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Chap. 71: A Little Learning

Harry exhaled in relaxation as he sank into the hot waters of the Prefect's pool-sized bathtub. "Stamina Runes are amazing," he murmured into the quiet. A casual onlooker might have thought he was talking to himself, but Harry knew full well that his Succubus was nearby, examining the painting of a mermaid that had flirted with Harry from his first visit to the room in his fourth-yearth year.

Lilith, in her original petite form for once, glanced over her shoulder at him with a grin, "Feeling the pain already Master? I'd have thought you would enjoy a little tentacle action."

Harry snorted in amusement, shaking his head. "Leave it to you to know what I was thinking. But I think Luna would enjoy it more than me. Iris might be up for it again sometime, though."

"That girl is something else," Lilith chuckled, "And to be honest, I'm not sure what to make of her. She seems normal enough physically, but there's definitely something... otherworldly about her. She loves her sex, though, and the harder the better. She's almost like me in that way, only... more raunchy? As if her taste were..."

Harry didn't bother fighting his eyes drifting shut. He was already missing breakfast to be here, but he didn't really care. If he was hungry, he could always go down on one of his girls for a fast meal. Surprisingly, aside from the constant low-level lust he always felt, the young wizard wasn't even particularly turned on, despite having Lilith's adorable, nubile body bare for his enjoyment as usual. He cracked one eye when Lilith gasped though, in time to see her shake her head. "No... no, that's ridiculous. The odds are astronomical. It just... no."

Harry let her continue arguing with herself against whatever thought had popped into her head for several seconds before he intervened, "What's impossibly unlikely?"

Lilith huffed uncharacteristically, in a way that reminded him strongly of Hermione, then turned to face her summoner, "The Childe of the Moon. I just had the crazy thought that she might be, you know, a half. But there's no way. It would explain her eagerness, but plenty of girls are eager to experience pleasure in whatever way they can, and like it rough. Your third pet, Lavender, is one of those. Girls who're into... well, less humanoid forms of interaction, like Luna, are less common but they are out there. It's silly, just forget I said anything."

Something about the creature's tone told Harry there was more going on here than what Lilith had said, however. So he stretched his arms out over the side of the tub, covered in soapy bubbles, and stretched beneath the water as he considered. "Okay, but... half what?"

"Half... well, we've talked about the possibility of having a child together, but we haven't delved much into the specifics. For the most part, a Contractor, or any human or humanoid, or whatever else, can put their species' seed inside my kind as much as you want, and nothing will ever come of it. It's not even how you can choose to make yourself infertile. We are, by default, unable to have children in the way most creatures breed. We're... more asexual in that way. I believe the closest equivalent on your world would be a creature that buds, like certain single-celled organisms. We do need another creature's seed, but there's more to it. No one in our world really even knows how it happens, but every few centuries, maybe a thousand years or so, one of us will get lucky... and come back with a child, or our equivalent of pregnant. It's said there are rituals... ways to make it happen, but I wouldn't know what they are. It tends to happen with those who have had their Contracts for a considerable length of time. Another possible factor is the Succubus and Contractor being fairly powerful, but again, this is all hearsay and rumor. No one really knows, or if they do, they aren't sharing."

Harry frowned, "But isn't your world like, your people's entire population, really tiny compared to ours? Wouldn't it be better if you had more children?"

"Our world is finite," Lilith reminded him quietly as she dropped to sit next to Harry's left hand, her legs dangling in the soapy water, "so we can't support a large population even if we had one. There's more than seven billion- close to a half more- on your single planet, but this is just one planet in a very large universe. Our entire plane of existence is smaller than your continent, remember? There's thousands of creatures, thousands of my kind alone, and only so much space to go around. That's why your material, what we bring back to our world, is so valuable. Some of it we use with our magic to expand our realm, and some we use to build things. Some is used for reproduction in our own way, which takes vast amounts of resources if it doesn't happen while on Contract. We just can't afford to have tons of children, so it's a good thing in a way that we don't."

"Okay," Harry acknowledged with a slight frown, "I get that I suppose. We both know I'm not ready to start knocking up women left and right, even if I do want to somehow carry on the Potter family after I'm gone, but what's that got to do with Luna?"

Lilith sighed again, "Well, she's... The child of a human Contractor and a Succubus is a Succubus. Always. There's a few recorded instances of half-breed Succubi, but it's pretty rare, and none of them- none- are from human Contractors. Not in any reality we can access."

Something about the words she used made Harry pause, but he was quickly brought back to the main question by his own curiosity, "Wait, none? What species can have half- breeds, then?"

This time, the Succubus shrugged her narrow shoulders, "Generally creatures with more innate magic, where almost every member of the species is magical, for example. They also have to be sentient enough to form a Contract, and to Summon one of us in the first place. Then the usual rules apply. Rarity first of all, with power and the age of the Contract being factors in whether they can breed at all, if the Contractor and Succubus both agree to."

