I'm probably going to have to edit this chapter later because I tacked on 900 words at the last minute and then decided to make up worldbuilding that I'll have to keep consistent throughout the fic. Content warning for mentions of Harry's abusive upbringing and for the bomb threat at the end. Shadow Link in FSA is incredibly bomb-happy and this fic is set in a school, so it's a bit of an unfortunate overlap, but it's happening next chapter. I might have to raise the rating of this story to "T", but we'll see...

"Potter, about that boggart—"

"Malfoy, if you ask me why it was my uncle, I will thump you," Blue growled. He lifted his Potions textbook to back up the threat.

The blond raised his hands. "Touchy, aren't we? I was only going to tell you that rumors have been making their rounds," he said. "The most popular respectively claim that your relatives are trolls, you're much less brave than your reputation makes you sound, and your uncle has hurt you in a way that makes you fear him." He crossed his arms and huffed, "Only muggleborns and half-bloods are daft enough to entertain the last option, of course. Everyone knows that no parents or guardians would harm the child under their care—not even Muggles. Children are too rare and precious for that."

Blue smirked and put his textbook away. "Aww, you're adorable," he cooed. "When you aren't spouting off about 'Mudbloods' this and 'Muggles' that, anyway."

"Ha, very funny," Malfoy drawled. "And are you implying that the muggleborns and half-bloods of Hogwarts know something that I don't?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"But I've got connections! I know what they know!" Malfoy's miffed expression wouldn't have looked out-of-place on a toddler.

"If all your 'connections' have never set foot outside of Magical Britain, there's a whole world of things they—and you—don't know," Blue informed him. "That's not what I wanted to talk to you about, though."

The blond frowned. "You aren't backing out of the trip this Saturday, are you? We'll only get lost and stuck if we don't have you four with us, and I put a lot of work into—"

"No, no, the trip is still on," Blue assured him. "It's just that something was brought to our attention yesterday, during our session with Professor Lupin."

"What, that the man can't dress himself?" Malfoy wrinkled his nose. "Honestly, I've seen house elves with better taste."

"Malfoy, don't make me smack the pompousness out of you."

"Fine, tell me whatever you saw. Other than Lupin's rags and that intriguing boggart of yours, I mean."

"There's another Harry—one who isn't a part of the sword's curse," Blue began. "He's Vaati's minion. You've met him before; he set that huge Keese on us."

"I was wondering why that voice sounded so familiar," Malfoy said. "What does this extra Potter have to do with anything?"

"Yellow saw him spying on our class," Blue told him. "We have no way of knowing whether that's the first time Shadow Harry has done something like that, so there's no telling how many conversations he's been privy to."

Malfoy appeared only mildly perturbed. "While that may cause us difficulties, it's not like there was much sensitive information being thrown about during our discussions," he pointed out. "We don't trust each other enough to hand out secrets. Even during our quest-specific talks, there wasn't much for a spy to hear. I know how well you Potters think on your feet, so I calculated your 'wing it' factor into our plans."

"Meaning that we barely have any."

"You've managed to ruin the Dark Lord's plans at least twice. I'm not going to jinx myself by coming up with tactics you're only going to ignore."

Blue shrugged. "Eh, fair enough. I'd probably get the urge to foul things up out of spite, anyway."

His bluntness prompted an annoyed huff from the Slytherin. "How is it that Potter's most clever, devious side still manages to be stupidly honest?"

"A reputation for honesty is the best way to guard one's secrets."

"That is…actually a good idea," Malfoy said with slow realization. "I never even considered that." He regarded Blue appraisingly. "Does this mean Harry Potter, Golden Boy of Gryffindor, may have a potential scandal he's hiding?"

"Not the kind you'd like to take advantage of," Blue was quick to say. The blond had a crafty look on his face that set Blue's nerves on edge. "Certainly not like that Parseltongue debacle last year. If anything, it'd only get the magical public even more infatuated with me."

