Shout at the Devil

by MalcolmTent6730

Magic wasn't real. That's what Ryan Black was told for most of his life. It was a truth he believed until about a week after his eighteenth birthday, when he was contacted by his dead dad's estate about his own. Being born a squib he had no reason to be informed, except for a small gift his old man left him. Evil pieces in Harry Potter. AU Hogwarts University. Eventual OC-Multi,

24. Chapter 24

October 31st, 2011, Hogwarts, Scotland, 12:00 PM BST

"Potter." I said as I caught up. "Can I get a minute?" Weasley and Granger were with him, as always, but they seemed to be walking on eggshells. I imagined it being the anniversary of his parents death was making him edgy, especially with everyone being so happy and excited for the holiday. Brits in general weren't as big on Halloween as the US, but wizards loved it.

He turned to glare at me, eyes ringed with dark circles. "What?" He said flatly.

"I need to talk to you about something." I glanced at his friends. "In private if possible. It's family business."

He flinched slightly, as I suspected he would. Weasley looked ready to snap at me, but Potter held up a hand. "It's fine. We can talk." he turned to his friends. "You two go ahead, I'll catch up."

Granger looked worried, like I was going to peer pressure him into indulging in heroin or cheat sheets. Finally she grimaced and walked away, scowling and ignoring Weasley, who had to scramble to keep ahead of her march.

"She thinks you're a bad influence." He explained with a wan smile. "I still don't get what happened there. You seemed friendly enough starting out."

My feelings about Granger were tough to explain. Some of it was instinct that had taken a bit to sort out. I could hardly tell him I didn't like her because I suspected she would tell on me for breaking rules in front of her. I wondered if being a devil gave me an inherent distaste for rule followers.

In reality, her emphasis on regulations over loyalty mostly just rubbed me the wrong way. I'd been temporarily distracted by that wagon she was draggin, but there isn't enough ass in the world to offset lack of trust, plus it became less relevant once I was getting regular sex.

"So…family business." he said, bringing my attention back to the matter at hand. "This is about your uncle, I take it?"

I raised a brow. "So you WERE ignoring his messages. Kind of dickish, man."

"Fuck you!" He snapped, showing more spine and temper than I'd ever seen from him. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. "Sorry, I just meant it's more complicated than that." I recognized that pattern of behavior. People who were frequently victimized did that. Lose their temper and then choke it back before it could get them into trouble. Nothing was a better trainer for keeping your temper than being weak.

Some of the guys I'd gone to school with had been like that. It told me a bit about his home life, or at least hinted. "Look man." I said with a sigh. "I get it's a sore subject. But it wasn't really his fault, not the murders and not that he wasn't around. He's had a bad fucking time of it, and talking to you would help."

"I didn't…" He trailed off, huffing in frustration. "I didn't get his letters until recently." He admitted. "Someone was blocking my mail. It stopped a bit before summer ended, and I only found out because some of the later letters mentioned my lack of response. Once I started getting them though…it was just a lot."

I nodded. "Let me guess." I said, taking a stab in the dark. "You're not mad at him, more worried that you won't be able to empathize with him because he knew your parents and you didn't?" He blinked at me in shock and I smiled. "Dead dad."

He looked around, lowering his voice. "I just don't know if I can share in his grief like he wants me to." He said in a pained voice. "And that sounds terrible, because they were my parents, but I just never met them. How am I supposed to hurt as bad as someone who loved them that much?"

"You're not." I said bluntly. "And he won't expect you too. Think of him as a resource. He's someone who can help you get to know them, even if only a bit. That's what happened to me with my own dad. Meeting people he knew helped me feel closer to him."

I was pretty sure his mental image of Sirius was a lot different than the reality. Sirius was an adult, sure, but he'd spent most of that adulthood trapped in a soul sucking nightmare prison reliving the same day ad infinitum. He hadn't grown, matured, or aged in any way besides the physical.

Mentally, Sirius was a guy in his twenties who had spent years of his life paused and only recently gotten a semblance of living back. It was part of why I think he'd reacted like he had to Val. I mean sure, she was also just a hot goth with an attitude and that was kind of the dream, but she was closer to the mental age Sirius was than someone like my mom (thankfully, because that would have been weird for me).

Potter was expecting a mature person to impart his wisdom, but to Sirius Harry was just going to seem like a long lost pal. A younger brother of his best friend more than a son.

More than that, I thought this would help my uncle stabilize. His physical wounds had been repaired by the elixir, but he still wasn't…right. Parts of him were missing, even beyond all that abandoned time. I was pretty sure getting to know Potter would help.

"Why do you care so much?" He asked me, somewhat harshly. Despite the foot in mouth, I knew it was a genuine question, not a deflection or a jab.

I shrugged. "Because he's all I have left of my dad too, and he needs you. Not as a reminder of his friends really, but because you were the thing he held onto all those years. He's a good guy, and I think getting to know you will help fix something that's broken."

"So what do you want from me?" He asked tiredly. I knew that my gambit paid off. This was the best day to approach him. It was manipulative and a little dickish, but it had worked. I called it a net win since both of them would benefit, even if I had to be a bit sneaky.

I clapped him on the shoulder, noting the flinch. "Why don't we try something low stress. We're doing Christmas at Grimmauld in a few months. He refuses to stay long term at the manor, says he's imposing. He's been cleaning up the old family home." I didn't mention all the visitors that I'd noticed on my few visits. That wasn't my business.

"Christmas." He said, rolling it around as if trying the word for the first time. "I think I could do that. Can I bring Ron and Hermione?"

I grimaced. "Yeah, I guess." I said with a shrug. "The more the merrier. Weasley can even bring the twins if he wants." I suspected George would be tripping over himself to get a chance to sleep under the same roof as my bustiest pawn.

He ignored my brief unhappiness, breaking into a grin. "Thanks mate." He said, hesitantly clapping ME on the shoulder. "It means a lot. I'll talk to Dumbledore about it, I might need him to help me get there. Or McGonagall , she's my head of house. I'm sure she could show me how to get there."

