"That's...really gross," Kiba muttered as he took in the sight of the ritual they'd come upon.
"No argument here," Koneko muttered.
"He's back," Akeno said, scowling at the sight before her.
In the woods near Kuoh, in a small clearing close to the nearby stream, someone had nailed a small squirrel to a tree. It was upside down with its arms stretched out and its feet placed together in a sort of reverse crucifixion pose. It appeared that the unfortunate animal had been slain first before being placed where it was, which was for the best, all things considered.
"Back?" Kiba asked.
"We had a couple instances of someone mutilating small animals a few months back," Rias replied. "We never caught who was behind the incidents, and they seemed to move on, so I let it go."
"As unpleasant as this is, is it really our problem to deal with?" Kiba asked. "Surely this is just some human wackjob."
"It isn't," Akeno corrected him. "Close your eyes and expand your senses. There are traces of magic here. This isn't some edgy pseudo-Satanist, something we get less of in Japan than in Europe or the Americas in general, by the way."
"Given the symbolism, I'd think it possible that this is some stray devil," Rias remarked. "It's not unheard of for some of our less well-adjusted brethren to turn humans who summon them in bloody rites like this, thinking that the lunatics will make useful cannon fodder against their enemies."
"It could also be some rogue exorcist," Akeno posited, pointing at the positioning of the squirrel. "Usually they turn to the Fallen to continue their little crusades against us with fewer rules, but the odd one turns against the very institution that kicked them out."
"It could even be a magician," Koneko murmured. "The truth is, we've got nothing."
"Nothing except the fact that our little monster here wants attention," Rias sighed. "That's why I was surprised when they moved on before. Whoever or whatever this is, they're making no effort at all to be subtle."
"They're looking for a fight," Akeno nodded.
"Well, if that's what they want..." Kiba smiled, more than ready for action after the past few months.
"This town is my domain, which makes it our responsibility to deal with any supernatural threats that come its way," Rias declared, destroying the squirrel's body and the nails with a wave of her hand. "We'll find whoever did this and make sure that they can't cause any further trouble."
Hermione grunted as another stinging hex struck her, this time in the right hip, and carefully rolled to her left to avoid the follow-up. She sent a flurry of the same spell back at Harry, who batted them away almost casually, making her scowl. Logically she knew that he had been training with Rias and Akeno for months and had long since surpassed her in terms of physical ability and spellcasting, but that didn't make her complete inability to land a single hit on him any less frustrating.
"That's enough for now," he said, lowering his wand.
"I can keep going," Hermione insisted.
"You could, but pushing yourself too hard during training does you few favors, trust me," Harry replied. Looking over at the panting blonde lying next to her, he asked, "You good, Luna?"
"You hit my bum and not in the fun way," Luna replied without heat.
"When we shower in a few minutes, I'll be sure to kiss it better," Harry rumbled, and Luna sat up immediately, her eyes darkening as she stared at him.
"That sounds fun," she commented, standing up.
"Why don't you head to the shower now?" Harry asked. "I'll catch up in a couple minutes."
"Okay," Luna nodded, exiting the training room and walking over to the bedroom next door.
The Room of Requirement stayed in its current configuration constantly these days, and Harry had made sure that Dobby included a fully functional bathroom as well, ending up with something far larger and more grandiose than he'd expected. He assumed it was based on something in Malfoy Manor but hadn't bothered asking, not wanting to remind the excitable elf about that period of his life.
"You're not going to reach my level overnight, Mione," Harry murmured the moment they were alone. "I've only improved as quickly as I have because I have Voldemort's knowledge to draw on."
"I know that," Hermione hissed, looking contrite the moment she did so. "Sorry, but I guess I'm just annoyed with myself for not thinking to join in your training sooner. In all of our adventures, no matter how perilous things have looked, we've always been up to the challenge, and more often than not, I've had to outthink our problems rather than outcurse them. Things are different now, though."
"They are," Harry nodded.
"Have you come across any new leads about where he's gone?" Hermione asked, her eyes brimming with rage as she thought about Voldemort.
"No," Harry replied. "As far as we can tell, he fled to the continent in search of something after I butchered Crouch and the others, taking his followers with him. The only ones we managed to come across who hadn't yet joined him were the Amycus and Alecto Carrow, and they knew even less than Malfoy did."
"You're sure this is the place?" Rias asked as they set down in the middle of a forest in Scotland, to the west of Inverness.
"Amycus and Alecto's uncle, Tiberius, was one of Voldemort's first followers," Harry replied. "He had a much younger brother who was born just a few years before his parents died, and who he cared little for. Not wanting to give him nothing when he came of age, as it would have reflected poorly on him, he acquired and heavily enchanted a small house out here and gave him that on the condition that he wouldn't trouble the family again. That man, named Brutus, had twins with a pureblood woman who attended Hogwarts and then returned here. They joined Voldemort just before his fall, and he learned from them that they still stayed in this small, quaint house together. Neither had married yet by that point, and Voldemort actually thought that they were lovers."
"The twins?" Akeno asked.
"Ew," Rias gagged.
"Yes, even by pureblood standards it's rather gross," Harry snorted. "Of course, Voldemort could be wrong about them; he isn't exactly an expert on interpersonal relationships."
"How likely do you think it is that they're home?" Akeno asked.
"There's definitely someone home," Rias murmured, having sent her familiar along ahead of time to scope out the place.
"They were always slow to comply with any order that didn't come with the promise of immediate bloodshed," Harry replied. "If any of these fuckers are still here, it would be them."
Learning that Voldemort had successfully evacuated his forces from Britain had been infuriating, and Harry was dearly hoping that at least a few of them would still be around. He had no idea just how all these prominent purebloods were spinning their 'sudden vacations,' but he did know that it was vexing. As they approached the wardline, having made themselves invisible, he drew his wand and cast a couple charms to see what exactly he was working with.
"They're fools," Harry murmured.
"Oh?" Akeno asked.
"Tiberius Carrow had this place enchanted well," Harry replied. "They've allowed most of the wards to degrade to the point of collapse and added nothing new. Rias, it won't take much to punch through this."
"I'll be as subtle as I can," Rias grinned, drawing on her power.
A crimson magic circle appeared on her palm, and she used the Power of Destruction to start unraveling the wards. As Harry had said, they were remarkably weak, and she imagined her nephew, even as young as he was, could get through them with ease. After only a couple minutes, she had created enough of a hole for them to get through without alerting the occupants.
The house was more impressive than he had been expecting, a sizable two-story residence in the Scottish baronial style. His aunt Petunia went through a phase when he was young where she was obsessed with Balmoral Castle. He had no idea what sparked the short-lived obsession, but he had learned enough during it to know that this house was probably built around the same time as it. How the late Lord Carrow had acquired it for his little brother, he probably didn't want to know.
