Chapter 57:
– Lilja –
Training the newest members of the peerage was her job.
The classroom smelled like chalk dust and scorched stone, and Lilja was certain that at least half of that was Ginny's fault.
She stood with her arms crossed at the front of the room, watching her two newest sisters-in-arms work through the foundational exercises she had drilled into them for the past hour. Morning light filtered through the tall arched windows in dusty gold beams, catching on the edges of the training dummies she had conjured against the far wall. McGonagall had given her quiet permission to use this abandoned transfiguration classroom on the third floor, the kind of permission that came with a look over the rim of her glasses and a firm "I did not hear about this, Miss Nornas."
Lilja had kissed the old woman's cheek on the way out. McGonagall had pretended to be scandalized.
"Again," Lilja said.
Asia took a slow, steadying breath. She stood at the center of the chalk circle Lilja had drawn on the stone floor, her hands cupped in front of her stomach. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a loose braid, and she wore a soft white blouse and a gray skirt that stopped just above her knees. The cross she had worn for most of her life was gone now, and Lilja noticed that her hand still drifted to her neck sometimes, searching for it.
She will find her footing, Lilja thought. She has all the time in the world now, literally.
Asia exhaled. A small sphere of pale green light bloomed between her palms, wobbled once, and held steady.
"Good," Lilja said. "Hold it. Feel where the pull comes from."
"It's…" Asia's brow furrowed. "It feels like it comes from my stomach. I think?"
"Eh, close enough. It's more of a metaphysical thing really. That is your demonic core. Every devil draws power from there first."
Asia nodded. The sphere of light brightened, then dimmed, then brightened again.
Lilja turned her head to the left.
Ginny was not in the chalk circle. Ginny was halfway across the room, hopping from one foot to the other with her hands out in front of her, a churning ball of crackling red-gold energy shifting between her palms. Her Quidditch practice leathers she had put on for this training were smudged with soot at the thighs. Her fiery red hair had half escaped its braid, and the ends were singed.
"Weasley," Lilja said.
"I've got it, I've got it—"
"Weasley."
"Lilja, I swear, I'm about to—" The ball of energy sputtered, popped, and Ginny yelped as a backlash of heat rolled up her forearms. She shook her hands out and hissed through her teeth.
"Fuck, that stings."
Asia's sphere of light dimmed as she looked over in alarm.
"Language," Lilja said, though she could not quite keep the smile from the corner of her mouth. "And focus, Asia. Your job is your magic, not her vocabulary."
"Sorry!" Asia said quickly.
Lilja crossed the room in three long strides and caught Ginny's wrists, turning her hands palm up. The skin was pink but not burned. Ginny's new devil biology had already started knitting the irritation away.
"You are pulling too fast," Lilja said. "You are trying to muscle it, the way you muscle a bludger out of the air. That is not how this works."
"Everything I've ever done magically I've done with a wand."
"And now you have no wand and a body that runs on a different set of rules. Breathe in. Slow."
Ginny breathed in. Her shoulders dropped. Her chest rose and fell.
"Now pull," Lilja said. "Gentle. Like you are drawing water from a deep well. You are not here to yank the bucket out. You are here to fill it."
Ginny closed her eyes. Lilja watched the red-gold glow flicker back into being between her palms, smaller this time, steadier. It held.
"Better," Lilja said.
Ginny's eyes opened. She grinned, fierce and proud, and the energy pulsed once with her heartbeat.
"I want to learn how to use a sword," Ginny smirked and swung her arms like she was already mimicking holding a blade.
Lilja snorted at the newest knight's enthusiasm. "Of course you do..."
"Harry said you'd teach me," Ginny whined.
"I know he did," Lilja said back. She extended her hand, and drew on her own power. A smooth shape coalesced above her fingers in dark blue light, solidified, and dropped into her grip. It was a wooden practice sword, the weight and balance and curve of a proper longsword but carved from simple training oak. She tested it with a short cut through the air, then reversed her grip and offered the hilt to Ginny.
Ginny's face fell. "Wood?"
Lilja nodded. "Wood."
"That's lame! Lilja, come on! I want a REAL sword! I'm Harry's FIRST knight after all!"
"First you practice with this, so I know you will not accidentally cut off a limb. Even if Asia here can fix you, I would rather not spend the afternoon picking up pieces of you off the floor."
Asia made a small squeaking sound from across the room.
"She can't fix a cut-off arm, can she?" Ginny said, taking the sword with a pout.
"She can, actually," Lilja said. "But I do not want to find out how long it takes."
"I could, I think," Asia said quietly. Her sphere of light had shrunk to something the size of a marble, pulsing gently in her palms. "Twilight Healing can regrow tissue if the piece is still close enough. Sister Griselda used to—" She stopped, her mouth closing around whatever the rest of the sentence had been.
Lilja noticed. She did not push. "Then consider the wood a compromise for your teacher's nerves," she said instead, turning back to Ginny. "Show me a basic overhead cut. Feet apart, weight forward. Hips drive the blade, not your arms. If you swing with your arms you telegraph the strike from three corridors away."
Ginny squared up. Lilja watched her shoulders, the placement of her back foot, the angle of her wrists. The girl had good instincts. She already stood the way someone stood who had spent years dodging bludgers and throwing her bodyweight into a broom handle.
Ginny cut.
"Again," Lilja said. "Tighter. The blade finishes where your chin points."
Ginny cut again.
"Again. You need to keep going until you can't feel your arms anymore!"
"I am going to murder you by the end of this lesson."
"You will tryand fail! Now swing again!"
Asia giggled from the chalk circle. Lilja glanced over and caught her covering her mouth with one hand, the other still holding the steady little light between her fingers.
Good. She is starting to relax. Lilja thought as she spared a glance. "Now a diagonal cut this time," Lilja called out, turning back to Ginny. "Right shoulder to left hip. And keep breathing. You are not allowed to hold your breath in my classroom! You should exhale with every swing!"
Ginny swung. The wooden blade whistled through the air.
"Better," Lilja said. "Faster next time!"
Ginny set up again, her jaw set, her focus sharpening. Lilja took the opportunity to walk a slow circle around her, correcting the angle of her elbow with a light tap, nudging her back foot into place with the side of her boot.
Ginny made a face but corrected herself. "Lilja," Ginny said between cuts, her breath starting to quicken, "I still can't believe you're, you know. Her."
Lilja tilted her head. "You mean Lily Evans?"
"Yeah…" Ginny trailed off.
Lilja shook her head. "I carry her memories and soul. I am not her anymore. At least, most of the time…"
"Right, you said that last night. Sorry." Ginny cut again, exhaled, reset. "It's just. Reincarnation is real? That's a thing? People die and come back?"
"Sometimes. Not often. It depends on how you die and who is watching when you do. Odin watched me. So here I am…"
"That is so unfair." Ginny cut, pivoted, cut again. "Everyone I've ever known who died just. Stayed dead. Dad stayed dead."
Lilja's chest tightened. She kept her voice level. "Arthur was a kind man and a good father to his children," she said. "Wherever his soul ends up, it is not suffering. I can promise you that much."
