Of Fallen Songs and Hidden Sigils [HP SI, Heavy AU]

Of Fallen Songs and Hidden Sigils​

Co-authored by the lovely Prognostic Hannya (SB)/SageNameless (AO3). Go read her things. I'm not asking.​

— O —​

Reality twisted and tilted to the side, a myriad of muted sounds slamming into my body with the weight of an international cargo freighter, uncaring and unwilling to stop. There was a strange quality to my vision as if I were seeing things from an outside perspective, outside my — my? — body.

It was too hot. Whatever I was wearing was stifling, suffocating. I heard someone — or something — breathe rapidly, frantically, and it took me a moment to realize that it was me — me? Who am I?

I heard a name being called out, but it wasn't my name. I ignored it, in favour of remembering — remembering what?

There was something wrong. Something horribly, horribly wrong. I, who am I? Where is this?

I need, I need to get out. Out, out and out and out out out—!

"Push, Morgan!" I heard that name again, but that's not my name — is it? — as far as I… remember? I don't… I don't remember.

A lance of fire pierced my brain.

What don't I remember?

"It's a boy!"

I- what? Something felt off about that, but I didn't know what. The lack of knowledge in general was honestly starting to piss me off and with newfound vigour, I latched onto the single recognizable emotion amidst a sea of confusion. And-

I started to wail. Involuntarily, too. My lungs — that were tiny, I realized now — were giving it their all to show the world how apparently displeased I was.

A positively giant face stared at me, smiling. They spoke in a strange English accent that I found hard to place, given that I wasn't English. I think.

He, for he had the face of a man — with a mustache of positively Victorian bushiness — started to move a finger in front of my face, cooing.

"There, there. Who's a good boy? You! Ah, everyone is going to love you… Molly, sister, come here! Come meet your new nephew!"

I, oh, oh no.

"Oh, Henry, isn't he just precious! What's his name? And what's wrong with Morgan?"

"She's asleep, poor thing. I think I understand why mother called childbearing an effort as hard and as bad as any battle."

I looked at my hands, horrified. My chubby, small, clumsy hands.

"Arthur. Arthur Arwen Clarke. Arthur for my father, and Arwen for hers."

I was a fucking baby.

Suddenly, wailing my lungs out seemed the best option.

- X -

My childhood, all other things considered, was happy.

You might think the whole "reincarnation" thing would put a damper on things, but surprisingly not. Perhaps if I remembered things all at once I would have had more trouble, but luckily (or unluckily, as I would later find out) there were… I could only call them "gaps" in the middle of my previous life.

'Lagoons' might be a better term. Certain parts that I knew I should be able to remember, knowledge and tidbits that were important, things that were right at the tip of my tongue, just out of reach. Family, friends, relatives, all these things came easily, along with the most surprisingly banal trivia, but everything else… it was like a shadow on the wall, not even visible except for the gaps left in other knowledge.

Language wasn't an issue, at least. I had been Spanish in my other life, but thankfully I already had a more or less good grasp of English when I was transported — reincarnated? — into this body, a grasp that just got stronger thanks to living with a family that spoke it as a first language.

Memories… It was strange. Like an enormous flower unfurling and extending its petals inside my mind, touching all of me. I didn't get 'flashes', per se. It was more like doing something out of what you once believed was habit, until you later realized that it was in fact the first time you did anything of the sort.

It was very disconcerting, and honestly, I had scared myself more than once by trying to do something my body wasn't suited to at the time, only to regret it immediately when I figured out that holy shit I can't run that fast I'm going to die.

That's not to say there were no problems with my identity.

Being on my second body, I sometimes felt wrong in my own skin, like my flesh was some ill-fitting suit I had shrugged on. It would creep up on me at the strangest times, like a phantom over my shoulder, hissing whispers dripping with poison, telling me that this body wasn't right.

Over time, I learned to live with the sensation, mostly, but I could never escape that tiny itch at the back of my skull that told me this body wasn't mine, no matter how acclimated I got to my new life.

But as I said, despite all that, I was happy.

I had magic, after all.

Yes, in this new life of mine, magic was real, and I had the good fortune to be born into a family who could use it. To this day, the single most shocking and exciting moment in either of my lives was when I sent a book flying into my hand from across the room, staring up at my laughing father in awe as he pulled out a stick and explained what "accidental magic" was.

Magic… Magic was amazing. Every day that I studied it was another reason to keep existing in a world that wasn't my own. I ended up loving my current family, yes, but some days… Some days the longing grew sharp and icy, frigid claws holding my heart hostage. Those days were the ones where I threw myself into my studies with all the fervor of a drowning sailor holding on to a plank for dear life.

I really couldn't study anything too advanced, given that our home didn't have a library that was more than a bookshelf — a travesty, if you ask me — so my research was, mostly, confined to the old school books of my parents and some buy here and there when they indulged my curiosity, even if they relented only when I asked for stories or the most basic of theory books.

One of the high points of my childhood was when, with the help of my Aunt Molly, I managed to grab mom's wand without her realizing it. Unlike Dad, she wasn't likely to skin me alive when he found out, so I figured it was worth the risk.

I remember giving it a swish as she usually did, and…

Nothing.

Well, no, not nothing, exactly, but more of a minor tug in the center of my chest, a very faint one. It honestly felt… anemic, for lack of a better word. I hadn't really expected anything grand, just more of a reaction than almost literally nothing.

Well, nothing, and then nothing, and then nothing… until some orange sparks shot out and almost burned down my mother's armoire.

I think that was the only occasion in my childhood I can remember my father actually using corporal punishment, because despite looking like a bodybuilder crossed with a Victorian Safari enthusiast, he was a rather stoic and restrained man, all things said.