"Examples?"

"Some dragons. Not the ones from your world, but in other realities they can be quite intelligent. Fey creatures, some Elementals. Things like that."

Harry let out a low whistle as that niggling thought came back to brush against his subconscious, and this time he latched on despite the distraction of imagining Lilith or someone like her fucking a dragon flittered past his mind's eye. "Other realities, you said that before. What did you mean?"

Before she answered, Lilith sent Harry a gimlet eye, and asked, "Are you ordering me to tell you, Master? Because knowledge of certain subjects along these lines has been known to drive people mad. I don't really think it would, for you, but... it's dangerous. I'd ask you to at least keep it to yourself."

Harry thought for a moment, then nodded, "I'd like to know, but it's not an ord-"

He was interrupted by Lilith's little hand covering his mouth, "If it's not an order then I can't tell you. Rules. But I can bend them for an order. So if you want to know, tell me."

Harry nodded, and the hand slowly withdrew. Again, she looked at him with a measuring gaze, and seemed satisfied with whatever it was she saw. Still, she waited until he nodded and said, "I'm ordering you to tell me, then."

Lilith scooped up a handful of the suds and then began sketching on the stone between them, starting with a circle, and a circle around it, and a third around that, before drawing several lines between each like spokes. "Reality- or what you and I currently perceive as reality- is what the theorists among my kind and several learned scholars across multiple universes call the Material Plane, or Prime Plane. This is Prime."

Harry nodded at her gesture around the castle, and then the tap of her dainty finger into the center circle. She moved to the middle one next, "My world. We imagine it as something of a border world between this plane and another, higher one. It can be accessed by both sides, and the lines between are that access point."

"Like... portals? Gates? We could physically go back and forth...?"

Lilith shook her head, "No... like you and me. This line right here could be us."

With a confused blink, Harry stared at the wet line. "Huh?"

"A Contract is the access point. One side is created when a Summoner- you- brings one of us here. That's half the line. The other is formed when we Contract, which is initiated by us and accepted by you. Our Contract is what keeps us here, forming the bridge. Without both of those things, the bridge would only go part of the way or be unstable and collapse."

Understanding a bit more, Harry nodded. This was fascinating to him. He had never considered in any depth a greater cosmology beyond what people called Heaven, Hell, and Earth, aside from a vague understanding that Lilith came from somewhere 'else', outside of that. Not from Hell as many Christians would believe. "So what's the outer layer?"

"I don't really know. This is a side-note for us in our education as potential Contractees, it's barely mentioned because it usually isn't important, and too much knowledge can be risky for those we Contract with. A loose equivalent would be... your after-life, perhaps, or wherever souls either start from or end. Maybe both. I hardly made a study of it though. Remember I'm fairly young for my kind, and just barely finished my education when I was Summoned."

Harry nodded thoughtfully, "So you can form bridges that way, too?"

Lilith smiled, "Sure can. I haven't, obviously, since you were my first Summoner, but it is possible. Not from here though. For one thing, we can't form another Contract while under Contract to begin with - the first one takes precedence, always - but we also can't reach that plane, or those planes, or whatever it is, from here directly. That's why we started calling our world a border plane, as I understand it. It's a bridge of sorts itself. It's also not the only one."

"Ah. That makes sense, or maybe an island in a wide river that takes two bridges to fully cross," Harry murmured, though this time he wasn't sure he got it. "Again though, what does that really have to do with Luna? Not that this isn't interesting, because it is."

"Well, again as I said, she acts, in some ways, like one of us. Has similar abilities, and proclivities even. But she's human, as far as I can tell. I can ingest her fluids, and they're nearly as potent as yours. I mean, I can eat them, and they benefit me in the same way you can get sustenance from her. Which is an anomaly itself, nothing, should be even close to as good for me as yours is. We've established that your fluids give me the most sustenance, and mine should for you as well. So I just had the thought that she might be half-Succubus, but it doesn't add up. She'd be a full Succubus, not mostly human, if her mother was a Succubus. Or her father, if that's the way it went."

Harry nodded once more, this time keeping his thoughts to himself for a few seconds while he considered what he had learned. The thought of Luna being a part-Succubus was strange, but something about it just, rang as true to Harry, though he couldn't put his finger on why.

"Okay," he set that matter aside for a bit as he ran into one dead-end after another in trying to figure it out, "so we're back to 'other realities'. Is that talking about this afterlife, or whatever?"

To his surprise, Lilith shook her head, "Not quite, no. Thanks to the limitations of soap bubbles on stone, I can't make a better representation. But imagine this outer ring is instead a hollow cylinder, stretching up and out- and down- forever. Infinitely huge, but one 'space' filed with all the versions of afterlife that have ever been contemplated to exist, and everything that hasn't, too."

"Right," Harry muttered, not entirely sure he could even try to grasp that much less wrap his head around it completely.