"Homenum Revelio," Harry cast, and he instantly knew that there were two people home, and that was all. They were not the wealthiest purebloods, and he doubted that they had a house elf, but it was possible that there were animals of some sort there, and he knew that he'd need to stay on his guard even after they'd been subdued.
"Harry, you sneak in around the back with Akeno," Rias smirked. "Once you're in position, I'll get their attention."
"Will do," Harry nodded, setting off.
The two of them ran around the edge of the property until they'd reached the side door. Allowing Akeno to unlock it with a wave of her hand, he opened the door and let her fly in before following on foot. Completely disillusioned, he silenced his feet and moved through the house like a ghost, seeking out the living people he'd sensed when he cast the revealing charm.
They came across them quickly enough, sitting on a couch together. They were both middle-aged and didn't look like they took particularly good care of themselves. Alecto was short and squat, with a pale, fleshy face and long red hair streaked with white. Her dark eyes were unsettling, even as she looked to be in a good mood just then, as though there was a desire to cause pain right at the forefront of her mind at all times.
Amycus' hair had already turned white before his time and was quite receded. He was portly, less so than Vernon, but still noticeably so, and appeared short as well from where he was seated. He kept his face clean-shaven, exposing his second chin to the world, and his eyes possessed a similar madness to those of his sister, whose feet were sitting in his lap just then as he rubbed them.
"Merlin, you're good at that," Alecto purred.
"I should be with all the practice I've gotten over the years at your insistence, Princess," Amycus chuckled.
"Am I your princess?" Alecto asked, her voice taking on a childlike tone.
"You know you are," Amycus grinned, pressing his lips against her big toe. "You've been mine from head to these sweet little toes since the beginning."
She giggled and leaned in to kiss him when Harry hit them with a pair of silent stunners that neither one saw coming.
"I need a word with...oh, you already dealt with them," Rias pouted.
"Let's just say they were already distracted," Harry grimaced.
"Gross," Hermione gagged.
"Yeah, I mean, why couldn't it have been our Carrow twins?" Harry quipped, earning a glare from the brunette.
"Well, at least that's two more gone then," Hermione said darkly, and Harry resisted the urge to sigh.
On the one hand, he was glad that, as he planned to massacre dozens of people, he wouldn't have to worry about Hermione objecting loudly as she would have before her parents were murdered, but on the other hand, he missed the innocent, moralistic girl she'd been then. That girl was gone, though, and while he loved the pragmatic, somewhat bloodthirsty creature in front of him no less, he still mourned who she once was.
"Did you question them?" Hermione asked.
"Extensively," Harry replied. "Unsurprisingly, they knew less than Lucius did and assumed that Voldemort was just doing some recruiting in Europe."
"So we just have to wait until someone is spotted down there," Hermione muttered.
"Have you considered using...the stone yet?" Harry asked, changing the subject. "It seems to have helped Luna."
"Luna's putting on a facade of normalcy, but you can still see the change in her eyes," Hermione replied. "I haven't heard her mention one of her father's creatures since that night."
That was true, for while the incidents of her mentioning things like snorkacks and wrackspurts had decreased steadily over the course of their friendship, he hadn't heard her mention them at all since Xenophilius died. She hadn't shared what her parents had said to her when she spoke to them, but he guessed that they advised her to try and focus on her relationships, and so she had.
"Still..." Harry said.
"You haven't used it either," Hermione pointed out, "or at least you haven't mentioned it if you have."
"I haven't," Harry admitted, fishing the dark stone out of his mokeskin pouch. "They sacrificed themselves to save me, Hermione; to save me and stop him. How can I tell them that those sacrifices only bought me time, that he's back and still a threat to all of us?"
"They loved you," Hermione said softly, "and I can't imagine that either one has regretted giving their lives for you for a single moment since."
Harry swallowed thickly and looked away, his eyes growing misty, and Hermione hugged him.
"When Voldemort's dead, I'll do it," he whispered. "Once I can tell them definitively that it's all over, that their deaths weren't in vain, then I'll contact them. What about you?"
"I don't know what to say," Hermione whispered, clenching her eyes shut. "All my life they were so involved in their own lives that it seemed like making me was just something they did...because. I had gotten used to that, accepted it, and then the last time we spoke…"
She trailed off then, choking back a sob, and Harry hugged her more tightly, running his fingers through her hair.
"It was like something...straight out of a dream I hadn't had in years," Hermione wept. He held her in silence for a couple minutes as she cried, trying to give what comfort he could while rage welled inside him. "They were seeing a counselor and working through the things that had left them so cold and detached, and I hate that I'm never going to get to see if that worked out. I hate that I'll never know a more well-adjusted version of them, and I hate myself for even thinking like that when the reality is that they were cut down decades before their time for no reason!"
"We'll find them eventually," Harry hissed. "Wherever he's run, whatever he's doing, we'll find Voldemort and wipe him and his followers off the face of the Earth."
"I want to be there when you do," Hermione raged. "I want to see you, Rias, and Akeno tear them apart. Really, I want to do it myself."
"It's...killing isn't as easy as you might think," Harry muttered, pulling back to look into her angry brown eyes. "I threw up all over the place the first time I did it."
"Did you throw up when you killed the Carrows?" Hermione asked. "When you killed Malfoy?"
"No," Harry replied. "Like all things in life, it gets easier with experience."
"You know, the room could probably make a pensieve," Hermione murmured. "If I don't want to freeze up when faced with a kill-or-be-killed situation, it might help to watch some of your memories."
"I'm not sure I want you to see me like that," Harry muttered, "and I certainly don't want you in a situation like that."
"I want my parents back," Hermione hissed. "We don't live in a good world, Harry, and we don't get what we want."
Harry looked down at her in alarm and said, "You asked me once not to let the devils or the Death Eaters change who I am."
"I remember," Hermione whispered, looking away. "You replied by saying that it was high time you grew up. The same is true for me. I'll try not to let this ruin me, and it's not like I suddenly want to murder the innocent or anything, but I'm just so bloody angry that there are moments where I feel like I'm going to explode."
"That I can understand," Harry murmured, hugging her again.
"It is one of the stages of grief," Hermione whispered into his chest. "I'm sure that I'll reach a point where I'm ready to speak to them, but I'm not there yet."
"I understand that too," Harry whispered.
"Have you thought about showing it to Sirius?" Hermione asked.
"No," Harry replied, shaking his head. "The tale of Cadmus Peverell is why I limited Luna to using it only once for the time being, and I would limit the both of us to the same. Sirius, though, given the life he's lived since that terrible night, already lives in the past enough, and I don't know what facing my dad again would do to him."