"Just take the train." I advised. "The house is in London anyway. Assuming you don't have any plans for Christmas."

There was a flash of bitterness across his face, quickly smothered by a strained smile. "Nah, nothing important. I appreciate the invite. You sure it's not going to be put out by having the three, possibly five of us over?"

"Please." I said with a dismissive wave. "I've already got all my friends coming, those freeloaders spend all their time at my place. It's way too big for just us anyway."

He smiled a bit, offering his hand, which I shook. "Do you want to…I mean, you could eat with us? If you want. I'm sure Ron and Hermione would be happy to have you." At my snort he grinned ruefully. "Alright, no, they'd hate it, but they'd get over it eventually."

"I appreciate the invite, man, but I have my own crew meeting up for lunch." I gestured at the door to the great hall. "My girls will bitch if I don't show, and that's not even mentioning Stori's reaction." As my unasked for adopted little sister, Astoria saw it as her duty to spend as much time pestering me as possible.

He smirked at that. "Right. Greengrass's little sister. Ron's been drooling a bit. He likes girls with…" He trailed off, seemingly not wanting to say something crude, despite his hands making cupping motions in front of his chest.

"Tits the size of their head?" I said helpfully. He spluttered, cheeks going red. "She knows how big they are. It's not like you're shattering some delusion by bringing it up. But I'd steer clear. Daphne is prickly when it comes to Stori. And she knows some nasty curses. Why doesn't he try asking Lavender out?"

He cleared his throat. "Hermione would kill me if she heard me say something like that. As for Lavender, last I heard Fred was interested, and Ron wouldn't want to hurt his brother."

Apparently Weasleys had a predilection for big tits, go figure. Not that I could blame them. I was happy for those two. Lavender was a nice girl, and a friend. Plus she was gorgeous even if things never ended up being sexual between us. Fred wasn't as sociable as George, but they were both good people.

Granger policing his comments didn't shock me at all, she seemed like the type. "Well, there's always Sue Li in Ravenclaw." I said with a shrug. "I hear she's pretty top heavy."

His cheeks darkened. "Right. Thanks for the heads up mate. Keep in touch." I nodded to him, heading to my own lunch table and dropping in next to Daphne. Waving at all my friends, I grabbed a plate, digging in immediately.

"You have a nice chat with Harry?" Asked Suzie, who was so nice she had to physically force herself to call people by their last name and often forgot we did it. "Did you pass on the message from Sirius?"

I nodded, washing my turkey drumstick down with some lemonade. "Yup. I suspect the next letter he gets will be answered, even if it'll probably be in the most awkward way possible."

"How is he that awkward?" Blaise groaned. "He's the bloody boy who lived. I'm surprised he doesn't spend every morning being pelted by poorly wrapped packages of slinky underwear. If I was that famous I'd be fucking half the student body. Like the Carrow twins. They'r- ow!" He yelped, rubbing his shin and looking around. "Who did that?"

Stori, looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, smiled guilelessly at me. "What did he say, Ryan?"

I smirked at him before answering. "He said he'd come to dinner on Christmas. We're having it at Grimmauld this year, Sirius wants to host. He's bringing Granger and Weasley, and probably the twins too." I imagined they were fun to have at parties, so that would be nice at least.

DB looked interested. "Really? I was talking to George in class the other day. They're actually rather brilliant." Val snickered at her, getting a reproachful look from the redhead that didn't seem to faze my Queen even a little bit.

"We know." I said with a snort. "Everyone knows. They like to advertise. But yeah it should be a good time. Speaking of a good time, are we going to hit another Halloween party tonight after the feast? I know we're making an appearance but we can find something after I bet." Last year had been fun, and we'd been too busy to find an earlier one this term.

October 31st, 2011, Hogwarts, Scotland, 6:00 PM BST

We didn't wear costumes to the feast. We'd decided against going to a party, mostly because Stori was bound to notice us vanishing and Daphne wanted to spend time with her sister for the holiday.

When we got to the hall, we dropped into our usual spot at the Slytherin table with everyone joining us. Everyone including a certain hungry pooch. I grinned at the dog, not having seen him around. "Hey Scoob, where've you been? I know Shaggy can't bring you to class, but I'd have expected to run into you in the halls or something."

Shaggy snickered. "Like, as if. He's in hog heaven in the common room. Hufflepuffs love dogs. They're always bringing him snacks, scratching his belly, baking him treats. He gets more attention from the girls in our house than I do."

"And is that a PROBLEM?" asked Tracey waspishly from beside her boyfriend. "Because if you're upset about missing out on how 'friendly' Hufflepuff girls can be, you can let me know."

Eyes widening with panic, the gangly hippy put both hands up to cut her off. "Of course not Trace. You know you're the only girl for me. You're like the prettiest girl in school. In fact, aren't you the only girl in school? Are there others? I haven't noticed."

"Smooth." I said with a laugh. "But still, we should get Scooby out and about more." I glanced at the devil dog. "How about bud? Any ideas for hobbies?" I was sure we could find something for him to learn.

Scooby, who had been gnawing on a cob of corn (how he held it without thumbs I had no idea) "Ridditch."

"That's…" paused. "Can he do that?" I glanced around. "Does anyone know if that's in the rules? Because honestly that sounds fucking amazing. Though I'm skeptical that a dog can ride a broomstick."

Stori, who had just shown up at the table, burst into giggles as she started petting Scooby over the table. "Well I think he would be just darling on the quidditch pitch. And he's a quick puppy too. He'd definitely catch the snitch. Although speaking of quidditch, why didn't you try out this year Ryan? I heard you were an alternate last term?"

"Because I have three girlfriends." I responded flatly. "I don't have time to fly around and hit a ball with a stick."

Seras snorted. "Or your first." She muttered under her breath. At my glare, she just shot me a wide grin. "Oh please, you know it was ridiculous. I don't know what was going through your head. I wasn't even here and I heard about it."
"Fine, mock me if you must." I said with dignity. "Apparently SOME people are only nice to me when I'm feeding them."

