Hi everyone! Here we are with a new update! I'll let ya'll go so you can enjoy the chapter real soon. I just wanted to remind ya'll that I have a poll up on my profile regarding Meissa. Have a quick look there afterwards and vote if ya'll haven't yet. Now, off you go!
Chapter 25: Up to No Good? Yes We are!
Between Hermione and Daphne, Meissa was doing better about staying on her potion. Hermione's tracking of the days and the potions meant that Meissa didn't have to try and recall if she skipped a dose or not while Daphne made sure to remind her to take the potions.
When she informed her godfather he was worried about the fact that two more people knew - having thought that she would only tell Daphne - but when he saw that she was taking consistently instead of missing a dose here and there he made his peace about it. After Meissa also revealed that Hermione was using a calendar he realized that the Gryffindor's meticulous tracking of his goddaughter's intake could benefit him and made a note to approach her when the seventh month approached. Although he likely won't have to worry about it until the start of the second year.
Either way, with the exams due to begin in the beginning of June there wasn't much time to study. And with Hermione regaining her confidence due to being around Meissa - and for being forgiven for her part in that night's fiasco - the trio of girls could often be found in the library in between classes and meals.
While Meissa is often not the most diligent at studying, with Hermione around - and with Hermione comes two boys - she had to admit that it was easier with the Gryffindor girl around. Of course, when the girls were done with their own studying for the night they were often roped into helping Harry and Ron study. Due to the constant exposure to the Slytherin girls, Harry was actually coming around to accepting their presence. The only one in the group who had an issue with them being present was often Ron - who made his opinion of them known whenever he sees them waiting with Hermione. It was often enough to make Meissa want to hex the living daylights out of him - if it wasn't for the fact that Hermione and Daphne knew her well at this point.
Whenever there was a group session Daphne would take away the raven haired girl's wand for the duration of the session. It doesn't stop Meissa from trying her best to do wandless magic - a feat she still could not replicate often. She could probably count on one hand how many times she managed to cast a wandless spell.
Either way, they - minus Harry - were studying in the library roughly a week before the exams were due to start. When Harry - having left to receive a book from the Gryffindor tower - came running back empty handed and with a wide eyed look on his face. Distracting Ron from the mock test Hermione was putting him through and prompting Daphne and Meissa to abandon their whispered conversation.
"It's Quirrell!" he whispered urgently. "He gave it up!"
Daphne and Hermione went red in the face as Meissa looked at the two girls in confusion.
"What?" Ron asked in confusion.
"I overheard Quirrell agreeing to something. It sounded like someone was threatening him - even though I didn't hear anyone," Harry explains. "And when I saw him leave the classroom he looked like he was about to cry."
"Did you see anyone in the room?" Ron asks excitedly while Meissa was narrowing her eyes at the red head in suspicion.
"No, but it seems like they may have left through the other door." It hasn't escaped Meissa's attention that he hasn't openly accused Professor Snape yet and was hopeful that he will continue in this thread.
"Snape's done it then!" Ron exclaims, simultaneously proving two different things to the group. 1) That he is capable of leaping to conclusions. 2) He still believes that the Potion Professor is guilty of desiring the stone without any proof to back up his belief. "If Quirrell's told him how to break his Anti-Dark Force spell -."
"Oi!" Meissa interrupted forcefully. "One, it is Professor Snape! Two, there's no such thing as an Anti-Dark Force spell! That's just ridiculous!"
"Meissa," Hermione tries to calm the raven haired girl before she could get them kicked out.
"Who else would be after the stone!" Ron protested.
"Oh, how about every single person who wants gold or immortality," Daphne retorts in a very dry tone since Meissa was still steaming mad.
"Either way," Hermione injects before Ron could say something idiotic. "There's still Fluffy. And at least four different lines of defense after Fluffy, Professor Quirrell's, and Professor Snape's."
"Maybe Snape's found out how to get past him without asking Hagrid," Ron suggested, "I'm sure there's a book somewhere in here telling you how to get past a giant three-headed dog." Meissa muttered 'Cerberus' underneath her breath but was promptly ignored by the red head. "So what do we do, Harry?"
It was clear to the Slytherin girls that Ron was biting for an excuse to escape their study sessions. But it was actually Hermione who suggested something. "We could go to Dumbledore. It's probably something we should've done ages ago. If we try anything ourselves we could get expelled."
