Tamsyn turned the key in the lock, pushed the door open to sweep into the room beyond — her arms spread in an overdone welcoming gesture, waving around the parlour. "Welcome to my humble home. Such as it is. Go ahead and click the light on, would you, just there."
Walking in after her at a rather more sedate pace, Barty fixed her with a bemused sort of look. Partially over the house, she could tell, but mostly just because he wasn't used to her yet — she was not very much like how he'd imagined Melanion in his youth, to put it mildly. Barty reached over to the lightswitch with his free hand, without any hesitation, showing more familiarity with the mechanism than she'd honestly expected. His eyes flicked up to the light fixture in the centre of the room — very plain, just pale frosted glass covering the glare of the bulbs — frowned with a flicker of surprise. "Electricity?"
"Yes, I thought it was best to keep the house wired, to reduce suspicion. So the power company won't notice us going dark and get curious, you see. Though removing the electrics would have taken far more work in any case. Go on, close the door and let him out — don't worry about the windows, I already carved attention-diverting enchantments into them." Which meant it was now illegal to resell this house, without at least first replacing the window frames, but it wasn't as though she planned to do that any time soon anyway. There was no reason this couldn't be her private home for years to come — though it would need some work, of course...
Still gazing sceptically around the bare room — Tamsyn hadn't taken the time to decorate, there wasn't even any furniture in here — Barty reached back to push the door closed. Then he bent to set down the bag slung over his shoulder, drew open the zipper. Barty didn't actively lift the automaton Melanion was bound to out of the bag, though he did hold one hand within easy reach, but far enough away for Melanion to ignore it if he preferred — he didn't, a tiny, finely-carved wooden hand reaching up to grip the edge of Barty's palm, the enchanted doll lifting itself up with a flashing of soulfire along the inset runes and a clicking of its joints. Gingerly stepping out of the folds of the bag — Barty had done excellent work on the automaton, but Melanion wasn't yet entirely accustomed to his new temporary form, still a little clumsy — Melanion glanced around the empty little room, practically glowing with uncertain disdain to Tamsyn's senses.
At least, she assumed Melanion was glancing around — the doll hadn't any facial features whatsoever, so it was kind of hard to tell. She wasn't sure how exactly his sight worked, honestly, perhaps Barty had included an enchantment for that...
"Your reasoning against an extended stay at the Manor was sound, but I hadn't realised you intended to move us into muggle accommodations."
Tamsyn shrugged. "It's the same principle: the best way to avoid being found is to be where no one would think to look. Even should rumour reach the Ministry that you are actively scheming within the country, it would never occur to them to search council housing on the outskirts of Manchester."
A flicker of surprise, Melanion's head turning up toward her. "You managed to secure council housing?" He was hardly an expert on such things, but he was aware there was paperwork involved, proof of British citizenship and financial need and the like — he was assuming wrong about the former, since obviously immigrant labour brought in from the Empire would also need somewhere to live, but he was correct in the general idea.
"Excuse me, former council housing. It's my understanding that this house was built in the Thirties, as part of one of the early public housing projects executed in the interwar years—" She'd been looking at solely detached homes, but apparently some of the projects done that early had been, before the population density in the cities had really kicked up after the Second World War. "—but it was sold off into private hands in the Eighties. Housing in Britain is quickly going to shite, in fact, that's going to become a serious problem in a decade or two — I suppose that's another thing we have the Iron Lady to thank for," a trace of mocking sarcasm slipped into the nickname.
There was a brief pause, as Melanion seemingly attempted to place the epithet. "Ah, the Prime Minister — Thatcher, was it."
"She stepped down a few years ago now, but yes. You should take some time to read up on muggle history at some point, the current political situation is...dire, you could say dire. The neoliberal turn is a fucking travesty, I can't imagine how many millions of people are going to die. The Soviet Union doesn't even exist anymore, you know."
There was a pulse of exasperation, though Tamsyn wasn't certain what for. "That is no great loss — the leadership has been infected with liberal sentiment since at least Krushchev."
Tamsyn shrugged — that came off unnecessarily dismissive, but he was technically correct. "I suspect the millions of people all around the world caught up in unnecessary civil wars or literally dying of starvation would feel differently, but I suppose this is hardly the time for that discussion. I'll track down some literature for you on neoliberalism to help catch you up on recent events, remind me if I forget. Anyway, let me show you around, the kitchen's back here..."
It was a rather small, humble house. Quite sturdy, yes — brick and plaster, dating to a time before the ubiquitous use of cheaper but rather flimsier modern materials — and decently modernised over the decades since its construction. The kitchen was fine enough, though Tamsyn would have preferred proper stone or ceramic tiling in place of the linoleum, but she had no complaints about the appliances or the like. She was vaguely curious about the microwave, this was only the second one of the things she'd ever seen in person, they hadn't existed yet in her time. She still thought heating food with focused radio waves was bloody ridiculous — honestly, the obsession people had had with radiation for a bit there... — but she couldn't deny they were terribly convenient.
(Corey's parents had luckily written off Tamsyn's fiddling with the first one she'd come across, when Corey had brought her home to introduce them, as ignorance due to a magical upbringing. Though there had been some funny questions, since they'd come to assume white mages were generally muggleborns. That might well be true where they lived, but Tamsyn's cover story was that she was from the magical country of Massachusetts — and the majority there were descendants of early European colonists, or else muggles who'd sent their kids hundreds or even thousands of miles to Salem rather than have their precious white babies educated by Indians, perish the thought. Of course, few of them saw any problem with forcing muggle native children into the absolutely genocidal residential school system, but she couldn't expect Americans to not be racist hypocrites. Even Corey had his moments, and he'd been living with the Anishinābēg for half of his life, by this point...)
The bathroom was honestly way more modern and nice (if a little cramped) than she'd expected, especially given how old the bones of the house were — she assumed the previous owner must have redone it only within the last few years. The bedrooms were on the second floor. If she recalled correctly, the Act of Parliament which had authorised this batch of public housing had required at least three bedrooms — this house had four, each quite small but tolerable. Tamsyn hadn't had time to fix up the whole house, but she had gotten basic furnishings for three of the bedrooms, beds and drawers and desks and the like. One of them already had her things in it, Melanion and Barty could go ahead and take the other two. (Melanion didn't need a bed in his current form, of course, but she assumed he wanted one of the rooms anyway.) And the fourth room, she'd converted into a workshop.
There wasn't a lot in here at the moment, a brewing station — the counter doubled as a physical alchemy focus, pay attention to the spell patterns on the surface — some cabinets with supplies. A separate desk was set up for enchanting, various tools hung on the walls or stuck into drawers, some protective finishers, varnish and enamel. Barty nodded in approval (seemingly by reflex) at the work lamp and magnifying lens, complete with an adjustable stand to immobilise objects for fine work. She'd thought he would appreciate that. She'd even gotten a remote carving set — an enchanted device that could be used to scale incisions down smaller than could be done by hand, used in extremely dense runework, like modern wands — but she didn't know how much use they'd get out of that, she'd just seen it and thought it was neat.