Seras blushed, glaring at me heatedly. "Can you NOT talk about that here?" She hissed. "First of all someone might hear, and second of that's private. I don't want everyone knowing I get all…lovey dovey."

Beaming, Suzie leaned in and gave her friend a warm hug. "Oh, you don't have to be embarrassed Seras. "Love is a wonderful thing, and sharing your real feelings with the person you care about is beautiful. I get so shy when I'm with Ryan. Maybe you could give me some lessons on how to be more assertive in intimate situations."

We all stared at her. "Did she just…?" Blaise trailed off, clearly wondering the same thing as we were.

"No." Said Daphne firmly. "Because Suzie doesn't propose threesomes. I mean, none of us do, but Suzie would be the last person I'd expect that from." She smiled curiously at our redhead. "You didn't mean you wanted to have sex with both of them at once, right love?"

Susan's face went beet red. "Oh no!" She said hurriedly. "I just meant she could coach me. I hadn't considered doing anything like that with someone besides Ryan." She glanced shyly at Seras. "Not that I don't think you're very pretty. I like your large breasts. They look very soft." Somehow, she managed to say that in such a sincere way that it didn't even seem sexual. Like she was talking about the weather.

Gesturing emphatically, Daphne glared at me. "This is your fault. You corrupted her!"

I rolled my eyes. "It's not a bad thing for Suzie to be more open about sexual topics. I get we live in a permanently repressed victorian magic society, but I for one don't think it's some horrible taboo for women to admit they like to fuck."

Stori perked up. "That's so true! I've always been told to act like a proper lady, but I have urges just like anyone else." Daphne, thankfully, was too busy glaring daggers at me to notice her sister biting her lip seductively and looking up at Blaise through her lashes.

"If my sister becomes a slag because of your american nonsense I will melt your arse cheeks together." Daphne hissed.

"No." I said with a chuckle. "You won't. And Stori is an adult, and can have as much sex as she wants with whoever she likes, no matter how much it enrages you." My smile dropped. "You need to stop babying her Daph. It's not fair. She just got her life back, and she deserves to be allowed to live it without you taking control of her every decision."

Daphne flinched back like she'd been slapped. I winced internally. That had been a bit harsh, but if I kept letting this whole helicopter parent routine go it was just going to get worse.

"I…I don't." She stammered, looking around. "That's not true. Right Stori? I don't try to control you."

It was strange, in front of anyone else she would have probably clammed up and gotten defensive, but among family she was just hurt. She was safe with us, and she knew it. It still didn't make it any easier for her to hear. But I wasn't just her boyfriend, I was her King, and I'd already decided that I'd need to take an active hand with my peerage members.

Astoria smiled at her sister warmly. "I love you Daph." She said softly. "I always will. You were there for me when no one else was, kept me going when I wanted to give up. Even dad had all but given up, but you never treated me like I was a corpse waiting to happen. You treated me like a precious thing to be protected. You still do."

"I don't mean to." Daphne said listlessly. "I just know how terrible this world can be. How awful some people are. And you're so new to living in it, at least in all the ways that matter."

I nodded. "She is, which is why she has all of us." I said with a smile. "We've always got her back and we're there to protect her and keep her safe. But at a certain point protecting her from everything becomes smothering her. You need to let her make her own mistakes."

"Well…" She said slowly. "I can try?" She shot her sister a pleading look. "I can't promise to be perfect. But I can try. I trust everyone here. You all know I do."

Stori beamed. "Good!" She chirped. "Then you won't mind that Blaise is taking me to hogsmeade this weekend." Judging by the shock and terror on his face, Blaise was every bit as surprised by that as I was.

"He WHAT?" Snapped Daphne, her eyes blazing with rage. I grabbed her wrist, with Val snagging her other hand to stop her from going for her wand. We were both stronger than her, but it was harder than expected.

Blaise ducked behind a grinning Astoria. "What the actual fuck?" He spat at Stori. "You didn't even ask me!"

Eyes wide and shining, Stori's lower lip jutted out in a pout. "Do you…not like me?" Her eyes started to water, and Blaise started panicking. "Was I bothering you?" She continued, seeming to be working herself up with the distress. "Oh Merlin, I'm such a desperate slut. You must be disgusted with me."

"What?" He all but shrieked. "No! I would never- I mean, of course not. I'd love to take you to Hogsmeade!"
Her face snapped from near tears to a beaming smile. "Lovely." She said happily. "You'll be picking me up from my dorm, and I expect flowers."

I put a hand on Blaise's shoulder. "Wow. You're totally fucking screwed." I said sympathetically. "She's going to tie you in a pretzel and you'll thank her the entire time she's doing it. I almost feel bad for you."

"Shut up Ryan." Said Daphne sweetly. "Don't talk about my sister like she's a monster."

"Yes dear." I said obediently, waiting until she looked away and miming devil horns at Stori, who dissolved into giggles. I quickly resumed my normal eating position as she spun back, blinking innocently at her suspicious glower.

It was a nice moment, everyone happy and laughing…and it made it much easier to hear the scream from outside the great hall as Filch burst in, wailing like a maniac. Something about his cat and a murder. He turned and bolted from the room, half the castle on his heels, and we went with him because how were we NOT going to check out a murder on Halloween.

I jogged after him, managing to maintain an easy lope that kept pace with his sprinting. TO my surprise, I saw Dumbledore catching up to us. Obviously I had to slow down to let Filch lead, but Dumbledore was like over a hundred, and seeing the old man stride nimbly up alongside us was a shock.

"You know what this is about Headmaster?" I asked my sometimes teacher. "Because all I heard was cat and murder, and who the hell has the time to kill Filch's cat?" That just seemed like a complicated and pointless use of resources.

Scooby, who was on my other side, growled a bit at…something. I looked around but didn't see anything, so I laid a calming hand on the big hound's head. I kept an eye out though, because devil senses and dog senses compounded to form a serious advantage in terms of detection. I trusted he'd heard something and would ask about it later.