Oh yes, my father, Henry C. Clarke — "don't forget the C, it sounds distinguished"— was a regular man's man. Strong, dashing, hardworking, and with a mustache that could put General Armstrong's to shame, Henry C. Clarke was the pinnacle of everything a classical husband and father should be: protector, patriarch, and breadwinner of the family.

He was stiff, yes – stoic, almost – but I never once doubted that he loved me. He was the type of man who preferred handshakes to hugs, but that did not make the pride in his eyes any less real when he looked at my meager achievements. I can still picture the day he stood over my shoulder in his office, watching as I tried to mimic the actions of the enchanters on the factory floor, eyes brimming with pride as I attempted to follow in his footsteps.

Yes, "factory". I was surprised too! Factories, in the magical world? I was expecting a more feudal society, especially with the more-than-slightly patriarchal structure of our family.

But no! As it turns out, the magical world had a thriving capitalist economy, with various Most Noble (tee em) families heading almost all the large industries, including the one my father worked as a manager for: Shoal's Magical Construction Equipment, owned by the Noble House of Gernings.

Oh yes, despite the prevalence of businesses and factories, the magical nobility was quite powerful, far more so than its non-magical counterparts. My mother was actually a member of one, if incredibly minor. Minor, and also flat broke, which led to how she met my father in the first place.

Despite coming from a traditionally "dark" family, a political faction that wasn't too fond of those of non-magical descent, my mother Morwenna "Morgan" Clarke (née Emlyn) was remarkably nonchalant about the blood status of her school friends.

And so when her father, the late Lord Lleu Emlyn, asked his daughter to go searching for a match to bring some much-needed money to the coffers of their family, she sought out the richest man she knew… a go-getting young man named Henry, who was busy working his way up the corporate ladder at one of the nation's premier magical corporations.

Needless to say, my grandfather wasn't exactly thrilled with my father's heritage — to put it lightly — but the House of Emlyn had always been marginal in Magical British Politics, and was only growing more so as time went on.

Eventually, after much convincing and arguing on my mother's part, he consented to the match, and so the House of Emlyn was finally able to pay off its debts, the young manager Henry Clarke got put on the fast track for promotion thanks to his newly gained nobility and the newly named Morgan Clarke would birth and raise her three children, giving them all the light and love expected from the great, compassionate, and highly intelligent woman she was.

And she was intelligent, almost unbelievably so.

She could almost effortlessly recall any bit of information she'd learned at Hogwarts, acting as a veritable encyclopedia of magical knowledge, limited only by her small ambitions in being a good wife and mother. If she desired, she could have become a magical researcher of a class not seen since Dumbledore, or if she were born without magic, go on to win a Nobel Prize in whatever field she chose.

But she was born in Magical Britain as the daughter of a minor noble house, and so had been molded from a young age to take the greatest satisfaction in being a wife and mother.

Luckily, though, her prodigious intellect didn't go to total waste; a few years into my life, I was quickly able to realize something was… off about the way my brain was working.

Not in a bad way, though. Rather the opposite, in fact: it seems that this new body had inherited my mother's genius, putting me on a level of the greatest minds of either of my two lives.

It wasn't something anyone could have noticed without my unique situation, but with memories of a non-genius brain, it was staggering. My thoughts came in faster, more streamlined, and clearer. Remembering information that I had learned a month ago and making a leap of logic with something entirely unrelated that I had just learned was a strange experience.

Unfortunately, this new academic intelligence didn't seem to correlate with emotional intelligence, because I was just as bad with people as ever. Worse, in fact, given that in addition to a natural introversion and love of books, I was now separated from my peers by a lifetime of memories. I came off as "weird" or "creepy" to the other children, and worryingly serious and brooding to adults, leaving me with no one that I could actually interact with.

My father tried, of course, but we were just too different. It was endearing at first, but rapidly became annoying, and I spent my childhood avoiding his lessons on "how to be a man". As if humans evolved so that only the males of the species could ride on a broom, drink beer at a pub, or hike in a forest. Ridiculous!

Don't get me wrong, as a natural introverted shut-in, this suited me just fine, but it didn't do any good for my already-decrepit social skills. By the time my peers were old enough to hold intelligent conversations with, they'd degraded to the point where irritated huffs or sarcastic comments were the highest form of social interaction I could manage.

My mother proved a godsend in this. Patient, understanding, loving, and just as clever as I was (but with the benefit of a full Hogwarts education), I think I learned more from her than I have from any two dozen textbooks, before or since.

Charms, Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Runes, everything there was to know about magic she knew, and passed on to me. Even when I was at my most snappish and disagreeable, she never even blinked, and just gently reprimanded me in a way that made me feel guilty for even being irritated.

Honestly, I think she enjoyed it almost as much as I did. She appreciated having a way to exercise her intelligence that she actually found enjoyable. She found learning and experimentation fairly dull, you see, despite her incredible proficiency at them.

Also, my father tended to be intimidated and a bit emasculated by any displays of her intelligence, cunning, or wit, so she'd quickly had any desire to indulge herself trained out of her. I'm still a bit bitter about that.

That's not to say she wasn't happy with her lot in life. In fact, she seemed remarkably happy for someone solely relegated to child-rearing, despite her intelligence and talent. Given that she was the one to arrange the marriage, my mother must have known what she was signing up for, but she went through with it anyways, and I never got the sense that it was unwilling. She was a woman who was overjoyed at every moment, overflowing with love for her family, her home, her husband, and above all, her three wonderful children.

Yes, I did say three children.

Surprisingly for an arranged marriage, my parents seemed to genuinely care for each other a great deal (despite my father occasionally feeling emasculated when shown up by my mother's wit or cunning), and so had a rather… I'll call it vigorous sex life. As a natural consequence, a year and three months (exactly) after my mother placed me in my crib, the world welcomed the birth of Julian Francis Clarke, a healthy baby boy with his father's brown hair and brown eyes.

From the moment he was placed in my crib, I knew we wouldn't get along.