Of course, the workshop was magically isolated, she'd carved the wards herself — they could do whatever they liked in here without affecting the electronics in the rest of the house. Though don't worry too much about using magic elsewhere, she hadn't purchased any especially sensitive equipment — she wouldn't bother getting a television, for example — the critical parts of the microwave were surprisingly well-shielded (as an unintended consequence of the mechanism by which the radiation was produced and focused), and it turned out repair charms worked on lightbulbs just fine. Yes, she'd been quite surprised too (she hadn't entirely believed Liz when she'd said as much), so long as an electronic device wasn't powered one could cast magic directly on it with few detrimental effects. If the density grew high enough to saturate the materials, it was very possible it could begin generating a weak magical field of its own, with possibly explosive consequences, but even that didn't do any permanent harm so long as it was neutralised before being reconnected to a power source. So, casting magic in the rest of the house might be tedious, forcing them to regularly repair things, but if any of them slipped it wouldn't be the end of the world.
"Where did you get the gold for all this?" Barty asked, idly poking at the enchanting workstation. "Some of this equipment is quite expensive, and I know practically nothing about the muggle economy, but I assume the house cost a pretty penny."
Housing costs were pretty similar on either side of the divide, once adjusted for how much money people could be expected to have to hand — so long as the densest urban enclaves were excluded, anyway, the limited available space drove up costs considerably. Old Town was ludicrously expensive, and Charing was pretty bad too, though it grew more reasonable the further one went from Diagon Alley. (Though even in Knockturn properties were all held by noble families or various business concerns, both legitimate and criminal — the impoverished locals mostly secured housing as a condition of employment, even in the slums the cost too high for them to simply buy or rent.) But, since Tamsyn didn't legally exist in the muggle world (and her legitimacy on the magical side wouldn't hold up to a concerted investigation by Massachusetts authorities), it was reasonable to wonder how she'd managed to get all this. "Oh, I stole it."
Barty gave her a double-take, while Melanion let out a low, rumbling chuckle — vastly out of proportion with the size of his form, that was always mildly surprising. After a moment to recover, Barty drawled, "And stealing what must be hundreds of galleons is avoiding notice, is it?"
Thousands of galleons, but who's counting? "No one's going to notice. I realise you don't know much about the muggle economy, but these days their financial institutions have essentially adopted outright fraud as their primary business model. In order to discover my 'investments' are illegitimate, the United States government would need to subpoena some of the largest banks in the country — and they're taking far too many bribes for that prospect to be appealing." Of course, she'd set up the assets she was drawing from by wandering around Wall Street, tracking down people with the right knowledge and connections and compelling them to give her what she wanted, but nobody was going to find out about that, either. "I've been telling people I reinvested a considerable inheritance from my grandfather, and have been living off of the proceeds. Nobody will be able to uncover the lie without a depth of investigation they simply won't bother with." Also, she actually did have legitimate investments she could point to — and had copied enough knowledge from her facilitators to at least convince a layman — so it would stand up to a casual check without any issues. What would need an extended investigation to find was the source of the wealth in those accounts, which was the problematic part, but American courts, bribes, and so forth. "The previous owner of the house was a bit taken aback when I offered to pay in cash, but in the end they were pleased not to have to bother dealing with the banks and realtors and whatever else — we're clean, you have my word."
Barty was still sceptical, but Melanion mostly seemed amused. Impressed, yes, but unsurprised — she was clever, but of course she was, she was him, and he was nothing if not confident in his own abilities — but the thought of funding their efforts with money stolen from American bankers and stock traders tickled him. Which, to be fair, she thought it was funny too, she had targeted them for a reason. "What volume of wealth do we have to work with?"
"At present? I believe I have roughly three-quarters of a million dollars sitting around — I'm not certain what that would be in galleons, though I imagine it's at least a couple thousand." Barty's eyebrows jumped up his forehead, his mind crackling with shock. "A quick hop across the pond, and I'm certain I could get two or three million more, but much more than that and the institutions I'm drawing from might begin to notice. I don't doubt I can get us enough money to get this operation going, however much that ends up being. Remember to give me a couple days' warning if a big purchase is coming up, so I can move things around — my accounts are in America, after all, getting it over here takes a little bit of finagling."
"Well done, Tamsyn. I'm impressed."
"Thank you, Father, I do my best." She was trying to get accustomed to using the word — it wasn't difficult to remember, but it did feel a little odd. After all, she'd never had one of those.
From there, Tamsyn left them to get settled in. It wasn't as though they had much to unpack — Barty had left his sire's house for the first time in a decade with little but the clothes on his back, and Melanion hardly needed much in his current state — but Barty did have some supplies shrunk in that bag of his, and she assumed he'd be less self-conscious without her hovering. Swinging by her room to pick up her notebook, she went down to get a pot of tea on. She sat at the kitchen table while waiting for the water to boil, eyes skimming over her notes, pen idly tapping at the wood.
This plan did have a fair few moving parts, a rigid deadline, and only two of them to execute it — three including Melanion, but they had to be very careful involving him in an active role. And it wasn't just their resurrection plot they had to work with — which was complicated enough on its own to be getting on with, honestly — but Tamsyn also needed to quickly finish off her Mastery (at minimum a year earlier than expected) and establish herself in Britain, preferably by next summer, and her as-of-yet somewhat preliminary plan to insert herself into the Order of the Phoenix (and also assassinate Dumbledore) had the best chance of success if she began the opening moves as soon as possible. They hardly had the manpower to execute the resurrection plan as it was, and that without Tamsyn hopping back and forth across an ocean to keep up appearances back in America and begin her approach with Dumbledore. Honestly, she had no idea how Melanion had thought he and Barty alone would have been able to execute his plan — Barty was very talented, of course, but it was not a one-man job.
Melanion had been quite stubborn about using Liz for the ritual, and exploiting the Triwizard Tournament to acquire her. While Tamsyn did see the logic of using Liz, infiltrating the Tournament was not going to be a simple matter — unfortunately for them, getting their hands on Liz through any other means was likely all but impossible. Barty had quickly discovered that Liz was covered by some kind of anti-tracking spells, coming across the problem when he'd ordered his elf to track her down, and Winky had quickly returned, very confused, because it felt to her as though Elizabeth Potter didn't exist at all. (Melanion assumed that was Dumbledore's work, but Tamsyn personally suspected Snape — Dumbledore never had had much respect for proper witchcraft.) It wasn't a secret that Liz was living in Caoimhe's Refuge these days, but that didn't make her any more available to them. The wards on her house there were excellent — Barty claimed he could maybe get through them, but it would take long enough that he would certainly be discovered before he could manage it — and it wasn't as though she had a public schedule, so they hadn't the opportunity to snatch her off the street. The exception had been the duelling tournament over the summer, but they hadn't been anywhere close to prepared at the time. (They still weren't now, it'd take months of preparation at least before they could conduct the ritual.) Perhaps the winter tournament would be a better bet...if it weren't being hosted by Lithuania this year — after their experience in the Revolution, the Lithuanians were very serious about security. They might be able to get close enough to grab her, but getting Liz out of Kaunas would be...difficult.