At last we reached a stretch of hallway, and Filch collapsed to the ground, sobbing, in front of something it took me a second to recognize. A cat, frozen in a terrified rictus, hanging by its tail from a torch sconce. Below it was a puddle of water from…somewhere. The cats eyes were wide open in a panicked bulge, back arched, fur sticking up.

It was such a distracting sight, I didn't notice the rest of the scene until the others caught up and I heard a gasp of horror from Stori. I glanced at her and then followed her eye line to take in the message scrawled in what I was pretty sure was supposed to look like blood, but was almost definitely just red paint.

I didn't know what it meant, or what the context was, but I knew from the palpable tension and horror from the few staff members that had shown up that it wasn't a good thing. 'The chamber of secrets has opened.' It read. 'Enemies of the heir…beware.'

Glancing at the furrow of Dumbledore's brow and the stares of everyone else, I couldn't help but mutter. "Oh, what fresh hell is this?" This same shit happened last year, weirdness turning into danger, and I just KNEW this nonsense was going to drag me and the rest of my friends into it.

And then of course my idiot cousin had to blurt out. "Enemies of the heir beware! You'll be next mudbloods!" And every single fucking person turned to stare suspiciously at the Slytherins in the audience. Fucking Draco. Could he possibly be any more of a pain in my ass? I knew this bullshit was going to affect my year.

October 31st, 2011, Hogwarts, Scotland, 6:00 PM BST

I was annoyed by everything going on. Like…all of it. Frozen cats, being sent back to our common rooms, my cousin being a dipshit, there were so many things pissing me off right now I felt like I was standing in line at a whole foods.

Waving off D.B, Shaggy, Scooby, Suzie and Hannah, the majority of the group headed back to Slytherin. I mentally promised to fill Suzie in when I got a chance, but that looked like it was going to be tomorrow. First though, I needed to figure out what was happening, myself, so when we got back to the common room I dragged everyone else into my room to talk, despite it being an absurdly tight fit.

Daphne almost had a coronary when Stori perched herself cheerfully on Blaise's lap, and I had to admit seeing him freeze like a cornered rat was deeply entertaining. Sadly, we had bigger fish. "Ok, who wants to tell me what the actual fuck THAT was about?"

Theo raised a hand. "I can. It was about the chamber of secrets." I raised an eyebrow at him. He shrugged. "Most of us probably know what it is, but my dad was obsessed with trying to find it while he was here. He was convinced there's some ancient library of potion manuals in there. Just one of the many."

"Ok…" I said slowly. "But what IS the chamber?"

Daphne spoke up. "It's an urban legend." She said bluntly. "Or it's supposed to be. Basically, it concerns the founders, specifically Slytherin. You remember the stories about the founders, what they prized above all else? Well, there was an addendum. Supposedly, Slytherin was originally onboard with the others, supporting them in their vision. But something happened and he decided the school should only accept purebloods."

"Ok, but that clearly didn't happen. So…what did?" Knowing that one of the founders was a racist dickbag didn't seem relevant to anything.

Theo snorted. "He couldn't convince the rest of the founders and didn't want to fight them. So he created the chamber, or that's how the story goes. Some kind of secret base containing a power that could be used to cleanse the school of tainted blood by a descendant. His heir."

"Well nice to know the guy who our house is named after was reasonable and well intentioned." I said sarcastically. "Are you telling me that one of the people who started this school planned a magical genocide and for some reason he's still considered in good standing here? Like…what the fuck?"

Daphne shook her head. "It was never proven." She explained. "Like I said, it's supposed to be a myth. Not to mention…there really aren't enough muggleborns to make a fuss." At my questioning look, she shook her head. "Ryan, how many muggleborn students do you think there are at Hogwarts?"

"I don't know." I said with a shrug. "A few dozen. Purebloods are always bitching about them trying to take everything over, and while that's obviously bullshit, I figure there must be a decent number of them."

Tracey snorted. "Ten." She said with a smirk. "There are ten students at this school across all seven years that don't have at least one wizard parent."

"What?" I asked blankly, trying to think of any muggleborns I knew. "That's…that can't be right. Muggleborns are a big influence on politics. They come up so often. I mean, there's Granger, Dean Thomas…holy shit I can't think of a third one."

Blaise snickered. "Yeah, it's because of how muggleborns come about. Specifically, they're all descended from squibs. This is the largest class of muggleborns Hogwarts has ever had."

"That's never been proven." Snapped Daphne. "It's still just a theory."

Tracey shook her head. "It's really not, Daph. Studies have been done on magical lines. Every muggleborn has some magical relative if you trace it back far enough. The results of those studies are just buried because it doesn't fit the pureblood narrative. Unless a line is about to die out, in which case a family member will 'conveniently' find a muggleborn descendant to inherit."

"That's…that's so fucking stupid." I said in dumbfounded shock. "The rate of atavistic mutations like that is astronomically low. Sure, this might be the 'biggest class' of muggleborns, but only because of the sheer number of people on earth at this point in history. Purebloods aren't in danger of fucking anything. At our current rate of expansion it would take thousands of years for enough muggleborns to pop up to pose a threat to their way of life."

I'd never been sympathetic to the pureblood cause. It was fucking stupid. Even if you had to dick measure, you could literally just test magical power, at least that was a metric that mattered. But even if it was stupid and cowardly, it had at least been fucking LOGICAL.

But now I just couldn't believe any of these inbred morons managed to tie their shoes in the morning. I paused. "Wait…if all magic is genetic, then where the fuck did the FIRST wizards come from? Like they had to have gotten it from somewhere." Was it related to the evil pieces? To devils in general? Maybe it had something to do with demons.

I waited excitedly for someone to respond, but no one did. They all just stared at me, until Tracey finally said. "Why would you possibly think we know the answer to that question?" She said condescendingly.

"Oh." I said, deflating. "Well, fair enough then I suppose. Whatever, so the chamber of secrets is where Slytherin kept his racist superweapon designed to kill what was probably like three kids at the time. Where is it then? You said people have been looking for it for years, surely someone has at least narrowed it down."

