fit through the narrow space, but soon she was inside where her raven waited patiently.

"I need you to hide these for a while," she told him as she summoned her ritual kit and the books on Voodoo, as well a few texts she had borrowed from the family library detailing much darker magic than was touched on in the castle. Conjuring a pouch, she shrank everything and stuffed her belongings inside before tying it to Loki's leg. "I'll recall you when the investigators have left, but it might be for the best if you stick around fairly close by." She frowned and continued, "I know that centaurs live in the Forest, but I've also heard rumors about wild Acromantula skulking around as well. Just… keep an eye out, okay? I'd hate to have to search for your corpse out there."

The bird croaked dismissively before he slammed his foot against the front of the dresser he was sitting upon, burying his front talons up to their cuticles. Pulling back carved three deep furrows into the wood.

"Yes, sweetie, I know you're strong. I'm the one who made you that way, after all." The familiars created through the Black Arts were anything but normal pets; they were creatures bound to their masters' lives and enhanced far beyond the limits of their species. Faster, stronger, smarter, they were a black witch's final layer of defense against outside interference while she was occupied with whatever ritual she was working. Many were kept wild so as to preserve their instincts, being bent to the will of their masters through magic rather than years of love between animal and human. Loki had been like that at first, though lately she had been wondering if the second kind of bond was beginning to form as well.

Familiars, or at least those of Voodoo practitioners, were also unkillable so long as their creators lived. Oh, they could be mortally wounded, and they would certainly seem dead, but their ties to the living world when combined with a ritual similar to that for the reanimation of zombies would resurrect them. Damaged tissue would be healed, and any missing portions would be filled in with ectoplasm.

Jen swore that Elsie's Bull Terrier had been more ghost than flesh when the woman finally kicked the bucket.

Not even the utter destruction of a familiar's body was enough to separate it from its master. Should something ever happen to Loki that left her unable to retrieve his body, she could still recall him, but as a semi-tangible spirit that, according to her books, was much like a Patronus in appearance if not necessarily function. Though she knew all this, she was still loath to risk his demise. The raven had never experienced a single false death, not even after he had fallen sick when she was eleven and required months of tender care that a simple resurrection would have cured instantly. Something… changed about Voodoo familiars upon being brought back for the first time, made them less affectionate and more likely to throw themselves into a fight that would result in them being once more incapacitated. They were far too independent to be true zombies, but the similarities in other ways were disturbing.

She lifted Loki from his perch and kissed his breast while he ever-so-gently nibbled on the shell of her ear. With much concern, she carried him to the window and tossed him into the air outside.

You better stay safe. You're the first friend I ever had, and I don't know what I would do should I lose you.

Albus sighed heavily as he looked down at the still form on the bed. Such a waste, he thought. Bigot and a minor bully the boy might have been according to his staff's reports, but death meant the child would never be able to repent for his youthful mistakes. Around him, the other teachers were equally dismayed; even Severus's sneer had diminished slightly. "All right, Poppy. What can you tell us?"

"Not much, I'm afraid. There are no signs of trauma, internal lesions, spell echoes, or any other magical effects present. I found no potions in his system, either." The nurse shivered weakly. "The closest comparison I can make… is to some of the bodies I ran across during the war."

The Killing Curse. "Severus, I know the Slytherin dorms report the use of lethal magic just as the others do. Was that curse cast last night?"

The dour man shook his head, knowing where Albus's mind had carried him. "It most certainly was not, Headmaster. If it had, the perpetrator would be before us right now."

"Then I am at a loss. Were there any abnormalities in your examination?"

"W-Well, there was one," Poppy answered hesitantly. She blushed at his silent prompting. "Several of my diagnostic spells seemed to… fizzle out when they reached him?"

His white eyebrows rose to his hairline, and he whipped out the dark, knobby wand that was his burden to bear in this life. Though his own spell did not 'fizzle out', per se, he did detect a slight lessening of the information it reported back. "Magical nihilism? How odd. I have only ever encountered this phenomenon when analyzing freshly transmuted materials."

"He broke a magical vow." The rest of the staff present turned to where the librarian shuffled her feet uncomfortably. "The results of Osmos and Drane's experiments in 1892 to 1894 proved quite definitively that the violation of a magical vow siphons off all the magic in the person's core, which thereby leaches the energy from that individual's body indirectly. When the oath-breaker dies, it takes the same amount of time for magic to return to the tissues from the environment as it would for the core to recharge, approximately ten to twelve hours."