Barty had actually followed Liz, once, while she'd been shopping for groceries — he'd been tipped off by Winky, who'd been keeping an eye on the house in her spare time. Testing her protection, he'd managed to get pretty close...though she'd been accompanied by Sirius Black, who happened to be one of the best fighters the Order had, so he hadn't even thought of trying to approach her. Also, forcibly side-alonging a struggling mind mage was extremely difficult, and portkeys could be tracked...and the market was always being watched by Saoirse Ghaelach, and if the Girl Who Lived were abducted out of their city they would certainly pull out all the stops to get her back, if only to prevent worsening relations with the central government...which meant they'd bring in the priests, who would definitely be able to punch through any wards the three of them could put up to stop anyone from finding where they had Liz. If they could do the ritual immediately, that might not be so much of a problem, but at this point they'd need to hold Liz for months — mind mages were infamously difficult to hold prisoner to begin with, even without worrying about the Ministry and the entirety of the major Gaelic priesthoods unified in an effort to free her. Yeah, suffice to say, making a grab for her before she left for school was not going to work. And Tamsyn didn't like their chances of abducting her from there, either. On a visit to Hogsmeade, maybe, but...
As much as she didn't like the plan to subvert the Triwizard Tournament, honestly she wasn't certain there was any better way to capture Liz. Which was one of the reasons Tamsyn had suggested someone else — unfortunately, Melanion couldn't be dissuaded. So, the needlessly complicated plan it was, then.
So, the plan. She'd already talked with her instructors about accelerating her graduation — it would take some exhausting work on her part, but she should be able to finish her Mastery by May. Establishing herself in Britain wouldn't be a problem, she'd just get Dumbledore to call in a favour with one of his people in the Ministry. Speaking of Dumbledore, she already planned to 'bump into' him at the Ministry during one of his visits to the DLE, poking his nose into the proceedings surrounding the riot at the World Cup — she couldn't plan out much further than that, it was a very slow, long-term sort of scheme.
The difficult work would have been establishing her identity, solid enough to hold up to at least a casual check, but she'd already done that before applying to Chimiwāsikāning. Now she simply had to fool Dumbledore into believing she was the product of an indiscretion between Melanion and an American woman, and that she'd heard rumours her incredibly dangerous biological father was clawing his way back to life, and had felt compelled to travel to Europe and check it out for herself. Given Dumbledore's particular biases, she didn't expect at least piquing his curiosity would pose any problem at all.
The current scheme to secure Liz for the ritual looked something like this:
1. Infiltrate staff — B
— replace junior professor, defence charms runes? Cambrian or history
— duplicate task designs, discuss
The original plan had been for Barty to replace Alastor Moody, who had been brought in to teach Defence as a favour to Dumbledore — before he'd been sacked, of course, though the Board had decided to retain Moody's appointment. The theory was that the curse would only affect the head of the Defence department, the junior professors should be fine, so Moody had signed a one-year contract for the senior position (which should prevent the curse from affecting him either), and would use his time in the post to attempt to break the curse, and also conduct an audit of the current state of Defence education at Hogwarts (to determine whether the OWL and NEWT examinations should be delayed while they were caught up). He wouldn't be teaching much, only as necessary to evaluate the students' readiness, his focus elsewhere. He would also act as the head of security in Hogsmeade during the Tournament, supervising the various officials the Ministry would be posting in the Valley for the duration.
Obviously, expecting Barty to portray Moody in that particular context without drawing any suspicion to himself was absolutely insane. Maybe he would have been able to pull it off before the recent reforms at the school — though Tamsyn was sceptical, multiple members of the staff were personally familiar with him (he and Dumbledore were even former lovers, he would definitely notice anything amiss) — but with his adjusted role, no, that was a terrible idea. Luckily, the Board was hiring several junior professors, to help accommodate the increased student population, and there was no reason Barty couldn't pick one of these new arrivals who best appealed to his own temperament and talents. Runes was his strongest subject, obviously, but Cambrian or History might be a better bet, if only to reduce attention on him. If he intended to ingratiate himself with Liz to better guide her through the Tournament, Runes might be better, since it was one of Liz's favourite subjects and might well have some use, but Tamsyn recommended playing it safe, nudging her toward a victory from a distance instead of taking a more direct approach — Liz was an empathic mind mage, Barty would have to be very careful to not lie in her presence. Barty had managed to get a list of the new professors from Senior, he was working on it.
2. goblet of fire — ̶B̶
— small window, high security, tap inside kw — T
—-— lucius
— subvert goblet to select LP — M
—-— smuggle through security (‼ stitch anti-scrying into bag ‼)
—-— if LM shaky, possession, prep with proj dt
The original plan had been for Barty to access the Goblet and alter it somehow to select Liz himself, but that had always been risky, and the Ministry's closer eye on security since the riot at the World Cup would make it far more difficult. But they didn't doubt that Lucius Malfoy would be able to talk his way through no problem — or grease a few palms, Tamsyn guessed, but that shouldn't even be necessary. The Goblet would only be awake for three days and nights, but it would activate while still in the Ministry — Beauxbatons, who'd held the Goblet since the previous attempt to revive the Tournament, had already handed it off earlier in the summer — so Lucius would simply need to get them into wherever it was being stored in the meanwhile. Of the three of them, Tamsyn had spoken with him most recently (as a book, but still), and would most easily be able to approach him without raising suspicion, so that would be her job. Barty hadn't been entirely confident of his ability to influence the consciousness bound to the Goblet as required, but it would also be easier to sneak Melanion through security, so that was the new plan.
Tamsyn was uncertain whether Lucius would cooperate, but if it came down to it he could be forced to do so. She would rather they not harm Andy's grandson if they could help it — yes, yes, call her sentimental, she didn't care — but his body could be temporarily vacated by slipping him a projection draught, Melanion could easily pilot him into the Ministry and finish his work in that window. It would require copying some memories from him, so Melanion could believably imitate his personality for anyone he came across, but it shouldn't be a problem.
3. Subvert tournament — B
That was going to be complicated, and they couldn't make concrete plans until after they knew what the Tasks were going to be — and they weren't going to know that until Barty wormed his way into the staff. Tamsyn recommended caution, giving Liz an advantage by slipping her hints and sabotaging the other contestants with hexes or potions. With the added security on the Valley, they couldn't do much more than that, had to be subtle. Which might not be enough for Liz to win, of course, but Melanion had agreed that so long as the victor obviously and publicly defeated Liz, that was just as good. You see, if one of the other contestants kicked Liz's arse, and then Melanion captured them, then he had still demonstrated his superiority over his supposed vanquisher, through the transitive property of arse-kicking.
(She'd used that exact phrase talking about it with them — Barty had failed to suppress a laugh.)
4. Prepare ritual
— starshine high volume, purchase, diffuse
—-— goblins?