Theo snorted. "If by narrowed it down you mean identified thousands of places where the chamber ISN'T then sure, they've narrowed it way down."

Val, who had been unusually quiet up to this point, especially for her, frowned. "This place is a lot less magical than I expected. A lot of you people are arseholes." I could see that several of my friends wanted to argue, but couldn't figure out how. I understood the feeling.

"So what do we know about the heir?" I asked cautiously. "Is it someone here in the house with us? Do we need to watch out for Tracey? Are half-bloods in danger, or is only muggleborns?"

Tracey shot me a warm smile. "Not sure about the latter, and the only thing we can say for sure about the heir is that nobody knows anything about them. They're a figure of mystery, and no one can agree on any of their powers."

Stori started giggling, and everyone looked at her. "Sorry." She said through a grin. "It's not really funny. But I think everyone is going to have at least one obvious suspect."

"Really?" I said with interest. "Who do you think it is?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe the handsome and powerful descendent of a notoriously dark house. Someone with power beyond what other wizards have and who has beautiful witches trailing behind him at all times, fawning all over him?"

"That's not…" I trailed off. "Holy shit almost everything about me is really fucking suspicious isn't it? Everyone is going to think it's me. Hell, after you laid it out like that I almost think it's me."

Daphne winced. "Yeah, looking at it like that you're definitely going to be a suspect. Normally it would be Draco, but given his mother's death and his father vanishing, if he had something like this in his back pocket he'd be shouting it from the rooftops trying to stay relevant."

I groaned, putting my head in my hands. "We're going to have to figure out who it is ourselves aren't we? If we don't, people will spend the whole year pointing the finger at me every time something bad happens. "What are the chances we can call in one of our favors to find the chamber?"

"Zero." Said Daphne bluntly. "If they knew where it was they'd have opened it ages ago. This is going to be all us. I'm sure we can come up with something."

That would have to be enough for now. I needed to get messages to the girls and Shaggy so they knew what was going on. I wondered if there was some kind of messaging charm I could learn. I'd have to ask Flitwick. Speaking of which, I looked around my cramped room, squinting at the walls.

"Hey Trace." I said to my girlfriend's best friend. "You want to help me out with a charms project? I can get you back."

Looking around, she raised an eyebrow. "Expansion charm? That would make this meeting way more comfortable. I could probably swing one of those, but there's no possible way I can make it permanent. Can you prime the anchor for me?"

I'd been planning to do this since we had our lesson earlier in the day, and had slipped out of the school to grab an anchor. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to use, so I just teleported to Diagon Alley and bought a premade wardstone. It was a bit wasteful, since these were made for much more extensive spells, but it would suffice.

"Everyone group up in the middle of the room just in case." I said bluntly. "Val, shield charm please." My Queen nodded, muttering a quick spell and manifesting a massive dome of silver over the group. I waved my wand over the anchor and murmured Parare like Flitwick had shown us, making sure to heavily lean into my intent to help Tracey.

Tracey stepped forward, took a deep breath, and then flicked her wand "Capacious Extremis" She intoned, slamming her devilish will into the stone and through it, into the room. Flitwick had described the process to us extensively, because anchoring a charm on something to something else was a slightly trickier process than anchoring the charm on the thing itself.

Still, with our natural advantage and Tracey's skill at charms we had no issues. I watched in satisfaction as the walls buckled, flexing slightly, before flying outward, along with the ceiling. When it finally stopped, the anchor was left glowing in the center of the room, a small orb of silvery metal, and the room around us had massively expanded in size.

Val let down the shield with a whistle. "Damn boss, this is nice. You've got to make me one of these."

"I'll be first, thank you very much." Daphne said icily. "My boyfriend and best friend will naturally want to make sure I have the space I need." Her tone was steady and certain, but her eyes were wide as she took in the work.

Stori looked ready to break into squeals of excitement. "I want one too! Oh this is so cool! I didn't even know we could DO this in the Hogwarts rooms."

"I'm not entirely sure we can." Said Theo cautiously. "Like I feel like that shouldn't have worked. Maybe something…" He caught himself before mentioning devils in front of Stori. "Related to Ryan's unusual amounts of power." He finished lamely.

"Whatever it is we can talk about it later." I said firmly. "We have other things to worry about. I only expanded the room so we'd have space to talk. We need to figure out our next move, because like hell I'm waiting to get blamed when the heir takes out some muggleborn."

That sobered everyone up quick, and they all nodded. I wished Suzie was here to conjure some chairs or something, but conjuration was a Transfiguration trick so I wasn't much good at it. Instead I walked to the center of the room and sat on the floor. I made a mental note to have Daphne furnish the new space for me. Until then, we just had to make a plan. How hard could that be?

November 1st, 2011, Hogwarts, Scotland, 6:00 PM BST

The next day's class wasn't anything interesting. We worked on anchors again, Flitwick having decided we'd done well enough to warrant a full jump to the subject instead of it being a one off Halloween treat. Once he decided that we started learning about material tolerance and all that other shit.

I was glad I'd shelled out for an over the counter anchor, it made it so much easier not to have to measure all that shit myself.

Despite that, I'd been so distracted in class I'd barely noticed the end, and the rest of the day was mostly just a haze until we got to the end, when we were all invited to the duelling club for a demonstration.

We met up with the others in one of the side halls, and everyone seemed mostly unsure of what to expect. To my surprise, we saw a pretty big chunk of people from our year, and several others, from all the houses. Lavender waved me over to where she was standing by Harry and co (I figured if we were kind of related first names would be polite) and I called the others with me as we went over to stand by them.

"Lav." I said with a nod. "Harry. Good to see you." Looking over at Granger and Weasley I mustered a smile. "You two as well. You know when this thing is supposed to start?"

Lavender shook her head with a laugh. "No clue. Lockhart is running it, so chances are good it's going to be a huge waste of time." At my surprised look she rolled her eyes. "What, you thought I'd be one of his simpering fangirls? Please. Anyone can see that idiot has no idea what he's doing."