"I don't even want to think about that," Hermione shuddered.
"Continuing with your occlumency training will help with this too," Harry murmured.
"Not that I'm making much progress there," Hermione hissed.
"It takes time," Harry said, earning himself another frustrated glare from the brunette.
Just then, a charmed parchment airplane flew into the room, and Harry snatched it out of the air.
How much longer are you going to be?
I've nearly cum twice, and it's always so hard to stop a third time.
L
Harry snorted and showed the letter to Hermione, whose lips quirked despite her mood.
"I could use something to get my mind off of...everything," she murmured. "Shall we?"
Harry nodded and vanished the letter before taking her hand and leading her to the shower.
"Bloody hell, how'd you get so good at this?" Ron asked as he watched Harry work on their potion, and he was surprised that the redhead hadn't complained yet about how late this particular class was being held.
It was after dinner, and they'd ended up with a potions class after someone dared to fill Snape's classroom and office with rose-scented pink foam earlier, disrupting what would have been their one o'clock lesson. If the way he'd been trying to bore holes in the twins' heads during dinner with his eyes was any indication, he strongly suspected that it was them, and Harry hoped for their sakes that they'd covered their tracks if it was.
"I found someone capable of teaching the subject," Harry replied quietly, not that he particularly cared if Snape heard him or not.
The overgrown bat hadn't said a word to him in weeks, not since he learned what role the man had played in his parents' deaths. He had switched up the pairings that day, something that he did now and then, presumably just to screw with his students, and it saw Harry moved to work with his former friend. It was odd reuniting with Ron, a boy who had been one of the most important people in his life for years but whom he'd barely thought about in months.
"We just want the cabbage leaves, right?" Ron asked, checking his book as he held the struggling plant tightly.
"Yes, discard the teeth," Harry nodded.
Ron sliced clean through the spine of the Chinese chomping cabbage, killing it, and got to work removing the leaves from it.
"Listen, Harry, I…" he went to say.
"One second," Harry sighed, slipping his wand into his hand and casting a silent muffliato charm.
If Snape noticed, he didn't even look at them.
As Harry nodded, Ron continued, saying, "I'm sorry."
"For?" Harry asked.
"For being such a prat," Ron muttered. "Even before we found out that it was that Death Eater disguised as Professor Moody who put you in the tournament, I should have known that you didn't enter yourself."
"Yes, you should have," Harry said neutrally. "Add the leaves."
Ron did so, and as Harry started stirring clockwise, he added, "I was just jealous, you know?"
"Envious, technically," Harry replied. "Jealousy is the fear of losing something to another, while envy is wanting what someone else has. Bloody no one gets that right."
"You've been spending a lot more time with Hermione since I left, huh?" Ron joked before looking more serious. "Look, I'm not going to ask you back or anything, because I think we've become really different people over the last few months, but I did want to say I'm sorry, and I was a right arse."
"Thank you," Harry murmured, genuinely pleased by that.
The truth was that he and Ron had really drifted apart since his name came out of the goblet, and he doubted that his old friend would fit into his new life. He certainly couldn't tell him about Rias or Akeno. Even discounting how instantly envious the redhead would become at that, Harry doubted that his eardrums could take it if his mother learned about them.
"How is Hermione doing anyway?" Ron asked.
"Grieving," Harry replied as he added the red spider, the last ingredient in skele-gro, and gave it its final seven counter-clockwise stirs. "She's taking things day by day. It's all she can do."
"I still can't believe it," Ron muttered. "Those evil bastards. I hope they keep killing each other."
"As do I," Harry said darkly, reducing the flame under the cauldron.
He let it simmer on a very low heat for another couple minutes, waiting for it to go from its current green color to the distinct yellow sludge he was more familiar with than he wanted to be. It did so a couple minutes later, and he snuffed out the flame as Ron carefully ladled some of it into a vial for Snape. He took it over to the man, noting that Malfoy glared up at him as he passed. He paid the blonde no heed, something that had been quite easy to do of late, as he'd been nearly silent since learning of his father's death.
"Adequate," Snape said, not looking him in the eye as he placed the vial on his desk. "Clean up, and you two are free to leave."
Harry didn't reply and drew his wand, cleaning up their workstation quickly before grabbing his things and leaving the dark, dank room.
"What happened between you two?" Ron couldn't help but ask as soon as they were out of the room. "Ever since that morning in the Great Hall, he's barely looked at you."
"We came to an understanding," Harry replied. "He stays out of my way, and I stay out of his."
"And he gets to keep his head," he added mentally.
"Blimey," Ron chuckled. "If I'd known it was that easy…"
"I wouldn't recommend trying to draw your wand on him," Harry cut him off, chuckling. "He remains at least as dangerous as he looks."
"Erm, Harry," Ron said, looking awkward. "I know I have no right to ask anything, and I swear this isn't why I apologized. I've want to for ages but couldn't think of a way to approach you that wouldn't be bloody awkward…"
"Spit it out," Harry interrupted him, rolling his eyes.
"Are you dating Hermione or Luna?" Ron asked.
"What?" Harry asked. He'd expected a request of some kind, not that.
"Dean thinks it's Luna, but I figure you've known Hermione longer and seem even closer to her than before," Ron explained. "We argued about it, and he was too scared to ask you, because you seem bloody scary these days, as was Seamus, who has the mad idea that you're actually seeing Fleur."
"It is all three of us, actually," Luna smiled, happening to turn the corner at that moment. She kissed Harry's cheek and took his hand as she added, "Did you finish your potion?"
"Yes," Harry replied. "Hermione's already done too."
"Perfect," Luna murmured, "then we can get going. It was nice seeing you again, Ronald. Tell Ginny I said hi."
"Hah…" Ron babbled, sounding like his brain had stopped functioning.
"Anyway, Ron, it was nice catching up, but I have to run," Harry chuckled. "See you later."
"Hah," Ron replied, making Luna giggle as he led her away.
"Fleur and Hermione are already in the room," Luna whispered in his ear. "We can begin the moment the others arrive."
Harry nodded, and the two of them made their way up to the seventh floor, prepared to attempt the ritual they'd all been contemplating for a while.
As Fleur examined the ritual circle on the ground of their significantly transformed training room, she deemed it good enough to serve her purposes here and recalled the moment where she learned about what she was going to be helping with today.
"What sort of...contract?" Fleur asked suspiciously.
"The master-servant contract," Rias replied.
"It's not as bad as it sounds, and reversible besides," Harry cut in. "We found the scroll detailing the ritual in the room here and thought that it sounded potentially interesting."
"What it does is bind two people together; a master and a servant," Rias explained. "It's primary purpose appears to be to ensure that the servant cannot betray the master, but it has other benefits, the greatest of which is that, for as long as the contract is in place, both the master and the servant will always know where the other is."
