Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his magical world does not belong to me. I just snuck in when no one was looking and tried finding ways to steal it. No success yet.

An End to an Evening

I reset my mind trap before turning to face the old goat lover. He'd heard me tell the others it was a one-time use spell, and I didn't doubt he'd try again if he thought he could get away with it. Then, I turned to face him and spoke the release.

He'd been frozen with an angry look on his face, which immediately turned into one of rage. "HOW DARE YOU?" He roared, even as I saw his hand disappear into his robes. "DO YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU'VE DONE?"

I waited until that hand reappeared, with his secondary wand, then shoved my own hand into his face and pushed, plucking the wand out of his hand as it came to bear on me. Caught off guard and unprepared for a physical attack, he fell back to land in his chair. Looking up at me in astounded bewilderment at what had just happened, he probably hadn't been physically manhandled in over half a century or even more, I snarled back at him. "Sit down, shut up, and listen to what I say because I'm only going to say this once and if you don't pay attention, I'm just going to ignore your presence and get things done without you." I leaned over his desk and was pleased to see him press further back in his seat to keep some distance between us, eyes wide in unintentional affirmation I was scaring the hell out of him at the moment. "I don't like you; I certainly don't trust you, and I definitely don't like the way you treat Harry. Yes, I know exactly what I've done. Your damn secretiveness has gotten way too many people killed, and I intend to prevent any more from dying. I am getting help from experts, people who know what the hell they're doing and who just might, maybe, perhaps, know something the great, almighty, omnipotent, omniscient Dumbledore doesn't."

He scowled at the amount of sarcasm dripping from my words, but I didn't care. "I would like to not involve you at all but unfortunately I need your expertise to get one of them."

His look shifted from a fearful one to a more relaxed calculating one. "Why me?" he snapped. "Isn't your … sorcery … up to the task?" He sneered at me.

"If I want to destroy the entire area and alert every non-magical for miles around something is happening, yes, it is." I replied. "Since neither of us want that to happen, I need you. The bastard booby-trapped the entire place, wards, curses, traps, you name it, if it's dangerous, dark and lethal, he used it to guard the horcrux. My sorcery works differently than magic. If I wanted to protect something from you, I guarantee you'd be dead before you got halfway there because you wouldn't recognize the traps for what they were. I doubt I'd get that far against what he set. That's not even considering any alarms he might have set to let him know someone is messing with one of his little toys. That's the last thing we want, to let him know we're onto his immortality backup plan." I faced him squarely. "I don't have the experience or skill to cope with what he's done to protect it. You do."

He stared at me for several seconds before speaking. "How did young Regulus die?"

Somberly, I said, "The inferi guarding it tore him to pieces."

With a heavy sigh he closed his eyes and leaned back into his seat. "So deadly then." I heard him mumble. He opened them again, then regarded me for a moment. "Since learning of the diary, and what it might have been, I have been researching where Tom might have hidden similar items if he had made them and what they might be. Since both Harry and you maintain Tom has returned, it would appear he has done so. Two of those places at the top of my list were a cave, one that would be large enough to contain enough inferi to overwhelm a young wizard without being accidentally intruded upon…"

"Along the coast somewhere, only accessible by blood sacrifice." Since he was being so open, for him, I decided to return the favor. "That was the one Regulus died retrieving, so we can forget about it."

He sighed again. "Your description of wards, curses and traps and drawing attention for miles would indicate somewhere outdoors, in sight and accessible to onlookers. The Gaunt residence?"

I nodded. He might be an old goat, but he was a brilliant old goat. As I didn't know him well enough to say he was a dark old goat, or a grey one, there's no way in hell he's light, I'd give him a benefit of a doubt.

He sat, deep in thought, chin pinched between thumb and forefinger as his elbow rested on the arm of his chair. Finally returning his attention to me, "You can get the rest?"

"The bank will be the stickler." I told him. "Sirius might be able to help with that if we have problems, but otherwise I can get the rest. That would only leave the snake and Riddle."