Ginny's next cut was harder than the last. The wooden blade hummed. "Thanks," she muttered.
Across the room, Asia's sphere of light wobbled and then expanded, shifting color from pale green to a soft gold.
She was starting to shape it, Lilja realized. Not just holding a pool of energy but giving it a form. "Asia," Lilja called. "Try sending it. Training dummy on the left. Small push. You do not have to destroy it."
Asia's eyes went wide. "You want me to—"
"Just a push. Think of it as a firm knock on a door."
Asia swallowed. She raised her cupped hands, aimed at the straw and canvas dummy against the wall, and exhaled slowly. The golden sphere shot from her palms in a bright, clean streak.
It struck the dummy dead center. The dummy exploded.
Straw erupted across the floor in a wide halo. Canvas strips fluttered down like confetti. The wooden post that had held it upright snapped in the middle and clattered down across the chalk lines.
Asia froze with her hands still cupped in front of her, her mouth a perfect round O.
Ginny burst out laughing.
"Well," Lilja said, blinking. "That was more than a knock..."
"I didn't mean to—" Asia's cheeks were already flaming red. "I didn't mean to—I only pushed a little—I thought—"
"Asia. Look at me," the Queen of the peerage said firmly.
Asia looked.
"That was excellent." Lilja's firm look turned into a soft smile.
"I destroyed it though…" Asia mumbled.
"Yes. That was WHY it was excellent!"
"But—"
"Asia." Lilja crossed the room and caught her by the shoulders, gentle but firm. She ducked her head to catch the girl's eyes. "Breathe. You did nothing wrong. You found the shape of your power, and it is strong. That is a good thing. That is the thing we are here to find."
Asia's breath hitched once. She stared up at Lilja with enormous, glassy eyes. "I don't want to hurt anyone," she whispered.
Ah. Here it comes… Lilja knelt. The stone was cold through her skirt but she did not care. She took both of Asia's small hands in hers and held them flat between her palms. "I know," Lilja said. "I know you do not, Asia. That is one of the best things about you. It is one of the reasons Harry brought you into this family."
Asia's lower lip trembled.
"But I need you to hear me," Lilja said. "Sometimes, when you love people, you have to fight for them. Not because you enjoy it. Not because you are angry. Because they cannot fight for themselves in that moment, and you can. That is not a sin. That is the kindest thing a person can learn how to do."
"But the Church said—"
"The Church said many things to a girl who could heal with a touch, and most of them were wrong." Lilja squeezed her hands. "If someone came through that door right now and tried to hurt Harry, what would you do?"
"I would—" Asia's voice cracked. "I would get between them. I would heal him. I would—"
"And if the only way to keep them from hurting him again was to push them away with your power?"
Asia was silent for a long moment. Her hands trembled between Lilja's. "I would do it," she whispered.
"And what about Jasmine?" Lilja asked with a grin. She knew Asia loved Harry, but that couldn't mean she wasn't attracted to Jasmine Potter-McKinnon at the same time. In fact, whenever Asia wasn't with the peerage, she was practically stalking the older girl and her friend group in the hallways or the common room. It was adorable.
Asia's entire face went pink. She looked down at the floor so fast that her braid swung against her cheek. "I would," she said, so small Lilja almost missed it. "I would do anything for Jasmine."
Lilja filed the information away for later consideration, leaned forward, and kissed Asia lightly on the forehead. "Then you already know the answer," Lilja said. "You are not a weapon, Asia. You are a healer who knows how to push back when she has to. That is a different thing entirely."
Asia sniffled. She nodded slowly, and then again, more firmly. "Okay," she said.
"Good girl. Now go pick up your dummy. And try to blow it up again!"
Asia laughed, a small wet laugh, and wiped at her eyes with the back of her wrist. She trotted over to the wreckage and started gathering up the straw.
Lilja stood, brushed her skirt off, and turned back to Ginny.
Ginny was leaning on the wooden sword like it was a walking stick, watching her with an expression that was somewhere between amused and thoughtful.
"What?" Lilja asked.
"Nothing…" Ginny sing-songed.
Lilja's cheeks puffed out as she stared flatly at the younger redhead. "Weasley, tell me!"
"You're a really good big sister," Ginny said fondly. "That's all."
Lilja felt her face warm. She covered it by stepping forward and rapping the wooden sword out of Ginny's grip with the flat of her hand. "We are not done with your training by a long shot either."
Ginny snorted, and took the sword back from Lily as she prepared to keep going.
The classroom doors slammed open!
Lilja's hand was already moving before her mind had caught up. She stepped in front of Asia, half a pace, her weight dropping into her heels, her palm flat and low where she could summon a blade on a heartbeat's notice. Ginny spun on her training footwork, the wooden sword snapping up into a high guard on pure reflex.
Draco Malfoy stood in the doorway.
Oh, for the love of the Allfather… She grumbled internally, wondering what this moron wanted?
Dark smudges sat under his eyes, and his white-blond hair had lost the careful slicked-back sheen he had worn for every one of the first three months of term. Two strands fell across his forehead now, greasy and limp.
Ah, the little lord has fallen quite far, Lilja thought vindictively. He can't even afford sleakeazy for his hair anymore.
She had kept up on the Slytherin gossip the way any good Queen kept up on the movements of threats, however small. In a way, her peerage's eyes and ears inside the snake pit came from a scattering of underclass girls who owed Lilja favors and a handful of upperclass boys who had decided Draco Malfoy was no longer worth defending.
Lucius Malfoy had fled the country with the other Death Eaters. Aurors were now turning the Malfoy estate inside out looking for any dark artifacts and evidence he had been too hurried to burn. The Sitri family's control of the bank formerly known as Gringotts had frozen every drop of liquid Malfoy capital on the planet.
Draco had arrived back at Hogwarts after the reopening with exactly what he had carried in his trunk. His personal vault had a sum total of forty-seven Galleons and some silver. Lilja knew because "Grandmother" Selene had told her.
Forty-seven Galleons. The heir of House Malfoy was down to pocket change.
"What do you want, Malfoy," Ginny growled. Her voice was flat.
Draco's lip curled. He pushed himself off the doorframe with an attempt at the old Malfoy swagger. It did not land. His shoulder caught the edge of the door on the way in and he recovered with a small flinch he tried to pass off as a shrug. "You might be a pureblood, Weasley," he said, "but you should know better than to speak rudely to your betters. Clearly your father never learned that particular lesson either. Which explains, I suppose, why he ended up in a ditch…"
Ginny's face went white. Then it went red. The wooden sword came up.
Lilja's hand closed on Ginny's wrist before the blade made it past her shoulder. The small pressure of her fingers was enough, and she felt the shiver of barely contained violence travel up Ginny's arm and lock behind her teeth.
"Not yet," Lilja said quietly, in the voice she reserved for teenage girls on the edge of a kill.
Draco, idiot that he was, did not register how close he had just come to having a wooden sword shoved down his throat. He was too busy puffing himself up. He drew himself to his full height, which he had mostly wasted on the doorframe behind him, and smirked with what remained of his aristocratic breeding.