"With the growing danger we all find ourselves in, we thought that it might be useful," Hermione murmured, "but we wanted to make sure that it was safe first. I looked over the English translation you gave me, and there were a couple concerning things."
"There are risks that we'll need to mitigate if we're going to do it," Rias agreed. "For one thing, we absolutely cannot use my power as the basis of the contract."
"Why not?" Fleur asked, trying to keep her face as neutral as possible. She didn't like the sound of this at all but figured there'd be no point in trying to shoot it down immediately.
"I was concerned about that as well," Hermione murmured. "Rias' mother is from the Bael clan and possesses their Power of Destruction."
"If Harry triggered a punishment of any kind from our pact, I couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't be seriously hurt," Rias continued, looking at him, "and I'm not willing to risk that under any circumstances."
"Wouldn't that only happen if I betrayed you, though?" Harry asked, furrowing his brow in confusion. "You do trust that I wouldn't, right?"
"It wouldn't need to be a major betrayal," Rias replied. "We're going to have moments where we disagree in life, and you're going to do things that I don't appreciate at times; that's just a natural part of any relationship. I don't want to risk having your kidneys burn out of existence because you decide that you're not up for training some day."
"Zat could 'appen?" Fleur asked, aghast.
"My power is dangerous, and like I say, I'm not willing to risk endangering Harry," Rias replied. "The whole reason we would do this at all would be to add a layer of safety and security where he's concerned. I'm going to need someone whose power isn't inherently lethal to conduct the ritual, as a third person can be involved in the actual binding process."
"Hermione or I could do it," Luna piped up, "though I don't have any experience with ritual magic."
"My runic studies lend themselves pretty well to that, but I still haven't covered the sixth-year material in my private studies, much less N.E.W.T. or post-N.E.W.T material," Hermione frowned.
"I could do it," Fleur offered, earning a surprised look from the redhead. "Runes is one of my best subjects, and zough I studied ze enchanting aspects of it more zan ze ritual aspects, I'd still probably be ze most capable one 'ere."
"You're sure, Fleur?" Harry asked.
"Under normal circumstances, I would be quite opposed to zis," Fleur admitted, "but given ze times we live in and 'ow precarious your situation is, I see ze reasoning behind it. If your Voldemort managed to abduct you out of 'Ogwarts, 'aving Rias be able to instantly know where you are could be very 'elpful."
"I'm glad you agree," Rias sighed happily. "Your Veela nature, though…"
"Were I one of zese 'phoenix devils,' it might be ill-advised, but zough I 'ave an affinity for fire and ze 'arpy form amplifies zis, ze most noteworthy aspect of my power is ze allure," Fleur explained. " 'Arry might suffer from an outright painful erection for questioning your commands, but so long as it did not last more zan four 'ours, it should be fine."
"I could help with your erections, Harry," Luna murmured.
"Thanks Luna," Harry snorted.
"You said it was reversible, oui?" Fleur asked as Rias pulled a translated copy of the scroll from her bag to give her.
"Yes," Rias replied as Harry nodded. "The ritual needs to be done on the night of the full moon and can be reversed under any other full moon."
"Well, ze moon is waxing now and will be full in just over a week and a half," Fleur murmured, taking the scroll and looking it over. "I'll read this over in ze meantime and learn what I must to help you with it."
"Thank you, Fleur," Rias smiled. "I know you've been...slow to trust us, and I'm glad to see that you've come around this much."
"Your love for 'Arry is undeniable," Fleur replied. "Whatever reservations I might 'ave 'ad, I know zat is true."
Rias smiled at her as Fleur put the scroll away.
When Rias first gave Fleur the task of conducting the ritual for the Master-Servant Contract, she wondered why the devil heiress was willing to trust her with it. She'd not been outright rude since the first night that she found out just what Harry's two remaining lovers were, but she'd also not deceived them about her lingering doubts about them. It had taken only a single night of researching the scroll she'd been given to figure out why.
The Master-Servant Contract was a brilliant work of ritual magic and one which she'd never have devised if she'd been given decades to work on it. It was magically complicated and yet so well designed that there were few ways to really interfere with it. As the third person involved in the ritual, her magic would fuel it, and she would conduct it, but her actual input in it was relatively limited. There was no way for her to try to enslave either or both of them to herself, for instance, or really any major way to sabotage it, so Rias' trust made a little more sense to her than it first had. The ritual itself still left her somewhat wary, though.
She wanted to trust them; she really did, both because they were so important to Harry as well as to Luna and Hermione, but also because she'd actually felt the depths of their love for him. She had met enough terrible people before and read accounts from Veela who had as well to know that people could feel genuine love for others and still wish to control or rule them. People in real life were more complex than they were in fiction, and evil monsters like Voldemort, who genuinely couldn't feel human emotion, were exceptionally rare.
"She could love 'Arry and still wish to be 'is master," she thought to herself. "I haven't seen 'er with the rest of 'er servants, and I can't really speak to how she treats them, and Akeno is 'er best friend, so zeir relationship isn't really zat useful in zis case. In carrying out ze ritual, I will be enslaving 'Arry to 'er and while it can be undone, it requires both of their consent to do so."
It was something that she'd struggled with for days before coming up with a solution. There weren't many ways that she could mess around with the ritual, and the benefits regarding Harry's safety were too valuable to really object to, but there was one thing that she'd discovered was possible. It was a minor alteration, in truth, and one that would not only work out better for Harry in any event but also hopefully help Fleur move past her lingering aversion to the devils in his life.
"After all," she thought to herself. "If Rias goes along with it anyway, what more proof could I need of her good intentions?"
"Ah, there you are," Hermione murmured the moment she saw Harry and Luna enter the room, looking up from the book she'd taken from the finished pile. "You looked to have made such progress on your skele-gro that I thought you'd be here sooner."
"Ron wanted to talk," Harry explained.
"Oh?" Hermione asked.
"He...apologized for everything," Harry replied.
"Really?" Hermione asked, surprised.
"Yeah," Harry replied. "He seemed oddly mature about it. He then asked if I was dating you or Luna."
"I told him it was all three of us," Luna murmured, "and he developed the greatest wrackspurt infestation I've ever seen."
"I'm going to get some questions about that later," Hermione sighed. "In truth, I'm surprised I haven't already."
"Speculation might not have been that widespread," Harry shrugged.
"Anyway, let's head inside," Hermione said. "I've had the training room altered for the ritual."
The three of them headed inside and saw that the room had changed completely. Rather than their typical training room, with its padded floors, scattered training dummies, and high ceiling, it looked simpler. It was small, with three darkly painted walls, a hardwood floor, and a wall, across from the door, that was one giant window, through which streamed the light of the full moon. Harry could see the dark lake outside and the Forbidden Forest in the distance. He didn't know how, but in that moment, the room requirement had a window to the outside, and he was really glad that it was so late.