"And Harry?" he inquired.

"You heard my reasoning about him." I answered coldly. "We will pursue other avenues you may not have thought or know of. We will not even think of his death unless or until we have exhausted every single other possibility. Do you understand me?"

"I do not like being threatened, Miss R'vensBl'ud."

"Think of it more as a warning Headmaster. Remember, I know much more about your abilities than you know about mine."

With that I tossed his wand on the desk, turned, and walked to the door, opening it…then paused. With a flick and twist of my raised hand, I did something.

"Thank you, Miss R'vensBl'ud." exclaimed a grateful Clarence as he turned a half turn away from Dumbledore's chamber door.

That left Dumbledore himself. I didn't like him, his casual disregard for the people who were not part of his 'greater good' sickening me, his manipulations, and his forgiveness of people for every single atrocity they might have committed disgusting me, but knowing that, did I have the right…?

"Headmaster." I didn't even turn around to address him.

"What?" came a disgruntled sounding answer.

"The horcrux should be a ring. It's cursed. Don't put it on." I left, closing the door behind me, my conscious placated. Let's see if his hubris let him listen.

As the spiral staircase took me down, I was surprised to see Snape at the foot of them, obviously waiting for me. I regarded him as I descended. I'd always thought Alan Rickman was a perfect choice to play him because he looked like, and embodied the spirit of, the man in the books, and in Die Hard his portrayal of the murderous leader of the band of thieves had been spot on. His facial hair in that movie had given him a cultured, roguish look that had been kind of sexy and …Damn it! Stop that! I growled at myself for what I was thinking and decided to carve one of the bastard's thigh bones into a flute to go along with the drums and xylophone.

As I reached his level Snape nodded at me. "Miss R'vensBl'ud."

I nodded back. "Professor." I greeted him in a neutral tone. "How may I help you?"

He hesitated for a moment before speaking. "Upstairs, you…referred to my father."

"I did." I acknowledged his statement but made no other remarks.

"Then, you know of my childhood."

I nodded. "Poor, neglected, abused by your father."

For a brief moment I saw a haunted look in his eyes before his occlumency slid into place once again. "Did…did Dumbledore really give Potter to Petunia?"

"More like dropped him off on her doorstep in a basket, in the middle of a cold November night, with nothing but a note telling her to take care of him." I told him. Even with his occlumency I could see anguish in his eyes. "Feeling the way she did about magic, and with a husband who was even worse about it, not to mention his abusive ways, you can imagine it was into ten years of hell for him."

I actually heard a strained groan from him as he closed his eyes and swayed slightly.

"You had a terrible childhood, Professor. What Harry had to live through was ten times worse. Then he comes to Hogwarts and meets you. You had a right to hate his father, I'll grant you that, the rest of the Marauders as well. James Potter, for all his good points, was a prick, a bully and probably an asshole. But Harry is not him."

"He took Lily from me."

"He won her from you." I corrected him. I was surprised how calm I was sounding. "He changed; became a man she could love. If he hadn't, do you think she would have? You knew her as well as anybody. Do you honestly believe Lily Evans would have married James Potter if he had remained that bullying asshole of a prick?"

He stared at me with haunted eyes before he whispered, "No."

"You made it easy for him, you know." He gave me a questioning look. "He changed to satisfy her needs, her wants and desires. You, you changed to satisfy your own. To fit in with the Slytherins around you, to be accepted by them, to get revenge on Potter and Black, to prove you could outdo them, retaliate against them. How many times did she ask you to stay away from the blood supremacists in your house?"

He sighed. "Too many."

"But you didn't. Even before you called her that name you were driving her away, thinking not of her but only of yourself. When you spoke that name you set yourself irrevocably on the path to where you were on the day Harry set foot in this castle. You lost her to the arms of the man you hated; bound yourself to two masters in return for their promises to give you what you wanted, only for both of them to lie to you; to have Dumbledore use those bonds to force you into a position you hate, teaching dunderheads while you watch the long line of those who got the position you wanted."