"Really? Then why not take advantage?"

"I never wanted to be famous." He, Harry Potter, had wanted to be loved, appreciated, or at least treated like a human being by his family, but he'd never wished to be idolized by anyone. "So, have you seen anything interesting since the last time we talked? Did your minions find any new secret areas?"

Malfoy grimaced. "Zabini did. He led his group into a nest of Skulltulas by mistake. One of them put a fang through Blaise's wrist, and he's still in the Hospital Wing from the venom. The stuff is as magic-proof as the blasted spiders themselves, apparently."

Though Blue didn't really know Blaise Zabini, he winced in sympathy. Skulltulas were armored, Acromantula-sized spiders whose venom caused partial paralysis and burning agony. They had begun appearing in some of the darker nooks and crannies of Hogwarts, dropping down from the ceiling to attack anyone who walked too close. So far, no one had been able to find a spell that didn't bounce off the spiders' hard shells. "Send him my best wishes," he told Malfoy.

"I will, once he's conscious." A small divot formed between his pale brows. "Do you think it's what we did that's been causing these new monsters to appear?"

"Going through those caves, you mean?" Blue stroked his chin thoughtfully. "It's possible. If Shadow Harry warned Vaati to take us more seriously after we beat his flaming bat, he may have decided to raise the level of danger at Hogwarts."

"Why not go all-out from the start?" Malfoy asked.

"He might have more limited magic than we think," Blue said. "If he were a god already, he wouldn't be bragging in my dreams about how he's going to become one, would he? He must have some kind of cap on his power, otherwise he would have turned this country into his kingdom by now."

"Hylian magic is immune to most any attempts to counter it, though. Not even the house elves can get through or break the wards, and their magic is some of the strongest there is. What could possibly be staying Vaati's hand?"

A fiery intensity entered Blue's eyes. "Excellent question," he said, a grin spreading across his face. His quick mind called up a list of books to read, sections of the library to look into, and plans to pry the Hylian Bestiary from Hermione's determined grasp.

"Potter, what are you smiling about?" Malfoy asked uneasily.

"Researching the weaknesses of ancient magic, of course! Why didn't I think of it before? I should have been looking into this all along!" Blue exclaimed. He clapped Malfoy on the shoulder and then dashed out of the trophy room to fetch a study partner.

Hearing a soft "fshoo!" of expelled air, Hermione swung the large book she'd been reading. The tome's hard cover connected with the rock that had been hurtling toward her and knocked the stone back the way it had come. The Octorok that had spat it squealed when the projectile smacked into its flank.

"That's what you get for attacking me," Hermione said as she watched the monster vanish in a puff of smoke. She opened the book she'd defended herself with to its last section of pages. "I'm sorry for that," she said to the yellowed leaves of parchment. "It's just that I've been shot so many times by those creatures that I've gotten a reflex for hitting back."

"This book is nigh indestructible, my dear. Don't worry about doing it harm," the woman within the Bestiary assured her. "Nice timing, by the way."

Hermione smiled at the compliment. "Thank you!"

"Now, as I was saying, Hylian magic isn't as easy as saying a spell and flicking your wand. It's something that's built up in layers and imbued upon an object. Most Hylian magic depends upon prior preparation and enchantment, rather than spur-of-the-moment spellcasting. It calls for instruments less multi-purpose than those your people favor," said Spirit, as the ghost had bid Hermione call her. "The most similar objects we had to what your culture uses are staffs and crystal balls, so I'd say we should start from there. Though a crystal ball is much easier to make, your distrust of Divination would make one of those rather useless to you, so I'd suggest enchanting a staff as your first project. A staff takes a high degree of magical power to create, but you have more than enough. A basic enchantment to create a spell-channeling stick similar to your wand shouldn't be too difficult."