"You should be more concerned with yourselves than with me," Draco declared to the three young women. "I caught you, you see. All three of you. Practicing magic! In a private group. In a room you have no business being in." He took a step forward into the classroom. "New decrees went up this morning," he said. "Or had you not noticed? Unsanctioned practical combat training. Unsanctioned gatherings. Unsanctioned use of unassigned classrooms. That is three infractions from the High Inquisitor's list, by my count, and I have only been standing here for a minute! I am going to go and tattle to Umbridge!" Draco declared arrogantly, like being a narc was something to be proud of. "I will hand her the three of you on a platter, and I will make sure she knows that this little training session was organized by Harry Sitri, for the benefit of his personal pet whores."
Ginny made a small, murderous sound in the back of her throat. Lilja's grip on her wrist tightened by exactly one increment.
"I will make sure," Draco went on, warming to it now, "that Umbridge punishes that cocksucker Sitri along with the rest of you. He does not get to strut around this school with his harem of sluts and his filthy half-breed blood and expect no one to clip his wings! Sitri will be expelled. My mother will be returned to the family where she belongs. And the rest of you—"
His eyes slid sideways. They stopped on Asia.
Asia had been standing very still behind Lilja's shoulder for the length of Draco's little speech, her hands tucked against the front of her skirt, her braid hanging forward over her collarbone. She had not said a word. She had not moved.
Draco's smirk softened into something oilier. "You," he said. "You are new here, aren't you? I remember your sorting."
Asia did not answer.
"I can tell. You're Italian, yes? You must not know a lot about this country then! It is a shame that you sorted you into Gryffindor. Such a beautiful girl, wasted on a house full of blood traitors and Mudbloods. But I suppose it can still work out." He took another step forward. He was grinning and almost insane grin, his mouth stretching wide, he genuinely thought he was going to win this round and get them punished.
Lilja did not move. Not yet. She was curious, in the cold clinical way that a Queen was sometimes curious, to see how far the boy would dig his own grave.
"Hogwarts is a dangerous place," Draco said to Asia, his voice dropping into what he no doubt believed was a seductive register. "A girl like you, alone, with no family here, no friends, no protection. You need someone with standing. Someone with a real noble name. I am willing to be generous. If you agree to be my new mistress, I will make certain Umbridge overlooks your part in this. When the rest of these morons are expelled, you will still be here. With me. In a private suite. Comfortable. Cared for. You will not have to worry about anything ever again!"
Asia did not answer out loud. Lilja felt her shift a quarter step forward, out from behind her shoulder. Lilja did not stop her. She was, frankly, interested in what Asia was doing.
"Come here, little dove," Draco said, and he extended a hand.
Asia raised both of hers. A sphere of demonic magic bloomed between her palms and it was the size of a Quaffle.
Draco's mouth opened in shock. Whatever he had been about to say, he did not get to say it.
THWOOOM!
The orb left Asia's hands in a streak of green-gold fire.
It struck Draco Malfoy square in the mouth.
There was a wet, bright crack, and then a dozen smaller cracks, and then Draco was no longer standing. His body lifted cleanly off the floor, flew backward across the threshold of the classroom, and slammed into the stone wall of the corridor behind him with a heavy, meaty thud. He slid down the wall. His head lolled. His jaw hung open at an angle that his jaw had never previously hung at.
A cascade of small white objects skittered across the corridor flagstones in all directions.
Lilja blinked.
Ginny blinked.
Lilja counted as she watched his teeth fall out of his mouth. She counted eight before she lost track. A rear molar had rolled almost all the way to the opposite wall and was wobbling in a little circle on its root.
The classroom was very, very quiet. Asia still had her hands raised. Her fingers were trembling. The last sparks of green and gold fizzled out around her knuckles and drifted to the floor like dying fireflies. Her eyes were enormous. Her cheeks had gone the color of fresh snow.
She turned her head very slowly toward Lilja. "D-did I do good?" Asia asked with a stutter. Her voice was the smallest Lilja had ever heard it. Her lower lip had started to tremble. Her hands were still out in front of her as if she was afraid to put them down. "He was threatening our family," Asia added, in a rush, as if she needed to justify it before anyone could answer. "He was saying those things and I just— I just wanted him to stop talking, I am sorry if I should not have, I know I was not supposed to, I—"
Lilja crossed the room in three long steps and pulled Asia into her arms.
Ginny was half a heartbeat behind her. The wooden sword clattered to the stone floor. Ginny's arms went around both of them from the side, her forehead pressed hard against Asia's temple, and she was laughing, a low delighted breathless laugh that she was trying not to let out too loud.
"Asia," Lilja said into her hair. "Asia. Look at me."
Asia lifted her face. Her eyes were shiny and she was a second away from crying.
"You," Lilja said, her smile growing wider by the second. "...did AMAZING!"
Asia's lower lip wobbled. "I did?"
"Amazing!" Lilja repeated, firmer. "Do you understand me, min lille engel? That was perfect. That was exactly what a devil is supposed to do for her family. You saw a threat, and you put it on the floor!"
"I knocked his teeth out," Asia whispered nervously.
"Yes, you did. And you got most of them, I think," Lilja said proudly.
"Asia." Ginny was smiling, and her voice was shaking with suppressed laughter and something that was almost adoration. "That was the single most satisfying thing I have ever seen in my life—I mean GOD DAMN—he was all swagger and you just shut him—OUCHY!" Ginny hissed and clutched her forehead. "Oh, for fuck's sake, that G-word hurts and I forgot..."
Asia laughed. It was wet and shaky and it broke through her trembling like sunlight through a cracked window. She pressed her face into the curve of Lilja's neck and hiccuped once and then laughed again, and Lilja held her, and Ginny held both of them, and Lilja felt the girl's small shoulders slowly, slowly stop shivering. "I am not in trouble?" Asia asked into Lilja's chest.
"You are the opposite of in trouble," Lilja said. "You are, in fact, the hero of the hour. Harry is going to be very, very proud of you."
"Oh." Asia sniffed. "Oh. Good…"
Lilja smoothed a hand down her braid. She pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. "Wait here a moment, sweetheart," she said. "I have a small errand to run."
She stepped out of the embrace. Ginny immediately closed the gap, taking up Lilja's place with both arms wrapped tight around Asia's shoulders, still grinning.
Lilja walked to the doorway. She looked down at Draco Malfoy.
He was breathing. Barely. His lower face was a ruin of blood and swollen tissue and the dark gaps where a full set of upper and lower teeth had recently been. A thin line of pink drool had started to slide from the corner of his mouth down his chin.
Lilja crouched. She extended her index finger and pressed the tip of it to the middle of Draco's forehead. "Obliviate," she murmured. Then she flicked two fingers toward the scatter of teeth across the corridor. "Evanesco." Every last tooth vanished. Because she was petty like that, and growing new teeth was painful as fuck, even with magic. Another flick of her finger. "Wingardium Leviosa."