Meissa immediately disagreed. "Approaching Dumbledore is not a good idea," she reminded the other girl. "Don't forget that it's likely that he put the highly sought after item here for a reason. Among students of all ages," she continued - aware that the boys were not privy to her earlier speculations. "There's countless places where he could have stored it away for safe keeping and instead he puts it here."
"It's already clear that someone's after it," Daphne picks up her friend's line of thought, "What's to keep them from attacking the school to get to it?"
"We already know who's after it," Ron injects.
"Ron, enough," Harry snaps before the girls could. "You've made your thoughts clear about who it could be but they're right," he gestured to Meissa and Daphne, "it's incredibly narrow minded of us to conclude who it is without proof." He looks at Hermione. "And that's the issue, even if we do go to Professor Dumbledore," he continued, narrowing his eyes at Ron when it looked like he wanted to interrupt, "we have no proof. I doubt that Professor Quirrell would back us up. All we have is our words." He looks at Hermione, "I don't know if you've seen any of the cop shows but in them they always ask for proof if we try to accuse someone…"
"Cop shows?" Ron, Meissa, and Daphne asked in union, immediately thrown by the muggle reference.
"I'll explain later," Hermione reassures the two girls while Ron looked at Harry in askance.
"What do you propose we do then?" Daphne decides to ask when it became clear that no one intended to continue the conversation.
"Nothing," Harry concludes, prompting everyone to look at him.
"But Harry," Ron tries to protest, "If we do a bit of poking around-."
"No," the bespectacled boy says firmly. "We've done enough poking around."
"You've learned," Meissa remarks in an idle tone, "I take it that losing over a hundred points in one night made you stop and think."
Harry made a slight face but made no move to dispute it. Instead he reached over and pulled a map of Jupiter to him, making a show of learning the names of its' moons or trying to.
Meissa and Daphne exchanged look before excusing themselves from the session - citing that they had an errand to do before curfew. With their things packed away in their bags they left the library and went down to the dungeons - heading directly for their Head of House's office.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Daphne asked warily, keeping her tone light in case anyone was eavesdropping on their conversation.
"Mm… I remembered him telling me stories of his time in Hogwarts," Meissa remarks, "We've tried to find a way on our own - now it's time to see if he knows of a way."
"You know that they're not going to be happy about this once they find out."
"I realize that. But what they said - they have a valid point. We need a way… They have access to each other, at least this way we could have a near instant access to each other."
Daphne frowned slightly at the other girl before loosening her tie and undoing the top two buttons so she could retrieve a necklace. Opening her hand she reveals it to be a raven pendant on a long silver chain. Meissa instantly recognized it as the necklace she had purchased during the Yule break - gifting it to Daphne for Christmas.
After, of course, she made a few modifications to the necklace along with a letter to explain that the enchantments were not malicious in case the Greengrass patriarch was a paranoid sort. Modifications that were done mostly by her Aunt since she couldn't find her spare wand - she wasn't exactly supposed to be practicing magic outside school, not that ever really stopped her before - and because she wasn't really familiar with the spells she wanted to add onto the pendant. She had decided that it was better to be safe than sorry and roped in her aunt to do the spells.
"Wouldn't it be better to do something similar to this?" she asked the raven haired girl.
"My aunt was the one who did the spells," Meissa explained. "And I don't have the tomes that I got the spells from in the first place."
Daphne arched an eyebrow at the other girl. "So there's actually a limit to what you can do?"
"Of course," Meissa smirked at the blonde. "Besides, I had a reason to want to give you the pendant. I might give Hermione something similar but mostly, Daphne, the pendant gives you - in the case of extreme emergency - access to the Black Manor to seek refuge."
Daphne nodded slightly - recalling that the letter had said something like this. "So maybe just the spell that would allow me to contact you?"
"If I knew it I would try it," Meissa replied. "I connected your pendant with mine but that doesn't mean I know how to replicate that effect for them. That's why we're going to Professor Snape."
"He's going to ask us why we're interested in this," Daphne comments with a frown. "At the very least he might think we're going to try and use this to cheat."
"I think I can get him to help," the raven haired girl comments with a sly smile.
"I dare not ask."