Fleur was looking down at the ritual circle drawn on the ground, comparing it to the one in the scroll she was holding. This step wasn't specifically necessary, but giving her a visual in front of her to focus on as she conjured and filled that circle with magic was a good idea, given that she hadn't done anything quite like this before.
"Rias Gremory and Akeno Himejima," Harry called out with the summoning paper in hand.
The two of them appeared a moment later, and Rias rushed over to kiss him.
"That looks just like the visual in the scroll," Akeno murmured, looking down at the circle.
"I 'ad Dobby get the room to conjure it for us and generally trust a 'ouse elf's precision," Fleur said.
"I'll fly up and look," Akeno said as her wings sprung from her back and she rose until her back was nearly against the ceiling. "Yeah, it looks good to me."
"Good," Fleur smiled, looking over at Luna and Hermione just as they sat down on the couch that was placed for them.
"Alright, you remember your part, Fleur?" Rias asked.
"Oui," Fleur replied. "Step inside the circle now and I'll begin. Rias, you're to stand on the side nearest the window, the master side of the circle, and Harry, you're to stand on the side nearest the door."
She drew her wand as the two of them carefully stepped inside the circle, making sure that they didn't disrupt anything, and added, "Just stand still while I get this part set up. It will take a few moments."
She traced her wand through the air, drawing little runic symbols of golden light on the floor and charging them with enough magic to stick around. She traced over the diagram on the floor, using it as a stencil to ensure that she got this right. The ritual for the Master-Servant Contract wasn't the sort that was terribly dangerous if done poorly, but a single error would still stop it from working and mean that they'd have to start over once it failed.
It took her a few minutes, during which Harry and Rias stood still in the center, the former practicing his occlumency while the latter stayed still with practiced ease. A noble heiress did not fidget in public after all, something that her mother had drilled into her extensively while she was growing up. Eventually, though, it was done, and Fleur let out a sigh of relief when it was, and she was able to draw the circle itself, encasing the symbols she'd already drawn. The concentration needed for that step, along with the sheer amount of magic required, was not insignificant, and she wiped the sweat from her brow with a smile on her face.
"Zere," she murmured. "Now, I need you both to reach out to ze circle and feed your own magic into it."
Rias and Harry nodded and reached out mentally to the swirling vortex of power around them. Rias managed it first, being far more familiar with magic of this kind, and little streaks of crimson colored the golden circle near her end of it. Voldemort had quite a bit of familiarity with ritual magic, and Harry had managed to make use of his expertise in the matter. It still took him a moment to feel Fleur's power surrounding him, but once he did, he managed to add his magic to it, and little streaks of a different shade of red than Rias' started coloring the circle on his side.
The crimson and red streaks disappeared as they were absorbed into the ritual. These two were the subject of it, and their very souls would end up linked by the end of it, but they were not in charge of it. The more magic they fed into it, the simultaneously easier and more taxing it became for Fleur. She didn't have to power the whole thing herself anymore as they became more and more a part of it, but she did need to hold everything together. She was not weak, though, and had more than enough will and magic to do her part. After a few minutes, both Harry and Rias shivered as they simultaneously felt the ritual circle lock them together.
"Alright, we're ready to begin," Fleur smiled. "Rias, Harry, do you both wish to form this Master-Servant Contract and thereby bind your souls together?"
"I do," Rias nodded, smiling at Harry.
"I do," Harry replied, his face warming a little. The formal declaration was meant to ensure that their minds and magic were focused on the task at hand, but it made it feel almost like a wedding, something that he was surprised by how much he liked.
Rias seemed to catch on to what he was thinking and blushed even harder, her face splitting into a wide smile.
"Rias, take my hand," Fleur murmured, stretching out an arm towards her and smiling as the other girl slipped her hand into her grip.
The crimson-haired beauty did so, and she began chanting the magical phrases detailed in that strange little book. If not for the devils' ability to speak in tongues, they might have been in trouble at this part, as rituals often didn't work as well if you attempted to speak the words of them in another language. Things often got slightly lost in translation, after all, and when it came to ritual magic, precision and attention to detail were musts. Luckily, Rias was able to sound out the words through her instinctive understanding of them and wrote out, syllable by syllable, how it sounded while also giving her enough of a translation to help her figure out the meaning of the words.
Rias joined in with the chant when Fleur gave her the signal, and it had an immediate effect on the ritual circle. The faint golden glow of it became almost blindingly bright and then enveloped Rias' form. It enveloped Harry a moment later, and he was filled with a warmth and sense of joy that he realized a moment later was coming from Rias. There was a hint of mischievousness in there too, which he ignored, not wanting to break his concentration on the ritual for a moment, and a great, overwhelming lust that he needed to put out of his mind as well.
Fleur went quiet and let Rias finish the chant, and as she did so, the blonde turned to Harry and said, "In a moment, a magic circle will appear on the back of Rias' right hand. By kissing it, you will accept the pact binding you together."
"I know," Harry nodded, his eyes locking onto Rias' hand as he awaited the last part of the ritual.
"Um, Harry?" Hermione asked a moment later, and he looked over in surprise.
Her, Luna, and Akeno had wanted to watch the ritual, but all three knew better than to interrupt it for fear of causing something to go wrong, and he knew she'd only pipe up at all if something was wrong.
"Rias, his hand!" Akeno called out, and Rias looked down where her queen was pointing, her eyes going wide as she saw just what she was talking about.
"What the hell?!" she exclaimed. "Harry, look."
Harry turned his hand around and saw a golden runic circle, just like the one described in the book, on the back of his hand. This was proof that the ritual had worked mostly as described but with only one problem. That circle should have been on Rias' hand, and he really didn't know what it could mean for it to be on his other than the possibility that…
"Did you reverse the ritual?!" Rias exclaimed, glaring at Fleur.
"I...er…" Fleur stammered, looking down at the circle as if to try to inspect it.
The truth was that that was exactly what she had done. The ritual left few means of interfering with it that wouldn't cause the whole thing to fail, but the matter of who was the master and who was the servant was absolutely left to the discretion of the person conducting it. Having grown up in a Veela household, she had heard more tales of the terrible things devils did and the harm they both caused in general, and what their apparent association had done to their people all her life.
She could recognize that Rias and Akeno didn't appear to be like the monsters she'd grown up hearing about, but she still really didn't like the idea of enslaving Harry to either of them. When she figured out that she could easily reverse the ritual, she figured that it would make the perfect test. If Rias agreed to be Harry's slave, even temporarily, she could take that as proof that she actually was capable of selflessness and thus nothing like the evil monsters she'd been warned about all her life. That wasn't exactly something that she could admit to during the ritual, though, lest it fall apart.