I love Julian, I do, don't get me wrong — he's my younger brother, after all! — but God can it be tiring to deal with him.

It's not his fault, if anything it was a combination of my advanced mental age and natural introverted tendencies (which had only been exacerbated by my second childhood), but I just found Julian too… too much.

Too much yelling, too much crying, too much excitement and running and playing, too much grabbing, too much pointless chattering, and above all too much damn energy. I pity my first parents, because if this was what I was like as a child, they must have been a few weeks away from yeeting me off the fire escape at all times.

I feel bad for him, honestly. All Julian wanted was a playmate, someone he could share his grand imaginary adventures with, who could be the dragon to his heroic knight. Instead he got me: a broody, antisocial, book-hoarding introvert, the "creepy" kid among our town.

By the time I'd un-fucked my head enough to feel bad about it, he'd already moved on, and had taken to mimicking our father's more serious, stoic demeanour. He was much too mature for playing and games, you see, a dignified young man only a few years away from his Hogwarts education! It was adorable.

To be honest, I'm lucky he stopped trying to play. Even though I felt bad, I didn't have it in me to interact with someone else for more than an hour at a time.

I do still love my brother, though, even though we've never been the closest (or, if I'm being honest, close at all), which is why when my parents announced I'd soon have another, I could react with nothing but joy.

Christopher Lucas "Little Luke" Clarke was a happy boy from the moment he was born, squirming and writhing in my mother's arms. Strangely I was actually closer with him than Julian, despite the age gap. Maybe it was something about how, being 6 when he was born, taking on an older, more distant, mentorly role was much more natural for me, rather than the assumed peer relationship I was supposed to have with my middle brother.

He was a cheerful kid, always laughing and running and playing, trying to round up whoever he could to participate in his games.

He was the only one who was able to drag me out of my room, using the dreaded puppy-dog eyes to weaken my heart, and forcing me into painfully extended social interaction, pretending to be the villain in whatever tale he was constructing.

Any other child his age would have been put out by the continual rejections from his peers — he was the half-blood son of an uppity mudblood and a blood traitor whore, after all — but not our Luke. He just took their nasty words with a smile and a grin, telling them that he'd have more fun without them, anyways.

Oh, yes, did you think my father's blood status wasn't going to play a role?

How naïve.

The House of Emlyn had been traditionally associated with what was known as the Traditionalist, or "Dark" faction of Magical British politics. Living on their traditional estate in the Llŷn Peninsula in Gwynedd, it meant that I grew up the son of an extremely English Light muggleborn among a community of primarily Welsh-speaking Dark Oldbloods that were open and proud of upholding their traditional culture.

To my parents' horror, there were even a few creatures residing among the various estates of the countless minor families that made up almost 75% of Britain's nobility, obviously ready to rip and tear and kill all good upstanding folk in their savage blood sacrifices, or whatever. I still find it amusing that they made sure to keep us all indoors during the full moons, even though there wasn't a single Werewolf reservation within a hundred miles of Gwynedd.

As you could imagine, this made us quite the exiles within our town, with not a day going by without some sneer or insult directed at us, our parents, or our "tainted" magic.

The most odious of the abuse came from the head of the Aarthfael family, whose family house sat only a short distance away from ours.

Heddwyn Aarthfael was a bitter man, one that had seen his eldest son die in an ultimately failed war against the Light establishment, and it seemed that he decided to take all his anger and hate out on us as the avatars of everything he despised.

He would spread terrible rumors about us, lead the charge in kicking us out of town events, and even go as far as to use his connections in business and government to try to get my father demoted unless he "rented" my mother out to him for his own personal use.

That was the day I learned my mother knew castration charms.

He backed off a bit after that, sticking to less obvious torment. He would go out on frequent walks around town, making sure to loudly talk about his political views within earshot of the family, even Little Luke.

If it was just him, it wouldn't be so bad — just one bitter widower grieving his son was nothing to worry about — but he was only the most vocal of the townsfolk. The others, while a bit more subtle and circumspect thanks to wanting to avoid ministry attention, made it exceptionally clear just how much they hated my father, my mother, and us as the product of their unholy, miscegenous union.

Honestly, the rhetoric reminded me of some of the more open anti-immigration activists in my old life, the Franco-worshiping Vox shitheads who would ramble on and on about the "cultural incompatibility" of anyone not a European Catholic, and how of course they weren't racist, they didn't believe in any of that skull-measuring nonsense, they just thought that we should work to preserve the glorious Western culture of our ancestors from being eroded away by "outside influences".

When my father was in earshot, they made it very clear that they did not think he belonged in the magical world, and was nothing more than a dirty, mud-blooded upstart who would one day be "shown his place" for stealing away a job and a wife from a good, "pureblood" wizard.

When our mother was in earshot, they made it clear that she was a whore and a slut of the highest degree, rutting with an animal in exchange for his ill-gotten, stolen muggle gold.

How gold could be both stolen from "proper" wizards and simultaneously "filthy and muggle" was never made quite clear, but I don't think it really mattered to them.

Some of the nicer town members tried to ward the others off, shooing away the local children when they'd throw rocks and sticks at Luke or Julian, calling them half-breeds and sons of a filthy whore.

You see, they said, unlike all those angry people that went "too far", they didn't hate my father. No, it was his ideas they hated, the muggle filth he brought into the wizarding world as a result of his upbringing.

If things were working properly, according to them, father would have been stolen from birth to be raised by parents of "proper magical heritage" to raise them with the "correct" values, leaving his actual parents — the sweet, old couple who would give me biscuits every time I'd visit their small Kensington cottage — a pair of amnesiacs mourning for a son they couldn't even remember, if not just killed them outright.