I could tell he was remembering everything he'd said, everything he'd done to alienate Lily. I was pretty sure he was experiencing the guilt he felt about it all again. "Do you still believe he's a spoiled little pampered prince? I can tell you he's not, he's the prince's whipping boy and perhaps quite literally."

He'd been standing with his eyes closed, perhaps contemplating my words, but at my last statement they snapped open to bore into my own. No legillemency, he was too smart to try that after my demonstration upstairs, but if he could read my mind without it, he would be.

"Everything I said upstairs was true." I told him. "You took one look at him and decided he was his father reborn. If it ever occurred to you he was Lily's son, you buried it deep in your mind so it wouldn't interfere with your vengeance. You totally ignored, overlooked, and disregarded the fact he never acted like his father but more like his mother. Every incident he was ever involved in was his fault in your eyes, regardless of the circumstances and evidence."

He stared at me for long seconds before he spoke again. "Why didn't you tell him I was the one who…gave… Riddle the prophecy?"

I returned his gaze. "When I accused you of learning your father's lessons well," I said quietly, "the look of shock on your face told me you had never compared yourself to him, that I was the first to even bring it to your attention."

He nodded slightly. "My father was a…harsh…man, to both me and my mother. I hated him at times, when he was drunk, when life was against him. I avoided him as much as I could. I swore to myself to never be like him. I…forgot that pledge."

"Remember the addendums to my book?"

He nodded.

"When Harry finds out it was you, and he will, several of them will vanish because of what he does." I explained. "Will he hate you? Try to kill you? Plot revenge? Understand why you did it? Possibly, though not very likely, forgive you? How he finds out will play a very big role in what he does. Do you want him to find out from Dumbledore? Someone else? Do you man up and tell him yourself?"

Damn! I was getting into some metaphorical crap here. As I regarded the man though, I figured he at least deserved a chance to choose his own fate. In a way, he was an older version of Harry: trapped by circumstances he couldn't control, caught between two men who considered him nothing more than a chess piece, and a pawn at that. He was where he was mostly by his own doing, but life, and others, had forced some of those decisions on him. I could at least let him have a chance to make a decision of his own that may or may not help him. Maybe Harry as well.

"The book isn't complete, Professor. It's still being written even as we speak. Our actions will define its story. It is up to us to decide what those actions will be."

His face had relaxed from a blank, occluded stare into a more contemplative gaze as he thought about what I was saying. It reminded me of an old saying: 'If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, befuddle them with bullshite.' I didn't know which I'd been shoveling, but I hoped it helped Harry.

"Good night, Professor." I told him with the tip of my head before turning and walking away. I had two teenagers to talk to.

((((((OOOOO))))))

"Oh, hell no!"

I stood looking up the central stair well. It was insane! Not only were the staircases moving, up, down and sideways, at random times, but the height of the floors also had to average fifteen to twenty feet between them. With a normal tread height, that meant twenty to thirty steps between floors…for seven floors! Since Gryffindor and Ravenclaw were both on the seventh floor of their respective towers, I'd be surprised if half the children in school didn't have thighs like tree trunks. That kind of climb while carrying bags full of books every day for ten months? Yeah, imagine them looking like Olympic speed skaters.

I may have a twenty-something body right now, but I didn't know what kind of shape I was in, and that kind of climb really didn't appeal to me at the moment trying to find out.

Sssoooo…

((((((OOOOO))))))

The looks on their faces were priceless as I floated up to their floor: a sort of combination of astounded and gobsmacked in equal parts.

I couldn't say I blamed them. I was flying! No wires or ropes, no trickery, no help from anyone else, I was in full control of my vertical and horizontal movement totally supported by nothing but my sorcery. I had my legs stiff, and my arms angled down and outward from my body, controlling my lift and movement with nothing but a thought. I didn't know if it worked on anti-gravity, magnetism, or some kind of esoteric invisible propulsion, but I wasn't going to worry about it. It was fun and it was so easy!