"Something must 'ave gone wrong," Fleur muttered, looking around with feigned franticness. "but ze ritual seems to 'ave worked out otherwise. Kiss 'Arry's 'and before ze light goes out, and you two will be bound regardless."
"With Harry as the master?" Akeno asked, sounding amused as Rias squawked in outrage.
"But that...I…" Rias stammered as Fleur looked at her curiously.
"Rias, we…" Harry went to say, his face falling. "You know you can trust me, right?"
"It's not a matter of trust," Rias insisted. "Of course I trust you, Harry, but…"
"Rias, it's reversible," Akeno pointed out, "and more to the point, it's not something we can start over tonight. This isn't the time to let your nobility get in the way."
Rias looked away at that, feeling chastised, but she couldn't help it. She was the heiress of the noble house of Gremory and had been raised all her life to take over for her father some day. She knew deep down that she could be spoiled sometimes and definitely had a habit of taking command in situations whether it was really warranted or not, but she couldn't help it. She was the daughter of Zeoticus Gremory and Venelana Bael and the younger sister of the great devil Lucifer. Ruling was in her blood and what she'd been raised for, and while she loved Harry deeply and wanted to be his wife someday, the idea of being enslaved, even by him, was antithetical to her entire being. She didn't have a submissive bone in her body and…
"Rias, please!" Hermione exclaimed as she saw both the magic circle on Harry's hand and the one surrounding them start to flicker.
Rias stood there, her blue eyes wide, paralyzed by indecision, and as she saw the lights go out, her heart lurched.
"Merde," Fleur muttered under her breath, feeling guilty about the turn things had taken. She truly had thought that Rias would go along with it anyway and hadn't for a moment feared that altering the ritual as she had might blow it up like this.
"Now it's ruined, and the protective advantage he'd have gained is gone," she thought to herself, scowling and pinching her nose. "Now we will have to wait a month before we can try aga…"
"Rias," Harry sighed, feeling both disappointed and hurt. "Do you really not trust me at all?"
"It's not that, I...ahh!" Rias cried, her legs buckling as an all-consuming lust the likes of which she'd never known hit her.
"Rias!" Harry rushed forward, wrapping his arms around her. "What's wrong? What in the world?"
His eyes widened as he saw what he could only describe as a reddish violet collar appear around her neck. It looked like a glowing tattoo of sorts, a simple thick band of light that met in the middle with a heart-shaped clasp.
"It...I...oh fuck," Rias stammered, leaning against Harry as her panties were ruined in seconds.
"What did you do?" Akeno demanded, all amusement leaving her voice as she flew over faster than Fleur could blink and held her to the wall by her throat.
"Akeno!" Hermione exclaimed, jumping to her feet. "It could have just been a mistake."
"I don't think it was," Akeno said, her eyes narrowed and her grip loosening just enough to let Fleur speak. "Having her do the ritual was something I agreed with Rias on only because I figured it would take you or Luna too long to learn what you'd need to for it and because, from what I'd seen, there weren't really any ways that she could harm either of them. If I missed something, though…"
"I reversed ze ritual!" Fleur admitted. "I want to trust you two for 'Arry's sake, but it is difficult because of 'ow I was raised. I zought if I could see for myself zat Rias would selflessly accept being ze servant in ze arrangement zat it could quiet my remaining doubts. I swear zat's all I did, zough!"
"Rias, what's wrong?" Harry asked, brushing the trembling girl's hair out of her face as she continued to cling to him. Looking to Fleur, he scowled and hissed, "You did nothing else?"
"I think Fleur's telling the truth, Harry," Luna murmured, studying the beautiful devil. "I don't think Rias is suffering from some magical malady. Look at her eyes; they're almost black."
"Oh," Hermione sighed. "Fleur did say this was the sort of effect that punishments would take if we used her power for it."
"Wait, are you just horny?" Akeno asked, letting Fleur go as she whipped around and stared at her oldest friend in shock.
"S...so...horny," Rias stuttered.
"Oh," Fleur sighed, relieved that she hadn't accidentally messed things up even more than she'd thought.
"It's because she didn't submit," Luna speculated. "The ritual worked anyway and put her right in her punishment state."
"What?" Rias asked, shaking her head to try and clear away the fog of lust and desire that had overtaken her. Taking a step back made her soaked panties shift slightly against her heated flesh, though, and she cried out, falling to her knees.
"What do we do then?" Harry asked.
"Well, getting rid of her clothes first would help," Akeno chuckled, relieved by the thought that there was nothing terribly wrong with Rias.
She undressed the redhead with a wave of her hand and bit her lip when she saw just how visibly wet she was. Rias was dripping onto the floor below, shaking like a leaf from the sheer raw desire coursing through her. She rolled onto her back and spread her legs before looking up at Harry, her eyes blazing.
"Fuck me!" she cried, and Harry undressed with a wave of his wand.
His cock throbbed with need at the sight before him, Rias flushed and visibly horny, her nipples looking painfully hard and her pussy wet and swollen. He would have a few choice words for Fleur when this was done, but for now, he was more than happy to help Rias.
"'Arry, wait!" Fleur exclaimed as he sank to his knees and moved into position.
"What?" Harry asked, looking over and cocking an eyebrow at her.
"Rias' reluctance to submit to you, as her master, is what put 'er in zis state," Fleur explained. "Giving in to 'er demand and fucking 'er probably wouldn't 'elp at all."
"What?" Rias asked blearily, so enthralled by lust that she could barely think. "No, please!"
"Fleur's likely right," Akeno murmured. "If her refusal to accept you as her master was seen by the magic of the contract as a betrayal, then the only way to end it is for her to do so."
"I'm starting to think this wasn't the best idea," Hermione muttered, burying her face in her hands.
"Rias, submitting can be really fun," Luna said encouragingly. "I do it all the time to you, or to Harry, or to Akeno."
"I...gah!" Rias cried, squirming on the floor as the heat and pressure in her core grew even worse.
"'Arry, I zink you're going to 'ave to touch 'er," Fleur sighed. "She is bound to you, and if ze state she is in is anything like what I entered when you teased me ze first time we slept together, the slightest touch will be stimulating in ze extreme."
"Akeno, why is Rias so reluctant to give in here?" Hermione asked quietly as she walked close. "I understand not being submissive, but this seems to be more involved."
"It's a devil thing but not in the way you might think, Fleur," Akeno replied dryly as she watched her old friend continue to squirm. "The Gremorys might not be the harshest or most imperious family, but they are still high nobility among the devils. She's been raised to project strength and authority in all things, and while she's no tyrant, she is very used to being in control. I gave up on trying to get her to submit to me in bed ages ago and could have told you all of this if you'd bothered to ask."
