Vincent blinked, then understood what she meant.
By the Realm's rules, only Bernadette could enter the sitting room. But now there were two Bernadettes. If both of them entered simultaneously, would they simply meet in the sitting room? Or would they repel and conflict with each other?
"Go back now and have her try to enter."
"Wait, wait," Vincent said quickly. "Don't you think we should be focusing on how to resolve our current situation first? Have you considered that we may never be able to exchange back?"
"What I'm asking you to do is an attempt to resolve it."
Bernadette said: "She and I are fragments of the same soul. If they can meet inside the sitting room, there's a chance — possibly — of fusion."
"And after fusion? Which of you takes precedence? And after you leave the Realm, which world do you return to? If it's this one, we'd be permanently cut off from the other side."
She nodded slightly. "Fair point."
Vincent let out a breath of relief. "So let's hold the current state for now. Maybe the next exchange restores everything on its own."
"Very well. I'll head back."
She paused. "Oh — Malfoy says his father wants to meet."
"Hmm?"
"I suggested it earlier. My thinking was to use Lucius Malfoy to counter the pure-blood families who are looking to make trouble for you."
Vincent smiled. "When he says 'meet,' what he really wants is for me to become his instrument — to handle things he can't afford to be seen doing. Or to be the one who takes the blame when things go wrong."
"So using him as protection against the other families — that's unlikely to work. Everyone in the wizarding world knows Lucius Malfoy goes wherever the wind blows."
Bernadette made a quiet sound. "I understand."
What are you understanding, exactly?
"Also — find an opportunity to ask Headmaster Dumbledore about Patricia. What's happened on that front?"
Vincent quickly filled her in on Patricia, Dumbledore, and Grindelwald's connection. She nodded and left the Realm.
She should be done with her bath by now.
She was not done with her bath.
She had realised something was wrong halfway through.
By rights, once that man and the other her had completed their exchange, she should have merged with her counterpart — if nothing else, she should have inherited a week's worth of the other's memories.
She had nothing.
An uneasy feeling had crept in. Her first instinct was to enter the Realm and ask the man what was going on. But she'd found she couldn't. She kept trying, and kept failing to get in.
Which meant the man was currently in the sitting room. What on earth was he doing in there? And what state was the other her in?
Before the soul split, the Bernadette who existed then would not have reacted to any of this with much emotional turbulence. A hundred years of extraordinary experience had a way of smoothing most things flat.
Especially after advancing to Sequence 4 and acquiring a measure of divinity — her temperament had grown increasingly serene and detached. Had the soul exchange with that man never happened, this gradual dimming of human feeling would have continued, intensifying as she climbed toward Sequence 2 and angelhood. Aside from the singular obsession of finding her father, she might eventually have stopped caring about anything else at all.
But the half-soul that remained here — stripped of that divine component — was finding things differently. She could feel it: the emotions and humanity that had quietly faded over the years were reviving, slowly and persistently.
Three days, and already her temperament had shifted noticeably.
If this continued, she might gradually shed the image of the cold, distant Queen Mystic — and become again the Intisian Crown Princess she had once been.
For her, this wasn't entirely a bad thing. She simply didn't yet know what harm, if any, came from having only half a soul.
"Ahem."
The man's voice appeared then, seemingly from inside her head — yet also as close as her own ear.
Bernadette went still. Immediately understood. "You — you didn't cross back?"
"Correct."
"Your situation is the same as mine was before?"
"Yes."
"So you were just sitting here, watching me bathe."
"???"
"I entered the Realm the moment it started," Vincent said hurriedly. "I saw nothing."
Bernadette gave a cold laugh. "Ha."
"Excuse me, Your Majesty — the point you should be focused on—"
"I know," she cut him off. Her expression had already settled into composure. "How long were you in the Realm?"
"Until now. I spoke briefly with the other you. I'll catch you up."
Bernadette listened, then: "She's right that the fusion idea won't work. I tried to get into the Realm myself the moment I sensed something was off — and I couldn't. Which means the rule still holds: if one of us is in the sitting room, the other is blocked out."
She frowned. "So we're simply waiting for the next exchange?"
"Any better ideas?"
"What if the next exchange swaps us again?"
Her question sat in the silence between them.
The worst outcome. It would mean Vincent was permanently sealed out of the Harry Potter world, and Bernadette was permanently half a soul.
Not being able to return to the Hogwarts world didn't hit him as hard as one might expect. What truly unsettled him was the thought of forever being, in this world, either a passenger in a woman's body or a ghost who could do nothing at all.
If Bernadette eventually reached angelhood, this state could persist for thousands of years.
If she somehow — against all odds — advanced to Sequence 0, then it would be without end.
"I do have some ideas."
Bernadette tapped the edge of the tub with a finger. "Have you forgotten — two souls in one body is not unheard of in my world? Possession, parasitism, certain Beyonder abilities can all produce this situation."
"Perhaps there's a way to help your soul leave my body and find one of its own. Earth Mother Church's Human Alchemy, for instance."
She continued: "The difficulty is working out how to separate your soul from my body in the first place. You're not attached through conventional possession or parasitism — you're fully fused with the body."
Vincent asked: "If I do end up with my own body... will we still exchange?"
"...Hard to say. But surely better than now."
A long pause. Then: "There's one more possibility. We trace the exchange back to its root cause and solve the problem at the source."
Bernadette said, simply: "The Realm of Chaos."
To be continued…
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