Hermione added this to her "Spirit Notebook", which contained all the lore and knowledge she'd gathered from the helpful ghost so far. "Does the staff have to be made from the same wood as my wand?" the girl asked. "What do I do for its core?"

"The material of the handle doesn't matter. You could pick up a household broom and make it work if you wanted to," Spirit replied. "It's the crystal that makes the magic rod, my dear. And the hours you spend chanting over it, but the enchantments won't mean anything if you lay them on the wrong kind of rock."

"The crystal…" Hermione wrote this and circled it. "What kind of crystal?"

"Quartz is best for general spells, although it takes more power on the mage's end to make it work. As a general rule, Hylian magic gets stronger with greater specificity; the more different uses something is meant to have, the more the user has to burn their own magic to boost the power. Matching a certain rock to a certain field of spellcasting will make the staff itself pack more of a punch and take less energy out of you. The trade-off is that stones used for specific magics are rare and the spells one lays upon those crystals are complex, exhausting, and can take days of constant chanting to get right," wrote Spirit. "I'm not sure whether you'll come across these during your quest, but the Ice Rod and Fire Rod are excellent examples of focused magic at work. Each will only cast one type of spell, but they can work even for non-magical people because purposes imbued upon their stones are so narrow."

"Did your culture interpret stones the same way as mine? Rubies for fire, sapphires for water, et cetera?"

"I'm unsure. We didn't have the same names for stones as your people do, or even the same stones at all," Spirit answered. "With some, a connection between colors was enough to give a channeling crystal the ability to greater focus an enchantment's purpose. With others, such as Moon Pearls, the rocks had an inherent power that one had to work with, lest they explode in one's face." The scrolling blue cursive paused thoughtfully. "Actually, if you ever get a taste for Divination, I'd suggest asking one of your Hero friends to find a Moon Pearl for you. Bearers of the holy swords have historically had an association with such artifacts, and they're legendary for their use as crystal balls."

"Divination is pure rubbish, Spirit. You'd know that if you'd suffered through even one of Trelawney's so-called 'lessons'," Hermione sniffed. The mere thought of that bug-eyed woman's incense-choked classroom and the overdramatic fluttering of her spidery hands made Hermione's jaw clench and something unpleasant twist in her chest. Nothing irked her more than those who dispensed false information. Even Lockhart, as pretty and prolific a writer as he was, had earned a high space on her blacklist for his betrayal of the teaching profession (and his actions against her friends). "A staff is definitely best, so how do I make one? I'd like to start learning as soon as possible."

"First you need a smooth, straight stick at least as long as your forearm and thick enough to hold comfortably," Spirit began. "If you have the money and arm-strength, I'd suggest using metal instead of wood. As for the crystal—"

A nasal voice marked by an upper-class drawl assaulted Hermione's ears. "Granger. Fancy meeting you all the way out here."

Hermione squeaked in fright and snapped the Bestiary shut. The loud clap of its colliding pages startled several nearby birds into flight. Whipping her head around, she saw Malfoy standing a short distance from her rocky perch with Dog at his heels. Malfoy wore an amused sneer, while Dog gave her a goofy smile with his tongue lolling out.

"Er, good a-afternoon, Malfoy," she stammered. As she spoke, her hands fumbled to stow the Bestiary in her schoolbag. "I decided to go for a walk after Herbology, since it was my last class today. What brings you to the edge of the Forbidden Forest?"

"Curiosity." Malfoy peered around her. "Say, Granger, how did you take that book from the Gryffindor dorm? Not even Blue Potter could do that; he's whined to me about it before."

"I asked nicely," Hermione answered truthfully. "Have you ever tried it?"

The boy gave a haughty laugh. "A Malfoy doesn't need to."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Not needing to doesn't mean you shouldn't," she chided, though she knew he'd ignore any and all advice from a muggleborn out of spite. "If you're so curious, what did you want to speak to me about? I've made sure we're on different teams for the expedition tomorrow, you know—put it on the schedule and everything."