~MJB~
The next morning Meissa was sitting at the table with a tired yawn, just barely covering her mouth as Daphne added what she had observed to be the raven haired girl's favorite go to breakfast. Hoping, of course, that she actually had an appetite. When she has an appetite it was often hard to get the girl away from the table - she ate like it was going to be her last meal, which considering her eating habits was sort of likely. But when she had no appetite it was like a life or death struggle just to get the girl to eat.
"Did you get any sleep last night?" Daphne asks, curious as she scoops some of the scrambled eggs onto her own plate, loading a few other breakfast items afterwards.
"Mm… in between thinking about a medium, school, and the summer I don't think I slept more than an hour."
"That's barely anything," the blonde observed. She knew that Meissa rarely slept through the night - after a whole year she was able to observe that - and that, on average, she slept maybe three to four hours a night.
"Yeah," Meissa muttered, pressing a thumb against her temple.
"You think you can manage today?"
"Don't really have a choice, do I?" Meissa retorts with a sigh before looking towards the Gryffindor table. Noting that Hermione was looking a bit frazzled. Grim but frazzled all the same. "Hey," she gestured to the table where the muggle-born witch was sitting, "What do you think?"
"Mm… whatever it is, Harry looks just as grim."
The two girls looked at each other. "Think we should ask?"
"Well… we do have to meet up with them later, to give them the books," Daphne comments, reminding Meissa of the three leather bound journals in her bag.
Meissa had managed to sweet talk her godfather into giving her the list of spells necessary to enable instant communication between two or more items. Except they needed to get the trio in an isolated room with them so that they could cast one of the spells onto the books - keying the books to themselves before they could cast the spells that would connect the five books together.
The list was a different set of spells than the one Meissa and her Aunt Cissy had used but the difference laid in the mode of communication and the purposes. Daphne's necklace was mainly meant to act as a portkey to Meissa's home in case of emergencies although it was possible for the blonde to use the necklace to verbally communicate with Meissa - so long Meissa actually remember to wear hers. Whereas her godfather's spells was geared towards written communication - though Meissa was able to convince her godfather to give her a spell that would allow for a group to communicate with each other instead of just two individuals.
She wasn't quite sure what was running through Uncle Sevy's mind at the requests but so far he doesn't seem inclined to question her.
With the thought of getting the Gryffindors alone they started eating - the raven haired girl looking over to her cousin who was staring at a parchment paper with a frown on his face. Curious about what's bothering him she took note that his usual body guards were present so she decided that she'd approach him later if he doesn't find her first.
It was a fifty-fifty chance that he would find her if it was something he didn't think he could handle on his own.
~MJB~
Meissa was walking towards their afternoon class when she felt a hand on her elbow - almost causing her to freeze up. Overwhelming that reaction she whirls around, her wand sliding into her hand, before she realizes that it was Draco. "Don't you know not to do that!" she hissed at him, irritated at him and herself. Him cause he should've known better than to touch her out of her sight. Herself cause she shouldn't have been so lax with her guard and ignorant of her surroundings.
"Sorry," he apologized quickly, "I just wanted to let you know that I have detention tonight."
She blinks and studied her cousin. "It's been over three weeks since you got in trouble though," she remarked, thinking that Hogwarts has a really strange way of doing detention.
"Yeah, but I'm serving my detention tonight. I have to meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall."
"Stay out of trouble," she warned him only to get a casual brush off. She doesn't snap at him for it, focusing instead on getting to class. Dragging along her cousin to make sure he doesn't get any further trouble.
Class ended up being dull - with the professors reviewing some of the materials and - in the case of Transfiguration, Charms, and DADA - allowing the students to use the room to practice spells. Quirrell was still a stuttering mess but at this point Meissa thought the lowest of him. Still, when she was in the class with him he looked like he was absolutely miserable and looked extremely nervous. Meissa couldn't quite place a finger on it but whatever it was, the whole thing was setting her on edge.
Either way, it wasn't until after classes were over that Daphne and Meissa were able to get Harry, Ron, and Hermione alone.
"You came up with a way to allow us to communicate instantly?" Hermione asked excitedly when she was presented with the list of spells while Meissa was pulling out the leather bound journals from her bag. She had found an unused journal in her trunk and made four copies using the Geminio spell. She knew that normally the copies would age faster than normal but she read somewhere - she couldn't remember where - that spells applied to duplicates would allow said duplicate to last longer.