With a careful look, Lilith reminded him, "This is why people go mad trying to figure it out. Don't think too much about it until you've gotten comfortable with the idea, and even then be cautious of pushing too far. Some things, mortal beings, Succubi included, are just not meant to know. Our world, my people's, is closer to a line in this scenario, barely any depth or thickness to it at all, and is better understood as a speck of dirt in the vastness of space- but it is also on the layer between the upper planes and this plane."

"Okay..."

"But this plane, this Prime, this Material world, the observable universe? My people and many others understand it to be one of an infinite number. And by 'understand it to be that way', I mean that, as hard as it is to believe, we have empirical evidence. We study Earth, for example, because it has a high number of Contractors- but there are so many Earths we couldn't number them if we tried. By 'other realities', I am referring to other Prime universes. Some have Earths much like this one, with only tiny variations. Some have huge differences, like dinosaurs gaining sentience and becoming the dominant species. Some are filled with plant-life. Some are ruled by dragons. Some don't have an Earth at all, and in some even your entire galaxy never existed. When I say infinite, I mean it. All variations exist, and each individual reality is incomprehensibly vast, and possibly infinite within itself."

Harry nearly slipped under the water as the weight of what Lilith was telling him settled into his psyche. An infinite number of realities, each infinitely or at least immeasurably large, boggled his ability to even vaguely conceptualize. He doubted even Hermione could do more than gape at the idea, though he didn't want to tell her. She, of all people he knew, would likely be driven to insanity trying to understand it, though he was equally sure she would get closer than most. "That... that's... a lot."

"It is," Lilith nodded with a soft smile, "but again remember that the vast majority of our Contractors are from realities similar to this one. There is a world where you never found that book, and one where you Summoned a different Succubus, and one where you died trying, and so on."

"I think I prefer this one," he murmured, leaning over her slowly-drying sketch to peck the Succubus on her soft, pink lips.

"Me too," Lilith giggled, then swiped a wave of water over the stone, erasing the entire drawing at once. "Now back to what I was saying before we went off on this little tangent. I suppose yes, there is a way to force a child and have it be human. Contracts would do it, but the Succubus would have to be specifically Summoned and Contracted for that exact purpose. Like, if Mr. Lovegood, whatever his name is, had bound her mother specifically with the purpose of bearing him a mostly-human or entirely-human child and then to have them raise her to adulthood together, for example. But that's just a theory. I haven't any idea if it would work, but our Contracts are very powerful. Short of that, I can't imagine any other way that she could be part-Succubus and be so entirely human."

"Interesting thought experiment," Harry decided, borrowing a term he had learned from Hermione, "but ultimately a futile effort to figure out?"

Lilith nodded. "Far easier, if you want the actual story, for us to investigate her father and just ask him, preferably when he's thoroughly under my sway. Presuming he isn't an Incubus, anyway."

"Right, presuming. Haah... She's definitely a strange girl, but one of my favorites anyway."

"Mine, too," Lilith sighed as she slid into the water and climbed up onto Harry's lap to grind herself against his cock, which began to harden quickly despite his earlier satisfaction, "and I only had to feed her kinky dreams for more than a year before she gave in and brought you out to meet one of her friends."

As he slipped into her familiar, tight, and warm depths beneath the water, Harry sighed in contentment and pulled Lilith close, happy to let her do the work. Stamina Runes or not, he was still rather worn out from the efforts the Alraune had coaxed from him, and Luna before that, over the last twenty four hours.

And he had classes in an hour or so. Damn it. At least he wasn't actually tired...

After classes that day, Harry, fully awake but still tired, was making his way to the library in search of a few books for homework, when he noticed something peculiar happening in the halls. Ever since he had first Summoned Lilith, he had noticed a general degradation (at least as far as his aunt and uncle would call it) of the school's morals. It had been very slow at first, perhaps held back by Dolores Umbridge's ridiculous Ministry Decrees. While she had been acting as Headmaster, students even holding hands in public spaces like the halls and corridors, was grounds for expulsion. Never mind that some students of Hogwarts were adults in the wizarding world, they simply were not allowed to fraternize at all, no exceptions.

Of course, that had stopped exactly no one. What that decree had done was teach four hundred or more students to seek out every nook and cranny of the school for the least bit of privacy they could find. A year later, many of those students were still together. Many more had found other partners to mingle with, teaching more students more places to engage each other in the delights of hormonal satisfaction.

Add to that year of being extremely secretive with any sort of public displays, a confrontation where several students, his classmate's peers, had died along with parents or other family members in some cases. Follow that with a summer of freedom, except that the Dark Lord known as Voldemort had been seen publicly by dozens, hundreds of people. The Ministry could not hide his return any longer. Then the students had returned to a school very different than when they had left it. Not only was Umbridge gone, but Dumbledore seemed to have more direct control over the school than ever before. Harry didn't think that was a bad thing. While he knew the old wizard had made mistakes, not least of which was leaving him with the Dursleys for years, he believed very much that Dumbledore truly did have his, the students, and the world's, best interests at heart. Then there was Lilith, and her influence over the school.

