Chapter Six - Plots
By the end of the day, Bel had shown me round the entire mansion, and sent a minion to fetch my stuff from my apartment. I made a note to ask Lussuria whether he'd locked up the salon when he'd left. I didn't think that he was the sort of person who would overlook the little details like that, but it was best to be sure. The insurance wouldn't cover theft if the door was unlocked and no one was in, and I didn't think 'I was kidnapped by assassins' was an adequate excuse. Poor, high-strung Alberto must have panicked when he'd come back and realised that I'd vanished. I needed to talk to Squalo about getting in touch with him to reassure him that I was OK before he tried something drastic, like getting the police involved. I didn't think the Varia would take kindly to that.
I had made a point of asking the minion to fetch anything that looked even remotely like a hair care product, which meant the poor man had over two hundred bottles to transport. There were a couple in particular that I would need for my vengeance against the shouty Captain. And of course, if I was going to be the Varia's hairdresser, I was going to do it properly. No way was I using whatever inferior stuff they'd been making do with. Lussuria was the only one who seemed to know anything about taking care of hair properly.
"Belphegor!" I called from the bed. I had become dizzy after spending an hour walking round the house and memorising the layout, and Bel had panicked when I almost fell over. He had ushered me back to bed and sent a minion for food. It was cute, watching him flutter about like Mrs Weasley with unexpected guests. We had picnicked in bed while plotting our vengeance, before he left to fetch his weapons from his room. He said there was a wire trick he'd just mastered that he wanted to show me. The proud tone of his voice was sort of adorable, if I ignored the fact that he was talking about methods of murder instead of test scores, or something else normal for twelve year olds. As long as I didn't try to act like an authority figure, Bel was amazingly compliant and eager to please. I figured that he was still intrigued with me. I intended to take advantage of that before he got bored with me.
"What?" he said, ambling into the room with a fan of knives in each hand.
"Will you need me to distract Squalo while you switch the bottles?"
"Ushishishi! I could do that in my sleep," he assured me, flinging the knives seemingly randomly into the walls. I stayed very still in the middle of the bed. The Varia had no problem with giving twelve year olds lethal weapons. I suppose I couldn't complain; Hogwarts gave them out at eleven.
"Great! And as your mentor and role model, I should teach you some of my skills, right?"
"What skills would a civilian peasant have that could benefit a Prince?" he asked scornfully, sounding like Malfoy.
"'Civilian' skills like being able to cook and clean for yourself means that you aren't reliant on anyone else. Having to eat substandard food because you're missing a vital skill isn't Varia Quality." I had heard a lot about Varia Quality in the last few hours.
"I don't rely on anyone!" he sounded honestly offended.
"You rely on other people to cook and clean for you. Being able to do it yourself will give you more freedom and control. But that wasn't the skill I was talking about. How would you like to learn hairdressing? I think we'll have a volunteer for you to practice on tomorrow."
I watched the already present grin spread even wider as he showed me how he could direct multiple knives down the wires, creating a shining blur of movement around the room.
Mammon sighed to herself as she sorted through the information the incompetent (and now deceased) Varia member had acquired on Harry Evans. It was all true, but there were such massive holes in it that it was worse than worthless. She would charge Squalo double for making her fix his subordinate's mistakes. This was disgraceful by any standards, let alone for the Varia. Going through the information she had on the recent conflict in England, which was the likely reason the intriguing new acquisition had such ingrained reflexes and interesting responses, she paused.
The photo was of a teenager, petit with black hair and green eyes. He wore ugly glasses and looked very uncomfortable in his formal robes. At first glance, he was irrelevant to her current search. But looking closer, she saw the similarities. The hair and eye colour were the same, although the glasses were gone and the hair was sleek and shoulder length now. The biggest change was body language. The boy in the photo was hunched inward, defensive and wary. Evans was proud and confident. Still, they were definitely the same person.
Harry James Potter. What information did she have on him? He was a Wizard, which automatically made this a lot more complicated. The rest of the Varia didn't have the clearance to know about magic, so she would have to doctor the report. Sighing, she set about compiling the relevant documents so that she could provide the relevant information without revealing anything classified. She was not paid enough for this.
Sorry, this one is more of a transition/filler. First introduction of Mammon, though!