— unicorn blood, purchase
—-— illegal volume, knockturn, AY?
— phoenix ash? ‼ cleansing ‼ source hm — B
— prepare ground, wards — M
— M reach and contamination, I'll need to brew catalyst
Melanion was still tinkering with the catalyst, in its exact proportions and preparation, but the major components wouldn't change between now and then — and the volume they would need for some of those components was absurd. Most of them wouldn't be too much of a problem to procure, but the starshine and unicorn blood were going to be a problem. They could process starshine themselves, but not in the volume they needed in the time they had. They would have to buy it — the problem was, no producer was likely to have that much on hand, and even if they did buying that much all at once would definitely raise suspicions. (Starshine itself was mostly harmless, but needing that much power for anything always raised eyebrows.) They would need to spread it out over multiple merchants, it was going to take some months to get all of it. Tamsyn had the thought of buying directly from the goblins, jumping around to multiple enclaves to get enough — goblins had, in fact, brought starshine with them from their homeworld, though Tamsyn wasn't certain what they used it for — which would cut down the time necessary to, likely, a couple weeks. They could knock that down even further if they could recruit a few old Knights to help, they'd see how it went.
The unicorn blood was a little more difficult — it was almost impossible to gather the stuff for commercial purposes without getting yourself cursed, so very, very few apothecaries sold any at all. And the volume they needed was far above the legal maximum for a sale, so they couldn't go through legitimate merchants anyway. (And unlike starshine, unicorn blood was a controlled substance, so they couldn't simply spread it out over multiple merchants.) Barty had suggested they contract Arianna Yaxley, which sounded like their best shot at getting enough within their time limit.
Adding phoenix ash to the concoction had been Tamsyn's idea. There was the symbolism of rebirth, of course, but the purifying qualities of the ash would also strip the unicorn blood of any remnants of the curse invited by gathering it in the first place — Tamsyn assumed Melanion didn't want a curse like that integrated into his new body, so, they should probably do something about that. Between the starshine, the unicorn blood, and the phoenix ash, Melanion's attunement would likely be yanked toward neutrality, or maybe even tinted light, but he could always re-attune himself at his convenience, that shouldn't be a problem. It shouldn't be difficult to get the phoenix ash either: it wasn't something that was generally sold at apothecaries (not illegal, just rare), but luckily there was a phoenix living at Hogwarts, Tamsyn was certain Barty could swipe some during a visit to the Headmaster's office. They only needed a few ounces, shouldn't be difficult.
5. Recruitment, arrange hq — T
— ̶m̶a̶l̶f̶o̶y̶?̶ too visible
—-— also awkward, narcissa angry with me
— reclaim irish estate? flaitheartas not raven's
— bulstrode? open space, build new hall
—-— politics, to the good? discuss with M
—-— gently, still unstable, against rebellion?
— ̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶t̶ ̶l̶e̶s̶t̶r̶a̶n̶g̶e̶ sucking off llewellyn
— ̶j̶u̶g̶s̶o̶n̶ ̶s̶n̶y̶d̶e̶ too small
— ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶t̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶l̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶k̶e̶e̶p̶?̶ ̶v̶e̶n̶g̶e̶a̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶l̶l̶s̶?̶
—-— B can't crack family wards without bella
— wilkes?
— selwyn? Caegelyn is ideal, unlikely
— prince?
Of course, one of the downsides of not being an actual noble house was that it could be rather difficult to lead a major military campaign without a convenient manor to use as a headquarters. In his first attempt at taking over the country, Melanion had used multiple staging grounds, but most of them now were either occupied by the Ministry or unavailable for other reasons. The Yaxleys were under hostile leadership as of just recently, and the Malfoys' political prominence, as well as the relocation of their vassals closer to the heart of the family, meant that returning to the Manor was inadvisable. Also, Tamsyn and Lucius had secured Narcissa's cooperation with the Chamber of Secrets plot with the promise that no children would be permanently harmed — Lucius hadn't been aware of her true plans, so he might manage to worm his way back into her good graces, but Tamsyn wasn't going to be so lucky. She suspected Narcissa would not be a hospitable hostess, to put it mildly.
(Religious conviction in one's followers could be so terribly inconvenient at times.)
The best location they could hope for was the old castle at Caegelyn, the birthplace of Salazar Slytherin himself. (The presently existing structure post-dated Slytherin by centuries, but it was the same location, at any rate.) The property had passed to the Selwyns at some point in the intervening centuries — Tamsyn wasn't certain how that'd happened, but it hardly mattered — and the Selwyns were reasonably sympathetic to the cause...but Tamsyn seriously doubted the Selwyns would let Melanion set up shop there, doubly so since the current Lord had decided to use it as his primary residence. It was possible, but Tamsyn wouldn't bet on it. Another good symbolic choice would be to reclaim the old Gaunt estate in Ireland — Tamsyn had never been, but the property was quite large, and there were more than enough accommodations to house as many wands as they liked, and even extensive grounds that might be more comfortable for non-human allies. The Flaitheartas, the current residents (and very distant cousins), were a wealthy clan, but they didn't have enough fighters to stop the Knights from taking it — also, they weren't involved in the priesthoods, and weren't one of the clans closely associated with the Morrigan, so they'd be able to do so without the risk of getting dozens and dozens of priests and the fucking Queen of Nightmares on their arses. So, certainly doable.
But that would be a hell of a way to announce their return, and Melanion was hoping for a year or two of anonymity to rebuild their strength. Worth thinking about in the long term, though — the quasi-royal family they intended to start would need a home eventually.
Personally, Tamsyn liked the Bulstrodes', both for practical and political reasons. The Bulstrodes held sizeable lands somewhere in the Chiltern Hills — hidden under wards like many magical areas, though a confused muggle hiker would occasionally stumble through and need to be guided back out — a mix of agricultural land, dotted with tiny modest villages (mostly vassals), and dense old forest, home to multiple clans of wilderfolk. Tamsyn had heard rumours there were nymphs as well, but if so the Bulstrodes had failed to report their presence to the Ministry — given the legal status of nymphs in modern Britain, she found she couldn't blame them for that. She'd never visited the property, and neither had Melanion, but Barty claimed the Bulstrodes had a guest hall they could borrow, and there were plenty of unused areas where they could build their own hall, should the Bulstrodes consent to hosting them. The location was convenient, near London and only a short jaunt from Anglesey, while also standing between the Continent and most of the rest of the country — it would be easy to sever the floo connections along any invasion corridor on a moment's notice, in the (unlikely) event of an intervention from the ICW. The Bulstrodes also produced enough food to feed the Knights in addition to themselves should it prove necessary, in theory they could survive a siege indefinitely.