That, combined with the previous mix, made a melange of passion and desire that had quickly boiled over in the first half of the year. That had made it possible for Harry to fuck Ginny openly in the common room of Gryffindor Tower, giving a display to everyone down there (and not a few who had come in during the show) who had been in third-year year and up. The missing girls and the attack at Christmas, when so many students had been going home to visit family, had devastated the morale of the country for weeks. Now that school was back in session, without much of anything in the way of adult supervision, the students were relieving their tensions and anxieties in whatever way they could.

Gobstones, Exploding Snap, Wizard Chess, and Quidditch, were all getting more and more attention as time went on. But this year, by and large the students were finding it easier to distract themselves with, well, each other.

Harry had known all of that. What he hadn't noticed before that trip to the library was just how extreme the behavior had gotten. In moving between the fifth and third floor, just walking around the tower-like space that made up Hogwarts' central grand staircase, he had witnessed four pairs of students and a trio of two boys groping one girl, most of which were happening right there in the hall, and under clothes, as well. One of the girls, a seventh-yearth year Hufflepuff Harry couldn't name, actually had her robe around her ankles and her shirt open to let a boy in her year suckle on her tits just down a side corridor.

On the third floor itself, as Harry neared the library, he saw much of the same. Yet here, even less off the beaten path, given the library's use to students and staff alike, the students were getting away with more. Terry Boot was snogging Su Li just inside the open doorway of a disused classroom, one hand down her skirt front, with her pelvis grinding into him, while she groped the front of his trousers roughly. Beyond that by a few doors, he saw a Slytherin fourth-year boy sitting on an empty plinth with his pants around his ankles, his dick in the mouth of a fifth-year girl of the same house. That pair was down a side corridor, but well within view of anyone walking by.

Just after Harry passed out of their view, shaking his head in surprise, he heard the boy groan and cry out, "Get ready!"

If people were giving each other hand-jobs and blow-jobs in the corridors now, Harry was a bit worried about just how much things were changing in the castle. He glanced about, just in case a teacher was nearby that he could distract while the young couple (or maybe she was just doing him a favor, he had long suspected Slytherin, at least internally, was very much as Daphne and Pansy described. Trading sexual favors was a time-honored tradition in their house, both for fun and as a way to gain influence) cleaned up. Yet he saw none. Even the portraits, everywhere he looked, were empty of human or human-like subjects, except for a few of the more perverted paintings that quietly cheered on or ogled the activities of the students.

That, at least, tracked with the impressions Harry had gotten from the Fat Lady and her friend Violet on the night of the Yule Ball two years previously. The portraits were not their subjects, but they carried an imprint of them, much like a ghost, yet both more and less at the same time. They had much of the same memories and personality, but were not alive, and could not truly grow, though they could at least gain new memories and act much as a living creature would. Still, it meant that if the subject of a portrait leaned a little toward lewdness, their portrait representation would too. If anything, the portraits, being 'dead', had less in the way of propriety, since they didn't have to think about how they looked to others or society at large as much.

When he reached the library, it was, if anything, worse. Students were still studying, but, much like he and his closest friends had done earlier in the year, many now seemed to be pleasuring either themselves or others while they did it. One group of Hufflepuffs, as he headed into the stacks, seemed to be led by one of Susan and Hannah's friends, and she was rewarding whomever got a question right with a few seconds of tongue-wrestling. The stacks themselves, once the bastion of the quieter, or more studious of the school, were now more full than ever. The fifth- and seventh-years were still just as madly searching for help with their heavy workloads as he remembered from last year, but in between finding books many of them were snogging, and they often had to push other students, doing things even he might have hesitated to do in public just a few weeks ago, out of the way to get to the books they were searching for.

Indeed, as he moved in to head toward the Defense Against the Dark Arts section, Harry watched one seventh-year try to plead with a couple of snogging fourth-yearth years to get out of the way. When he got a little rough and pulled the younger boy away, the girl huffed, "Wait your turn, geez, I'll blow you after he's done!"

Harry rolled his eyes. It was honestly getting out of hand, even a bit worrisome. But he wasn't sure what he could do about it, aside from removing Lilith from the castle, and he wasn't going to do that while he was here. No, his pet was staying by his side.

Speaking of pets, though...

An image flashed through Harry's mind, and for a moment he wasn't sure if it was his own or supplied by Lilith. It was of Ginny, Lavender and herself as lyra, all his pets in their own way (though he had already decided early on, that, as she preferred, Lavender was a bit more publicly accessible), walking on hands and knees before him, stark naked aside from one item each. All three of the girls wore an inscribed collar, and a tag with the girl's initials on one side, and his own on the other. The inscriptions were simple: "Property of Harry Potter. If found, shag and return to owner." Finally, a leash led from each collar to his right hand, where he walked behind them, the proud owner of three loyal pets, just like he was walking a trio of dogs. Ginny's collar and leash were crimson red, Lavender's was a deep, almost royal, purple, while Lyra's, predictably, was the same bubblegum pink as her normal hair.