It made my blood boil, and it says a lot that they were actually the much less horrible minority of the townsfolk

Muggles, one middle-aged mother from the House of Bard once explained to me, were a whole brood of magicless, pitiable savages. Unable to commune with the greater soul of the universe like us enlightened mages, they were content to revel in their blind, foolish worship of empty idols instead of the greatness of Magic itself.

Like men without souls they blustered to and fro, desperately searching for the meaning in their lives their magicless state could never provide them, and in their anger and rage at their pointless existences, inventing alternate, false magics like "science" to comfort them in their ignorance.

For a woman so insistent on the pitiable state of muggles, however, she seemed remarkably gleeful in enumerating every single way those magic-hating heathens were seeping in to destroy good, upright magical society, rotting it down to the core with their rejection of Mother Magic and all the gifts she would bring her children, prying them down from their former state of Edenic innocence.

Her conception of an ideal society read to me like something straight from the mind of Tolkien. Noble, just Lords protecting their grateful subjects, all glorying together and united in their worship of the great Mother that birthed all our souls. The dirty mudbloods, of course, played the part of Sauron: bringing the corrupting forces of science and capital and industry to pollute our once-pristine idyll and turn us into the dark, fiery wasteland of Mordor, heathen barbarians worshiping a false God whose only blessing was misery.

Huh, now that I think about it, Tolkien was kind of a Luddite, wasn't he? Didn't I hear he was a monarchist?

Now, in a better story, this is where I would tell you all about how those displays of bigotry motivated me to join in the self-proclaimed 'Light' factions of politics, the Good Guys™, and help push forward a great movement to end that disgusting bigotry once and for all.

In a better story, those backwards, ignorant townsfolk would be put behind me, left as a relic of the past once I joined the nice, good, progressive Light society at Hogwarts.

That view — one of conflict between good and evil, light and dark — would prove to be foolishly naïve.

— O —​

Up until I was ten years old, I had an aunt.

Her name was Molly, and I loved her.

She was a prankster, never taking herself too seriously, and would always send me into shrieking fits of childish laughter whenever she'd come over to visit, pulling some prank or another on her older brother that was as hilarious as it was creative. She was the "cool aunt", the one who would sneak me wine after family dinners with a wink, who would always play the laughing dragon to my brave fantasy knight, who would let me borrow her wand when no one was looking to practice basic spells.

And then, when I was nine, my father caught her in bed with another woman.

Now, you might be thinking "Oh, it's the light! They're the good guys, of course, they'd accept her! They have muggle values, after all!"

Oh, you sweet summer child, how wrong you'd be.

For you see, while the "Light" did indeed have muggle values, the "muggle values", like everything else in society, came from an era about a hundred and fifty years behind my own.

They loved science and logic and reason, yes, and derided the "foolish superstitious attitudes" of the Dark, seeing them as regressive elements which needed to be overcome to build a new, modern magical society… but much like the bourgeois purveyors of the scientific mindset in my old life, their respectable, modern society had no place for anything that did not fit in with the smooth, clockwork organisms of social cohesion functioning in their modernized social structures.

Homosexuality, as my father explained (with my mother's wholehearted agreement), was disgusting, hedonistic decadence, and thoroughly unnatural and abnormal by the measure of modern science. Reproduction is, after all, the highest goal of any Darwinist system. It was a foible of the Dark who, in their long refusal to embrace Christianity, still held fast to an older, pagan system of beliefs, one in which trifling things like sexuality, race, and gender mattered little in the face of Mother Magic.

Oh, yes, race as well. As I learned when my mother took me out to Diagon Alley — the Plaza Mayor of Wizarding Britain — the scientific method is wonderful in its ability to help us categorize and order the natural world, including the races within it.

There was, as she explained while walking past a store advertising the newest advantages in skull-measuring calipers for the novice Magizoologist, a tool for ordering reality into a hierarchy, with some organisms superior, and others inferior. Everything has its place in the clockwork functioning of the universe, whether that's as the merest bacteria or the largest and most complex elephant, and it's folly to use some mystical hogwash about the "soul" to pretend they don't.

Muggle scientists, she said, had only seen half the picture when they noted the lesser intelligence and civilized behavior of the negroid and mongoloid races of humanity, for invisible to them was a whole universe of magical beasts: Werewolves and Vampires, Fae and Merfolk, each in their savagery and animal instinct more bestial than even the lowest negro could hope to be. Why, unlike the lesser races of humanity, they didn't even make the aesthetic disguise of civilization! Their beastly inner attitudes are reflected in their beast-like appearances, leading them to, without the strong guiding hand of superior peoples, degenerate into a society of barbarians reveling in the chase of their momentary, animalistic, hedonist pleasures.

Pleasures like extramarital sex, interracial breeding, or homosexuality. Things that satisfy a momentary animal urge towards pleasure, but do not contribute to the higher functioning of society.

And Aunt Molly, in her embrace of those base pleasures, proved herself a corrupting influence and needed to be disowned and exiled, for fear she would spread her primal attitudes towards her innocent and gullible nephew.

She was always a bad egg, my Father explained, always one with suspicious sympathies. She'd been known to befriend dark beasts after she left Hogwarts, even living with a rural commune of — father shuddered at this — werewolves for a time, most likely reveling in their daily orgies, or whatever those animals get up to when they're not hunting down good, upstanding members of society to devour like beasts.

Aunt Molly, according to Mother and Father, should be thoroughly forgotten about, dismissed as a fading childhood memory, excised from my life before she could corrupt us all and bring us down into the Dark with her.

I only managed to visit her once — sneaking out of the house while Dad was visiting an old friend — and found a tired, broken shell of the woman I once knew, living from shitty job to shitty job, rejected from light society for being a zoophile and degenerate homosexual, and from dark society for being the sister to a blood traitor. I wept as I saw the bags under her eyes, the trembling in her weakened limbs, and she, saintlike, just held me in her grasp, petting my head and telling me not to worry for her, that she'd be fine, even in her exile. I'd better run back to my parents now, she said as she bustled me out the door, I wouldn't want them to be angry that I was "hanging around with the wrong sort". She told me to remember that she'll always love me, even if she can't see me, and I should never be afraid to be myself, even if the world would disapprove.