"That's not true!" Hermione snapped. "Professor Lockhart is a brilliant man who has done amazing things! I for one think we're lucky to learn from such a talented and experienced wizard."

Daphne snickered. "What a shock, Granger believes something she read in a book. Who could have guessed?"

The curly haired witch glared at her. "I've had ENOUGH of your nonsense Greengrass! I've never done anything to you. I suppose my blood isn't pure enough for the princess of Slytherin, is that it?"

"Oh sure." Drawled Daphne. "Anyone who doesn't like you must be a blood purist, despite having a half-blood best friend AND boyfriend, because you're SOOO likable. No one could possibly find you to be a self absorbed know it all swot on the virtue of having MET you for five minutes."
Harry and Weasley (Ron I guessed since there was so many to tell apart) looked torn between trying to help or backing away, and we leaning towards the latter. To my shock, it was Suzie of all people who intervened. "That's enough, the both of you." My redhead snapped. "This is a school function and we're here to learn, not attack classmates for no reason."

"Yeah." Said Stori with a smirk. "We only attack the classmates the teachers tell us to. That makes it better." Suzie turned a glare on the younger girl, who paled and looked away.

Becoming a devil had done wonders for my girlfriend's confidence, and it was good to see her bringing that to bear. "Let's start over." I placated. "Daphne is sorry for picking a fight, and she won't do it again." I narrowed my eyes at her. "RIGHT honey?"

"Of course not." She said sweetly. "In fact, If I can't say anything nice I won't say anything at all. I see Lily and the twins. Excuse me." She stormed away, apparently pissed I'd called her out for being bitchy.

Suzie sighed. "I'll go talk to her. It was nice seeing all of you." Grabbing Hannah and Tracey, she followed Daphne. With a quick grimace, Shaggy and Scooby followed Tracey, Theo followed Hannah, Stori grabbed Blaise and followed all of them, and I was left standing with just Val, Seras, and D.B.

"Well that was super awkward." I said cheerfully. "But hey, how about those subject changes?"

Harry chuckled. "Right. No harm no fo-"

"What is her problem?" Asked Hermione angrily. "All she does is needle me. If she isn't a blood purist then what does she have against me?"

Val chimed in. "She feels threatened by you." My Queen responded bluntly. Which might have been true at one point, but wasn't really all of it. But I saw what she was doing, the fastest way to get someone like Hermione paying attention to you was to let them know you disliked how much they loved the rules. People like that always assume anyone who doesn't like their compulsive rule following is suspicious.

The other witch flinched back. "Threatened by…me?" She said in shock. "I guess I never thought Greengrass cared much about her grades."

I tried not to roll my eyes at the assumption and was mostly successful, but it shut her up so I called it a win, I turned to Harry. "So, Lockhart is running things, do you know what the format is? When he's arriving? Any of that stuff?"

Looking around obviously I took in the complete lack of supervision. He gestured to the stage. "I think we're going to be doing live duels. I'm pretty excited to see what that looks like. As for Lockhart…" He shuddered. "I have no clue and I don't want one. He's not my favorite person in the world."

I almost made a comment about him being generous with the use of the word person, but figured it might set Hermione off again and that was the last thing I needed.

Seras, who had been mostly distracted eavesdropping on everyone with her vampire hearing, looked up in interest. "Live duels?" She said excitedly. "Are they going to be magic only? Because I'd love to do some hands on grappling."

At everyone's look, she just wilted, but Val slapped her on the back. "Don't worry Knockers. I'd love to spar with you sometime." As both my Queen and a martial arts master, Val would be the best possible opponent for Seras, who as a rook vampire wasn't exactly in a reasonable weight class.

"I appreciate that." Said Seras in a tight voice. "But can you PLEASE not call me Knockers in public?"

Val threw up her hands. "It's a compliment!" She complained. "Because-"

"I've got big knockers." Said the vampire flatly. "Yes, I understand your logic. But it's not exactly something I need to work to draw attention to. Besides, I'm not the only one here with big knockers." She pointed at D.B. "She's got huge ones too, and you don't call HER knockers!"

Val snorted. "Because she has a normal name, Seras isn't a thing anyone is called!"

"We don't even USE her name!" Shouted Seras in frustration. "We just call her D.B. Your point is totally invalid."

D.B. Cleared her throat. "Yeah…about that. I don't LOVE being referred to by my initials. I get that our group already has a Daphne, but we could we maybe come up with something else?" She paused, glancing askance at Val. "Though preferably not Knockers."

"Shut up D.B." Both girls said in unison before turning back to glare at each other.

I started looking around for Suzie, who was way better at defusing these situations than I was. If I got involved it would blow up into a big scene. Or at least a bigger scene than it already was, but she was caught up talking to Lily on the other side of the room, and clearly there were too many people talking between us.

Val, meanwhile, was doubling down on her point. "I'm just saying that if I had tits the size of my head, I'd be thrilled to have someone point them out. If you've got it, flaunt it. But tell you what, why don't we wager on it. When we have our sparring match later we can pick out a name and the winner gets to use it and the other can't complain." Seras's eyes seemed to gleam a bit at that, but luckily I found a distraction.

"Oh look!" I shouted loudly in relief, pointing at the door. "Professor Lockhart is here! Let's all go listen to what he has to say!"

I took off without waiting for a response, coming to a stop before the foppish blonde man who smiled at me approvingly. "I say! I don't know who you are young man, but you're certainly an attentive and respectful student." As everyone else showed up he shot them a megawatt smile. "You can all take a lesson from Mr…" I told him my name. "From Mr. Black here. He's going places. Keen instincts this one."

Trying not to grimace, I stoically ignored the snickering as everyone mocked me behind my back in tones I could EASILY hear from a few feet away. Fucking devil hearing. "Professor, what are we going to be learning today?"

"Ah, well, a good question my boy!" He said cheerfully. I hated him already. "Today we'll be learning to understand the tempo of a duel. To do this, you will witness a master at work. I myself will take the stage to delight and amaze you." He winked at D.B. who ignored him entirely. "Now, who would like to volunteer themselves as a sparring partner?"

