A/N: Happy New Year! I'm back on my bullshit :) The baby is doing well, the toddler is doing fine, and I am managing enough sleep to not completely lose my mind. :')
You all were so nice to me. Like, unconditionally, unquestionably supportive. I was so touched. I read about authors getting hassled by entitled readers or whatever, and I got none of that. Everyone was so kind. One incredibly kind reader even sent me premie clothes for my daughter. I was seriously so blown away by the support and love that I cried. You all are the best T_T ❤︎
When the Shadows reconvened two weeks later, responses seemed mixed. Millie wasn't able to make it; her father had dragged her to Saint Mungo's to have tests run on her. Harry at least seemed cheerful, but Tracey and Pansy returned with blank faces, refusing to discuss anything until the meeting officially started, making Hermione antsy.
"Is this your prophecy board?" Tracey asked, glancing at Luna. "Is there more string?"
"It's in the drawer to your left," Luna said helpfully.
"This looks like a crazy person made it," Pansy said flatly, coming over to look at the board. "Was that the goal?"
"It wasn't not the goal," Hermione admitted, amused. "We modeled it after serial killer boards from muggle media."
Pansy paused. "…serial killer?"
"Someone who murders many people in a row," Harry said. "Generally, they seem to do it for fun."
Pansy looked sickened. "That's horrible."
When Susan and Blaise finally arrived, Hermione was quick to assemble everyone around a large round wooden table and call the meeting to order, anxious to hear what success people had found.
"Neville seemed tentatively receptive," Harry volunteered, providing his update first. "He seems to trust Dumbledore, but he also resents that he didn't provide adequate protection to his parents in the first place. I'll continue to hint and prod at him, but I think he'll come over to our side over time."
"I've got nothing," Susan sighed. "Hannah doesn't trust covens, nor does most of my house. Anyone I so much as casually mentioned Dumbledore's faults to defended him immediately."
"Draco's on board," Blaise said, his tone weary. "He's very on board, as a matter of fact. He was extremely eager to know when the next meeting was and what he could do to help."
Luna laughed, but she merely shook her head in the negative when Hermione asked her how recruiting had gone.
Last, Hermione turned to Tracey and Pansy, who were looking carefully reserved.
"And you two?" Hermione asked finally. "Spit it out."
Tracey and Pansy exchanged a look.
"So we've found candidates," Tracey began diplomatically. "There are definitely people who are willing to join up—"
"—but we've found other candidates as well," Pansy said. "Ones who are interested in joining for… other reasons."
Hermione stared at them, not getting it, and Tracey sighed.
"We trust everyone here entirely, right?" she said. At Hermione's nod, Tracey said, "Right, then. We found candidates who want to join up with the Valkyrie who led the attack on Azkaban."
Susan snorted. "How would that help us?"
Harry picked up on it quicker, turning to stare at Hermione.
"That was you?" he asked, astonished. "You eliminated all the dementors?"
Hermione winced, and Harry stood up in excitement.
"That's incredible! How did you manage it? How did you even get there? I didn't know you knew Fiendfyre! Is it really hard to cast? Can you teach us—"
"You're behind Azkaban?" Susan asked Hermione, eyes wide. "You're the Valkyrie?"
Hermione bit her lip and nodded. "Please don't tell your aunt."
Susan exhaled slowly but nodded.
"I can't believe you did that," Susan said, voice hushed. "You're fourteen."
"I can't believe you didn't tell us," Blaise drawled, looking at his fingernails. "We're your coven. You're supposed to trust us."
"I do trust you all," Hermione snapped. "But it wasn't coven-related, and keeping you all in the dark gave you plausible deniability as to the whole thing if anyone came looking. I was trying to protect you all."
"Because we can't keep as secret?" Blaise scoffed, but Harry was nodding.
"No, that was smart," he said. He grinned sheepishly. "If I had known and someone came and asked me… occlumency barriers or not, I'm not great at lying, and they would have known something was up."
Blaise muttered something about impossible Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, while Hermione looked back to Tracey.
"So you found people who aren't willing to join up with us, but are willing to support the Valkyrie," she said, raising her eyebrows.
"To be fair," Pansy said, "we didn't quite pitch them on you, specifically. We were more poking around to find out what people thought about a third side."