Draco's body rose from the floor. She guided him down the corridor. She rounded the corner at the far end. She passed two suits of armor, an unused study alcove, and a tapestry of a rather embarrassed-looking wizard attempting to tame a kneazle. At the end of the next corridor, set against the wall, sat a large wooden rubbish bin.
Lilja floated Draco over the bin.She dropped him right inside with the piles of garbage. She flicked her wrist once more and floated the lid of the bin down on top of him.
She dusted her palms together. There, she thought. I have taken out the trash…
She turned on her heel and walked back down the corridor at a brisk, pleasant pace. Her mind briefly drifted to Harry and his plans for today. She didn't exactly want him rushing to get even more peerage members so soon after Asia and Ginny, but she didn't want innocent girls suffering either, especially when they were his friends…
– Harry –
I walked through the library, past the long oak tables in the central reading area where a cluster of Ravenclaws were arguing over a Charms essay, past the Herbology section where two Hufflepuff fifth-years were failing to be subtle about the fact that they were snogging behind a potted fern, and into the quieter wing at the back of the library where the serious students went to hide.
Madam Pince tracked me with her eyes as I passed her desk. She had not liked me since the first week of term, when Lyra and Lyna had cheerfully asked her where the pornography section was located. I had tried to explain afterward that they were joking. Madam Pince had not been convinced.
I rounded the last shelf and spotted them at a table tucked into the farthest corner of the back wall. A single enchanted lamp burned low on the table between them. Two heads of long hair, one platinum blonde and one chestnut brown, bent close together over a stack of open textbooks. Their voices were a thin whisper I could not quite catch from ten paces out.
Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis.
I studied them for a long moment before I closed the distance.
Daphne looked like hell. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a severe braid that had lost several strands. Dark circles sat under her ice-blue eyes, deep enough that no concealment charm she could manage was hiding them.
Tracey looked worse. One of her hands was tucked into Daphne's under the table. I could see the movement of her thumb stroking small, repetitive circles against Daphne's knuckles, the kind of motion a person made for comfort without thinking about it.
I crossed the last few paces, pulled out the chair opposite them, and sat down without an invitation.
Both heads snapped up!
Daphne went white. Tracey's free hand jerked toward the inside pocket of her robe where she kept her wand, and then stopped, and then fell back to the table in a small defeated slump.
"Ladies," I said quietly.
"Harry." Daphne's voice was a sharp whisper. Her eyes darted past my shoulder, scanning the library, checking for listeners. "You cannot sit with us. Get up. Please, get up!"
"Don't even talk to us, Sitri," Tracey added. Her voice was rough, like she had been crying earlier and was holding the next round back by sheer force of will. She did not meet my eyes. "Just go. Please just go…"
I did not get up. I leaned forward instead. I set my arms on the edge of the table, and kept my voice low enough that it would not carry past our little circle of lamplight. "You two do not have to pretend with me," I said.
Daphne's eyes sharpened. "Pretend about what?" she asked nervously.
"I know what your families did to you," I said coldly. "Both of you. And to Astoria."
The color drained from Daphne's face all over again. Her lips parted. For a long second I watched her try to pull air into her lungs and fail, and then her mouth closed with a small audible click and she pressed her hand flat over her breasts like she was trying to physically stop her heart from climbing out through her ribs.
Tracey made a small, wounded sound in the back of her throat.
"How," Daphne said. Her voice was barely there. "How do you know that? Who told you? We have not told anyone, not a single person, not a single—"
"I have my ways."
And I am absolutely not telling you that my two maids broke into your dormitory last night and photographed your diary, I thought.Lyra and Lyna had been very thorough. Daphne kept a truly extensive diary.
"Harry." Tracey's voice had climbed into something that was half a plea and half a threat. "Harry, if you tell anyone about this, if anyone so much as whispers about it in the halls, we are dead. All three of us. I don't want to be erased…"
"I am not going to tell anyone," I said. "I am telling you. I already know. And I am sitting here right now because it is time for you to stop handling this alone."
Daphne stared at me across the table. "You do not know the half of it," she whispered.
"Then tell me the other half…"
Daphne looked at Tracey. Tracey looked at Daphne. Some quiet, exhausted communication passed between them, the kind of look two people share when they have been carrying the same weight for so long that they no longer need words to hand it back and forth.
Daphne's shoulders dropped. She leaned forward over the table and dropped her voice to something so low I had to lean in to catch it. "The contract we are both under is insidious dark magic, Harry..."
I nodded slowly. I already knew. I let her say it anyway.
Daphne and Tracy and Astoria had all been placed in forced marriage contracts by their parents.
Forced marriage contracts with Death Eaters….
The contracts were insidious dark magic, and if they so much as kissed a boy who was not their betrothed, they would literally have their personalities and minds wiped away from them. They would become nothing more than shells, obedient little mind controlled purebloods dedicated to pumping out babies.
It was horrible and worse than even Narcissa's marriage contract had been.
My hand, under the table, had gone into a fist. I made it unclench. I took one slow breath in and one slow breath out. "Who," I said. "The men. The names."
"Harry—"
"The names, Daphne."
Tracey answered. Her voice was flat. "Theodore Nott the elder, for me. Corban Yaxley, for Daph. Walden Macnair, for Astoria when she turns nineteen next winter."
The cold in my stomach became ice. Three Death Eaters. Three men old enough to be these girls' grandfathers. Three marked, known, convicted or un-prosecuted servants of Voldemort, handed three beautiful young witches by their own fathers like prize mares.
"How long," I said.
"How long what?"
"How long have you been sitting with this by yourselves?"
Daphne closed her eyes. "For two months," she whispered. "My parents and Tracy's parents both found out we were spending time with the Boy-Who-Lived. And then the Triwizard tournament happened, our parents saw footage of how close we all were to you, and they immediately drafted up these contracts and signed all our rights away as our magical guardians…"
I looked at these two girls, girls I had been keeping at arm's length at first because they were Slytherins and I did not entirely trust them yet. But then they both really grew on me, only to suddenly pull away and I could never figure out why.
No wonder they had been avoiding me. No wonder they had been looking miserable every time our eyes met.
I breathed out. "I have a solution," I said quietly.
Daphne's eyes opened. "There is no solution, Harry. We have looked. For WEEKS! Contract breakers, ritual specialists, curse-breakers out of Egypt because they are the best. But not good enough. The magical contract binding is anchored into our magical cores and cannot be removed without killing us. There is no solution..."
"There is one," I said, knowing they didn't know the specifics of what it meant to be reincarnated as a devil. They knew I was a half-devil, but they didn't really KNOW what that actually entailed. How vast the TRUE magical and supernatural world really was…
I waved my free hand in a small, smooth pass across the table. Two sleeping charms, perfectly placed, perfectly calibrated, left my fingers in the same half-second. Devil magic was clean like that.
Daphne's eyes slid closed mid-word. Her head tipped forward, caught itself at the last instant, and she folded gently forward onto her open Ancient Runes text. Her braid slid across her shoulder and pooled across the page. Tracey's head came down a half-second later, her cheek settling against the back of Daphne's hand where their fingers were still laced together.
I sat there for a moment, just looking at them.