Take that, Iron Man!

It's said, 'pride goes before a fall', so of course I caught my foot on the railing as I came in for a landing, lost my concentration and balance and tumbled forward and face planted in front of the two of them.

"Oooowwww!" I moaned from the floor as they rushed over to help me. Great impression I made.

"Esbet! Are you alright?" they cried in almost perfect synchronization.

"Nothing damaged except my pride and dignity." I moaned. As I lay there on the floor, I felt one of them flipping the hem of my gown, which had seemingly flown up over my back during my fall, down over my butt. I chuckled. "Get a good look at my knickers, Harry?"

Crap! Did I just say that out loud? What the hell is going on with me?

However, that was nothing compared to what Hermione said next. "Umm, Esbet. You didn't appear to be wearing any."

I dropped my forehead down on my arm and seethed. That fricking bastard! What was that line in Jack and the Beanstalk? I'll grind his bones to bake my bread? Yeah, and then I'll throw the whole damned loaf to the pigs. Let's see how he feels about a trip through the intestinal tracts of a bunch of swine.

"You alright to get up, Esbet?" that was Harry asking.

"Yeah, I'll be fine." I pushed myself up and back to my feet, my knees hurting from where they'd hit the floor and the palms of my hands stinging from breaking my fall, both scratched and bleeding. I suddenly remembered something. Making certain gestures, I incanted "Health and healing be mine." The pain and stinging faded away immediately, as did the scratches as they healed and faded. "Oh, much better." I murmured.

"How do you do that?" Hermione almost pleaded. "If sorcery isn't magic and you're a mundane, how do you do the things you do?"

"Since we're past curfew, how about we get out of this hallway first, and I'll explain and answer your questions, alright?" I said in reply.

She hesitated a moment before nodding and I looked around. We moved down a few yards till I saw the tapestry with what's-his-name teaching the trolls how to dance ballet. I motioned for them to stay still before I walked down the hall thinking of what I wanted, before turning back the way I had come. I didn't know if this would work since I wasn't magical, but I could get one of them to do it if it didn't.

I'd made my second turn and was halfway up the hall when Hermione spoke up again. "Esbet, what are you doEEEP!"

I turned at her startled exclamation and looked at what until just a few seconds ago had been a blank wall. There was now a door there, identical to several dozen we'd seen since entering the castle. I grinned at the sight of it. It didn't take magic of the requestor to put that door there, only desire for it. Good to know.

"You said you couldn't do magic!" accused the girl. "What do you call that?"

I reached for the knob. "Oh, this isn't my magic." I explained. "This is all the castle's work." I opened the door and beckoned them into the room beyond. "Welcome to the Room of Requirement. To the elves, it's the Come and Go Room."

It was a normal-looking room, an oval maybe fifteen feet long with a door at each of the ends and a fireplace in the middle of the back wall facing the entrance door, which had faded away after our entrance. Unlike the high ceilinged rooms I'd seen so far, this one was more normal at only about eight feet high. The walls were elaborately paneled in a rich dark wood, and in the center of the floor was a comfortable looking divan facing the fire, with an upholstered armchair at either end facing each other.

"What is this?" Harry asked.

We sat, the two of them on the divan, sitting quite close together despite the length available, while I took one of the chairs. I explained to them what the RoR was, how to make it appear, what it could do and what it could provide.

"It can do or provide anything?" Harry asked in a disbelieving tone.

"Just about. But don't eat or drink anything it makes." I replied.

"Why not?"

Hermione was the one to supply the answer. "You can't take anything out, can you?" With my confirmation of her statement, she looked at Harry. "Don't you see, Harry? If you eat or drink anything while in the Room, it gets digested and incorporated into your body. But it's only real while in the room. If you leave the room and those parts of that food or drink simply vanishes, the loss could seriously injure or even kill you."

He looked a bit squeamish at her explanation. "If you really need it, have Dobby bring it to you."