"It isn't that." He waved a hand. "I wanted to speak with you about the current rumor mill." His mouth twisted in an ugly way. "While I generally don't consort with…your lot, I've been made aware that my contacts might be missing some background information due to their upbringing. I was wondering if you could…illuminate some things." As an afterthought, he spat out, "Please."

Hermione's eyebrows lifted. Malfoy was coming to her, not to tease her about her teeth or her hair or her parentage, but for information? This was definitely new. And he was even trying, somewhat, to speak like a normal human being. It was rather pitiful, how much he was visibly struggling to be civil. He was trying, though, bless his wicked heart. "Alright, then," she said, deciding to humor him. "What needs illumination?"

"In the Muggle world, is it common for guardians to treat their children badly?" Draco asked with a note of hesitation. "There is a rumor that Potter has been mistreated by his guardians to the point of fear. Do Muggles have so little love for their heirs?"

Hermione sucked in a breath through her nose and pressed her lips together to hold back a retort. 'He was raised by followers of Voldemort. He doesn't know any better,' she reminded herself. The boy wasn't actively being mean, she could tell; he was just putting his foot in his mouth, like Harry said he had on the train in first year. She knew from experience what Malfoy actively being cruel was like. "Some people—not just Muggles, but magical people as well—were never meant to be parents or guardians. Unfortunately, a number of those people are parents or guardians," she explained. If any of her words managed to stick, then maybe the sheltered brat would learn something today. "Because Muggles are unable to do magic, they've applied themselves to studying the world around them instead. That's why they know more about things like child abuse than magical people. They look more closely at how things work than you do."

"And…Potter's 'Uncle Vernon' is one of these unfit guardians, as the rumors say?" Malfoy asked. "If so, why does Potter live with him? Wizarding families would start feuds to have the privilege of caring for the Boy Who Lived!"

"He lives with the Dursleys because they're his only family."

Malfoy gave her a withering look. "If you'd spent this past week paying attention instead of hiding from one of your precious few friends, you'd know Potter and I are relatives."

Had Hermione been drinking something, she would have choked on it. "You are Harry's relative?!" she spluttered. She briefly imagined Harry with slicked-back hair, neatly pressed robes, and shiny black shoes, one of the younger Malfoy's nasty smiles on his lips as Lucius Malfoy put a proud hand on his shoulder. "Oh my. That's…well, it's news," she awkwardly said in lieu of something far less polite. So long as Malfoy was trying, she'd do the same. "You aren't going to have your father file for custody, are you?"

The boy crossed his arms. "Once the corrupted wards around the school lift, I'm sending him an owl," he declared. With a smirk heavy with condescension, he asked, "What's it to you, Granger? Afraid I'll make a Slytherin of him?"

Hermione's internal panic allowed her to shake off his vile tone of voice. "No, I'm more concerned that Harry wouldn't take it well," she said with a worried frown. She would have liked to shout, "Harry would sooner die than live with Dark wizards!" but she kept those words locked up tight for now. "I'm not sure whether you know this, but your father gave Ginny Weasley a cursed book that tried to suck out her soul last year," she said instead. "Harry nearly died fighting the spirit in the book and its pet basilisk to save Ginny's life. He thinks your father is pure evil, Malfoy." Silently, she added, 'And so do the rest of us.'

To her satisfaction, the blond aristocrat visibly deflated, a look of surprise on his face. "He did what, now? I heard about the basilisk and the Weasel girl getting sick, but not about this."

"Remember at Flourish and Blotts last year, how your father and Mr. Weasley got into that awful row?" she asked. "Well, just after that, he slipped an old journal infused with terrible magic into Ginny's cauldron. It started possessing her and making her commit all those 'Heir of Slytherin' pranks and petrifications that Harry got blamed for." She gazed solemnly at Malfoy. "Your father tried to murder a first-year, and Harry's never going to get over that."