"I'm sorry," Fleur grimaced.
"Rias, I'm here," Harry murmured tenderly. "This can stop, but you need to accept me as your master, just for the next month."
He placed a hand on her hip, and she cried out, her back arching.
"Keep it up," Luna breathed, watching closely from next to them. "The purpose of the contract is to help the master enforce his will on the servant, so you need to be really mastery with her. Treat her like you would me or Akeno."
"N...n...oh fuck!" Rias cried as he traced his hand up along her smooth skin.
His faintest touch felt orgasmic in the oversensitive state that she was in. She was so hot she was already slick with sweat from head to toe, and her cunt was overflowing with her juices. She felt like she was right on the edge of an orgasm like none she'd ever experienced, and while a moment ago she'd wanted nothing more than for Harry to fuck her, she honestly feared that it might be too much for her.
She was sure in that moment that if he even breathed on her clit she'd cum hard, and she couldn't even imagine how impossibly good being split in two by his massive cock would feel just then. Part of her feared that it might be so intense that it would kill her, and part of her didn't care if it did. In that state of overheated, all-consuming desire, she felt like she was of two minds on both things.
She wanted the torment to end, but the pleasure was so intense to the point of being madness-inducing that she also hoped it never would. She wanted to kill Fleur for doing this to her and also wanted to bury her face between the Veela's legs to thank her for inflicting such exquisite ecstasy on her. Nothing left her more conflicted, though, than the idea of actually submitting to Harry and calling him her master. Even knowing that it would be temporary and even with how much she loved him, it conflicted with who she'd been raised to be so much that she remained reluctant.
"Ahh!" she screamed when he cupped one of her breasts.
"Rias, I need you to say the word," Harry whispered in her ear as he kneaded her sensitive mound. "We can reverse this later, but for now, I need you to call me master."
"Harry, I think it's possible that the extreme arousal has hindered her ability to think," Hermione posited. "No matter how much she might not like the idea of being submissive, in bed or otherwise, there's no logical reason to fight it in this case when it can be undone later, but…"
"But if she's not thinking clearly, then that could explain this," Harry surmised.
There was only one thing that he could think to do to try to help her with that. Leaning in, he captured one of her rock-hard nipples between his lips and moved his hand down along her flat belly, reaching for her dripping quim. Before he even came close to it, though, she let out a keening wail, and her back arched off the ground as she came hard.
"That was just from you sucking on her nipple?" Luna asked, her silver eyes wide. "Could we do this sometime?"
Pleasure exploded through her entire body, robbing her of her wits and making her writhe and convulse under Harry's touch. She'd only ever cum that hard with his cock inside her or when he used parseltongue on her, and the fact that all it had taken was only his lips around one of her nipples to do that was both exhilarating and terrifying. She wanted more desperately.
Harry could almost feel the desire for more of his touch radiating off of Rias and decided to do as Luna had suggested and treat her as he would Akeno, at least to an extent.
"Still unwilling?" he asked, slipping into dom voice. "Such a bad girl."
"H...Harry?" Rias asked, her lust-darkened eyes going wide.
"You know what will make this stop," Harry whispered in her ear, making her shiver. "If the only way to get you through this is to make you cum again and again until you say the words, then that's what I'll do."
He reached lower, crossing her hairless mound, and pressed three of his fingers against her dripping wet folds, making her scream. Curling his middle finger inward, he trailed it through her nether lips slowly, brushing against her taut little nub, and she came apart. She shrieked as she came again and sat up, shaking like a leaf as pure pleasure thundered through her. Harry wrapped an arm around her back, holding her sweat-drenched form tightly, and pushed three fingers inside her.
"HARRY!" Rias squealed as she squirted all over the place the second he stroked her g-spot.
"That's not my name," Harry whispered in her ear, "not now anyway. You know what to call me, Rias."
Fleur watched with bated breath as Rias writhed in his arms, orgasm after mind-melting orgasm wracking through her beautiful form. This hadn't been what she had in mind at all, and as she watched the gorgeous redhead continue to fight against the bond, she dearly hoped that she hadn't actually hurt her, both because it would surely mean her death and even more so because of what it would do to Harry.
"What am I to you?!" Harry exclaimed as he watched Rias go through what he swore was her dozenth orgasm since this started.
"MY MASTER!" Rias shrieked, and the glowing collar around her neck disappeared.
She collapsed in his arms, and Harry pulled his fingers from her still spasming pussy to cup her cheek.
"Are you okay?" he asked, watching as she panted for breath and continued to shiver and shake.
"It's...passing," Rias panted. "By the...lightbringer!"
"Time to face the music, Fleur," Akeno chuckled, wrapping an arm around the Veela's waist and pulling her forward.
Luna gulped as she saw Fleur approach what she was sure was a very angry Rias and said, "This would be a good time to apologize."
"I'm sorry, Rias," Fleur winced. "I really did zink zat you'd agree, and it wouldn't really matter much who was...on top in zis case."
"You know...how I feel for Harry," Rias panted. "Was that really...not enough?"
"I just wanted to assuage my own remaining doubts," Fleur sighed. "I figured that you selflessly agreeing to be his servant despite the difference in power would be proof zat devils really could care for more zan power. I did not even zink zat, given your upbringing, you might 'ave perfectly explainable issues with such zings. Again, I'm sorry."
"I hope that you'll...make things up to her," Harry grumbled, both angry at Fleur and fearful that Rias would demand he have nothing more to do with her because of this. In that moment he knew he'd agree without hesitation, but he'd also really miss the beautiful blonde.
"Of course," Fleur agreed. "I am so sorry, Rias, and I swear I'll make this up to you if you let me. Naturally, I will undo ze contract as soon as we can."
"No, you won't," Rias said flatly, and Fleur winced. She was under no illusion about who Harry would choose between them if forced and felt her heart sink at the thought that she'd fucked up something good. "We won't be undoing the ritual on the next full moon."
"What?" Fleur asked, shocked.
"Huh?" Harry asked, and Akeno, Luna, and Hermione all looked at her in surprise.
"It did work, clearly, and I can feel your presence in a way that I've never felt anyone's," Rias replied. "You feel that too?"
"Yeah," Harry replied, smiling as he realized that he could actually feel her on a level that he'd never felt before. In his panic about how things had gone, he hadn't actually focused on that at all yet.
"We could undo this after a full cycle of the moon; the scroll makes that clear, but it doesn't make clear if we could then immediately do it the way that we intended to or if we'd have to wait another cycle," Rias continued. "Your safety means everything to me, Harry, and I'm not going to jeopardize that just because I have...complicated feelings about certain parts of it."