Two months later, I learned she was dead. Caught by some puritanical mob raiding a "licentious" gay bar, beaten to death, her brains spilled out upon the dark and grimy cobblestones of Knockturn.

And that was how I began my magical education: a child scorned by the whole world, fenced in on both sides by factions that disgusted me, forced to choose one or another in order to have any social interaction.

It should go without saying that I spent most of my time in the library.

 

My name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementi-...

Wait no, wrong universe.

My name is Arwen Clarke, and I am bored.

Bored bored bored bored bored.

Boooooorrrrrr-

Well, you get the idea.

I'm sitting at the Ravenclaw house table, tapping my fingers impatiently against the wooden surface. Honestly, who made these things mandatory?

Being obligated to sit on the same table as the rest of your House was more of a chore than anything else. Being obligated to attend the Great Hall when there was a supposed event (or talk or announcement or what have you) feels like it's breaking at least two articles of the Geneva Conventions.

I don't even know most of these people! I don't eat with them, sleep in the same tower or in some cases even study with them.

I look over to the gold and red table to see a brunette figure laughing, clapping his hand against the back of one of his followers as he shares a joke, some nameless ginger.

Well, good to see at least one of us is having fun.

If I got all our mother's brains, Julian got all our father's charm and charisma. He's a happy figure, always ready to share a joke or organize a party, rivaled in his social connections only by the Weasley Twins and Angelina Johnson in his house. He's widely known to be a bit of a jock, but a loveable and well-meaning one, a human golden retriever: not the brightest, but excitable and good-natured.

I have to repress a snort. As if any brother of mine would be a dullard.

Underneath Julian's guise as a meathead lies a cunning, sharp mind, every bit as adept at emotional and social navigation as I am at academics and research.

I wouldn't call him a 'manipulator', since that implies ill intent — although he's certainly capable of manipulation if it's required — but he's one of the smoothest, deftest social players I've ever seen, near-effortlessly avoiding conversational pitfalls and navigating the complex webs of social relationships I find so bewildering. He can turn enemies into friends and friends into enemies with the drop of a hat, and, if he were so inclined (which he isn't, because he's actually a fairly good person), could ruin a person with a few well-placed words.

That's not to say he's an angel. He has a well-hidden ruthless streak that only those closest to him are aware of, one that only really comes out when someone close to him is threatened. And no one unambitious wants to get into politics.

Honestly, I'm more surprised he didn't get into Slytherin than anything, but given that house's reputation I imagine he asked the hat to place him somewhere else.

I imagine that's why he gets along with Potter and Granger so well.

Julian may have a hundred acquaintances, but he's actually a remarkably private person, only having a few real friends that he's open with. I was initially surprised when he started cozying up to Rose Potter, the infamous "Girl-Who-Lived", but thinking about it now it makes sense: she was isolated, lonely, and — from what little I've gained from Julian — mistreated, and he was a gallant and silver-tongued devil ready to part the seas of gossip for her.

I suspect their relationship started as manipulation on Juian's end, but it became clear to me quickly that there was something about Potter that commanded his genuine friendship and loyalty. I'm glad he found her, honestly. I'd long been worried he was shaping up to become a narcissistic social climber, but meeting Potter (and along with her Granger and that ginger boy they hang around) seems to have tempered his edges, and given him a sense of belonging and comradery that he'd been sorely lacking before Hogwarts.

I try not the flinch as I avoid thinking about why that was the case.

I'm broken from my reverie by a voice piping up next to me, light and fae like a wind chime carried in on a summer breeze.

"Are you going to enter any of the smaller tournaments, Arwen?"

I turn, looking at my housemate.

Spoiler: Image

At 4'11", Luna Lovegood was a deceptively tiny girl. She had platinum blonde hair so pale that under the right lighting it would look like flowing liquid silver.

Coupled with her usually odd choice of trinkets, necklaces and other ornaments and added to her general mysteriousness — seriously, she sometimes talked like a Greek Moira of old — one could almost be mistaken for mistaking her for a Fae.

And just like the Fae she resembled, she possessed an unusual insight into magic.

I'd long-hypothesized that the unique creatures Luna saw were a strange, derivative form of magesight, magical or emotional phenomena taking on the form of imaginary creatures with peculiar properties.

Luna, of course, insists all her creatures are real, and that divinatory blood alchemy I performed must have been mistaken. Why, to her, it's perfectly clear she doesn't have a gift to interpret magic as creatures, but to see heretofore-undiscovered magical lifeforms, making her the most innovative magizoologist in a century!

I have to suppress a chuckle. Honestly, I'm fairly certain she knows I'm right, and is just continuing to insist on her version of events simply to irritate me. It's difficult to tell, but I think I've picked up enough Luna-ese over the past three years to know that she's just fucking with me.

Her isolation just further proves what fools the rest of my housemates are, to ignore such a potent spontaneous manifestation of a bloodline talent. Honestly, you're sitting next to someone with gifts on par with a Parselmouth or a Metamorphmagus, and you're just going to dismiss her as "that loony weirdo"?

I have to suppress a sneer as I look at the little dullards around me. The power to warp reality itself, fundamentally violate the laws of physics, causality, logic itself, and these people are going to spend their whole lives as accountants.

Well, given the socioeconomic standing of the people attending Hogwarts (as opposed to other, less prestigious schools), it's more likely to be a bureaucrat or middle manager over an accountant, but you get my point.

These people somehow believe that the petty little games of social power they play with each other are more important than Magic. That their luncheons and workplace drama are more notable than the ability to bend logic into a pretzel and-

A hand waves in front of my face. "Arwen?"

Ah, yes, right! Luna!