I am sorry, I thought. I am sorry neither of you felt like you could ask me. I am sorry you sat with this alone. I am going to fix it.
An unused Transfiguration classroom on the fourth floor...
Three high-backed wooden chairs had been arranged in a loose semicircle at the center of the room. Daphne was in the leftmost. Tracey was in the rightmost. Between them, in the middle chair, slumped forward with her chin on her chest and her hair falling across her face, was Astoria Greengrass.
My aunt Sona stood behind Astoria's chair with one hand resting lightly on the back of it.
I crossed the room to Sona's side and stopped just behind Astoria's chair. I looked down at the three of them. The blonde, the brunette, the other blonde little sister. All three girls were unconscious but safe.
I had run this plan of mine between both Sona and Rias this morning. For some reason Sona had insisted on being here for this. She was the one that grabbed Astoria and brought her here while I got Daphne and Tracy.
I reached into my pocket space. I pulled out the slim black lacquered box that held my Evil Pieces.
Sona's hand closed around my wrist. "No, Harry."
I looked at her in confusion.
She was not looking at the box. She was looking at me directly. "These girls will not be in your peerage."
I blinked. "Sona—"
"Listen to me." Her grip on my wrist stayed exactly where it was. "A peerage is about trust. That is the foundation." Sona's pink eyes held mine without flinching. "They had a chance, Harry. They had multiple chances. These girls could have come to you. They could have asked. They could have whispered one single sentence in your ear between classes and you would have moved hell and earth for them. You know it. I know it. Instead," Sona said, "they tried to handle it alone. They tried to hide it from you. Maybe they thought they were protecting you from being dragged into a political mess. Maybe they thought you would not want them if you knew they were engaged to older men. Maybe they were simply too tired to believe that help was a real thing that could exist in their lives. It does not matter."
"It matters to me," I said quietly.
"I know it does." Sona's thumb stroked once across my wrist where she was still holding it. She did it tenderly, smiling softly. "And that is why I am telling you this, Harry."
I looked down at the three sleeping girls. "They still need to be reincarnated," I said.
"They do."
"Their contracts will not break otherwise."
"They will not."
I looked up at her. "Sona. What are you saying?"
Sona let go of my wrist. She moved around Astoria's chair until she was standing between me and the three of them, and she lifted up her glasses with that small gesture I had come to love, the one she used when she was about to render a judgment that she had already made a long time ago and was only now saying out loud.
"They will be joining my peerage," Sona said, and she was not joking.
– Kuroka –
Kuroka tugged at the collar of her robes for the fourth time in two minutes and bared her fangs in a silent snarl at the lining.
These things are trying to strangle me!
The robe itself was fine, as far as robes went. What was not fine was the white cotton blouse underneath. Whoever had made the blouse had made it for a flat-chested English schoolgirl, not a Nekoshou in her prime with a chest that could start wars!
Nya, the little witches here have it rough, Kuroka thought as she gave the robe a sharp downward yank that did absolutely nothing for the strain across her bust. How are you supposed to learn anything with your tits smothered like this? No wonder these kids all look miserable. They can't breathe…
She glanced sideways at her companion as they walked down the empty stone corridor.
Ophis walked beside Kuroka in the exact same uniform. Except it looked perfect on the fey-looking beauty.
She is so pretty it's not fair. She looks like a fairy princess from a really expensive visual novel. Kuroka cleared her throat. "Nya, thanks again for letting me come along with you, Lady Ophis," she said, pitching her voice into the warm purring register she used when she was trying to make someone like her. "I really appreciate it. I hope I'll get to see Shirone today, nya. Or even Harry, that'd be nice too..."
Ophis walked two more steps before she answered. "Mm." That was the entire answer.
Kuroka grinned anyway, because over the past week she had learned that a single "mm" from Ophis was roughly equivalent to a full page of warm greetings from anyone else!
A week, Kuroka thought. I've been friends with the Infinite Dragon God for a week. What even is my life!?
She was still not sure how it had happened. It just did. After that first meeting with them alone, Ophis had started seeking her out.
Ophis had appeared in Kuroka's doorway at three in the morning and asked, without preamble, "How does one indicate to a preferred man that one wishes to be held again?"
Kuroka had sat up in bed with her hair sticking out in every direction and answered on pure instinct, "You, uh, you kinda let them know you're there, and then you sort of lean in, and they usually catch on real quick, nya."
Ophis had nodded once, slowly, and vanished.
The second visit had been the next night. "What is the difference between a date and a meeting?" The third night, "How long should one allow between encounters to avoid appearing desperate, Kuroka Toujou? Also, what does the word desperate mean?"
Apparently, Ophis had figured out how to use the internet…
Kuroka had answered each question as earnestly as she could, which was a sentence she had never expected to say in her life. She was not exactly an expert on healthy monogamous romance. She was, however, a beautiful Nekoshou who had been flirted at, propositioned, hit on, and occasionally chased by nearly every male and several female supernatural beings she had ever met.
Ophis had absorbed her advice like a very serious sponge. And Ophis had already snuck out of base twice. Twice! The third time, Kuroka managed to catch her, and begged to come with!
So here they were.
A week into their friendship. Third unauthorized visit to Hogwarts. Two drop-dead gorgeous "transfer students" who did not technically exist on any enrollment roster, walking down a corridor on the third floor in fake school uniforms.
This is fine, Kuroka thought. This is absolutely fine. Nothing can possibly go wrong.
Voices drifted around the corner up ahead.
Kuroka's cat ears twitched under her glamour.
Two voices. One male, young, muffled and slurred in a way that was hard to place. One female, high and falsely sweet, with a fake sweet tone that Kuroka recognized on instinct as the voice of someone who hurt people and enjoyed it.
There were a lot of gross people in the Khaos Brigade…
Hmm, now that she and Ophis were friends, maybe Kuroka could convince Ophis to kick out the assholes?
Kuroka's steps slowed.
Ophis kept walking at the same even pace.
They rounded the corner.
Kuroka stopped.
Two figures stood halfway down the long stone corridor. The first was a young blond man in rumpled Slytherin robes. His face was a mess. The left side of his jaw had swollen up to almost twice its normal size, his lower lip was split, and when he turned his head to gesture Kuroka could see clear through the gap where his mouth was open.
There were no teeth in there. Not a single one. His gums flapped slightly as he talked.
Nya, what happened to this guy? Did he fall off a roof?
The second figure was a woman. She was short. She was stout. She was wearing an ensemble in three different shades of pink that made Kuroka's eyes itch on contact. Her face was wide and flat and soft in a way that reminded Kuroka of a toad that had been left in the sun too long, and her mouth was a small, wet, pursed little thing full of small wet pursed little teeth.
Oh, Kuroka thought. She's the ugliest woman I have ever seen. Like, top five. Maybe top three. I'm going to have to really think about that ranking.
"—ot jumped," the blond boy was saying, or rather trying to say around his lack of teeth. The words came out as "aht jmmmped." "Ah don' remember it. Ah don' remember anything, jus' waking up in a rubbish bin with ah my teef gone and an awful headache."