The image made him smile as he maneuvered his way past another pair of students, this time a girl with her back against the books and a younger boy on his knees with his head under her skirt. I've absolutely got to start investing in collars for some of the girls at least.

After taking his time dodging students, including a few girls (and one unfortunate fourth-year boy who may have been a little drunk) that tried to grope Harry or pull him into a kiss, he had a couple of books under one arm that mentioned the Flame Extinguishing Charm he was out to research. That taken care of for the moment, Harry turned to the right and headed into another section of the shelves, one meant for older students doing a different sort of study. While it could loosely be considered recreational reading, the small area he was heading for now was technically within the Restricted section. The only difference being that all N.E.W.T.-level students could access thanks to an age-line that had, according to Hermione, been part of the library since it was founded a mere three years after the castle was built.

This particular section had been one that Ron, of all people, had pointed out to him not an hour ago, having heard stories of it from his older brothers. When Harry had mentioned it to Hermione in passing, she had lifted an eyebrow and said, "Of course I know it's there, Harry. Where do you think I got all those trashy pillow bo- umm... never mind. Yes, I know it's there. It's the Library. I know all about it," and then refused to answer any more of his rather pointed questions with a red face.

While amusing, Harry knew full well, after having been her lover for a full year now, that Hermione had just as much of a dirty mind as anyone he knew, with the possible exceptions of himself, Lyra, and now maybe Luna. Still, he would have to make a point to ask every few months what kinds of books she had gotten from this section... just to keep her on her toes.

Harry might have otherwise been surprised to see the 'adult reading material' section of the Library so occupied, but after the displays he had been seeing in the halls for weeks, but only just today truly noticed, it didn't come as quite the shock it might once have. That Hogwarts had such a section was the greater surprise. But as Ron had pointed out when Harry had asked him about it, "You think Mum and Dad haven't read some of the books from there? Count my family, Harry, go on."

Fair enough, though he really didn't want to think about Mr. and Mrs. Weasley that way.

Still, it was a school. Then again, maybe giving the older students an outlet in literature was, in the Board of Governors' (or at least, the Founders') minds, a safer option than letting them run rampant, as things were headed these days?

None of that prepared Harry for seeing one pair of Slytherin girls he was acquainted with at best, perusing through a book together in that section. They were hardly the only ones present, not even within their house and probably year group. The shelves were largely empty in this particular section, which suggested to him that Lilith's influence was being felt in more ways than just heightened promiscuity and daring to have such public displays of not just affection but intimacy rampant in the halls. The Carrow twins, seventh-yearth years now, were people he had first been introduced to by Daphne, Pansy, and Tracey when they had met with the DA after his abduction, and the death of several of their peers, at the end of the previous year. He'd become a little more acquainted with them through the Slug Club and at Milly's house, but Harry still couldn't say he knew them well.

With a sly grin, Harry crept up behind them, going so far as to try and quiet his breathing as he got close enough to read the book the one on the right, Flora he thought, was holding up for both of them. Sex magic, huh? I suppose that isn't unexpected, but...

"They got that wrong," the sister on the left murmured quietly, "that's supposed to be an eastern-facing Proxim."

"That's what happens when you steal information," the other twin replied, "you never get the full picture."

"Too true, sister, too true."

Deciding now was as good a time as any, Harry straightened himself up and put a finger on his wand, preparing an emergency Shield Charm just in case, and announced his presence with a loud, "Hem, hem."

While not nearly as good at mimicry as Ginny or Lilith, he was still passable enough to make both of the twins jump nearly three inches into the air. The left one whirled around, wand in her hand and already glowing at the tip as it jabbed toward his belly between the girls, while the right one slammed the book closed and whipped in the same direction, bringing the book around toward his head.

His shield blistered to life in an instant, reflecting orange, flame-like images in a rippling pattern outward from where the left twin's wand just missed touching the shield directly. The right one's book, with more momentum, actually crashed against his barrier, rebounding and spinning out of her grip to land open, face-down on the ground. No doubt several pages were damaged or creased, now. "Whoah, whoah, hold on," he chuckled, "it's just me. Remember, you swore an oath not to attack me?"

For a moment, both identical girls glared at him, so Harry took a step back and raised his wand, lowering his shield in the process. "Sorry, it was just a... tempting target for a bit of a prank. Aren't Slytherins supposed to always be watching their backs?"

The one he thought was Hestia's eyes narrowed for a moment before she sniffed and took a half-step forward. Shit, I never realized how tall these two are. She's as tall as I am!