"What was that?" I say to the blond girl besides me, only able to see the slight twitch of her lips after years of friendship.

I laugh as I remember her question. "Do I really look like the type of person who duels for a trophy? Or god forbid writing essays for one. I duel because it's interesting, and because it gives me an excuse to use my practical skills. A dueling tournament, honestly…"

Well, also because I know that the fault lines left over from the Civil War are going to break within the next decade and burn the entire country down with, but the learning is important too.

Yeah, as it turns out, 150 years of tensions don't just go away because the leader of one particular insurgent movement does a Hiroshima impression. For some strange reason, when one half of your society literally worships Magic, and the other half decides to dissect and experiment with it like a Victorian chirurgeon working as a part time deranged chemist, you're going to have a few things they disagree about.

Sure, Voldemort and his Knight of Walpurgis may have been the best chance for the Dark to establish their magicentric feudal utopian fantasy kingdom, with how close they came to winning the Civil War.

But you can't spend 150 years relegating yeoman farmers and aristocrats to poverty and… well, whatever the magical version of "proletarianization" is, and not expect there to be some major backlash.

Also, the whole "eugenics" thing the Light has going for it, with their worryingly German fetish for creating a perfectly efficient modern society. Although the Dark is little better with their fanatical shunning of all things tainted by "muggleness", not to mention their idiotic hysteria over any sort of magical experimentation, crying about "heresy" as if the way things were done 400 years ago is the only-

A pair of fingers snaps in front of my face again. "Arwen?"

I definitely don't blush. "Ah, sorry."

"It's okay" my blonde housemate says with a serene smile, "I know how you are, I won't blame you for being Arwen."

"Still" I say with an apologetic smile, "you're one of the few people in this second-rate heap of uninspired sheep that I can actually stand, I shouldn't just ignore you like I do the rest of these imbeciles," I say with a vague wave of my hand pointing at our general vicinity.

My housemates around us don't even glare at this point, long-used to my loud proclamations of their own mediocrity.

"Anyways, forget the tournaments" I say with a tight smile, "have you made any progress on discovering the properties of those… what do you call them, Blibbering Humdingers?"

She brightens at my question, and I have to resist a surprisingly strong urge to pat her head. "Oh yes! I've confirmed that they eat emotions now! I don't think they actually take the emotions away from you though, it's more like how lethifolds feed off of fear without actually making you less afraid."

I raise my eyebrows. "Ambient emotivores, you say?"

She nods rapidly, sending her blonde curls flying from her messy bun. "Yes, exactly! And there aren't just one type either! There's the red ones, that like angry people, and the black ones, which like sad people, and a bunch of other! There's a lot of nuance too! Dark blue ones like hope and wishes, but teal ones actually like happiness, which is totally different!"

I nod, humming. A passive empathic awareness, expressed through a visual medium as imaginary creatures. Absolutely fascinating.

"But!" she continues with a happy bounce in her seat "That isn't the big discovery! I figured out that humdingers can actually change what type they are by changing their diet!"

"So…" I say, "it's not that the humdingers are different species with different diets, but their diet determines what species they are. How fascinating, and rather the opposite of most other magical creatures."

She nods. "I know! The only think I can compare it to are the way ambient magic effects sprite cocoons to turn them into pixies! Oh, also! Sometimes they can be multiple colors if they're in the middle of changing their diet! One of them actually turned black and white when it slept near me, like a photograph! What do you think it means?"

I tap my finger against my chin as I parse her adorable oh my god she's so precious rambling.

“Well… you had them with you when you were sleeping, you say?” she nods, “did you sleep better or worse those nights?”

She purses her lips adorably, and I once again resist the urge of patting her head. “You think it's feeding off nightmares versus good dreams? I guess I did sleep better the nights they were more white… Wait no, that doesn't make sense."

"Why not?"

"Because then that would mean I should be having nightmares when the black ones appear, but I'm not. I don't dream anything at all actually, like I just closed my eyes and woke up the next morning.”

I hum, fingers steepled.

"Hey Alexander, can you pass the butter?"

"Shh, don't bother the crazies!"

I swat away the irritating fly to my right as I leap forward. "Luna, have you ever considered the humdingers may affect you differently than other people? Maybe they actually do take your emotions when they feed on them."

She perks up. "Oh! So because I can see them, the connection can go the other way too, and they can steal my emotions instead of just subsisting off of them? Cool!"

"Possibly" I say drily, "but I was more thinking that as a manifestation of your unique gifts, they have a unique ability to affect you as opposed to others. Your magic can change your emotions based on what they do, but it can't change anyone else's."

"You have any idea what they're jabbering on about?"

"No clue, mate."

"Oh no Arwen" she says sadly, "I'm afraid you don't understand. Blibbering Humdingers are very real, and they're a very serious problem magical Britain is going to have to face."

I raise an eyebrow and she just gives me an innocent look.

Damn her poker face.

"Regardless" I say with a roll of my eyes, "don't try interacting with them without me around. I'd like to study how your magic affects the envi- sorry, how these definitely real creatures affect the environment."

She nods happily. Did she not notice my sarcasm, or is she just ignoring it?

“Okay, I can do that!" she says perkily "I'll leave it to you! You're the one with the fancy tools."

I puff up. "Well, you kn-"

"And enchantments."

"Ye-"

"And exploding kettles.”

I sigh, and sink in my chair as she smiles beatifically. I take that back, she definitely caught my sarcasm.

“That was one time. One.”

Luckily, before Luna can revel in my defeat any longer, the old goat stands up from the staff table. “The moment has come,” he says, smiling like the theatrical grandstander he tries to hard to pretend he isn't. “The Triwizard Tournament is about to start! For the first time in centuries, we will once more host this tradition, a competition between the three oldest schools of magic in Europe, dating back to when they were the only three."