"Thank you, Irma." She looked away from the astonished eyes of her colleagues, none of whom appeared to have ever thought about her as anything more than an antisocial bookworm.

The truth was quite different.

Much like Trelawney, the occasionally irascible woman was someone Albus had brought to the castle for her own protection. Irma Pince, formerly Irene Fitzpatrick, had been the senior traffic director at the Floo Network Authority prior to Tom's rise to power, when her incredible skill at manipulating the routes between grates to redistribute demand and decrease travel time had earned her intense curiosity on the part of the new Dark Lord. She was what had been known in his childhood as a 'Living Pensieve': someone with perfect recall and a particular understanding of intricate and convoluted systems. Where the Ministry had used her talent to optimize transportation and communication, Tom sought to capture and break her so he might turn her into his own personal campaign map. She had appreciated Albus's concern and the quick actions of the Order that had saved her life, but the loss of her husband, her former identity being declared dead, and a large proportion of Death Eaters buying their freedoms and slithering back into society had forced her to accept a new occupation as the school's librarian, which rapidly soured her disposition. She now spent much of her time – when not chasing rowdy students away from the stacks, of course – reading through Hogwarts's vast collection of books in an attempt to keep herself too busy to reminisce about what had been.

Returning his thoughts to the present as well, the Leader of the Light turned back to the body in front of him. "I have no doubt that Irma is correct, but I do not see how violating an oath would have caused his death. Magic is not essential to life, after all."

"You're assuming the lad's human," Alastor muttered gruffly. "In that case, nay, it doesn't make sense. Throw that out. If he's not human, or not all the way, what would he have to be for losing his magic to make him kick the bucket?"

Filius hummed to himself for a moment. "Where pure creatures are concerned, we can rule out most of them from the simple fact that they can easily be distinguished from humans. He isn't Veela, siren, or kitsune for the obvious reason that he is male. Lamia and glashtyn – most shapeshifting fae, for that matter – regress to their natural forms upon death. Incubi haven't been seen in this country in over a century. If he were partially human, however, there are any number of species he could be descended from. It is impossible for us to determine."

"And we can't assume that just because they do not share the same father that the other Zabini children do not also have creature blood," Minerva murmured. "Albus, what will the Ministry's reaction be once they learn of this?"

"You know that as well as I do. Fudge would push for the family to be investigated, and if, or likely when, the children's part-human natures are revealed, he'd order them registered as Dark creatures and that they be denied education at Hogwarts, which I could and would prevent so long as I was headmaster. It would also, however, bar them from nearly every job found in our society. Lady Zabini would likely be chased out of the Wizengamot, as well, which means the laws she has pushed through improving the situation of many magical creatures would most certainly be repealed. All in all, it would be a great loss for Britain.

"Poppy, I would normally never ask this of you, but the circumstances in this case are quite delicate. Are you sure that Mr. Zabini's death is not due to some natural cause?"

The woman seemed to catch on at once. "Albus! Are you honestly asking me to falsify official records?!"

"I am, for the sake of his younger siblings."

"But… What… I…"

"Please, my dear."

"All right," she finally whispered, her head hanging low in shame. "If you feel that it's truly in the best interest of the other children, I… I'll do it."

He nodded to her in solemn gratitude. If anyone could understand the pain of making sacrifices for the sake of the Greater Good, it would be him. The memory of a handsome blond man flashed in front of his eyes for a moment before he banished it back to the abyss. "I do indeed. Alastor?"

"Wouldn't be the first time I've fudged the parchmentwork," the retired Auror replied without hesitation. "Of course, that was generally to protect the guy who did the killing, not the dead one, but I can sign off on the autopsy results and death certificate saying that Pomfrey did everything by the book and there is no need for the body to be reexamined."

"You can do that?"

The law enforcement veteran nodded at Pomona as his electric blue eye rolled around in its socket. "Identifying cause of death isn't hard nine times out of ten; Hit Wizards and Aurors do it in the field all the time. I may be retired, but that doesn't mean I don't still know what I'm doing. Long as it's got my name on the form, no one at the DMLE is going to look at it twice.