"You'd be surprised at the number of people who want to throw in behind an unknown witch," Tracey said, shaking her head. "Though, I guess the attack on Azkaban was an incredible show of power."
"But this is what it comes down to," Pansy said, looking around at them all. "These people want to support the Valkyrie because they view her as a leader. Some of them see her as a new Dark Lady, one more powerful than the Dark Lord, who never managed to successfully attack Azkaban himself; and some of them because they've got family in Azkaban whose lives are immeasurably better now that the dementors are gone." She looked at Hermione directly, meeting her eyes. "Do you want followers like that? Or do you not?"
The question hung heavily in the air. Hermione stared at Pansy, who merely raised an eyebrow.
"I don't know," Hermione admitted. "I have no idea what to think."
The table sat in silence for a moment, thinking.
"So we'd essentially be taking on people who want to support what they think is a Dark witch," Harry said heavily. "People who would choose Voldemort as the alternative, instead of Dumbledore."
"A third option should be free to everyone," Susan protested, but it was a weak protest.
"It'd be better to have them fight for us instead of against us," Luna pointed out, and Blaise snorted.
"Sure," he said. "But how much do you think they could be trusted?"
Hermione gnawed on her lip.
"We planned for this, kind of, didn't we?" she voiced. "The umbra, the penumbra, and the anteumbra. If we recruited people like this, we'd keep them in the outer ring, the least aware of everything going on."
"They'd still be on our side," Harry said, making a face. "Bunch of Dark witches and wizards in the making."
"In case you're still unaware, Potter, Hermione is a Dark witch," Pansy snapped. "How do you think she exterminated the dementors?"
"That was a good thing!" Harry objected. "Dementors are evil – killing them couldn't be Dark—"
"No, it was," Hermione cut in with a sigh. "I thought the same thing. But there are some spells – Dark spells – that really do require a Dark emotion to trigger them. Fiendfyre is one of them – you have to be able to tap in to a ruthless, bloody part of yourself that wants to execrate someone from the face of the earth. I might have done a good thing with the spell, but there's no denying that it's a Dark spell itself."
Harry's eyes were wide.
"Did… did I help you with this?" he breathed. "Back when you—I helped you with your Sith thing and told you about—"
"Yes, you did," Hermione said, quirking her lips. "Thanks for that, by the way."
Harry sat back, stunned. Tracey looked annoyed.
"Look. Do you want them or not?" Tracey wanted to know. "Because if not, that's fine. But if you do, we're going to have to plan some display of power or something – they're not going to follow a teenager without proof that you're the one who annihilated the dementors of Azkaban."
"I don't know!" Hermione groaned. She tugged on her hair, trying to think, but there was just so much to consider here. How many people did she really want knowing the true identity of the Valkyrie?
"We could use this," Blaise said slowly. Hermione turned to look at him, and he quickly continued. "No, really! Consider – they don't have to know it's you. You'd just be the Gnomon to them. Or the Valkyrie. The Death Eaters didn't know Voldemort was Tom Riddle – they only knew his assumed name."
"No-man?" Tracey repeated, confused.
"Gnomon. Thing on a sundial that makes the shadows," Luna explained to Tracey and Pansy. "It was the best title for the leader we could come up with." She grinned. "If it sounds like 'no-man', so much the better."
"If I show myself to them in a grand display of power, they're going to know it's me," Hermione said dryly, but Blaise was shaking his head.
"Will they?" he said. "They'd recognize you if you went as Hermione Granger, sure. But if you went as the Valkyrie – dragon hide boots, black body armor, your hair crackling with flames, dark, dramatic eyes—"
"In other words, in your best Bellatrix Black costume," Pansy said, rolling her eyes.
"—and they're not likely to recognize you," Blaise finished. "You behave differently in different circumstances. Standing atop a dais, with Tom behind you, as you cast Fiendfyre over a crowd – who would dare think you're only fourteen? And if they did figure out it was you, who would ever believe them?"
Hermione bit her lip.
"…it does sound really cool when you put it like that," Harry admitted grudgingly. "We could all wear robes that hide our faces. And make people take some sort of oath to not betray us."
"Did we ever decide on a symbol?" Susan asked. "I don't remember. It was so long ago."