I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket just to clarify the procedure that we will be following this year. Firstly… well."

He coughs.

"Ah, yes, before that, let me introduce, these four fine gentlemen — and ladies, apologies — for those who do not know them.

"First!" he calls grandly, "Mr. Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, the man who is responsible for this whole spectacle more than anybody! And also from our great nation Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, who has spent decades tirelessly fighting to bring us joy and merriment, on and off our green and pleasant fields."

"And of course!" he adds, "I must also introduce Mr. Crouch's counterparts in the Russian and French Ministries, Teodora Novikov and Agnès Sauvageon, who I'm sure have done many fine things for their own peoples!”

He pauses for the smattering of polite applause, and I roll my eyes. Did he have to make his chauvinism quite so obvious? Morganna save me from pompous Brits.

“They, along with many others from all three of our great nations, have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament,” Dumbledore continued, “and will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff, and Madame Maxime on the panel that will judge the champions' efforts.”

I raise my eyebrows as the French and Russian sections of the hall start muttering. Two judges from each country makes sense, but how on earth did Crouch manage to negotiate Bagman in as an extra British judge? That's an unfair advantage if I've ever seen one.

“The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by all three ministries,” Dumbledore says “and we have all agreed — I'm sorry, they have all agreed on all necessary procedures."

He shoots us an obvious wink. "I'm supposed to be wearing my headmaster hat now, you see, not my Supreme Mugwump one. Can't have any involvement from me!"

He beams at the light chuckles from the sheep other students around me.

"Now!" he says after a bit of a pause, "there will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways... their magical prowess — their daring — their powers of deduction — and, of course, their ability to cope with danger!"

He draws in a theatrical breath "Oh yes, danger indeed! Health, safety, their very life, nothing of the champions is out of jeopardy."

The audience gasps as I snort. Drama queen.

I tune out the rest of the speech, content to ignore it as the mindless drivel it is, turning to my food.

A simple glance at Luna tells me that she's off in her own world, and past experiences tell me that it's best leaving her that way without interrupting. Not because she'll grow angry at the interruption, but because she'll stare at you with such disappointment that you'll wish she'd be angry instead. I'm telling you, that stare can see right through your soul.

"-three champions will compete-"

If I'm being completely truthful I don't see the appeal of a tournament that killed a third of the audience the last time it was held. A tournament that, on top of being dangerous for the audience, has a not insignificant thirty percent rate of total casualties, meaning that a third of the time it was held, there were no winners.

Only corpses.

I can't fathom how Dumbledore, Bagman, or whatever absolute bloody madman got permission to hold something like this once again, with school kids no less. Seriously. I've taken a long, hard look at where the seventh year students are academically meaning and I have to say that I'm not impressed.

I fight between a grimace and a snicker as I see the reaction of the Beauxbatons students at our table to his speech. I didn't think mild disbelief and disdain could be an art form, but it seems the French have perfected it.

Honestly, who thought letting that senile imbecile stay in charge of Hogwarts well into his 14th decade should be shot dead on the street. It's clear the man barely knows where he is half the time, let alone what's happening.

Even if he wasn't senile, the man is basically the Magical Equivalent of the Speaker of Congress and Minister of Foreign Affairs — two jobs which don't exactly have light workloads — and then they went and made him dean of the Complutense too!

"Anyone wishing to submit themselves as champion must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment and drop it into the goblet. Aspiring champions have twenty-four hours in which to put their names-"

Or Oxford, I guess, since we're in Britain, and that's where all the fancy British nobles go. Of course Hogwarts isn't really equivalent to that any more, since it's gone to shit over the past four decades — and it has, I've done the research — it's run by a man who's barely even here!

And now he's gone senile on top of that?

I'm not saying I hate him, you can't even hate a man who's so clearly a puppet being used for his name recognition. I'm just saying it would be better for all of us if he just sort of… bowed out.

Or y'know, was made to bow out! I'm not saying I'd kill him, but… well, I'd have zero problems with unplugging his life support to charge my phone.

What? Education is very important to me.

Letting some sort of rogue run through the school for a year petrifying the students would be enough on its own, but it seems like every year there's some new example of his senility and incompetence!

My best guess for what did it is a gorgon, but I haven't been able to get any confirmation; Julian has been irritatingly tight-lipped about whatever happened at the end of my Third Year. Honestly, I'm his br- sibling, you'd think he'd at least tell me!

But regardless of what actually happened, the fact remains that Dumbledore allowed multiple students to come close to death, and faces virtually no consequences! I heard he even used some legal loopholes to make the students from dark families pay for their own Mandrake Restorative Drought!

But oh no, he would never do that, he's so good and pure and noble!

Storing a deadly cerberus in a barely-locked room, and then announcing it to the entire school? Can't fire him over that, he's the defeater of Grindelwald! Letting every single DADA professor die for over a decade straight, to the point where the only man they could find to fill the position was the magical equivalent of a reality TV star? Clearly sabotage against the great Leader of the Light!

Even letting — I shudder — dementors live near schoolchildren for a year to catch an escaped prisoner (one that was incarcerated without trial), despite that prisoner demonstrating the ability to escape from an entire island prison full of dementors? Literal soul-sucking demons almost murdering students multiple times, soul-sucking demons deemed by the ICW so inhumane that not even a maximum security prison full of rapists and mass murderers deserves to bear their presence? Why, you can't fire him for that, he's a hero of the Civil War!

"To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation, I will be drawing an Age Line around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed in the entrance—"

Yes, it's very clear that the Chief Warlock is very past his prime.

I suppress another shudder. Fucking dementors.

I can say with complete and utter certainty that I absolutely hate those wretched hellspawn. I have absolutely no will or want of my own to even be within a hundred kilometers of one of them, even less so with the absolute disaster that was last year.