They both looked at me. "You know about him as well?" Harry asked.

I grinned back at him. "The Marauders Map as well, which by the way, does not show this room or the Chamber of Secrets. Neither do the wards so even Dumbledore can't find you."

Harry grinned at that piece of information while Hermione said, "I would really like to see this Book of yours."

I looked at the frustrated girl. "Sorry. It wasn't with me when I arrived."

"Where did you come from?" she demanded in a challenging tone of voice.

I grinned at her. "Wouldn't you rather hear about sorcery?"

She folded her arms in front of her and chewed on her lower lip as she thought about that, knowing it was an obvious attempt to deflect the conversation. "Fine. But I want to know about you."

"Maybe I'll tell you." I met her eyes in such a way as to let her know what she found out about me was what I would tell her. She was just as pushy as the books had portrayed her, but I wasn't going to let her push me. Knowledge was power and knowing my story could get me killed, or worse, if the wrong people learned too much. I very much wanted to prevent that. "Alright, in the simplest of terms, sorcery is the gathering and manipulation of energy by means of certain sounds and gestures to produce the effect you want."

They both sat and looked at me, expecting more. Harry was the first to speak when he realized there wasn't going to be more. "That's it? That almost sounds like magic."

I nodded. "That's it."

"That's ridiculous!" Hermione almost sounded insulted. "You can't do things like we've seen you do just by talking and waving your hands around!"

I smirked at her. "You do it all the time. You just use a wand."

"That's different; that's magic." She countered.

"Prove it."

She blinked. "Huh?"

I leaned back in my chair with a smirk. "I don't believe magic exists. Prove to me it does." I did, but she was so smug I just wanted to smack her.

She pulled out her wand and held it up. "Lumos!" A pale blue light emerged from the tip. She smirked back at me.

I held my hand up, made a gesture and said 'Dark' Hey! I told you sorcery was weird just for show, because I didn't really need to, and my entire hand lit up in a bright, white light. "Once successfully incanted, the spell can be manipulated with but a thought." The light brightened considerably with just a thought, then dimmed almost to nothingness. With another thought, it blinked out. "Can you do that with magic?"

"I don't think so." she said cautiously. "At least, not that I'm aware of. Once the spell is cast, it's immutable…I think." Her brow knitted in thought. "But you're mundane. How can you do that?"

"It's a lot like magic in that you have to have a source of power and the intent to use it." I explained. "Unlike magic, however, sorcery doesn't need an internal source of power like magic does or a focus like your wand. All it takes is the proper hand movements to gather the energy you need, and the aural component to set your intent. The more precise you are with both, the more effective the spell. The more precise the gestures, the less you need the sound of your voice to set your intent because the gestures for each spell are so tied to the spell they're meant to empower, the more the intent is shown by the gestures."

"Like a key to a lock." Harry said.

I liked the example. "Exactly."

"But you said 'dark' when you made that light, but the gesture looked simple."

I smiled at her. "Just because you can do a spell without the incantation, doesn't mean you have to."

"So, my parents could learn to do what you do."

"Oh, certainly, if they wanted to take the time and trouble." I told her. "It took me six months to get even a dim glow when I apprenticed to my master."

"Who was that?"

"It was…it was…" I didn't know who it was! I was coming up blank. Come on, you bastard, you've given me information all night long, don't stop now!

Nothing. Much of my life was still hidden from me, damnit. Maybe that thought of Spooky being nothing but pig shite was too much?

Nope, he deserved it.

"Esbet?"

I jerked at Harry's unexpected query. "Sorry, what?"

"You were kind of spacing out there, for a moment." He replied. "Everything all right?"

I sighed, unhappy at my current circumstances. "Not really, no, but there's nothing to be done about it tonight." I stood up. "Speaking of which, it's past curfew and I'm exhausted. Come on, I'll show where you can sleep tonight so you don't have to worry about being caught by a prefect or teacher."