Maybe even a little more, because as she stepped forward again, the girl seemed to be looking very much down at him as she hissed, "Self-defense is not an attack on you or yours, Potter."

Silence reigned over the small area as Harry realized several students from all four Houses were now watching the scene he had inadvertently created with his would-be prank. How was he going to get out of this without making the girls lose tons of face? They were already in trouble with most of Slytherin simply because they were siding with him, even if they weren't as overt about it as Pansy and Daphne were.

Fortunately, the other twin sniffed haughtily and turned to recover the book. While it did present Harry with a rather nice view of the young woman's backside through her robes, her demeanor when she stood and showed him the damage the book had taken put such thoughts out of his mind completely. "Madame Pince will have your testicles around her neck if she sees this."

He winced, that was not a pleasant image. "Er, maybe," he conceded, "but you were the one holding it, not me, so... empty threat."

That made both of the twins glare at him for several tense seconds, but after that, the one on the left smirked, "He's learning."

Her twin scowled, but nodded, her expression falling into one of careful neutrality as she spoke, "I suppose. What do you want, Potter, if not just to annoy people who have done nothing to you?"

"I actually was just coming up to say hello, believe it or not. That is, until I saw what you two were reading. Know something about it?"

"Magic? Yes," the right girl said with another sniff that exactly copied her twin's.

"Sex magic," he whispered loudly, ensuring that while he was quiet enough no one could really here, there was an implicit reminder of what section of the library they were in, and with that a subtle threat that he could speak it louder, too.

Again, both twins narrowed their eyes, and the right one almost smiled again. "Well played, Potter. Hello. Yes, we do. Our family came up with half the rituals most of the older families keep themselves going with. Any other pertinent questions?"

Taken aback by the admission and extra information he'd just gotten, Harry took a few seconds to formulate a response. "As a matter of fact, yes, if you have a few minutes." Then, leaning in closer, he whispered, "I have a couple names I'd like you to look into."

"Is that so. Very well. Do you have a private place to speak?"

He nodded at Hestia's question, "When you are ready, I'll be in one of the reading rooms in the library. It shouldn't take long, and isn't something I necessarily need privacy for."

Those words, spoken aloud, would hopefully quell any rumors that might already be spreading about just what kind of relationship he and the Carrow twins had. Not that it would do much good these days, he knew rumors were rampant throughout the school that he was to blame (or credit) for the many changes in the school recently. People would think what they wanted anyway, but hopefully by not requiring privacy, fewer people would think they were shagging. Not none, but fewer.

A few minutes later, they slipped in through the doorway of the only reading room that wasn't already occupied by students who were in various states of undress. He couldn't blame them. He had shagged Alicia Spinnet several times in this very room shortly before she had died, and with the stress outside of the school at an all-time high... they needed what relief they could get. He watched, amused and half-risen from his own seat facing the door when one of the sisters held out a chair for the other in a clear act of deference. Once both were seated side-by-side across from him on the small conference table, the one who had sat first asked, while her twin pulled out a small piece of parchment and a quill, "Names, then? We can't waste time."

"I have a couple. Start with Isabella Ross, Ravenclaw."

"The missing one?"

Harry nodded, and one sister wrote down the name on her parchment in some cypher he could not read, at least upside down, even across the narrower side of the table.

"Who else?"

"After her, Theodore Nott. The Notts in general, too. I need to know where he could be hiding, what he could be doing in the castle. I think he's responsible for the other disappearances of girls this year."

"But you want more?"

Harry nodded, "Yeah. I need to know... well, anything really, but what I'm most interested in is what special things he might've learned from his parents or family, or even Voldemort. Anything that sets him apart from every other student."

Both girls had flinched at the mention of his enemy's name, but nodded too after he finished. "Any others?"

Harry thought for a few moments, scratching his chin briefly as he did, "Yes, uh... This might sound a little strange, but I need a bit more information on Luna Lovegood."

At that name-drop, the twins shared a long, careful look with each other before turning back to him. The note-taker (was that Hestia, or Flora? He still wasn't sure) eventually said, "We'll do that, but we might require extra compensation. Her family is... different."

"They are," he acknowledged, "but Luna is my friend. I'm trying to... help her with something."

Even if she didn't know it.

"Is that it, then?"

Harry shrugged as one more name occurred to him, "I have a last one but it's definitely the lowest priority. Astoria Greengrass. You know about the curse?"

The other sister nodded, "Yes, the Greengrasses have spoken with essentially every old family over the last several generations in search for a cure."

"Well, we might have a treatment, but I'm not sure it will cure it forever, if the treatment works at all. She's going to continue this summer, to my understanding. You should, uh, keep that to yourselves. What I want to know is who put the curse on their family in the first place, and where that person lived at the time, and where they were living when they died."

Again, the sisters shared a glance, and the one on on his right offered, "You are trying to find a more permanent solution, hoping for old notes or something?"

He nodded.