"A rubbish bin." The pink woman's voice was horrified. "You were dumped in a rubbish bin, Mister Malfoy?"
"Aah saih!" Draco slurred. "Ahmbridge, lishen to me. It had to be one of them. It had to be. Tha bitch Sona Shitri, or that whoreson Harry Shitri, or one of thoth shluts he's fucking. They jumped me. They mush ha' Oblih-viated me after. That'sh the only way ah don' remember it, becaush ah don' forget thingsh."
Ooooh, Kuroka thought, her cat eyes narrowing. Harry beat this guy up? Or one of his girlfriends did it?
The pink woman, Umbridge apparently, had clasped her pudgy little hands together in front of her chest and was actually bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. She was thrilled. Her whole froggy face had lit up with delight. "Oh, Mister Malfoy, you have done wonderfully. Wonderfully. This is exactly the kind of accusation I have been waiting for, do you understand me? With a direct claim of assault from a victim, from the son of a noble house, I have more than enough grounds to order a full search of their rooms, their belongings. Finally, finally I will have them. I will have the evidence I need to save the ministry—"
"Shtart with Harry Shitri," Draco said, his gums slapping together with enthusiasm. "Shtart with him. He'sh the ringleader. You'll find everything on him."
Kuroka's tail, which was still invisible under her glamour, lashed once.
So you're a rat on top of being a loser. Nya…
Kuroka felt the shift in the air before she saw the movement.
Ophis took three even steps forward past Kuroka's shoulder, stopped in the middle of the corridor, and looked at Draco Malfoy and Dolores Umbridge with her black, bottomless, utterly expressionless eyes.
"Neither of you will bother Harry Sitri," Ophis said. Her voice was soft. Her voice was very, very soft. But Kuroka knew that didn't matter. These two humans obviously did not know. "He is mine," Ophis declared.
"Anosher girl wantsh shim!?" Draco's swollen, bloody face turned toward Ophis. His one working eye widened. His gums parted slightly. A strange color rose under the bruising on his cheek. It was hard to tell whether he was blushing or whether it was more broken capillaries, but something about the angle of his stare suggested the former.
Ophis had that effect on people. She was, in the completely clinical sense, one of the most beautiful beings in any pantheon. She had just chosen to use that beauty, today, to stand in front of a 19-year-old blood supremacist with no teeth.
Draco, to his credit, did not say anything stupid to Ophis.
Umbridge, to her eternal demerit, did.
"I beg your pardon?" Umbridge's voice had dropped. Her toad mouth puckered. "What did you just say to me, young lady?"
Ophis blinked once. Slowly. "I said he is mine."
Kuroka felt the temperature in the corridor drop by half a degree.
She took one very careful, very small step backward and pressed her shoulder against the cold stone of the wall. Her hand came up and she wove a thread of Senjutsu around herself, a soft faint gauze of ki that would blur her signature, her outline, her presence, until she was something closer to a shadow on the wall than a person in it. She could still see. She could still hear. She could, with luck and a great deal of prayer to spirits she did not especially believe in, survive the next thirty seconds if she kept very, very still.
A mad Ophis is a scary Ophis, Kuroka thought. And this toad doesn't know what she's doing. Oh, she really does not know what she's doing.
Umbridge did not sense the temperature drop. Umbridge did not sense anything at all. Umbridge had spent a lifetime being the biggest toad in every pond she had waddled into, and in this corridor on this afternoon her internal weather system had not yet registered that she was now swimming in an ocean.
"You are supposed to be in Slytherin, I expected better!" Umbridge declared. Her voice rose higher. "Which house are you from? Which family? Tell me your name. Tell me your name immediately so I can put it in my book!"
"I am Ophis."
"I said your full name, GIRL!"
"OPHIS."
"A single name is not—you know what!? DETENTION! Detention, for insolence. For talking back. For the tone. An entire week of detention with me, every evening, in my office, where you will copy lines until your little fingers bleed. Do you hear me!?"
Ophis did not answer.
Umbridge advanced one step. Her pudgy finger came up and she pointed it at Ophis's chest. "And if I hear one more word of that tone from your mouth, young lady, I will have you expelled. Do you understand me? Expelled. I have the authority. I am the High Inquisitor of this school, on personal order from the Minister himself, and I will have you off these grounds by this evening. You will never set foot in this castle again. Your name will be struck from the registers. Your wand will be snapped. You will be returned to your family in disgrace, and the doors of Hogwarts will close behind you forever. Do you hear me? Do you understand what I am saying?"
Ophis was looking at her very steadily. And Ophis's face did something.
If Kuroka had not spent a week studying her face for signs of emotion so she could give useful romance advice, she would have missed it entirely.
"But," Ophis said quietly. "Harry Sitri lives in this castle…"
Umbridge opened her mouth—
"If I was not allowed to come here," Ophis said, "that would mean I could not see him—"
Kuroka pressed her back harder against the wall. Oh no!
"—anymore," Ophis finished.
POP!
There was no warning. There was simply, in one perfectly ordinary second, a short stout woman in pink standing in the middle of a stone corridor, and in the next perfectly ordinary second, there was not.
Dolores Umbridge popped. Like a meat balloon.
Her entire body came apart at once in every direction. Chunks of soft pink fabric and softer pink meat slapped against the stone walls and slid slowly down. Something wet and heavy that Kuroka chose not to identify landed in the middle of the corridor with a noise like a wet towel hitting tile.
Draco Malfoy was standing right next to her, which meant that he had ended up being covered in blood. A piece of what had, until approximately two seconds ago, been one of Umbridge's internal organs had landed on his shoulder and was slowly sliding down the front of his robes.
A dark stain bloomed across the front of Draco Malfoy's trousers.
It spread quickly.
It reached his knees.
It started to drip.
Draco Malfoy spun on his heel, slipped in the wet mess on the floor, caught himself against the wall with a red-smeared hand, and ran! He ran in a wobbling, sobbing, wide-legged stumble that carried him down the length of the corridor and around the far corner.
He did not stop screaming. The screams echoed off the stone for a long time after he was out of sight.
The corridor went quiet.
Kuroka let out the breath she had been holding.
Ophis turned, slowly, and walked back to Kuroka.
She stopped in front of her. She tilted her head up a fraction. Her black, bottomless eyes searched Kuroka's face with the same mild attentive interest she brought to pumpkin pie and romance advice. "Kuroka Toujou," Ophis said.
"Nya, yes, Lady Ophis." Kuroka's voice came out a full octave higher than she had meant it to. She cleared her throat. "Yes."
"Shall we continue?"
"Y-yes, Lady Ophis. Of course, Lady Ophis…"
Ophis nodded once. She began to walk down the corridor again, in the exact same even unhurried pace she had been walking in before, as if the corridor behind her were not currently painted like the inside of a butcher shop.
Kuroka peeled herself off the wall, dropped her Senjutsu veil, and trotted after her on legs that did not entirely feel like her own.
Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Nya, I'm fine. Everything is fine. A lady just exploded. A teacher-lady…
She caught up to Ophis in three long strides and fell into step beside her.