"I'll do some digging on my own when I've got the time, Albus. It's a long shot, but maybe I can find who put him under a vow to start with or if he wasn't aware of what he was and did something stupid like swear that he'd never taint his line with creature blood. Don't expect much to come from it, though."

"Thank you, both of you," the headmaster said. "Severus, as Mr. Zabini's head of house, would you be willing to accompany me to the Zabini household? You would be able to give his mother a better impression of what he was like as a student than I can."

"I suppose I have little choice in the matter. Let us keep this visit short, if you do not mind."

"Very well. Could the rest of you ensure that the students are not becoming too rowdy? I will try my hardest to have Severus back well in time for classes to resume after lunch."

The teachers left through the hospital wing doors while Pomfrey cloistered herself in her office. Minutes later, a silencing charm was laid over her door, though it came not from the nurse's wand.

I'm surprised Dumbledore would sweep everything under the rug like that, Jen thought as she floated through the open window, but I can't say this doesn't work to my advantage. No Aurors wandering about means less chance of getting caught. She knew that Moody's eye was capable of seeing through objects, and rumor said that he had also caught the Weasley twins as they attempted to sneak up on him while they were under a disillusionment charm. As she did not want to test his eye against her invisibility, and had even less desire to be associated with Zabini any more than she already was, hiding in the room while the teachers met was out of the question.

Thankfully, she did not have to be present at all to eavesdrop on their conversation. It turned out that no matter how well the paranoid man's eye saw events occurring in his classroom, he could not pierce through enough walls to spot the girl spying on them via scrying mirror.

She made her way to the lone occupied bed, then threw a silencing charm onto the corridor entrance before applying avoidance spells to both doors. What she was about to do was immoral, illegal, and definitely not something she wanted to be caught at. Slipping her satchel off her shoulder, she pulled out the items she would need in the next few minutes.

It was time to render the little incubus.

There are so many interesting things that can be done with components taken from a murder victim, especially when you're the one who killed him in the first place, she reflected while rolling a rough-hewn stone between her palms before setting it aside. And while I may not be the biggest proponent of slaughtering people solely for their parts, when I have a magical being like a sexual vampire dropped in my lap, there is no chance I'm going to let him go to waste.

She pulled off the sheet covering the corpse and let it drop to the floor. Running a finger over Zabini's chest, she made three long cuts through skin and muscle; another pass over the center slice bisected the sternum underneath. With a flick of her wrist and the sharp sound of snapping ribs, she ripped his chest open like a clam. She picked up the stone again and quickly twisted space, replacing it with a thick, slurry-filled lump of muscle. She tilted her hand and let the partially coagulated blood drain out of the incubus's heart into the silver flask from her ritual kit.

Of the many prizes she could take from a corpse, this was without a doubt one of the most valuable. Heartblood epitomized life arithmantically, and it could take the place of a full sacrifice in the lesser Voodoo rituals. Blood magic using heartblood was immensely powerful, and it was also a necessity for the creation of such rare items as panaceas and homunculi. There were even whispers that this substance was the key ingredient in Nicolas Flamel's greatest creation, the Philosopher's Stone. For the plan cooking away in her mind, this fluid was going to be essential.

But that was for later. Jen moved the flask to one side and sent the organ back into its fibrous sac. Extending the vertical incision she had made and peeling away yet more flesh, she dug through the body's abdomen until she could access and remove the pancreas. Loki had been understandably irritated at being summoned back right after finding a secure location to hide himself and her kit away, and she intended to compensate him for it. The avian was a honeycomb fiend, but fresh pancreas would do in a pinch.

She moved her attention lower still. Keep or leave?, she wondered, her sonar weighing Zabini's testicles. Reproductive organs from this breed of emotiphage were highly prized, and if one were not afraid of dabbling in the dark, lust potions stronger and longer lasting than even Amortentia were possible. However, the length of time between rewriting his memory and his death meant that his incubus blood had not fully awakened until just the previous night. He was almost certainly still a virgin, and that would drastically reduce their potency.

Besides, Elsie's lab still has a mostly-full jar of preserved testes and ovaries she bought off a Grecian wizard three, four years ago. Moving her sonar over the corpse again, she debated about claiming more of the organs. The liver and kidneys don't work if they're not salvaged and stored within a couple of hours, and little else of the digestive or urinary tract is valuable. About the only other useful thing would be gallstones, which he doesn't have. Incubi are too close to human for his lungs or spleen to hold significance, either.