"Alright. We will begin immediately. Would you prefer to hear what we have on each of these names first, or wait for the more detailed report to be written up?"

"Er... what? You just... have a lot of that information?"

Again, the girls did that almost, but not quite creepy glance where they seemed to communicate entire conversations with a single look. The one on his left, who'd been doing most of the talking, finally replied, "I have a perfect memory for what I read. Hestia remembers everything she has ever heard. Between us, we can remember almost everything we have either read or heard about someone else. For us, composing a dossier is a little research, but mostly writing down what we already know."

"Scary," Harry frowned, "but I can see how that's useful. Glad you're on our side."

That made the twins both smile genuinely, if faintly, only the second or third time he'd ever seen them do it. Cute, though, he thought to himself as he glanced between them. "Er, I s'pose let's hear what you have now."

The one who had been called Hestia (he'd been wrong, it seemed) was the first to speak, and as she did she steepled her long, thin fingers together before her on the table, "Isabella Ross was a seventh-year, in our year, but a Ravenclaw. Her family comes from a mix of houses, traditionally a relatively even mix among all four. Her mother and father were a Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor, respectively, while her older brother and sister were a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff. Her grandparents and older generations kept the tradition going with very little deviation to an extreme. Even then, it was often corrected in a generation or two. They are also seen as politically neutral. Isabella's grandfather, Malcom Ross Sr., was the inventor of the modern-day Vanishing Cabinet, which was marketed as a quick escape route during the Dark Lord's last rise to power."

Harry let out a low whistle, "Well, maybe you won't need to work up her dossier, then. That kind of answers why Malfoy wanted her, in particular."

The other twin nodded, "Possibly. We will still write up the report, but that is not a well-hidden piece of trivia. Her older brother may have leaned more toward the Dark Lord's views, but their family, while politically neutral, were not generally considered anti-muggle or anti-muggleborn at any stage as a whole. It does seem likely that Malfoy originally took the girl to help him in repairing the Cabinet he is rumored to have escaped through."

"Not rumored," Harry grumbled, "I watched him go, couldn't hit him with a Stunner in time."

"We see. Well, as we said, we can and will give you more information about her as we can. For now, her boyfriend was Edgar Wallpole, a Hufflepuff in our year as well. He has, since her disappearance, taken to intimacy with her best friend, Malina Grouse, in his House."

"Piece of shit," Harry grumbled, but he knew he would easily find physical comfort with one of his current lover's friends if one of them died, too. He was in a relationship with all of them at once, though, not seeing a best friend behind a girlfriend's back.

"Just so. This is why we do not date."

"As for Theodore Nott, he is the youngest scion of the family, but has been designated as his father's main heir, since he is the only male child out of five. His older sisters have been married off to secure additional funding, favors, and knowledge from around the globe. One is in Siberia, one in what the muggles call the Dominican Republic, one on the Ivory Coast in Africa, and one in China."

"Political marriages?"

Both girls nodded.

Harry understood the practice, but still... didn't like it much. "Okay."

"Theodore has always been driven to live up to his family's legacy in several ways. He is more traditionally Slytherin than, say, Draco Malfoy would ever be considered. Cunning, intelligent, able to plan and execute at a higher level than Malfoy could or would do, if not quite as powerful magically. Whatever he is planning, it will likely take us all by surprise somehow. Family is all that is important to him- his family, in particular. He was raised to believe the Notts are simply better than anyone else, and that thus he is superior... but that it is impolitic to express that verbally."

"Unlike Malfoy."

The other sister nodded this time and picked up the explanation, "His family is also rumored to have engaged in demonology for several generations, though the last recorded 'expert' or even 'dabbler' in the art was his great-grandfather. It is suspected among many families that long-forgotten tomes and lore exist hidden somewhere within their ancestral home, and that it is through dark bargains that they gained their current status and power."

"Demons?" Harry couldn't help but feel a small wave of skepticism. While Lilith certainly fit the traditional image of a demonic Succubus, he did believe her when she said she wasn't. Then again, if her explanation of the planes and the way they worked was accurate... could he truly say that actual demons didn't exist?

I'll have to ask her myself, he decided.

"Rumors," Flora clarified, "nothing concrete. Infernalism- the art of contacting, summoning, and binding demonic entities for power- is a well-known way of securing said power, but it always comes at a high price. Always. Thus, not many would choose to do it. The risks are often too great."

"That makes sense. Alright. Anything else?" It also leant a certain amount of credence, if others knew of the practice enough to name it, that it was something that actually worked.

"On Nott, no, not yet. He kept to himself while actively attending the school, and largely stayed out of our internal House politics. Aside from trading a few sexual favors for help with homework- he was the top male of your year grades-wise in Slytherin- he never really treated with anyone, despite Malfoy's continued attempts to recruit him into his circle of sycophants."

Harry snorted, "Probably the smartest thing Malfoy ever tried to do, get someone stronger and smarter than him to be his friend."