"More or less," Daphne answered, peering over Hermione's shoulder, pointing to one of the spells to explain it. "This one we need to cast individually. It will key the medium - the journal - to the caster."
"Oh," Hermione mutters, thinking quickly. "It'd prevent people from being able to use the journal other than the caster?"
"Correct," Meissa mutters, trying to recall the incantation of the color changing spell. "Colovaria," she tries, waving her wand in the right motions. (1)
She barely changes the plain black leather, instead adding the House of Black crest on the cover as well as adding a border of gold. Satisfied with the change she looks at the others to find that they were staring at her with varying degrees of disbelief.
"What," she huffs, "It's easier to change the looks now instead of later."
"What year is that spell?" Daphne asked suspiciously.
"Uh…" Now that she mentioned it she wasn't quite sure.
"No, wait, I don't think I want to know."
Hermione shook her head before asking how to do the spell, wanting to change hers as well. With Hermione taking the lead Harry was soon asking to learn it with Ron reluctantly agreeing to learn. Daphne made no comment about learning it but it did not escape Meissa's attention that the resident blonde was watching her wand movements when she demonstrated for the Gryffindors.
Soon enough the five journals were changed to meet the preferences of the owner.
Harry chose a golden snitch for his journal - with Meissa enchanting it so that the snitch was actively moving on the cover. When she asked him if she liked anything else than Quidditch he just gave her a blank look that made her sense that something was wrong. But neither were willing to say anything so they left it alone.
Hermione chose two different quotes for her journal. 'The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away' and 'Time is very slow for those who wait, very fast for those who are scared, very long for those who lament, very short for those who celebrate, but for those who love, time is eternal' were the two quotes she had chosen. Though she couldn't quite understand how she managed to recite those two from off the top of her head. With a bit of a help from a spell Meissa enchants the two quotes so that every time she closes the journal the quote will change to the other one.
Ron chose the Chudley Cannons - Meissa had to ask Daphne about what that meant - and the illustration he had envisioned in his head was closer to stick figures on the journal. While she wasn't familiar with the Quidditch team she did - with Daphne's help - turn the stick figures into actual illustrations before enchanting them. The burnt orange was really horrible to her eyesight but it's not like she would see it often.
Daphne decided to go with her family crest - which apparently consisted a blue and white shield with some sort of magical creature on top, she couldn't identify it and the blonde wasn't willing to discuss it. She also kept the cover black but added a bunch of stars although Meissa would have sworn that she saw a familiar constellation.
With the journals made exactly how they wanted them they decided that it was time to get down to business before it got too late. But seeing that the spells were somewhat complex Meissa, Daphne, and Hermione practiced the spells first before they were confident enough to do them.
Daphne volunteered to go first, pointing her wand at the book with her family crest.
"Revincio," she intones as firmly as possible. A thread of light appeared from the tip of her wand before connecting to the book, once she saw that the thread had wrapped around the book she brought her wand to her chest. The tip of her wand was pressed against the area over her heart. Once the wand was there she intoned, "Ut omnes accessum negare." (2) (3)
The light flared once before vanishing.
"Ready to try it out?" Meissa asked, eyeing the journal. Without waiting for a response from the blonde she reached out and grabbed the book. The second she touched it there was a flash and a sharp hiss of pain. She drops the book back onto the table and was shaking her hand. "It works!" she declared with a wince while everyone ogled at her.
The instant she touched the book she experienced a sharp pain akin to being burned but she did not notice that her hair had frizzed out. That her entire body looked like she got struck by a lightning bolt. Though she felt the pain mostly in her hand there were tingles all across her body. She barely noticed it but she did notice that everyone was staring.
"What?"
"Uh…" the boys were of no use.
Daphne simply went over to her and reached out a hand to smooth down Meissa's hair. Blinking, the Black heiress reached up and touched her electrified hair. "Wow," she remarks as she tried to smooth down her hair. When that turned out to be in vain she braids her hair back.
"Well, we know that the binding spell works," Hermione spoke up. "What's next?"
"The mirroring spell," the two Slytherin girls announced together.
"Except we can't do that until all five journals have been bound to their respective owners," Daphne adds in.
"I'll go next," Hermione volunteered.
"Harry, do you feel confident enough to do the spell?" Meissa decided to ask while Hermione was preparing.