And partnering with the Bulstrodes would be a good look for the change in political direction Tamsyn was planning. (Only some of which she'd already discussed with Melanion, waiting for an opportune moment — i.e., after her scheme to subvert his resurrection had further improved his sanity — to approach him with the rest.) The original intent of the Voldemort scheme had been to discredit, and physically annihilate as thoroughly as possible, the segments of British society who would be most likely to escalate tensions with muggle governments in the immediate aftermath of the failure of Secrecy; it hadn't worked, for multiple reasons — Melanion's ritual-induced descent into madness hadn't been the only failure point, though it certainly hadn't helped — which necessitated a change of strategy. Though, it did present a hell of an opportunity, in a way: the continued loyalty of a fair number of the worst offenders in the nobility had already been secured by various means, or could be coerced through the Mark, so they could tailor their approach to appeal to other segments of society who would otherwise oppose them.
This had been the plan, originally, though it'd required multiple stages — 'Voldemort' would draw the worst of the pureblood supremacists to himself, taint the ideology through a campaign of terror; and then he would lose, taking as many of his followers down with him as possible; there would then be a second movement in the aftermath, a popular one more in tune with the interests of the commons, lead by the original Tamsyn under another identity (which Melanion had already begun establishing before he'd lost his mind and abandoned the plan); this movement would ultimately wrest control of the country away from the Wizengamot, and begin the reforms necessary to prepare Britain for the dissolution of Secrecy. The new plan, whether Melanion realised it or not, was to instead use 'Voldemort''s influence in the upper echelons of society to subvert the existing machinery of the state to their ends, their rhetoric and programme this time geared not to appeal to the worst of the racists among the mages, but to appeal to the commons, to prevent a revolt from below even as they forced the nobility to comply, by force if necessary.
It would be a delicate balancing act, Tamsyn would admit, but she was all but certain it was possible. Depending on their luck, it could easily spiral into open civil war, which could quickly become very, very messy — but in the right circumstances, even that could play into their hands. Even a crumbling Britain would certainly stand a better chance of preventing a disastrous war with the muggles than the status quo, so it was a gamble Tamsyn would take. Thankfully, Tamsyn had managed to remind Melanion what the whole bloody point of this venture was supposed to be, so she'd have some cooperation from him, but she still thought it best to hold off on the more extreme changes to the programme until after his resurrection.
And aligning themselves with the Bulstrodes would be a decent way to signal those changes to all and sundry. For all that the character of Melanion had been designed to draw the worst of the purebloods to him, they'd ended up attracting far less objectionable people as well. Tamsyn had been surprised, being told of their progress first by Melanion and later Bella or Abraxas or Lucius, how successful the movement was proving among a subset of commoners, though she truly shouldn't have been. There was, perhaps, a degree of characteristic muggleborn ignorance to blame. Tamsyn's primary exposure to magical Britain had been at Hogwarts, most of the mages she'd met from among the nobility — it seems she'd both under- and over-estimated how representative her peers were of the country at large. In particular, she'd assumed the post-Statute, neo-Roman cults collectively referred to as mos maiorum were an affectation of the nobility. It did seem a very...aristocratic religion to her, felt exclusionary and self-aggrandising in a way she couldn't quite put words to.
That impression hadn't been wrong, precisely — many of the practices particular to the nobility were, indeed, quite exclusionary and self-aggrandising — but what she'd seen of these cults wasn't necessarily representative of the religion in general. One of the things about magical society that still hadn't been quite intuitive to her was just how decentralised their religions could be — Tamsyn was accustomed to Christianity, with its centralised doctrinal authorities, but things here didn't work like that. Each cult, a small community of individuals sharing the same practices, might venerate their own gods, or radically differing interpretations of gods shared by other cults, similar stories but reframed from a different angle, their convictions and beliefs and rituals sometimes with shared elements, but in the details were often completely unrecognisable. Mos maiorum, it seemed, wasn't a single religion, but a family of similar religions — the cults the commons participated in might share some elements with those of the nobility, but they were not the same thing.
And Melanion's rhetoric about reclaiming deeper magic, embracing the more volatile forms of witchcraft that had been incrementally banned by the Ministry — designed to appeal to the sentiments of certain segments of the nobility, while also laying the groundwork for their second movement — had been far more appealing to the commons than Tamsyn had expected. Though she felt like a fucking idiot in retrospect: wands were expensive, many poor people simply couldn't afford them, of course they would respond well to a religious and social movement that valourised magics that didn't require one. The culture of the commons, especially the poorer segments, could be very witchcraft-focused, often with a spiritual character to it, which Tamsyn, her introduction to magic in the far more academic and at times even scientific environment of Hogwarts, had been completely ignorant of. In fact, the loosening of laws concerning the practice of witchcraft was more popular in the commons than the nobility, by a significant margin, which she wouldn't have expected before being told of the reaction to Melanion's early rhetoric.
Of course, as the movement went on, pulling in more and more extreme pureblood supremacists from the nobility, it'd developed a more obvious racist character that was offensive to the commons — they didn't tend to police each other's pedigree the way nobles did, so were sometimes uncertain of what their own blood status even was (and definitely didn't give a damn), and the poorer of them frequently lived alongside nonhumans, particularly wilderfolk and goblins and nymphs (and werewolves), so were more likely to react negatively to screeds against people who might well be among their friends and neighbours. True, Melanion himself had never spoken negatively of nonhumans — only muggles and muggleborns, especially the aspects of the modern culture that mages often found offensive — but the people he'd surrounded himself with had, gradually turning the more progressive elements of his own movement against him. This hadn't been a bad thing, necessarily, as these malcontents in particular could have been easily drawn into the second movement, but they'd never gotten that far.
But, those elements of the first movement could be harnessed now — and the easiest way to do that would be to simply align themselves with the Bulstrodes. The Bulstrodes had been drawn to the movement mostly for religious reasons, their politics had always been peculiarly out of step with the rest of the Knights — Tamsyn could make a joke about social democrats enabling fascists, but that was quite beside the point — so bringing them closer into the inner circle, and doing so openly, would suggest an adjustment of their priorities toward the commons, without even needing to say anything about it. They would say things about it, of course, but with the reputation the Bulstrodes had in magical Britain, just being seen with them would speak volumes all by itself.
Tamsyn frowned to herself, her pen tapping idly at her notebook. Of course, to begin to form this alliance with the Bulstrodes, they would have to approach them, preferably before the resurrection — and that was going to be a problem. Approaching any of the Knights, or other potential allies, was going to be difficult. Melanion was too vulnerable in his current state to manage any such meetings himself — his automaton could only channel so much magic without causing serious damage, and all it would take was a lucky hit with a fire charm and they'd be back at square one. Barty was known to the Knights, yes, but he'd been very young by '81, thought to be little more than Melanion and Bella's pet project, so was hardly in a position to be taken seriously by his former comrades. Also, he was supposed to be dead — it wasn't out of the question that anyone he might approach would suspect a trick, or a trap by the Aurors.
And, of course, most of them had no idea Tamsyn even existed. Those who'd interacted with her while still bound to the book were very few — of those, only the Malfoys were currently accessible to them. It would be a simple matter to convince Lucius of her identity, but... She might have to rely on Lucius to manage introductions, which was not a position she wanted to be in, for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, she didn't see any alternative strategies available to them.