"Draco Malfoy, for what it is worth, is actually quite powerful for a sixteen year old wizard," Hestia pointed out, "though that is diminished by his arrogance, which is overpowering. He is not as powerful as you, but he is quite above average as far as raw potential."

"Really?" Harry couldn't see it, but...

The sisters nodded together, before Hestia continued, "As far as Luna Lovegood, we know little. Several Ravenclaws have stolen from her over the years, but we understand you have already had words with their House over the matter. I believe a threat was made to level their entire Tower if the behavior continued."

Harry only grinned proudly.

"Her father, as you may know, runs The Quibbler periodical, which is primarily a source of tabloid-esque material. For those in the know, however, it is also a carefully encoded source of hidden information, such as the type we can provide. At least, on occasion."

Harry blinked. "R- Really?"

"Xenophilius Lovegood, her father, is widely considered a crackpot and lunatic, but we believe him to be exceedingly intelligent, if possibly a bit insane. There are those in the Wizarding World, Mr. Potter, that know better than to discount something simply because it looks strange on the surface. He frequently writes more truth than fiction, if you know how to read what he puts down.

"His daughter, on the other hand, has more stories about her than fact, as far as we can tell. There are rumors she is a Seer, able to see and read the future or possibly alternate future possibilities. Or perhaps she is simply delusional. We are... not sure. Whatever the case, she is known to speak of fanciful creatures no one else can see or hear."

"Nargles, and the like. I'm familiar."

"That being said, until last year, very few students could see the invisible creatures she claimed to see pulling the carriages at Hogwarts, either. We, Flora and I, have come to the conclusion that any judgment of the veracity of her creatures must wait until a more thorough study is done of the girl in question. We will now do that, at your request.

"It is also known that she leaves the castle at night semi-regularly, and ventures into at least the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest."

"I know about that," Harry waved them off, blushing a little despite himself, "Don't look too much into that."

While he had enjoyed his time with Alra the Alraune very much, and knew Luna did too, he didn't want the creature's existence or what it was doing with them to become public knowledge, either.

"Very well. Finally, Astoria Greengrass. We have heard, though we have no proof right now, that the family that Cursed hers was, ironically, the same Nott who first became famed for Infernalism, one Gandalfus Nott."

Harry's eyes narrowed, "What?"

"Yes, we agree," Hestia said with a scowl of her own, "it is most distasteful. The reason why he hated the Greengrasses enough to curse their lineage as it is rumored he did is, for the time being at least, lost to history, but his feelings were well-publicized at the time.

"She is the younger of two daughters, the only children of Cyrus and Ophelia Greengrass, and we know you are already intimately familiar with her older sister, Daphne."

For some reason, Harry blushed, but didn't deny it.

"Astoria Greengrass had, at one point, a minor crush on one Draco Malfoy. It is rumored that faded when she became infatuated with a Mr. Harry Potter, instead. She has a few friends in her year in our House, but no one of consequence, and those largely abandoned her when she and her family, starting with Daphne, openly sided with you."

"Anything I don't already know?"

"She wants to have sex with you."

Harry sighed, "I knew that, unfortunately. She's too young, and I promised Daphne I wouldn't."

Both twins lifted a single eyebrow. It was a little disconcerting, seeing two lifted ones frame two that were not. "And you are keeping your word? Strange. Most wizards we know of your age and... proclivities would not hesitate to claim the innocence of another girl."

"I do try to be a decent bloke."

"And sometimes you succeed," Hestia nodded placatingly.

Harry flushed again. The Carrow twins' humor was subtle, sarcastic, and more witty than he would have suspected, but exceptionally dry. Very... British, in other words, and despite his embarrassment at their words, he found himself smiling too.

"Anything else, Harry?"

Flora addressing him by his name made him blink, but he shook his head, "Er, no, thank you. That was... a lot, already."

"Our Dossiers will be delivered as we finish them, likely by Elf, to your private quarters. I expect if they are left too long Pansy or young Astoria might snoop, but they should be safe there, otherwise. Expect the first in two days, and then every two days beyond that."

"Right. Um, thank you."

As the twins stood, they shared another significant look, then faced him and bowed together, "You are sworn to protect us, are you not? We are only doing our part to assist our liege-lord."

"Lieg- what?"

The twins only grinned at him in their creepy way, then turned and left the room in strange lock-step.

"What... the fuck? Liege-lord? I'm no lord."

Yet they didn't answer, leaving him to question what they were getting at even more as he slowly forced his mind back to studying.

Glossary:

Cosmology:
I think I did a pretty good explaining it through Lilith, but if anyone has any questions let me know, I'm happy to answer them. I respond to pretty much all PMs and Reviews. The only reason I wouldn't respond is if A) you are a Guest (sign in!), or B) you are being an ass. You want me to treat you with some respect, toss some my way too. It isn't hard. My default IS treating others with respect, so... you know, I do respond to all I can. :)