Though Malfoy was doing his best to appear unflappable, Hermione could tell the news had shaken him. "I'm sure Father had his reasons, if that story ever happened at all," the boy snapped, though his voice lacked its usual bite. He reached out to the side in a motion that didn't appear entirely conscious, and Dog moved his head under the boy's hand to let Malfoy pet him. "Well, then, I figure I've humored you long enough," he sniffed once he'd gotten his aura of aristocratic aloofness hitched back into place. "I'm off to find more proper company." He executed a smart turn and strode off toward the castle.

Dog didn't immediately follow him. He glanced at Hermione, rolled his eyes, and then gestured toward Malfoy's retreating back with his nose.

Hermione was puzzled by the dog's (or Crup's?) oddly intelligent behavior, but took it in stride. After all, what she'd read about Crups in the Monster Book of Monsters hadn't specified how smart the magical breed was, so Dog might have been quasi-sapient for all she knew. She flashed him a sympathetic smile. "You should have seen him last year," she told Dog in a low voice. "He was the most awful brat I'd ever met. If he were acting like that right now, I'd have hexed him. It's sad that this is an improvement, but it really is."

The dog snorted at this and shook his head. With a canine grin toward Hermione, he loped after his owner.

Hermione watched Malfoy and his pet go, her mood sinking into a mire of worry as she went over the unusually civil conversation she'd just had with her former schoolyard enemy.

She honestly hadn't thought much of Harry's boggart while she'd been caught up with avoiding Blue and learning from Spirit. While she'd been concerned when Yellow had frozen for a moment when facing down his illusory uncle, she hadn't been too shocked to see his greatest fear was an angry relative. Though she hadn't faced the boggart herself, she knew her greatest fear was failure—not just academic, but any sort of failure to succeed. She would have seen her parents, furious and brandishing disownment papers, or maybe Professor McGonagall giving her a Snape-like sneer as she handed back a viciously marked-up essay bearing a red "T" at the top. Indeed, knowing (or at least assuming) that Harry's fear was similar to her own had been a little reassuring.

Now it seemed she might have jumped to the wrong conclusion. Like many loved children, she had believed that Harry had also grown up with people who loved him, or at least took proper care of him. She had noticed the friction between him and his relatives and brushed it off as nothing too out-of-the-ordinary. After all, who would ever mistreat such a good-hearted, selfless boy?

Harry's own relatives, apparently—or at least his uncle.

Her memory, nearly flawless and ever-helpful, called up mental images of everything she'd seen and ignored that had probably been a warning sign. Harry's unusually small stature, the faint but shiny scars around his hands, the visibility of his bones beneath his skin...Oh, she was so oblivious! Clearly, having the highest grades in her year meant nothing when it came to intelligence.

"I need to find a teacher!" Hermione declared, hopping to her feet. She needed to run and tell Professor McGonagall her suspicions right away. Being a Head of House, the professor could surely do something to help Harry.

Shadow Harry hung in the shade cast by the wizard who bore his curse. He'd been meaning to follow up on that, and now that he was busy finding excuses to put off his boss's latest orders, he was happy to do so. The wizard had taken the curse pretty well, all things considered. Sure, that was partly because Shadow Harry had made him forget he'd ever been human, but he honestly seemed happier and more well-fed than he'd been when he'd wandered into Vaati's first construction project. He was lucky Shadow Harry had just cursed him and locked him up for the Heroes to find rather than kill him like Vaati had ordered.

Shadow Harry frowned grimly despite the peaceful scene of relaxing children around him. Vaati had ordered him to kill anyone that entered his patchwork dungeons if the monsters and traps didn't prove to be enough. And then he'd ordered Shadow Harry to place monsters and traps outside those dungeons to kill anyone that strayed too close to the entrances. And then he'd ordered Shadow Harry to just kill everyone.