Which just left the head.

Here was the real treasure trove. Eyes, teeth, tongue, spinal fluid; all of these could be utilized in various rituals or sold to the right people for a tidy profit. She reached over to pluck out his eyes when Pince's words sprang to mind. How often am I going to come across remains that have been totally stripped of magic? His tissues are basically sponges at this point, absorbing energy from their environment. If I kept some of them in a small circle in the lab to isolate them from the magic in this reality, I could preserve this deficiency, at least to some degree, which would make this incredible for spiritual bindings. Waste not, want not, after all.

She slipped her hand under Zabini's neck and sliced through it with a crescent of fire to cauterize the edges, preventing the spinal fluid and what blood was contained in the head from spilling out. She then slipped the entire head, along with the flask of blood and the pancreas, into the satchel.

Now she just had to hide the evidence.

Picking up the stone she had switched with the heart, she positioned it at the stump of his neck to replace most of the stolen mass. She reached into her bag and examined the severed head with her sonar for a minute to be sure she could replicate its external structure, most importantly the faint touch of his skin pigmentation, down to the last detail. Her connection to the planet's reserves was widened as much as was safe; though she could transfigure just fine with the magic normally coursing through her body, this time she not only had to deal with magically drained materials, but the spell had to last for long enough that it failed only after the corpse was far away from here, and that meant more power was needed. Focusing on the feel of Zabini's head and the smooth expanse of chest he had once had, she changed the butchered remains to the state they had been in when she first entered the room. With any luck, he would be buried or cremated before the magic she had imparted ran out.

She covered him once again with the sheet before dispelling her security measures and leaping out the window. Give Loki his treat, grab my dagger, teleport to Cardiff, and stick these remains inside a circle for further processing when I have a few free hours. I should be back for afternoon classes with plenty of time to spare.

Jen woke suddenly, her sonar filling her dorm. It had only been a few days since Zabini's death, and while she hid it well, she had been tense with worry. Had she left some minor clue as to her presence in the hospital wing? Was Moody investigating the boy's relationships, even the one with the girl he had only escorted to the Yule Ball? She had no idea exactly what magical police were capable of, but she knew that regardless of his paranoia, the crippled Defense professor had been one of the best in recent memory.

Assuring herself that it had been nothing more than her subconscious fears that roused her, she found a comfortable position and closed her eyes. They shot open again a moment later.

There was a difference! The change was minor, the world a dark grey rather than black, but the fact remained that light from the ever-burning candle on her desk she rarely bothered to blow out was entering her eyes. A doubt lurking in the back of her mind faded away with a whimper; she really would be able to see again!

She bustled to her dresser, far too excited now to return to sleep despite the early hour. If she was going to be up for the day, it was time for another dose of Snape's marvelous potion. Unstoppering the vial, she sucked up a small amount of liquid with an eyedropper and let a few drops fall into her right eye. She squeezed her eyelids tight, savoring the rapidly increasing burn that signified the potion's activity. When the pain finally grew too much, she cast a numbing charm and tried to ignore the disappointment that welled up when looking out of that eye revealed only the nothingness that had been in her life for so long. Magically numbing areas of the body cut off all sensation: pain, temperature, touch, and apparently the special senses as well.

She had been in darkness for years. Why, then, was it so saddening now?

Her left eye was quickly numbed and medicated, and then she sat at her desk to read over her homework. She had an appointment with Pomfrey at the start of every month when she would pick up that month's vial, and the next was only a couple of weeks away. For the first time since this treatment regime began, she was actually looking forward to it.

This chapter was a little more interlude-y than normal, I know, but there were a few loose ends I needed to tie up before the Hufflepuff Task. Incidentally, I seriously considered titling this "The Many Faces of Jen Black".

I didn't want to go into it in the main text, but for anyone curious as to the fate of Auror hopefuls who can't manage wandless magic, they're given the choice to become Hit Wizards, which, from what little information my research turned up, are essentially SWAT. Aurors, on the other hand, I see as combination military and FBI/Metropolitan Police Service, people trained to combat both dark mages and external threats. They truly are the best of the best.

Which means that Voldemort's Inner Circle was probably at about that same level, too. Yikes.

Silently Watches out.