I raised my hand, holding back a dark smile. I…really didn't like this guy. He was an arrogant dick bag and he'd sucked me into his tempo. Smacking him around would be a good way to get back some of my rep, plus he had a punchable face.

"Good show my boy!" He cheered, gesturing me up on the stage. "That's the spirit. Young Mr. Black here is clearly a man of courage and nerve to face one such as I in combat. I assure you, these are traits I value highly. Why, if you were in my class I daresay I might mold you into a wizard to equal even myself. A shame, that."

I strolled up onto the stage, honestly kind of excited. I'd been training with fucking DUMBLEDORE for the last few months, and I'd barely made any progress against that monster. I'd sparred with him three times, and he had fucking crushed me. Fucking Transfiguarion.

This guy though, was not the Wizarding World's answer to a god of war, and I was betting I'd do way better. I wanted to test some of my new tricks, not all of them, since that would give away my secrets, but I was pretty sure my modified cutting curses would be more than enough to take this asshole down.

I squashed that thought as soon as I had it though. Pride. One of my sins rearing its ugly head. Lockhart seemed like an idiot, but he was a teacher at Hogwarts. Dumbledore didn't hire morons. He hired sociopathic ghost vessels sometimes, but definitely not morons.

We took up our stances across from each other, and Lockhart beamed at the other students. "Now, as you can see, we've assumed a traditional duelling stance, and will now bow to each other, like so." He put a fist to his palm, wand in hand, and I did the same, albeit grudgingly. "Once we've finished that, we await the match's beginning, called by our referee. Miss. Blake." He ask D.B. silkily. "Might I impose on you to lend us your enchanting voice?"

D.B. gave a strained smile but nodded, shooting me a pleading look. I got her point. She wanted me to fuck him up. Challenge accepted. She stood up on the stage, backed away enough not to be in our direct spell line, and raised her hands, one of them clutching a handkerchief like she was a race girl from a drag racing movie.

She clearly knew as little about all this as I did. I clutched my wand, waiting for the match to start, and as she brought the handkerchief flicking down with a yell of. "Begin!" My hand blurred into motion. My first formal duel had begun.

November 1st, 2011, Hogwarts, Scotland, 7:00 PM BST

I was in a weird position in terms of duelling experience. One hand, I had lots, having been in multiple fights and training with Dumbledore. On the other I had none, because training was training and I didn't really use wizardry in fights.

This was my chance to really test myself against a competent adult wizard, and I admit I was pretty psyched. Lockhart, for his part, didn't seem particularly worried, eyes hooded in a sort of derisive condescension that really pissed me off. "Now then." He said pompously. "The first and most important spell in any duellists arsenal is this. 'Expelliarmus'."

A jet of red scythe towards me and I lazily flicked my wand without saying anything, a custom cutting curse aimed to unravel a disarming spell. By customizing the intent I was able to minimize the power I used, as well as massively overpower the more specific cutting curse if I needed to. One of the main fruits of my training with Dumbledore.

The cut hit the jet of red mid beam, and the whole spell unraveled into a cloud of sparks harmlessly in front of my, never even getting close.

I saw a flash of irritation on Lockhart's face, but his wide cheesy smile never slipped. "Good show my boy!" He called obnoxiously. "Precisely why I selected you. I knew you had the gift. I can always tell. And nonverbal casting too. Quite right." He turned to the audience with a chuckle. "Nonverbal casting is quite useful in a duel. Observe."

He wheeled on me, wand blurring as it flicked out and a half dozen red jets of light streaked toward me. I almost laughed at his pathetic attempt to be crafty. I didn't even bother to cut these ones down, just did a lazy little shuffle and avoided every one of them.

To his credit, Lockhart didn't bother grandstanding or fucking around with his next series of attacks. Smile slipping, he started flicking out more spells nonverbally, and judging by the color most of them weren't disarming charms. Of course, it didn't matter, I was a devil, and while he might not have been the incompetent he seemed, he wasn't at a level to inconvenience me.

It was strange really, seeing how much he sucked compared to the wizards I'd faced before. Voldemort might be an asshole, but he knew how to train his people. All the Death Eaters I'd seen duel were monsters compared to Lockhart, and even they wouldn't have been as much of a challenge anymore.

The one small issue I had was revealing itself though. I could cut a spell down if I knew it or not, but if I wasn't aware of what kind of spell I'd have to use a more generalized counter cut, and some powerful dark curses would still hit.

Of course, Lockhart wasn't casting powerful dark curses on a student he was teaching. It was simple to counter the flurry of attacks, dodging some here or there to make it seem like this was hard. I shuffled and stepped around five attacks, cut down six, and started throwing back stunning spells. I DID know other magic, it just wasn't as versatile. He blocked or deflected (hadn't know that was possible) every spell, sending back a dozen in their place.

Lockhart was genuinely impressing me. His raw power was nothing to sneeze at if nothing else. He didn't use it very well, but the man was a magical bruiser and he was obviously starting to get pissed. It was kind of hilarious.

I started mixing in some of the persistent charms I'd been learning, freezing charm, warming charm, cheering charm. I didn't overpower them, that wasn't the point, I was baiting him, letting him know how seriously I didn't take him. He annoyed me, and I wanted him to know it, and it was obviously working.

To my shock, when I went to dodge next, he flicked his wand and one of the beams fucking CURVED somehow. I still mostly avoided it, my devil speed allowing me to overcome the surprise, but it grazed my arm lightly enough for me to feel it ping against my evil piece.

My eyes narrowed. Mental magic. He'd tried to do something to my brain. That brush wouldn't have worked even if I WAS susceptible, but the fact that the airhead playboy who liked to hit on students was practiced enough with fucking mind magic to apparently pull some bullet curving bullshit with the spell was suspicious.