"But I'd like to learn more about sorcery!" exclaimed Hermione.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "I hope you realize just how childish and rude it is to be pushy, bossy, and demanding. Not everyone is as tolerant as Harry appears to be. I am not one of them." She looked a bit startled at the rebuke, then flushed a bit before dropping her eyes and saying she was sorry.

She looked so delightfully submissive and sexy that I just wanted to take her to bed Now that's what I'm talking about! and have my way with her. Perv alert! Underage girl! Hands off! Yeah, she was, but I knew what she was going to look like in a few years, by which time her and Harry will be much closer together, hopefully.

I glanced at Harry…and was met with an emerald glare totally unlike the timid, humble boy I'd seen so far. This was a warrior, a young man who'd fought the dark lord and lived to tell about it, one who was prepared to fight to protect what was his, and I'd obviously just stepped across that line.

The corner of my mouth curled up into a smirk. Well, well! They may not have made it official, maybe didn't know themselves, but at least one of them is feeling very possessive about the other. This may just work!

And maybe I could get him alone and show him how to please a woman in Alright, now cut that out, damnit! So now as well as getting turned on by guys, I'm into sapphic encounters too? Well, ok, I could go along with that.

Shaking my head at the situation, I turned towards the far end of the room. "Come on." I led them to the door located there and opened it to reveal a large bedroom. There was a large, king-sized bed, an armchair and nightstand to either side of it, an armoire in the corner, a fireplace in the opposite corner and another door. "There are pajamas in the cupboard and toiletries, towels and wash rags in the ensuite." I explained.

"But…" sputtered Harry.

I kept a perfectly innocent expression on my face as I turned to him. "Yes?"

"There's only one bed." Hermione stated the obvious.

I screwed my face into one of oblivious confusion as I cackled evilly in my head. "So?"

"We can't both sleep in the same bed." She exclaimed.

"Whyever not?" There was no way anyone could have looked more clueless than I did! Emmy, Oscar, Bafta, I deserved one of them: I was killing it here!

"He's a boy and I'm a girl."

I looked at her, then Harry, then back to her before once again looking at him. "Yeah, so?"

They were both turning deep shades of scarlet when I pretended to realize what they were talking about. "OH! I see. You're afraid this dashing, brave, young hero may be overcome by your beauty and charm and ravish you all night long, driving you into a state of orgasmic senselessness while proclaiming his love for you, that you're the only one for him till the end of his days."

"WHAT?" "NO!" As one, the two shouted out.

"OH! I get it!" I grinned widely at her as I thought her face looked like a highly heated piece of iron, it was so red. Harry was almost as bad. "You're afraid you'll ravish him all night long, while declaring your love to him."

"No!" she protested. "it's not like that at all! We're just best friends, almost like brother and sister! There's nothing romantic between us at all."

I could see Harry's face collapse at her declaration and went on the offensive. "Liar! Liar! Knickers on fire!" I sing-songed at her. "One: neither one of you has any idea how a brother/sister relationship works but what the two of you have ain't it. Two: You've been in love with him, quite possibly for years."

Harry's eyes widened at that revelation as he turned them towards the girl even as her mouth gaped open in shock at the words as her face reddened considerably, again.

"Three: You've never told him because you were afraid if you did and he didn't feel the same about you, because face it, he's a clueless dork of a boy who doesn't know what his feelings are," Harry grinned sheepishly and nodded, "that he might stop being your friend as well." His eyes widened in fear this time as he frantically shook his head in denial. She nervously chewed on her lower lip as her eyes flitted between the two of us.

I continued on. "Four: if you don't get together with Harry you're going to do something stupid like begin dating Ron and he'll get together with Ginny and after the war you'll each be married and miserable with your lives and she'll arrange a broom accident that kills Harry for his money which will cause you to go insane and destroy most of the British magical world all by yourself and the mundanes will have to take over to save what's left and if you just tell Harry you love him we can avoid all of that. So, what do you say?"

She stared at me for a few moments. Then, "Is that all true? I mean, from your book?"

