Haruhi felt slightly smug upon finding out she could combine her persona into new ones, even if she refused to do that to Nightmare. It made her codename rather perfect, considering Loki was a shapeshifter.

"You know I almost wish he didn't confess..."

"Why?" asked Ryuji oddly.

"Because then I could keep tormenting him," admitted Haruhi. "Oh well...at least I still have that prick who filed that false assault charge on me."

"Remind me never to piss you off to that extent."

"Trust me, I have a long fuse. It would take something pretty bad to piss me off to that extent. Minor things don't bother me, but betrayal and the crap Kamoshida and the principal are pulling? That gets on my short fuse list pretty damn quick," said Haruhi.

"So...what do we do with the treasure?"

"Sell it. No way am I keeping that thing. If anyone asks my uncle died and I'm getting rid of it because he was an ass," said Haruhi without hesitation.

It took them less than five minutes, and Haruhi was mildly surprised that she didn't have to use her trust fund to pay for the celebratory lunch.

Morgana made a point to talk to Ryuji and Takamaki.

"Make sure that Haruhi's plate stays full," said Morgana.

"Why?"

"I happened to overhear the doctor say that Haruhi is at least twenty pounds underweight for someone their age. Haruhi will eat anything on their plate, but I've never seen them refill it themselves," said Morgana.

Neither teen noticed the fact Morgana used gender-neutral pronouns when referring to Haruhi.

"So keep his plate filled, right? Didn't Haruhi say something about trying to recreate some of the food we're going to eat?" said Ryuji.

"Yeah, after offering to buy lunch."

"I say we keep the plate filled with stuff we like here so he can try and make it later," said Ryuji.

Takamaki blinked, before nodding with a grin. That sounded like a fun plan.

If Haruhi noticed they kept sharing the foods they liked with her, she said nothing. She was too busy enjoying it herself. In order to not arouse suspicion (and to keep her minor prank going on a bit longer) she made sure to go to the bathroom by herself.

It was on her way back that she ran into a familiar face.

It was that jackass who gave her that false assault charge on her record. She knew it was him from the magic on him.

The way he sneered at her only annoyed her.

Well, she had been looking for a new long-term target to vent on. Futaba was good with computers, and this might give her a fun project to play around with.

Actually...she had the perfect way to piss him off for the rest of the day if she got lucky.

When she came back she found Takamaki being harassed by a well figured woman who had bumped into her friend.

Well, she knew how to solve that.

A few minutes later...

Takamaki was in awe of Haruhi. He not only diffused the situation and shut up the complete hag who bumped into her, but she made the other adults far more wary of him in the process.

"That was seriously wicked," said Ryuji in appreciation.

Haruhi looked very much like she wanted to cackle when that jackass brushed past them with his friends and stole their elevator.

"Talk about a jerk," said Ryuji.

Haruhi muttered what sounded like unflattering things under her breath...it was too low for him to catch. She hid a dark, almost evil smirk when she felt the Black magic take effect.

"Just forget about him. We can catch a different elevator anyway," said Haruhi. She easily directed her new friends to the one next to it.

"What the hell was that?!" said Ryuji horrified, staring in the direction of the elevator they just missed.

"Sounds like a minor malfunction," said Haruhi easily.

More like a minor bit of Black magic at work. If there was one thing the Blacks were experts at payback...and electronics were so finicky around magic. That jackass was going to be stuck in the elevator for the rest of the day and deal with the fear of the thing failing completely and possibly falling to his death.

Make him feel mortal for once.

Haruhi patiently waited for the check-in with Futaba's handler. Considering the nature of their arrangement, Futaba was required to do regular exams to prove Haruhi was actually teaching her magic like they agreed.

Futaba hugged Haruhi tightly when she came in.

"I passed, flying colors!" said Futaba.

"That's great!" said Haruhi.

"The proctors said I scored the highest out of any self-study they've ever seen. I told them I had a really great tutor," said Futaba.

"Well I'm glad you did so well," said Haruhi. "Of course that means you can't slack off, but I had a fun idea for a project you could play around with regarding your computer skills."

"Fun project?" said Futaba.

Haruhi outlined what she had in mind. Rather than be worried about the legalities, Futaba was more interested in the subtle harassment Haruhi was planning on her unfortunate victim.

"You can count on me Onee-chan!" said Futaba grinning wickedly. She knew Haruhi would never drag her into anything too dangerous, and the most that Haruhi's prank would cause was a major inconvenience.

Haruhi's plan was surprisingly simple and it would be nearly impossible for anyone to detect it unless they knew what to look for.

She wanted Futaba to hack into the phones of people surrounding the man who put the false assault charge on her name. Sure, it was an assumed identity for her protection and to avoid anyone tracking her down with her real name, but it pissed her off that an adult thought he could get away with it because of his political connections and money.

Which was why she was going to be a pain in the ass using round-about methods that would be impossible to trace back to her.

The politician had lackeys and most muggles carried smart phones these days. It was literally child's play for Futaba to set a virus to their phones that made it so certain things would have a habit of regularly failing them and making them late to important meetings.

Things like traffic lights and signals for instance. Best of all, it wouldn't be on the jackass' phone, so he was unlikely to ever figure out what was going on.

Whenever he and his lackeys were driving to the same location and were within range of a traffic light or other signal, the light would be triggered in short order to insure they would have to wait at least twenty minutes before it would change. Annoying, but nothing that would cause them death or injury. It would also cause elevators to malfunction for five minutes, much like the Black curse she had inflicted on him at that restaurant a few days ago. He had spent twelve long hours for maintenance and the fire department to get him and his cronies out of that elevator, because it kept dropping just enough to make it impossible to get them through the main doors and the firemen wouldn't risk their men to try the emergency hatch because every time they did it dropped further. And trying to get them through the doors caused the elevator to drop an extra floor in such a way that they wouldn't be able to escape.