"We didn't," Luna reminded them. "We'd had various ideas; a silhouette, a shadow, an eclipse, but we didn't decide on anything."
"Well, how detailed do we want the imagery?" Pansy asked practically. "If you want something simple, that's easy enough, but the Dark Mark was fairly detailed. The Dark Lord had to make a specific spell to cast it into the air, it was so complicated."
"Are we going to cast our symbol over things?" Susan asked uneasily.
"No," said Hermione. "That was Voldemort's thing. We'd need to establish our own trademark."
"So what I'm hearing," Tracey drawled, tossing her hair, "is that yes, we want the followers, but not until you get all the orders of secrecy and symbology in order."
Hermione looked around at the others.
"Any objections?" she asked.
Luna was smiling, Blaise was rolling his eyes, and Harry and Susan were giving slow nods.
"Right," Hermione said decisively. "Then… I guess we need to work all this out sooner rather than later, right? So we can get on with the recruiting."
"I thought you were in the middle of contract negotiations for the Daily Prophet," Blaise protested. "Is switching your focus—"
"The goblins are negotiating for me," Hermione cut in. "I wanted to stay anonymous, and Bloodthorne seems to enjoy it. So I can focus on this."
"We should invite Draco, then," Pansy said decisively. "I think he should be in the inner circle. And he can draw really well."
"And you should go get Tom, Hermione," Harry added. "He helped us brainstorm last time."
Pansy gave Harry an odd look, but Hermione nodded.
"Everyone meet back her in an hour?" she suggested. "Harry and Susan, can you grab us lunch from somewhere? While Blaise and Pansy go and convince Draco?"
Everyone agreed, and they all took a break.
"Everyone, meet Tom," Hermione said, gesturing. "Tom, meet Pansy, Tracey, and Draco."
"A pleasure," Tom purred, bowing slightly to the room.
Tracey's eyes were wide, while Pansy and Draco just nodded back, looking confused.
"Tom is also part of the umbra," Hermione said, "the inner circle of The Shadows. He is here to help us plan."
"And we are planning the symbol for The Shadows?" Draco said, his voice eager. "Blaise said that this is like a third faction for the upcoming war, right? So we need something intimidating and awesome—"
"We need something to represent us well," Hermione corrected. "But yes, something awesome would help."
"What are you going to do with your symbol?" Tom inquired, raising an eyebrow. "You don't seem the type to brand everyone like Voldemort."
Hermione winced. "No."
Tom sighed. "Pity."
Draco stared at Tom.
"Is that something the Dark Lord did?" he asked. "He branded people?"
"He did," Tom drawled. "They each had the Dark Mark branded onto their left forearm as part of the initiation ceremony."
Draco looked at Hermione, astonished.
"Why are there so many Death Eaters free, then?" he asked. "If the Dark Lord literally marked them—"
"The Ministry doesn't know about the Dark Mark, as far as I'm aware," Hermione said mildly. "When the first few Death Eaters they tried to interrogate were consumed by Dark magic right in front of the Aurors, they stopped questioning them. And unless they strip-searched the Death Eaters themselves, how would they know?"
"The Dark Mark was designed to work as a beacon as well," Tom said. "When Voldemort pressed his hand to the Dark Mark of any Death Eater, the mark would burn on the arms of the others, and they could use their mark to Apparate to the correct location."
"That's very advanced magic," Draco said, eyes wide.
"Of course it is," Blaise snapped. "You're talking about the Dark Lord. Did you think he wasn't good at magic?"
"No!" Draco protested. "I just always presumed – you know, battle magic. Not multi-layered Dark charms and stuff…"
Hermione was doodling on a piece of paper, thinking.
"What did Dumbledore do with his group?" she asked Susan, and Susan scrunched up her face.
"This is going to sound stupid, but I don't think they really had a symbol," she said. "I think they just used Patronuses to communicate with each other, which told people where to physically Apparate to as needed."
"That seems obnoxious," Harry said. "Those are great gleaming silver creatures. Not very sneaky at all."
"Have you known Dumbledore to ever do 'subtle'?" Draco sneered, and Harry grinned sheepishly.
"Fair point," he admitted.
"So not Patronuses, and not evil magic tattoos," Blaise quipped. "What's left?"
"Most of us are too young to Apparate still," Pansy pointed out. "Realistically, we'd need Portkeys."