"Well, everything after you got married, I just made up, but it could happen. I mean, Ginny is a frickin' fan girl for God's sake and do you really want to have screaming fights all the time and be called 'Hermy' for the rest of your life while you gradually get turned into a clone of Molly Weasley?" As her eyes widened in disbelief I shrugged. "Yeah, the author really mucked that part up in my opinion but let me show you what you can have if you just reach out and grab it." I looked at Harry. "What was your first thought when you saw Hermione at the head of the stairs at the Yule Ball?"

He smiled at the memory, a gentle, beautiful smile that lit up his face as he gazed at her. "She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. It made me think about how she was always by my side, and I'd never noticed or paid attention. About how smart she was and was still there and I wanted that beautiful girl by my side forever because just the thought of her not being there left a hole in my heart that hurt so bad, I never wanted to find out what it would feel like if she wasn't."

"And your decision to not approach her to be your girlfriend because Ron said he fancied her?"

"The stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. She's too good for him. I'm not good enough for her, either, but I want to try to be. I want to be with her forever and try to make her happy every single second of that time."

Hermione had tears running down her face and the single most sappiest smile I'd ever seen even as she chewed on her lower lip. With a half choked laugh she moved to him and hugged him. He hugged her back and I heard a muffled 'I love you, Harry!' as I backed out the door. I didn't think there'd be any more problems with just one bed.

Hah! Take that, Jo! Waiting years before you admitted you screwed up by pairing the four of them the way you did? Eewwww, yuck!

I headed for my own bedroom.

((((((OOOOO))))))

I stood on the balcony of my room, which the kids hadn't needed, and looked out over Hogsmeade valley. Dressed in a fuzzy royal blue bathrobe, just like the one I had back home wherever that was, enjoying the view. With a quarter moon I could just see the outlines of the buildings of the village. A lone torch here, a lit window there, the large building with all of its windows lit, which I took to be the Three Broomsticks, a cloudless, starry sky overhead, it was like a cheap painting you could buy in one of those knick-knack accessory stores at the mall. I could just imagine the same scene covered in a layer of snow in winter. Beautiful.

While I was enjoying the view, I'd originally come out here to think, and I had a lot to think about. Having stripped off to shower yep totally commando I'd gotten the first good look at my body. Damn! I looked good! I was just pervy enough to know I was going to do some exploring later, though.

I didn't remember the tattoos though. Animals, all kinds, real and mythological, and all black, like shadows, spread around my torso. I really didn't care for tats and had never incorporated them into Esbet's history when I wrote her or used her as a DnD character, though. I can only guess Spooky put them there for some reason.

Next, I examined the contents of those pouches on my belt. They had to be some kind of bag of holding, like Hermione's beaded bag in the later books, because the first one I checked held my spell book and it had to be at least a foot wide and a foot and a half tall. Likewise, the second which held my spell research book. Both of them were gorgeous, bound in leather with gold leaf highlights. Bookbinding had been one of my Youtube hobbies to watch and I could tell both of these had been made by a master. How did I have these? Beats the hell out of me. Again, like the tattoos, I blame Spooky.

The third pouch held an entire damn potions lab, equipment, vials, ingredients, recipes and finished potions, mostly medicinal but with some really nasty stuff as well. Everything was non-magical, for obvious reasons, but I suddenly remembered what I knew about brewing, and I thought it might be enough to impress even Snape.

The next pouch was filled with a boatload of wooden disks and carving tools. I could do a lot with those as amulets and other things.

I left the other pouches for later because what I'd found so far left me wondering: just what did Spooky have in mind for me to do? Was Clarence right and I hadn't been sent here to stop Riddle? Was it Dumbledore? Some other unknown player?

Regardless, I had a lot of things I needed to do. I had to go to Gringotts and talk with the goblins about the LeStrange vault. While I was there, I thought I'd get an inheritance test just for the hell of it. Who knows, the way Spooky is working I might get something. I hope so. He didn't leave me with anything I could live on so far.