...Perhaps she could approach the Bulstrodes as herself, under her cover story, and only once she'd ingratiated herself admit that she was in contact with Melanion. The other Knights they might convince to host their future headquarters, she might have trouble getting them to take her seriously, but the Bulstrodes might be curious enough about an American girl claiming to be Melanion's daughter to let her get a foot in the door. Hmm...
Lost in her thoughts, she didn't realise Barty had entered the kitchen until she felt the pins and needles at the back of her neck — he was watching her. "There's still some tea in here," she said, tapping at the pot with her pen. "Though you might want to warm it up with a charm quick."
There was a pause, thoughts lurching back and forth in Barty's head, but as curious as she was, she didn't look. Barty's occlumency was excellent, but omniglots tended to have greater intuitive awareness of their own minds (which might have contributed to his skill with occlumency, come to think of it), and she didn't want to be caught.
After all, Barty would be the one conducting the resurrection ritual — she was going to need his willing cooperation.
Eventually he came to a decision, casting a charm with a tap of his wand before crossing the (cramped) kitchen and beginning to open cabinets at random. "There, over the microwave."
By the flash of confusion, Barty had no idea what a microwave was — but he wasn't an idiot, he guessed she was referring to the alien-looking box on the counter, found the mugs on the first try. "Ah, there they are, thanks." He picked one of them up, turning it in his hand, a dull sort of surprise in his head. She would guess he was used to the little porcelain tea cups the nobility liked to use, but she'd seen these — more mug-shaped, made primarily of glass with a stainless steel rim — while shopping for supplies, and thought they looked neat. Whatever he thought about that, he shrugged it off, sat down at one of the other chairs at the little table and poured himself some tea.
Tamsyn had already turned to another section of her notebook by the time he sat down, going over her notes on her identity ahead of her planned run-in with Dumbledore. Most of the work had already been done, to establish herself at school and incrementally over the last year — she wasn't so much inventing a new background as reminding herself of what she'd already established back 'home', to make sure she didn't make any glaring mistakes he could catch her out on. (As frustratingly narrow-minded as Dumbledore could be, he was quite intelligent, it wouldn't do to get sloppy.) Though, there were some additions she was making, since Mercy Anne Creswell — a somewhat odd-sounding name to British ears, but perfectly ordinary in Massachusetts — hadn't been designed with the intention of portraying herself as Lord Voldemort's daughter. It would work, she mostly just had to add details which, thankfully, didn't contradict anything she'd already told anyone.
It was a very convenient coincidence that Mercy Anne — what her mother called her, almost like it was hyphenated, though at school she mostly went by Anne — just so happened to be the only child of a single mother. That was exploitable in her new circumstances, though she'd originally done it for very different reasons — Massachusetts was still the sort of place where one didn't publicly speak of things like women getting knocked up without having the decency to get married first. The existence of her mother was flimsy, based solely on records Tamsyn had planted, but it wouldn't be immediately suspicious to the Massachusetts authorities if, trying to track her down to confirm Tamsyn's story, the locals 'pretended' not to know anything. Massachusetts had a reputation with the rest of the Americans for being a bit repressed (to put it mildly), so people at school would normally be very understanding and drop the subject, if she simply explained that she was a bastard and didn't want to talk about home.
(They'd actually needed to talk about it a few times for Corey to stop asking her — obviously modern muggles didn't care about that sort of thing nearly as much as they used to, and when she said "Massachusetts" his first thought was often still the muggle one. Apparently meeting each other's families was just something adult couples did at some point, and he'd thought there was some other reason that she didn't want to bring him home, embarrassed of him or whatever. It'd been very tedious, she'd half-seriously considered calling the whole thing off before he'd finally gotten the message.)
So, to adapt her Mercy Anne story to fit into their plans here, most of what needed to be done was simply filling in details she'd ('shamefully') avoided speaking of in the past. She could even claim she hadn't known who her biological father was until vague rumours of Melanion's return to activity had filtered back to America, and her mother had gotten paranoid, asked Mercy Anne to travel to Europe during her summer break to investigate. Actually, yes, that was a good idea — Tamsyn crossed out a couple sentences, started scribbling out a note to that effect.
"Mercy Anne" was probably going to seem a rather funny name for the daughter of a Dark Lord, but she didn't care. Her mother would have been the one to name her anyway — he had been kind of busy with a war at the time, he hadn't stuck around long...
Her eyes flicked up, immediately finding Barty's across the little table. "Something on your mind?" She'd felt him watching her again, it was somewhat distracting.
Barty twitched at being caught out — more mentally than physically, but it hardly made a difference to her — took a self-conscious sip of his tea, shifting just slightly in his seat. "Nothing, really."
That was a lie — Barty's occlumency might be excellent, but he couldn't sneak that shite past her. Tilting her head, she raised a sceptical eyebrow.
He grimaced, probably realising the same thing. "It's nothing, I was just wondering what you're working on."
...That wasn't a lie, but Tamsyn suspect it wasn't the truth either. Oh well, might as well humour him. "I'm going over my notes for the Mercy Anne identity, to ensure I can keep everything straight talking to Dumbledore."
"Mercy Anne?" Barty scoffed, disdainful.
Tamsyn shrugged. "It's a perfectly ordinary name in Massachusetts. One of my classmates at Chimiwāsikāning is named Temperance Joy Goodman." Shaking his head, Barty's mind was letting off pulses of disbelief and exasperation, thick enough Tamsyn pushed it off with a flare of her own magic. (Not enough to be visible, but saturating the area around her would keep the echoes from Barty from reaching her.) "Believe me, I know, Massachusetts is a peculiar place. Some of the newer families, descended from muggleborns sent to Liberty Salem over the years, are perfectly ordinary Americans — in the sense of the muggle country, I mean — but the old families can be...unique, let's say."
"And you're sure you can keep up the act with Dumbledore? I'm certain he knows people from Massachusetts, if only through professional contacts at Salem."
It took some effort to keep herself from showing her irritation — honestly, she'd been playing Mercy Anne for going on a year now, even with people actually from Massachusetts, she knew what she was doing. Abruptly switching to the local accent, Tamsyn said, "When I was setting up the identity, I copied plenty of memories and knowledge from people's heads. I know more about Massachusetts now than I'm all too comfortable with, really — it's not the nicest place in the world, there's some weird Christo-fascist shit going on there. Oh yeah, Massachusetts is super Christian, didn't you know that?"
Barty had been slowly shaking his head, at the question his lips twitching with a tingle of amusement. "No, I knew that, I'm just surprised by the accent. It's quite good."
"Of course it is — I copied that too."
"Naturally," he agreed, nodding. "Metaphages are bloody terrifying."
Tamsyn smirked, broad enough to show her teeth. Switching back to the queer mixed accent she'd developed at Hogwarts, "I'm certain I have no idea what you're talking about — I may be a mind mage and an omniglot, but I've hardly done anything so objectionable as direct subsumption."
He frowned. "You're not an omniglot." Barty would be the expert, being one himself.