The collar flickered into being on her neck again even with how she'd danced around the issue, and she went still, only relaxing when it disappeared almost immediately after.
"Well, zere is ze proof I was looking for," Fleur thought to herself, feeling beyond foolish.
"Fleur, you say that you're willing to make amends, and I have a simple way for you to do so," Rias said, glaring at her.
The pettiest part of her wanted to banish the Veela from their presence for good for this, but her more pragmatic side quickly won out when she realized one little thing: she'd finally won her over. Fleur had been more reluctant than Hermione to accept her and Akeno in Harry's life up to this point, and she knew why. In trying to distance themselves from the devils they were associated with for their own survival, the Veela had apparently come to think of them in even harsher terms. As she stood before her now, though, Rias could tell that Fleur had finally come to accept that she wasn't what her people said she was.
She wasn't in the habit of accepting indignities, and under normal circumstances, her reaction to something like this would have been harsher, but Fleur was potentially useful to her. Even ignoring that Harry and Luna were both very fond of the beautiful blonde, she was a capable, powerful witch in her own right and a member of a race that Rias had always thought her people shouldn't have discarded so carelessly. There were a number of things that she could potentially accomplish with her aid, aid she figured that she might actually get after this. That didn't mean that she wasn't going to punish her, though.
"Name it," Fleur sighed, more than willing to take her lumps in this case.
"We're not reversing the Master-Servant Contract until Voldemort is dead for good, which means that I am likely going to end up in a position just like this again," Rias said, standing up. "If you want to make amends for this, my condition is simple: every time I end up in that position, so do you."
She looked over to Akeno, and before Fleur could even reply, the raven-haired devil had her stripped and bound by chains, the manacles of which locked around her ankles and wrists. As her arms were pulled towards the ceiling, Fleur squeaked and looked at Harry, whose utterly neglected cock throbbed at the sight.
"I...when I'm put into zat state of extreme arousal, it triggers ze 'arpy form, and I get...fiery," Fleur babbled.
"I can hold you," Akeno chuckled.
"What will it be?" Rias asked.
"If you agree, Fleur, could I help tease you?" Luna asked, her silver eyes darker than her tone.
Harry just looked at her pleadingly, and Fleur sighed, saying, "Okay, and yes, Luna."
The blonde smiled wickedly as Rias said, "The magic in those chains will keep you from cumming no matter what's done to you. If you're good, we might relax the charms in an hour."
"Oh, fuck," Fleur gasped as she saw Harry come over to her.
He kissed her, and she swore she could feel both abiding irritation and gratitude in the way his lips captured hers. Luna started kneading her breasts while Akeno kissed along the slender column of her neck and Rias spanked her hard. She screamed into Harry's mouth, feeling arousal bloom in her core, and realized that while she had gotten off relatively easy, that was something that wouldn't be true for her for what was going to feel like an eternity.
"Hermione, do you want to join us?" Harry asked.
"No," Hermione replied, shaking her head. "I have an early runes class tomorrow and need to actually sleep tonight. Rias, I'm glad you're okay. Night all."
They all wished her good night, and she left them behind, shaking her head. She was hot and slick between her legs and knew that she was going to need to tend to her needs later if she was going to get to sleep, but she really did need to turn in early and knew that none of them would be. She more than any of them could sympathize with Fleur in this instance, as she had also been really slow to trust the devils, and she hoped that Rias' decision to keep the contract in place was all the proof that the Veela needed that they really weren't as bad as so many would have them believe. That didn't mean that she didn't think doing what she'd done was stupid, though.
"Rias will make her punishment suitable," she thought to herself. "Of course, said punishment is likely to end with a gushing orgasm, so it won't be too bad."
Looking over at the pile of finished books on the table, she realized that Rias was going to have to move them soon, lest Dobby and Kreacher run out of space, and decided to take a look at them. Picking one up off of the table, she saw that it was written in what she believed to be Chinese characters and set it aside. The next one was in English, and her eyes widened when she realized what it was.
"The Mystery of Bonita by L. Frank Baum, oh cool!" she thought to herself. "If I recall correctly, this is one of his lost works. I'll definitely give it a look down the line."
Setting it aside, she picked up another book, a much larger one, and frowned in confusion as she opened it.
"What in the world?" she wondered to herself.
It was written in Tengwar, and for a moment, she thought that perhaps Kreacher had made a copy of the book that Dobby had already finished, which would have been a big problem, but then she realized that it was much larger than the one she'd found before. Setting it down across a pair of books from relatively even piles, she flipped through it carefully, her eyes widening progressively further as she did.
"It's definitely a different book," she murmured to herself. "Even the handwriting looks different. What is this?"
She closed the book and took it with her as she went off in search of the house elves. As she headed into the library itself for the first time in a little while, she noticed that it looked somewhat smaller, as if the pair of them had made quite significant progress, and she smiled at that. Harry wanted them to finish before the summer if possible so that they wouldn't have to take a break for it, and she hadn't thought that likely at first, but it seemed that having more than one elf working together made things much faster, and she wondered if they might just pull it off.
"Dobby!" she called out.
"Harry Potter's Hermione is calling Dobby?" the excitable elf asked as he appeared.
"Did you copy this book, or did Kreacher?" Hermione asked, opening it to show him.
"Dobby didn't do that one," Dobby replied. "Kreacher."
"What?" Kreacher hissed. "Oh, you found that gibberish text. Had the master not clearly said to copy everything here, Kreacher would have asked if he wanted it."
"This isn't the first book we've come across written in this text," Hermione said, not bothering to point out that it was written in an actual language. "I'd like to know how many other books there are written in it. Could you two have the room reduce the library to all such books for a couple minutes?"
"Dobby can," Dobby nodded, focusing on commanding the room to alter itself for a moment.
Hermione watched as shelf after shelf disappeared quickly, reducing the library to a fraction of its true size. She figured that some very dedicated Tolkien fans had decided to write a few books in Elvish and wondered if she could find out who they were. There had to be at least two people involved, as the two books she'd found so far were written by different hands.
"Insisting on handwriting the manuscripts instead of typing them out was a particularly nice touch," she thought to herself with a grin. "I can't imagine that there are terribly many of them. Handwriting a manuscript of this size would take…"
She trailed off mentally as the room finished shifting, and her jaw dropped at what she was left with. Thousands of books lined the remaining shelves, each presumably written in the script that she'd had Dobby specify. It was far more than the small group of Tolkien fanatics she'd envisioned could have pulled off in a lifetime. She didn't know if there were enough people on Earth both fond enough of the man's works to learn Elvish and bereft enough of a life to have the time needed to produce all of this, and frankly, it seemed unlikely.
"What the hell?" she couldn't help but ask aloud.