Hermione considered.
"Portkeys sound reasonable," she said slowly. "I'm a bit hesitant – the House Elves say they tug on your magic and not to trust them – but it would certainly help work around the Apparation problem."
Pansy scoffed. "Who cares what House Elves say?"
Hermione ignored her. "Portkeys are a physical thing. So we'd need a locus of some sort."
"We could just use a pendant?" Tracey suggested. "People could just wear it on their neck so it's always there. Maybe it would help them recognize each other in the wild, too."
"Guys don't wear necklaces," Draco scoffed.
"Do they wear artifacts of power?" Pansy snapped back. "If they're that self-conscious, they can keep it in their pocket. Keep up, Draco."
Luna hummed.
"Arguably, the eclipse is the coolest symbol," she said. "But that's hard to draw, isn't it? You need the ring and everything around it to indicate what's going on."
"I can draw an eclipse," Draco said, immediately taking a pencil to parchment. "It's not that hard to draw."
"It would be hard to make into a physical thing, though, wouldn't it?" Susan sighed. "Unless you have little flares to represent the sun that poke out when it's activated or something, it's always just going to look like a circle."
Hermione suddenly had an idea.
"Okay, but what if we could make the necklace look like an eclipse?" she said. "We have a sun on one side, and a moon on the other. We could enchant the moon side to show the phases of the moon or something. But the sun side, we enchant to go dark when the person is being summoned, and we put fire opals in the border of the pendant that makes it start to glow, too. Then, it would legitimately look like an eclipse!"
Everyone turned to stare at her.
"Hermione," Pansy said patiently. "You're entering your fourth year."
"So?" Hermione said defensively.
"I think Pansy is trying to say that none of us know magic that advanced," Tracey said quickly. "Charming jewelry and objects like that, as well as making them into a Portkey – that's extremely advanced magic. 7th year N.E.W.T. level material."
Hermione was undeterred. "But if we could pull it off, it would be extremely awesome, though, right?"
"Yes," Harry said immediately, grinning. He looked at Tom. "You're… what, in your sixth year?"
"Autumn semester of sixth year, yes," Tom said, raising an eyebrow. "Are you asking if I know magic advanced enough to pull this off?"
"Do you?" Harry wanted to know.
"Partially," Tom admitted. "I know part of the charming – to make it reflect the moon phase, to make it change when activated. Portkeys, though, I don't, nor how to link them all to a central locus."
"But the Dark Marks all linked up," Susan protested.
"I don't know how to make the Dark Mark," Tom said, gritting his teeth. "I just know what was planned."
"We could recruit someone in the Portkey office and get them to do it for us," Blaise suggested.
"They're already swamped with World Cup Portkeys and the Moon-keys for the werewolves," Hermione sighed. "No, we'll have to do it ourselves."
"Can Portkeys be tracked?" Pansy asked, raising an eyebrow. "I know there are authorized and unauthorized Portkeys. Are only the authorized ones tracked, or could someone track an unauthorized one if they got ahold of it?"
Hermione blinked. "I… don't know."
"Then that's one more thing to figure out," Susan sighed. "This is sounding more complicated than it's worth."
"Come on!" Hermione protested. "Just because something's hard doesn't mean to give up on it! And we're not in any hurry, are we?"
Pansy and Tracey exchanged a glance.
"Depends when you want to do a grand display of your power," Tracey said diplomatically.
"And if you want to do this right," Pansy said, folding her arms, "you'd do it on August 1st."
"On Lammas?" Hermione asked, frowning. "I thought that was on the 31st this year."
"Fine, the night of the 31st to the 1st, then," Pansy said, rolling her eyes. "Merlin."
"My birthday?" Harry asked. He grinned slowly. "So we could have a party, and then go be mysterious shadows in the night?"
"You'd be up for that?" Blaise asked, and Harry laughed.
"I'm a Gryffindor," Harry reminded him, grinning. "Having crazy adventures and doing insane things is what we do."
"That's a little ways away," Hermione said, thinking. "It's summer, so it's not like I have classes to get in my way. Let me see what I can do."
"In the meantime," Tracey said, grinning as she pulled a piece of parchment over to her, "the rest of us can work out what kind of oath we're going to require."