"No, but Mercy Anne is — I've been using mind magic to subtly copy linguistic knowledge from people around me to imitate the effects. It's worked pretty well so far, I'm fluent in Anishinābēmowin and Wendat already and nobody suspects anything."
"I don't even know what either of those are."
"They're American, from the Great Lakes region. I can teach them to you later, if you like." Though it would be a bit awkward at first, as she would need to actually speak in those languages for Barty to pick them up. Omniglottalism worked through a similar mechanism by which mind mages could pick up the thoughts and feelings of the people around them without making direct contact, echoes carried across ambient magic, but resonating with knowledge instead of experiences; so, like how Tamsyn could only see the thoughts and feelings currently present, that knowledge had to be being actively used for the omniglot to copy it. Technically, it worked with any knowledge — omniglots were almost always exceptionally successful in academia as well, absorbing information from their instructors and peers simply through discussion of their field of expertise — their absurdly quick language acquisition, jumping from zero to fluency in a matter of a couple weeks, had simply been more obvious to people before the formalisation of education in the modern era, hence the term.
With an obvious hint of reluctance, eyes flicking away from hers for a second, Barty said, "If we have the time."
Tamsyn frowned, a little, her pen idly tapping at her notebook. That was...odd. Her understanding was that omniglots liked learning things — channelling magic felt good, and copying knowledge required channelling magic, but they normally weren't consciously aware of it, by an early age unconsciously associating the subtle elevated mood with learning things. (Though, of course, it only worked with direct instruction, so omniglots tended not to enjoy book learning nearly as much.) She'd only met a couple in person, but they'd always seemed eager to pick up a new language or skill when the opportunity arose. Even if Barty wasn't comfortable with her — which he wasn't yet, she was well aware — she'd still expect more enthusiasm for the idea.
She was very tempted to peek in his head and find out what was going on, but she really shouldn't.
Barty was quiet for a time, seemingly lost in his own thoughts, his head occasionally lurching as he slipped from one topic to another, taking an idle sip from his tea now and then. Tamsyn returned to her notes, occasionally sneaking glances up at him. This was a little peculiar, just sitting there silently — there was definitely something on his mind, but...
Whoops, apparently Tamsyn needed to pop back and see Corey, because she'd just idly considered seducing Barty for a second there. Not to say she found him particularly attractive — he was very clever, of course, but he wasn't in the best state at the moment, still scrawny and worn from a decade in captivity — but her thoughts had a tendency to wander in increasingly lascivious directions the longer it'd been. Given the tenuousness of their working relationship at the moment, putting the moves on him would likely be...bad. She could just pick up someone at a muggle pub or whatever, but she could apparate across the Atlantic without too much trouble, so there was no reason she couldn't go back to spend a night with Corey. If they were settled in here well enough, she might as well go tonight — maybe wait some hours, until it was into the afternoon over there, she could occupy herself that long...
"I never would have thought of using a muggle house—" As quiet as the room had been so long, the comment was unexpected, Tamsyn twitched — at least she hadn't accidentally ruined her notes. "—but your argument about secrecy makes a lot of sense, I admit. It is a humble little thing, but— You said this was council housing, but I'm not familiar with the term — maybe some kind of government project, like the Revolutionaries on the Continent did?"
"Mm, sort of like that, yes." The Gemeenschoppist programme had been (and still was, in some places) more similar to early Soviet projects — generally, the residents owned their state-provided homes outright (though ownership was limited solely to active residents, no speculation or rent-seeking permitted). So, not the same thing, but the British Ministry didn't provide public housing of any kind (excluding limited group homes for orphans and registered werewolves), she'd guess that from the perspective of having none the concepts were similar enough. "This was built by the U.K. over fifty years ago, but it's been in private hands for a decade now."
"Yes, you mentioned that." There was a shifting in Barty's head, vague and uncertain. If she had to guess, he didn't understand why the government would dismantle such a useful programme and sell off the property — as much as the Ministry didn't have an equivalent programme, he was aware of how difficult it could be for the poor to find a place to live — but Tamsyn doubted he had any real understanding of modern muggle capitalism, of course he would be confused. "As I was saying, it's a humble little thing, but I suppose we don't need much just for the three of us, do we? Just keeping the Manor liveable would be too much work, poor Winky hated that place."
"More importantly, I think, we would have been found eventually — Dumbledore is well aware of our birth name."
Barty grimaced, just a little, at the use of our birth name. Of course, she'd known it would make him uncomfortable, which was part of why she'd done it — he'd have to get used to the idea of who and what she was, and her history with their "Father", if he truly wished to stake a place so close to Melanion's side. "Of course, yes, you're right. When we moved there, our Lord was...less than entirely forthright about his history with the place. I had no idea it'd been his father's home until after we'd already been there for a few days."
...Honestly, Tamsyn was surprised he'd told Barty that at all. "I suspect he'd object to the implications of calling Thomas Junior his father. The term suggests a relationship they never had — in fact, this is after my time, but it's my understand he never even met the man." The original Tamsyn had nudged her uncle into murdering the Riddles, but if she'd bothered speaking to them first, she hadn't said anything about it. "Similar to how you prefer not to use the word for Director Crouch, in fact."
It didn't show on his face at all, but by the flicker in his head, Tamsyn would guess Barty liked being directly compared to Melanion. "Fair enough. I'll admit, I was uncomfortable with the idea of staying there, after I knew — and I hadn't even known how much Dumbledore knew. But I never would have... Well, I couldn't have done this. I would have no idea how one would go about finding a house on the muggle side, and getting the money would be a problem. I suppose I could draw from the Crouch accounts, but I'm not sure I could have taken enough without it being noticed. Even if the idea had occurred to me, I couldn't have done this."
"I don't imagine you've spent much time in the muggle world."
"Not really, no. One of my aunts would bring me to stage plays and the like, some of them muggle productions, but, nothing much beyond that." That was a surprise — any aunt of Barty's would have been a Crouch, a Selwyn, maybe a Black, none of whom were known as the sort who'd attend muggle theatre — but she guessed Barty had once wanted to become an actor, and there were only so many shows going on on the magical side. (In fact, that was a thought, she flipped to another section of her book and quick jotted down a note.) "I don't know what muggle law is like, but if their government is anything like the Ministry, I know there would have been paperwork, and considering you don't even legally exist, on either side, well. He didn't say as much, directly, but I know Melanion is very impressed."
Oh! Oh, she got it now — Barty was jealous, uncertain whether he would retain Melanion's favour now that Tamsyn was around. Suddenly, his behaviour over the last week or so made a lot more sense. "It's not a competition, Barty."
Barty twitched, rearing back in his chair, taken aback. "I'm sorry?"
That had been a bit of a subject change, true, but Tamsyn would rather not dance around the point. "Between us, I mean. Yes, I got us a bunch of cash, and this place, and I'm contributing to the plan now. We definitely have more options, now that I'm here — I am very clever, after all. But it's not a competition. Our talents are in different areas.