That last order was why Shadow Harry was currently pretending to be a dog's silhouette, watching two young mages mutually fail at a simple strategy board-game. Something had happened to Vaati in the eons he'd spent locked away this time. He'd discovered a new kind of magic that had let him weaken his prison and bring it to a place where someone was more likely to open it, but all that power had infected him with something dark. He'd been more playful before. Working under him had actually used to be fun! Certainly more fun than Ganon's dour idea of what a conquered kingdom should look like. Shadow Harry fondly remembered the chaos he'd been able to wreak in the Village of the Blue Maiden. Those had been the good old days, tricking children and making them cry. It was certainly better than slaughtering them en-masse.

That was what he had just been commanded to do, though—slaughter children (and a handful of adults) en-masse. Not zap them into the realm of shadows or teleport them all to random parts of the country, both of which would get them out of the way and create plenty of entertaining suffering. Vaati wanted every occupant of this castle (soon to be Vaati's castle) gone forever. The dark sorcerer wanted them put to death for the crime of living in the place he intended to turn into the seat of his kingdom.

Where was the whimsy? Where was the creativity? He was Vaati the Wind Mage, not Vaati the Merciless! Not even Ganon went for flat-out massacres; he went for the mass starvation approach instead.

Shadow Harry didn't know what to do. His boss had dropped this order on his head and flitted off to scout for places to bring into his new kingdom. Shadow Harry had no idea where the dark mage went to do this, other than "vaguely in Hyrule." Wherever he'd gone, Vaati was occupied enough that he wasn't monitoring Shadow Harry's thoughts for the time being, which gave the spirit some room to ruminate.

Did he want to kill all the oddly round-eared, powerfully magical Hylians occupying the castle? No. He didn't even need to think about that one. Shadow Harry was a dark spirit of Hyrule, and as a spirit tied to the denizens of that kingdom, it went against his purpose to go around murdering them willy-nilly. The souls of Hyrule were his to terrorize, not to send into early graves. If Vaati weren't so obsessed with his building projects, he would have remembered that fact about his servant.

But what could the shadow do? He couldn't just ignore an order. That would mean being sent back to his slumber, and Shadow Harry wasn't going to give up even a second of walking the mortal plane. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep since the last time he'd been called upon—and the fact that Vaati wouldn't let him leave the castle grounds was making it hard to get his bearings—so every moment he got to stay awake was precious.

Hmm…how could he make a genuine effort to massacre the children while not actually massacring the children? Was that even something in his wheelhouse? His main skills lay in causing widespread suffering and fighting duels to the death against whichever unlucky Hylian bore the Spirit of Courage. As such, his repertoire consisted of turning people into shadows, skillfully wielding whatever blade his mortal reflection was using, summoning up amusing magical artifacts from previous Heroes' adventures, and using a fun little noisemaker he'd come up with to antagonize Death Mountain and mess with the last Four Swords Hero…

Oh, right, there was another Four Swords Hero! And if he threw his exploding toys around, it would certainly look like he was making an effort to follow orders. But secretly, he'd just be getting revenge against his boss for being no fun and forcing Shadow Harry to babysit ugly caves all the time!

Shadow Harry cackled evilly, making several nearby students jump and look around, and teleported out of the room. He had some bombs to make.

I don't recall it being specified whether Draco knew the precise details of what his father did to Ginny in Book 2. If it was mentioned and I forgot...let's just pretend that Lucius never said what happened because he was embarrassed by both his failure and being tricked by a twelve-year-old thereafter.

If any of you haven't played Four Swords Adventures, just know that Shadow Link is an absolute gremlin who thrives on making everyone else's day worse in that game, and that's what my headcanon for Shadow Harry is based on. In my story, he likes causing problems on purpose, but not the kinds of problems that drastically lower the number of people whose days he can make worse. I'm going to say up front that I don't plan on killing the children; I'll break their bones, give them stab wounds and inflict them with trauma, but I stop short of murder.