It was only when they finally dropped to the ground level that they were able to get out.

Best of all there was no evidence of an elevator malfunction or a computer error. They were stuck in a terrifying ride that left quite the impression on the bald jackass.

Haruhi had a rather terrifying smile on her face thinking about it. From what she heard, the man opted for the staircase after the incident.

"Still, are you sure you want to mess with the elevator codes too?" asked Futaba.

"Making it drop a floor without any warning when they go past a certain number isn't going to kill them. Just give them a good scare after I trapped them in another elevator for being so rude," said Haruhi. "Besides, how many people would be working on floors that have the number four in Japan considering how superstitious people are about a number?"

It had taken her two weeks to find out why no one used the number four in certain places in Japan. She honestly had no idea that the word 'four' in Japanese could sometimes be mistaken for the word 'death'.

"Still, I don't feel good about the elevator virus."

"I just want you to tie that to the jackass' phone. Eventually he'll figure it out anyway, so he might not catch on to the stop light hack."

"Oh, so you want a short-term one. That I can do!" chirped Futaba.

Haruhi wanted to cackle wickedly at the headaches they were about to cause. That jackass already had a rather nasty karma curse attached to him that would cause all sorts of minor inconveniences befall him on a regular basis depending on his actions.

From the way he was looking at the restaurant, she would have to say his life had become very miserable indeed. She had to wonder what else he had done, or was doing now, for the magic to feel that active on him. It should have worn off by now.

Haruhi's deeply unimpressed expression must have made it obvious how little she cared about the customer's popularity.

"Not a fan of me, I take it?"

"You do realize that once you aren't a teenager anymore that odds are the media will lose interest in you, right? I mean it's not like you're an actual cop," she said blithely. Her tone made it clear she could care less he was in the media often.

"That's a rather odd view of things," said the older woman.

"The media only cares about selling sensationalism. They don't really give a damn about personal tragedies or privacy so long as they can make money off selling the story," said Haruhi bluntly. "They would happily ruin someone's reputation for their own advancement, regardless of whether the story they were telling had any actual facts or not."

"Sadly, I have to agree with that particular train of thought," agreed the woman. Sae, if detective pretty boy was right. "All too often things can get out of hand because the media decides to put their own spin on things."

"Which is why the only publication I will ever read that occasionally does relevant news articles happens to focus mostly on cryptids," said Haruhi.

"Cryptids?" repeated Akechi.

"Animals not well known to science that often border on potentially mythology in origin. Like ki-lin or dragons," said Haruhi.

"What sort of publication?" asked Sae. Mostly out of polite interest.

"The Quibbler. It's a primarily British magazine but I know for a fact Luna's cousins have been branching out to international markets. Only a select few are able to get a subscription though," said Haruhi. And by 'select few' she meant those with magic. It was specially charmed to look like something far more mundane when in the presence of those without it.

"Sounds interesting," said Akechi. Haruhi could tell from his expression he could care less.

Then Akechi noticed the chess set nearby. Haruhi was vindictively pleased that she was able to trounce him at the game every time. Ron was a harder opponent than detective pretty boy.

"You really called him 'detective pretty boy'?" asked Ryuji amused.

"Let's face it, the only reason the media likes him is because he's young and good looking, and happens to provide a reason to be at otherwise boring crime scenes," said Haruhi flatly. "I bet you anything the real detectives on the police force hate him for the most part because he's a civilian who's drawing attention from real police work and is far too young to be a real cop. And if he did join up, then he'd likely get an ego about being famous when he was younger."

She had seen the same mentality in the older Aurors. Yes, they were grateful she killed that brat Riddle off for them but she could sense the resentment at the amount of ass-kissing the higher ups were doing around her and the implied fact she would become an auror.

No real cop would appreciate a younger, less trained rookie getting the promotions they worked themselves to the bone for over the course of many years simply because they were well connected or popular. It made them feel unappreciated and that the newcomer was 'uppity', to say the least.

Hence why Haruhi had been quick to beg off the idea of joining the Auror academy straight out of Hogwarts. Not only did she still need to pass her exams, but she was quick to claim that she wanted the 'dust' to settle first before she started the process. Give everyone a chance to settle into a new normal with the war over at last and to give them time to grieve without her presence drawing unwanted attention to what they were doing.

"Did you really call him that to his face though?" asked Takamaki amused.

"Hell yes," said Haruhi without a second's hesitation. "Don't get me wrong, I respect the police but I can't stand the media or their need to cause a feeding frenzy just so they can get a story that will make some quick cash. Do you know how many personal tragedies they've exploited and lives they've ruined to further their own careers?"

"Don't bring up the media around you, got it," said Ryuji, half-joking. He honestly had no idea how vehement Haruhi could get about the subject.

"On an unrelated subject, does anyone else get the feeling we're being stalked?" asked Morgana.

"You noticed him too? He hasn't been triggering any of the usual warnings I get for anything too dangerous, so I've been ignoring him."

"Wait...him?" said Ryuji, staring at her. "You mean you know who's stalking you and you're letting them?"

"I have a sixth sense for dangerous situations that might kill me. Whoever is following me has relatively benign intentions and is therefor harmless," said Haruhi dismissively.

Never mind the fact she was a witch and therefor far more dangerous than someone who appeared to be a complete civilian.

There was no proper way to describe the look of shock, disbelief and outright confusion on her face when the perfectly random stranger walked up to her and asked her to model for him. Most annoying of all, Ryuji was quick enough to catch her expression on camera.

'I hate Potter luck.'