"That automaton you made for him?" she said, pointing up in the general direction of the workshop, where she assumed Melanion was poking around. "I could never have done that. I do have some skill with enchanting, yes — though it was never truly my best subject." She was much better with it now, since beginning Mastery study, but it was a work in progress. "I'm a mind mage, and an unusually skilled one for my age — simply out of greater experience, as the talent awakened when I was only seven—" A sharp flash from his head, Barty's eyebrows shot up his forehead. Seven was an abnormally young age, only ever activated that early in self-defence, he was probably wondering what had happened. She hesitated for a second, before admitting, "I was nearly raped by a gang of older orphans — four or five of them, maybe, around twice my age, a little older. Lucky I have the talent, if I didn't that would not have ended well for me.
"Anyway," she continued, tactfully ignoring the shock reverberating in his head, "as I was saying, I'm a mind mage, my strength has always been in charm effects — direct wizardry, with a wand or not. I'm pretty decent with potions, and I do have some intuition for ritual, but witchcraft in general honestly isn't something I'm particularly talented with. Melanion is obviously much more practised than me in these areas now, but, that took decades of research and training, it's not where our natural inclinations are directed. That automaton you made...
"Honestly, with how casually you speak of it, I'm not certain you realise how incredibly impressive it is. It's far more complicated than any automaton I've seen described before, an absurd number of points of articulation, to the point he can walk, even hold his wand with his own hand — that is, just, incredible. And to see, and hear — not simply using mind magic to cheat off the senses of those around him, but physically — and to speak with his own voice. That is a singular marvel of enchanting up there, that you carved with your own hands. How long did the ritual last?"
Through her rant, Barty had just been staring at her, wide-eyed, his mind cool and still, like the surface of an undisturbed winter lake. He frowned slightly, after a second admitted, "I don't know for sure. It was... The ritual was quite intense, I entirely lost all sense of my surroundings. Several hours, at least."
"Christ," Tamsyn hissed, shaking her head. "That... Maintaining the necessary focus for that long is— I couldn't have done that, certainly not. If I hadn't seen it working with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed an automaton that complex was possible. And yet, from the sound of it, Melanion didn't doubt your abilities for a second. He has such confidence in you that he expected what anyone else would consider impossible. And not only that, the sheer faith required. Do you know what would have happened to Melanion, to his very soul, if you did a single thing wrong? the slightest mistake, the shortest second of inattention, over hours?"
Amusingly, Barty just nodded. "Yes, I know. I was careful."
She couldn't help letting out a surprised huff of breath — that was, just, absurdly nonchalant. "I was careful, he says. I'm being serious, Barty, that was simply incredible work, I could never have done it. And he wouldn't have trusted me to do it. I may be him, as he once was, so he has great confidence in my abilities, certainly. But he knows me, especially as he was at my age, not so long away from the deprivation of our youth. There are reasons I came prepared with a description of the reciprocal bond now between us — I knew that, without something to tie us to one another so firmly, he wouldn't have dared trust me further than he can see me. And perhaps not even that far. I'm maybe a bit less of a scheming little shite than he was at my age — spending five decades trapped in a book can give one a very different sense of priorities — but he hasn't experienced what I have, doesn't know where I'm coming from, so he will always be sceptical of my motivations. Until I prove myself, but that will take time, likely years.
"I couldn't have done what you did. But even if I could, Melanion would never have cooperated, as he did with you. And that's to the good. Having someone he doesn't entirely trust near him will force him to second-guess himself, to consider the vulnerabilities in his plans that might be exploited — for all that I expect I'll come to find his caution frustrating, it will serve him in the end. And we have different resources and skills, which is also an advantage, and not only for him. Neither of us can replace the other — our areas of expertise are mutually exclusive, Melanion will be worse off should he lose either one of us. We both have our own ways to contribute to our father's plans. There's no reason to think of it as a competition."
Watching her closely, pins and needles crawling over her skin, Barty was quiet for a second. Then he said simply, "Our father?"
Tamsyn shrugged. "Sure, why not? I've never had a family, so my familiarity with how people approach such things is mostly from observation, sometimes examining their minds. We don't share blood, so, I've been trying to ease into...sort of step-siblings? Should I not? I don't really know what I'm doing, but..."
It mostly didn't show on his face, only the slightest twitch at his lips and twinkle in his eye, and his occlumency was good enough to shield himself even there, only the faintest echoes crossing the air between them. But even then, Tamsyn suspected Barty was very flattered. Melanion did play along, but Barty had never been certain whether he'd only been doing so to gain access to Barty's skills — which, obviously, but to be a father or a son was a role that a person played, so at a certain point the distinction became irrelevant. It was vulnerable, though, to Melanion changing his mind, tiring of the act, or coming to a position where he no longer got anything out of it. Being acknowledged by someone who Melanion planned to openly claim as his daughter, for political reasons if none else, was drawing him further in, into a position that seemed rather more secure. And for that to come at the end of such a long exaltation of his skills, well, that didn't hurt either.
Also, Melanion could be rather short and matter-of-fact with his compliments, and Tamsyn was him — as he had been long ago, true, but even so. He knew Melanion thought highly of him, yes, but to hear the same from a copy who hadn't the same history with Barty, well, Tamsyn suspected that did make it more meaningful than it'd be otherwise. Most of the time, Melanion and Tamsyn were still completely separate in his mind, but when he was reminded, well. He was pleased, definitely.
Good — Tamsyn had intended to flatter him. She needed him for her plan, after all.
"I was thinking..." Setting his emptied tea cup aside, he leaned a little forward, his arms folded on the table. "I was declared dead a decade ago now, and, that's for the best, honestly — it isn't as though I can ever come out as myself, with the way things are. I'm going to need to construct a new identity for myself too, like you and this Mercy Anne. But, I worry I'm too recogniseable. Most people don't even know who Father used to be, so it's not a problem for you, but..."
"Yes, your time is far more recent, there are still people around who knew you. That is a problem. I'm guessing you have a solution?"
"I was thinking blood alchemy — I can design a ritual to permanently alter my body into the form of another. It would need a sacrifice of course, but."
Tamsyn nodded, seeing where he was going with this. "You'll need help with the ritual, and setting up the backstory for your new identity."
"Mostly the latter. I can design the ritual myself, and if Father is too busy to perform it, I have friends in the Knights I can go to — there's no reason this needs to be done in the short term, so I can wait that long. But legitimising my new identity, I would have no idea how to go about that."
"Mm." Setting aside her own tea cup, she mirrored his posture, leaning over the table toward him. She gave him a toothy smile. "I was just thinking about that myself. For a cover story, how about we make you a professional actor, in the muggle theatre circuit?"
There was a short moment of disbelief, the air seeming to shiver around her with pulses of shock — but then, slowly at first, he smiled back at her.
Whew that took a while. Did it take a while? It felt like it took a while, writing's been hard lately...
Anyway, this chapter went stupid long, which is certainly a thing that never happens, I'll post the other half as soon as I'm done proofreading it. Don't have anything super pressing to say about this scene, so... Actually, my brain is dead, so I'll post the second half tomorrow. See you then.