Then, Madame Malkin's; a wardrobe of one dress just wasn't going to hack it. Ollivander's. I was curious to see if he was as weird as Rowling portrayed and my stick wasn't really fit for what I needed. It was too fragile. I couldn't use a true magical wand, but he would have materials to make the kind I wanted, and I wanted him to make me a staff as well. It would be a bit ostentatious, but here in the magical world it would be an item people would think twice about giving me any grief about.

I also needed to make a pocket to store all my belongings in. Bags of Holding just wouldn't do, they were too small. A nice little dimensional pocket I could access anywhere at any time would do quite nicely.

I needed to see Amelia again, too. I really didn't expect her to be back tomorrow, not with everything that had happened tonight and what she would have to do tomorrow, so I might have to go to her. She might have trouble convincing Fudge and the Unspeak… "UUnnnggh!"

The sudden cramp in my lower belly came out of nowhere, and it hurt. "Damn it, Spooky." I swore. "You can save my life, bring me across time and dimensions, shove me into a female body, give me sorcerous powers, but you can't fix my bowel problems? What the hell kind of Eldritch Horror are you?" I went back inside and headed for the bathroom, swearing about the crappy day I'd had the entire way.

((((((OOOOO))))))

Somewhere, in a place devoid of light…between worlds…realities…dimensions, an…entity…watched…and waited…

…and chuckled.

A/N: And so ends the first arc of my magnum opus. Yes, yes, I know, a truly impressive display of my skill as a storyteller. No need to bow to my brilliance as an author, you'll only make me blush. I will attempt to continue into the next arc as soon as I'm able but my sister is a right bitch about playing with her toys without permission so that might be awhile. In the meantime, on with the comments!

Tork01: You casually talk about depopulating entire cities with a deadly, painful radiation and don't think you're evil? Never mind the other side of the planet, I'm moving to the moon. Besides, did it occur to you that if I do that transfiguration, I'm standing right beside it? Nope. Sorry. No can do. No will do. Lead underwear is not my thing. And Fudge will always be an idiot.

THRichardson: Yeah, that was fun. How did you like what happened in this chapter?

: Horcrux stuff is already in Harry's head. Mind trap won't affect it. Yeah, Uh huh. Maybe. IDK. Gonna have to wait and see. Flying carpet? Meh! Esbet is way to modern for something like that. Alright! Alright! Here, you impatient person you. Greatness takes time you know. Just got your last (koff) review.

Sparky40sw: You're welcome. If you liked that, I hope you loved this one!

W0lfgang: English is a confusing language. Take your pick.

Moose3333: THUNDER! And yes, she is.

And now Ladies and Gentlemen… it's Barbecue Time!

Alsdjhfgljkwebgh: I see that you signed off your review as a Brain Dead Monkey, but I have to think you're lying. After all, you had to have enough living brain cells to bang away at your keyboard and come up with your pen name author's name, handle, whatever… or maybe not. I mean, really, what kind of name is that? My cat walked across my keyboard and typed a poem that was better than that. It was bad, but still better than that. As for that review you left over on House of Boobs, which is my sister's by the way, with a name like that you're going to admit you can't spell 'too'? C'mon! It's three letters! T…O…O. See? It's easy. Look it up, it's right there in the dictionary. Uh, on second thought, never mind. If you can't spell it, you probably can't read either and that's an awful big word to find in an awful big book…if you even know what a dictionary is or how to use it. I'll tell you what. Why don't you go back to looking at your picture books, the ones for toddlers, not the adult ones which you probably don't understand either, and never, ever, bother the thousands of people who come to this site to escape the real world for a while to indulge themselves in the many realms of fantasy they may enjoy. Now, shoo! Off you go. Run along now.

Sniiifff! Ahhh! The smells of well-cooked meat in a savory sauce. The dragons will eat well tonight!

And so, my friends, I bid you fond…what's that? Oh shite! She's coming back! Gotta go!