"Lady Ophis," Kuroka said carefully. "Lady Ophis, nya, can I, can I talk to you about something."
"Mm."
"So. Um. So, nya. Here is the thing. Okay. Here is the thing, Lady Ophis, and please, please do not take this the wrong way, because I am bringing it up as your friend and your advisor on romantic and social matters."
"Mm."
"Killing teachers," Kuroka said. "Killing teachers is, as a general rule, bad. In schools. Specifically. Killing teachers in schools is really, really bad, Lady Ophis, do you understand what I am saying? It is kind of a rule. It is kind of one of the bigger rules that humans have about their schools. They really, really do not like it when a teacher explodes. They notice. They talk about it. They write reports. There are, in fact, entire organizations of humans whose only job is to notice when a teacher has exploded and then go ask questions about who exploded the teacher."
"Mm."
"Lady Ophis." Kuroka's voice cracked. "Lady Ophis, there was a student there. A student saw you. A student saw you and he's running through the castle right now, nya, telling everyone a scary pretty girl made his teacher pop, and people are going to start asking questions, and then they are going to start investigating, and then—"
"Kuroka Toujou."
"Y-yes, Lady Ophis."
"He was going to bother Harry Sitri."
"I, yes, he was, Lady Ophis, he was absolutely going to, and that was very bad of him, but there are better ways to handle it, like, like, maybe a stern talking-to, or a, I don't know, a mild curse, nya, something small, something that does not involve, you know, the redecoration, and also I think we should go, we should maybe leave this castle before the investigation starts, Lady Ophis—"
"She was also going to bother Harry Sitri."
"She was, yes, I heard her, I heard her, but, Lady Ophis, you cannot just, you cannot just, you just cannot—"
"Kuroka Toujou."
"Yes, Lady Ophis."
"She said I would not be allowed to come back." Ophis did not stop walking. But her voice, when she said it, was the quietest Kuroka had ever heard it. There was something in it that was not quite a tremor and was not quite not one. "I want to be allowed to come back," Ophis murmured.
Kuroka's mouth closed. She looked at the small, slim figure walking beside her. Oh, Kuroka thought, and something in her chest went soft in a way she had not expected. Oh, you poor weird little immortal thing. You really, really like him, don't you, nya.
Kuroka swallowed. "Okay," she said quietly. "Okay, Lady Ophis. Nya. I get it. I do. But maybe, maybe, next time, if someone tries to stop you from coming back, you could come find me first, and we could figure it out together, okay? Because I am really good at problem solving. I am, I promise. I am an excellent problem solver. I am, ugh, I am specifically excellent at solving problems that are smaller than exploding teachers. So next time, nya, next time if someone is in your way, you come find Kuroka first, okay? Promise?"
Ophis was quiet for several steps.
"Mm…"
– Serafall –
Serafall Leviathan flickered into existence in the center of her office in a sparkling pink cloud of teleportation light. She struck her landing pose on instinct, one fist on her hip, the other hand raised behind her head in a peace sign, her magical girl wand tucked under her arm.
"Back, back, BAAAACK in the castle!" Serafall sang to the almost empty office.
Behemoth looked up from the stack of parchment she had been organizing at the little secretary desk in the corner. "Mistress. Welcome back."
"Behe-tan!" Serafall crossed the office in three bouncing steps and threw herself at her Queen. Behemoth caught her around the waist with the easy, practiced grip of a woman who had been catching hurled Maous for several centuries. Serafall wrapped both arms around Behemoth's neck, buried her face in her cleavage for a luxurious four-second count, and made a happy little humming noise into her Queen's chest. "I missed you, Behe-tan, I missed you so much! Did you know the nobles tried to start a war with Heaven again? Again! Without asking me! Can you believe the nerve? I had to sit through eleven hours of a council meeting and put three of them through the floor."
"I did hear about that. You are already trending in the Underworld news."
"Good. They should learn." Serafall pulled her face out of Behemoth's cleavage and pouted up at her. "Nobody invades Heaven on my watch without running it past me first. I will be the one to invade Heaven, when I feel like it, because I am the Maou Leviathan and Heaven is on my to-do list, and it will be done properly, with a parade!"
"Yes, Mistress…"
"But!" Serafall brightened. "I am back now! I am back, and I missed a whole day and a night, so tell me everything, Behe-tan, tell me everything I missed right now!"
Behemoth set down her quill. She folded her hands neatly in her lap. Her face, as always, gave away exactly nothing.
"Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, and Astoria Greengrass joined Sona's peerage earlier today. It went smoothly. All three young witches are currently asleep in Lady Sona's private quarters while their transformations stabilize."
"Oh, that's wonderful! Sona's been wanting more pieces! Good. Good. What else?"
"Lilja Nornas and the newly added Knight to Harry's peerage, Ginny Weasley, conducted a training session with Asia Argento in an unused classroom on the third floor. During the session, Asia demonstrated significant offensive magical potential. She knocked several teeth out of Draco Malfoy when he attempted to blackmail her into becoming his mistress…" she trailed off coldly.
Serafall's mouth fell open. She was feeling angry and proud and stunned at the same time. Eventually, stunned won out over the other emotions. "Asia?! Our Asia? Sweet little Asia? Who cries when the tea biscuits get too crunchy? That Asia!?"
"The same."
"Oh." Serafall pressed both hands over her heart. "Oh, my baby. My sweet baby Italian nun. She's growing up so fast, Behe-tan, I could cry!"
"Lilja Nornas reports that she is very proud. Draco was Obliviated, dumped in a refuse bin, and is expected to wake in several hours convinced his teeth have been falling out for weeks due to poor nutrition."
"Oh, that is adorable. Lily is such a good Queen for Harry and I can't wait til I get to fuck her again like I did when I knocked her up with Harry! Hand me a tissue, Behe-tan, really. What else?"
Without a second thought, Behemoth reached into her sleeve and produced a pale pink handkerchief. Serafall took it, dabbed her dry eyes, and handed it back.
"In other news," Behemoth said, "Dolores Jane Umbridge has issued a series of formal educational decrees in her capacity as High Inquisitor of Hogwarts. The decrees went up yesterday evening on every notice board in the castle. They include, among others, a prohibition against unsanctioned gatherings of students, a prohibition against unapproved private study sessions, and a blanket prohibition against explicit romantic or sexual relationships between professors, staff, and students."
Serafall blinked innocently. "I'm sorry. Say that last one again?"
"A blanket prohibition against explicit romantic or sexual relationships between professors, staff, and students. Effective immediately. Violations to be punished by immediate dismissal of staff and expulsion of students."
Serafall's bright smile held absolutely steady on her face for the count of three. On the count of four, it slipped. On the count of five, it curdled. On the count of six, it vanished entirely, replaced by a quiet, flat, deeply dangerous expression that Behemoth had seen exactly eleven times in her life as Serafall's Queen, and every single one of those times had ended with someone's body getting frozen solid on an atomic level….
"Behe-tan."
"Yes, Mistress."
"Say that third prohibition one more time for me. I want to hear it again."