"I don't know - It seems easy but…"
"Is it the words that's making you uneasy?"
"Yes," he answered truthfully - he figured that denying it would be a bad idea.
Meissa hummed as she thought about it, trying to think of a way to help improve Harry's confidence about the spell. "You understand that Latin is the language we use to cast our spells?"
She waited until he nodded his head before continuing, aware that Ron was listening in.
"Well the practice of using Latin is extremely old but it doesn't mean that the spells will fail if we say them in English."
"Really?" She nods her head slightly. "Why don't we then?"
"Mm… Casting a spell consists of three parts. Language," she holds up a finger, "Wand movement," she adds in a second finger, "and intent." She made sure that Harry was still following along before she continued. "If you eliminate the use of language you'll find that you're casting non-verbal spells."
"Like that time when we were practicing the levitation charm?" Harry asks.
"Exactly. The benefit of casting spells non-verbally is… Can you think of one?"
"Mm, an advantage over your opponent?" Harry suggested.
"Exactly. If they don't hear you then they're likely to react late to you. Another advantage, Harry, is that they won't know the spell you used. And if they don't know the spell then they can't counteract it."
"Mm… But Professor Flitwick… the way he reacted to you learning how to cast spells non-verbally…"
"Well… The language portion of the casting basically mold the spell into the proper form - for a lack of better wordings. So there was a huge chance I would change the spell into something else. That's why Professor Flitwick told me to exercise caution."
"Oh… that makes sense."
Meissa shrugged. "Anyway, instead of using Latin, let's see if we can produce the same effect."
"Spells can produce different effects?" Hermione asked, having been listening to the discussion the entire time while binding the journal to her.
"Yes and no," she answered. "The largest part of the spell is intention." Meissa glanced towards Hermione, recalling that she had this discussion before with. Or at least something similar to it. "The Latin prevents the spells from being influenced by the language portion - since not many people know how to speak the language. But since we're going to try casting the spell in English we need to establish that you understand the intended purpose of the spells."
"Revincio," Daphne decides to pick up the thread of the conversation, "means bind. The Spell itself is to bind the object to the caster. But when we combine the words 'ut omnes accessum negare' we're basically restricting the access to only us."
"Would using Revincio on a person work if we only want to tie them up?" Hermione asks.
"No. The purpose for this particular spell is more towards preventing access to an item. If you want to tie up a person the spell would be Incarcerous," the blonde corrected.
Training with Meissa had familiarized her several high level spells - some she still had issues with producing consistently. But she could cast a low spell perfectly and often, due to daily practice, with powerful effects.
"Oh," Hermione taps her chin with a finger. "Okay, I suppose that makes sense."
"So… When I cast the spell, I need to think that the journal has to be bound to me and only me?" Harry questions.
"It's a start. But, Harry, do you want to try it out with something else before we try it on the journal?"
"Please."
She nods and pulls out a decent quill. It wasn't among the top five she'd use but it wasn't too shabby where she'd feel guilty for allowing it to be bound to Harry. "Try the spell on this," she sets it on the table and stepped back to allow him to try the spell.
Harry took his wand and took a deep breath. "Bind to me," he intones, "Deny to all access." Meissa noted that his voice was wavering and suspected that the spell probably didn't take.
"Who wants to volunteer?" she looks to the others, recalling the previous attempt. Ron and Daphne were hesitant and Meissa could see that Hermione was debating it.
"How about we do rock paper scissors?"
"What?" they, except Harry, questioned in union.
"Uh, it's sort of like a game except we use it to determine something."
"I know of it," Harry spoke up before he held up a fist. "Rock." He flattens his hand. "Paper. And then he formed a v with his fore and middle fingers. "Scissor."
"You want us to do something like that to determine who gets to pick up the journal to test Harry's spell casting?" Meissa asked, looking at Hermione for clarification. Once she saw her nod she looked at Daphne and Ron.
"How do we do this?"
~MJB~
Just a quick announcement before I let ya'll go. If you have any questions or suggestions, please leave a review or a pm. I'd appreciate any comments - unless they're unhelpful and negative - so don't hesitate to contact me. Ja ne! See ya next month!
Translations:
1) Colovaria - Color change spell
2) Revincio - bind
3) Ut omnes accessum negare - Deny access to all