I stopped fucking around. My arm blurred, spells flickering out, ground turning to ice, flame and rocks pelting the shield he'd conjured. I didn't turn into a one man army, but I firmly shifted the tempo in my favor, hammering him so hard he wouldn't be able to do that shit again. I was going to have a talk with Dumbledore after this too.

Sweating and glaring, Lockhart snarled at me, all composure gone. "You're out of your depth boy." His wand started to dance in a sort weird continuous motion, and his spells sped up exponentially, each one firing almost before the last ended. Daphne had mentioned this. Spell chaining. Guess he wasn't the DADA teacher for nothing.

My body flickered as I danced between the spells, returning fire easily. He wasn't curving these, they were too fast, but he couldn't catch me, and he was tiring way faster than I was. Finally a cutting curse smashed his shield, forcing him to step back onto a patch of ice. His foot slid out from under him and he went over backwards off the stage, slamming hard into the stone floor of the castle, red and shaking with effort.

"You-!" He roared, before noticing all the bystanders and clearing his throat. "Did an excellent job Mr. Black." He forced a brittle smile. "A true shame you aren't a student of mine. Professor Flitwick himself was a champion duellist, I'm sure he must have poured quite a bit of time into your skills."

I smiled, not bothering to poke a hole in his shoddy face saving as I hopped down from the stage, barely breathing hard. That had been a bracing workout, if only because of the sheer magical expenditure. Last year I couldn't have sustained it, but I was a whole new devil these days.

Honestly I kind of felt let down. I'd just duelled a TEACHER. This place employed world class wizards, and the fight should have been way more fun. I guessed the only consolation was that Lockhart was filling the cursed DADA position. It made sense for them to be scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point. Aside from being stronger than average he hadn't shown me much.

"That was bloody BRILLIANT." Gaped Ron as I returned to where Val and Seras were standing with Harry and co. "How did you learn to duel like that?"

I shrugged. "It wasn't really anything too impressive spell wise. Just some basic charms and a cutting curse. I'm just really athletic. I'm sure Harry could have pulled off something similar, isn't that right oh 'youngest seeker in a century'?"

He just shook his head. "Not a chance, mate. That was crazy. I could barely see you move. Why aren't YOU a seeker, you've got the reflexes for it."

I was about to make up an excuse, when Lockhart cleared his throat. "Well, that was certainly exciting, but I think we could use another strong contender to cleanse the palate. How about our resident celebrity. Mr. Potter, come on up!"

Wincing, I clapped Harry on the shoulder. "Don't sweat it. He won't challenge you. I wore him it. You'll just be fighting another student."

I didn't bother to mention the several higher years sitting around nearby. I didn't think he needed the stress. Lucky for him, my idiot cousin decided to open his giant mouth. "Professor, I'd like to volunteer to be Potter's partner." Sneered Draco. "Give him the chance to show us all how SPECIAL he is."

Glancing between me and Harry, I saw Lockhart strangle a nasty smirk. "That sounds like a capital idea!" Said the condescending dick I'd just trounced. "Mr. Malfoy, please take your place on the stage." Waving him up, he took D.B.'s place on the stage, standing far back enough not to get tagged. "Now, I want this to be a clean duel." He said pointedly. "Nothing too nasty or permanent. It's just a demonstration."

Calling for the start, he stepped back as Harry's wand blurred up to cast as he shouted. "Expelliarmus!" A familiar jet of red came out, but to my surprise Draco sidestepped. Another blast was already on its way, and my cousin responded with a series of shouted spells I only partly recognized.

A tripping jinx, a bone breaker, a stunner, and what I was pretty sure was a tickling hex all sailed across the stage. I shook my head. Rookie. Draco was an above average wizard for his age in power, but he wasn't ME. He was rocking the same amount of strength that Daphne had BEFORE becoming a devil, and that wasn't enough to sustain output like that.

Eyeballing magical strength was hard, but I'd seen him casting in class plenty first year, and I was able to extrapolate based on number of spells and intensity before he got tired to get a baseline.

Harry was tougher, but aside from I was pretty sure being stronger, he was also being MUCH more careful. Sticking to the low energy disarming charm, picking his moments, only shielding when absolutely necessary.

Seeing me duel had clearly enlightened him to how useful mobility could be, and I was impressed by how patient he was being. Harry was a grinder, willing to wait for an opening, and it was paying off. Draco was getting tired and reckless, and it was just a matter of time before he failed to get a shield up or dodge.

He knew it too, and my cousin was getting desperate. He finally snapped, deciding to try something a bit less easy to dodge. "SERPENTSOTIA!" He roared, brandishing his wand like a headsman's axe.

There was a flash and a huge black snake came soaring down the length of the stage. No one interfered. That was interesting, but nothing too serious for a duel. The snake landed with a thud near Harry, and the orphaned wizard's wand snapped up as he called. "PROTEGO!" Erecting a pretty solid shield between him and the snake.

It was just in time too, as the snake struck like a bullet, fangs wide and dripping as they skittered off the shield spell, bouncing the animal back. It flew off the shield, streaking to the side and ending up coming right toward Lockhart, who, in his current exhausted condition, froze like a tongue to a lightpole on christmas.

Harry didn't seem afraid, his expression cold as ice as he stared right at the thing and then…hissed. Like a snake. It was pretty wild because I could still understand him. Devils could speak any language we needed to. At least ones humans spoke, because while I heard Harry tell it to back off fine, the snake's response was gibberish to me.

Everyone froze, staring in horror at Harry. He seemed to sense the attention, turning slowly to take everyone in even as the snake obeyed and backed the fuck up. The room broke into a series of tense whispers, most of which I picked up easily though they didn't make much sense to me despite being able to hear them fine.

"Good news." Val whispered unnecessarily. "People don't think you're the heir of Slytherin anymore." She paused. "Some of them. Some of them don't think that." Her whisper was loud enough for several people to hear, and I sighed in annoyance as I parsed what everyone was saying. Somehow, I didn't think that was good news at all. In fact, I was pretty sure the bad news was only just beginning. It never rained but it poured.

As usual pat-reon has the advanced chapters at that site /malcolmtent