"No explicit romantic or sexual relationships between professors, staff, and students."
"Which would include…?"
"You, Mistress."
"And Harry…?"
"Yes, Mistress."
"And Sona…?"
"Yes, Mistress."
"And Narcissa, and Tonks, and Lilja, and Hermione, and—"
"All of them, Mistress."
Serafall's heart shaped wand materialized in her hand with a small pink snap of light.Serafall's voice came out at exactly the pitch and timbre she reserved for public declarations of magical girl justice. "How DARE she!"
"Mistress—"
"How dare she, Behe-tan. How dare that pink-wearing, mouth-pursed, pudgy-fingered, noble-house-pretending, broom-riding little TOAD try to pass a rule like that while I was out of the castle for ONE DAY!"
"Mistress, if I could—"
"Behe-tan." Serafall whirled on her Queen. Her twin ponytails flared behind her with the motion. "Do you understand what she is trying to do? She is trying to take away my sex!"
"I do understand that, Mistress."
"My SEX, Behe-tan!"
"Yes, Mistress."
"With my SON!"
"Yes, Mistress."
"And my SISTER!"
"Yes, Mistress."
"WHICH IS ALSO MY SON'S FIANCÉE!"
"Yes, Mistress."
"IN THE SAME BED!"
"Yes, Mistress. I am aware of the specific arrangement."
"This is BLASPHEMY, Behe-tan. This is HERESY. This is an attack on the most sacred, most important, most FUNDAMENTAL pillar of my personal life, which I have worked for MONTHS to construct! MONTHS! I had to wait MONTHS for Sona to come around, you remember how long that took, I was climbing the walls, and this, this, this pink poison toad thinks she can just WAVE A QUILL at me and tell me NO?!"
"Mistress—"
"I'm going to kill her, Behe-tan."
Behemoth closed her eyes. "I thought you might say that, Mistress."
"I'm going to find her and I'm going to kill her and I'm going to do it in a way that sets an EXAMPLE. I'm going to put it on my SHOW. An after-school special. I'll call it Magical Girl Levia-tan And The Sex-Hating Toad. The children of the Underworld deserve to learn from this."
"Mistress, as your Queen and advisor I am obligated to suggest that perhaps—"
"NOPE, Behe-tan! Don't even try! Mother isn't here to stop me this time and I am ANGRY and I am going to go kill the toad and there is nothing you can do about it!"
"I was not going to try to stop you, Mistress…"
Serafall paused. "You weren't?"
"No, Mistress…"
"Oh. Good. Carry on, then..."
"I will alert your Mother about the potential political fallout..."
"Don't alert Mother! She'll try to stop me!" Serafall whined, looking at Behe-tan with eyes full of the tears of betrayal. Her lower lips trembled and she let out a few totally not fake hiccups.
Behemoth sighed. "Fine. I will alert her after you have done it…"
"That's my girl." Serafall leaned in and smacked a kiss onto Behemoth's cheek, her lip gloss leaving a perfect heart-shaped print on the skin. "Love you. Be right back. Going to go murder a toad. Won't be long!"
"Yes, Mistress…"
Serafall spun on her sparkly boot heel. The door to her office flew open on its own with a bright musical chime, because she had enchanted it to do that. She stormed through it and into the corridor beyond.
Pink toad. Pink stupid ugly little toad. I'm going to take her apart. I'm going to freeze her to the ankle and I'm going to start peeling with a butter knife. I'm going to do the toes first. I'm going to make it ASMR. The children of the Underworld love ASMR.
Her boots clicked sharply on the flagstones.
Banning sex. BANNING sex. Who does that! What kind of absolute troll of a woman wakes up in the morning, looks at a school full of healthy young adults and their gorgeous absolutely fuckable mothers and teachers, and says, you know what this place needs? LESS orgasm.
Her twin ponytails bounced with the rhythm of her stride.
A pair of Ravenclaw first-years came around the corner ahead of her, and flattened themselves against the opposite wall without a word. Serafall swept past them with a distracted little finger wave.
Sorry, kids. Mommy's on a mission!
Her wand twirled in her hand.
I bet she hasn't had sex in forty years. That's what this is. That's exactly what this is. This is the rage of a woman whose last partner saw her naked and moved to Azerbaijan. I should have seen this coming the moment I laid eyes on her sad toad face at the welcome feast. I should have done her right then. I should have iced her into a commemorative statue and put her in the gardens.
She stomped around another corner.
Two seventh-year Gryffindor boys came around the next corner. They took one look at her, made a soft unified noise of "uh—" and turned right around and went back the way they had come.
Serafall kept stomping.
She rounded the last corner to the toad's supposed office corridor and Serafall stopped.
Serafall Leviathan stopped, and she stared.
The corridor in front of her was red.
The walls were red. The floor was red. The ceiling, the ceiling was red in patches where something had hit it hard enough to stick and then slid slowly back down.
Oh, Serafall thought. Her senses extended on reflex.
She reached out with the faint cold pressure of her Maou-class awareness. She ran it through the blood. She ran it through the chunks. The soul that had belonged to this mess.
Serafall's nose wrinkled.The soul, such as it was, had belonged to Dolores Jane Umbridge.
"Someone stole my freaking kill!" she let out a whine. Serafall took a step forward in her pretty boots. Her boots landed in something soft and wet. They squelched."Hey!" Serafall said, out loud, to the empty painted corridor. "HEY. Whoever did this. That was MY KILL! That was MY kill and you STOLE it!" No one answered. "I had a SPEECH planned! I had a THEME song ready to go!" Still no one. "Who even did this?! Show yourself! I DEMAND A DUEL! A posthumous duel! You robbed me and I want SATISFACTION!"
The corridor dripped quietly. Serafall pouted. Obviously, the culprit had gotten away. Which was surprising to Serafall, because as a Maou she could sense everyone in this castle but whoever killed Umbridge had masked their own magical signature perfectly.
"Well. Fine. Fine, fine, fine. I guess I can just. I guess I can just be upset about this at home. With some wine. And my son. And some very loud sex that this stupid bitch was trying to—"
"Oh, my!" A gasp came from behind her.
Serafall turned. At the far end of the corridor, perhaps twenty paces back, stood Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Beside him, one pace to his left, was Minerva McGonagall. McGonagall had her right hand pressed flat over her mouth.
Both of them were looking at Serafall.
Serafall was standing in the middle of a red, glistening, dripping corridor.
Serafall was wearing her full magical girl combat costume, down to the wand.
Serafall had, moments ago, stomped through this hallway loudly threatening to kill Dolores Umbridge at the top of her lungs, in front of at least four student witnesses…
I look guilty right now, don't I? I look so guilty. I look the guiltiest anyone has ever looked…
Albus Dumbledore cleared his throat with extreme care.
"Professor Sitri," he said, slowly, in the voice he used for extremely delicate negotiations with creatures that could flatten his castle. "Might I inquire as to what appears to have happened in this corridor…"
Serafall's mouth opened. A high, thin, panicked giggle came out of it. "I didn't do it! I mean, I wanted to, but I swear it wasn't ME!"
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