I didn't exactly have a… pleasant fourth year. Even existing in a castle guarded by those abominations turned me into a bipolar wreck who alternated between extreme, not-flinching-at-dismemberment levels of apathy and a hyper-paranoid anxiety that left me almost cursing multiple yearmates when they breathed too loudly in my general vicinity.

Needless to say, I decided to drastically accelerate my research into soul magic and banishing rituals once the semester ended, even if an arithmantic breakdown of the Patronus charm is almost impossible to get your hands on.

It makes sense, really. I imagine the Magical British Government keeps the one weakness of the wardens of their maximum security prison locked up very tightly.

Well, too bad for them, because I'm certain I've managed to reverse engineer the most complicated and extreme spell I can get my hands on out of sheer, molten spite.

I'm going to make one of those bloody things scream if it's the last thing I do. I swear, I'm going to bring down the walls of that hellhole and tear it piece by-

Ahem.

Probably shouldn't be considering plans to level Azkaban, knowing my lack of a filter when villainously monolog— rambling.

At the corner of my eye, I see movement near the teachers table, and before I can go back to my inner monologue, I notice how the rest of the hall is silent as a grave. There's something covered in cheap tarp, something that's screaming to my senses; a cold, icy sensation overtaking my veins for a second, leaving me content and comfortable in the middle of the eye of the storm, a blizzard that surrounds me, caresses my magic, and welcomes me. An eternity of ice that freezes the fabric of reality, of magic itself, all of it combining to form—

Cruel, molten barbed wire seizes my brain for a second as I bring my hand to my temple, massaging it. What…?

"The Goblet of Fire!"

I gasp. That… that goblet. The enchantments…

No, I don't think it even counts as enchantments. The magic is so woven into the construction that there's no division between the physical and metaphysical.

It's… it's… an object with a soul.

Or at least, the closest thing an object can get to having one.

The only thing I can compare this to is Hogwarts itself, and even that is diffused across an entire castle.

To my carefully-cultivated magical senses, it's like a frozen star, blazing with a cold light that bent and twisted and looped on itself, a never-ending pattern that both did and did not touch itself, to the point there could be no distinction as to what was and wasn't the goblet.

It's… "unsettling" might be the best term.

There was something, something deep inside me that the Goblet touched. Frustratingly, the memory seemed to escape me every time I tried to focus on it, slipping between my fingers like sand in the wind, leaving only the vaguest of impressions and metaphors.

The Goblet is… it's an unspoken confession, a dream within a dream within a dull, faint mirror housed upon the calm sea on a full moon night. The suggestion of a chase on a dark alleyway, the baleful reflection of something crimson moving between shadows that didn't really exist as just the absence of light, that didn't really exist at all.

I snap back, looking away from the artifact. It seems I can touch the thing, get the vaguest analysis, but anything deeper draws me into that strange realm of dreams and formlessness. Was it memetic? Anti-memetic?

No, I don't think this is a mental effect at all, or at least, not an intentional one. It's just a consequence of my soul brushing up against something so monumental, so vast and eldritch.

I cast a quick tempus, and realize with alarm that twenty minutes have passed with me just staring at the thing. It's just so… there. Real and present in a way nothing around it is, like it's walking in front of the shadows of Plato's cave.

This is a deeply unsettling feeling. It feels as if someone had bumped against my soul, bringing something to the surface, if only for an instant. Something that brought to mind with absolute clarity the words "absolute zero," the complete and utter certainty of a frozen death. In fact, I think… that…

…Why is everybody so quiet all of a sudden?

I turn around to find one of the Beauxbatons students hanging over Luna, pointing to one of those indecipherable French dishes that are littering the table.

…Why is no one passing it to her?

I look at Luna, who seems a bit starstruck, gazing at the girl with wide eyes, cheeks flushed.

"Um… uh… o-okay h-h-"

Honestly. You'd think none of them had seen the French before. They're not that different from us jolly old English, surely?

With a roll of my eyes I reach over Luna's hands, grabbing the dish and handing it to the girl with a grunt of acknowledgement.

Now, what was I going on about?

Ah yes, the Goblet!

I'm going to have to seriously increase my research into soul magic, if I'm going to figure out just what the hell that thing was.

Truly, the way the entire object is permeated with its own metaphysical structure… even something as metaphysically active as a mage has at least some metaphysical division between body and soul, but this thing is practically a magical construct congealed into reality!

I wonder, is it even made out of mortal materials, with the magic worked into it until the two were indistinguishable? Or was it solidified from pure magic, crystallized from the aether?

It's rather like the chicken and the egg, I think.

The… strangeness I'm sensing from it is just a byproduct of that. The Goblet ist just more… there than everything around it, like it's more real than even reasity. If we're in Plato's cave, then that Goblet is being held up in front of us, the only real thing in a world of fuzzy and indistinct shadows…

…and I'm not going to consider the implications of that right now.

"Arwen" Luna says from my side, eyes looking at the French students, "w-who was that!?"

I scrunch my brow. "Who was who?"

She turns to point further down the table, where a blonde girl in the Beauxbatons uniform is sitting.

"Her…" she sighs out, tone even more dreamy than usual.

I raise an eyebrow. "Luna?"

"O-Oh!" she says, jumping a bit and breaking her stare, "n-nevermind!"

I have to suppress the urge to shake my head. I don't think I'll ever understand that girl.

"That's Fleur Delacour," some boy says from across from Luna, a unnervingly Luna-esque dreamy look in his eyes, "everyone says she's going to be the Beauxbatons champion…"

"I h-heard she was a v-veela…" pipes up another background character fellow Ravenclaw.

"Nonsense" I say, pointing with my fork, "look at the hair. Veela have silver hair, or very occasionally white. Unless she's dyeing it, that girl's a blonde. And besides, their features tend to be sharper, she actually has a rather gentle jawline."

"She does…" Luna says breathlessly.

Strange girl.

"She's a quarter Veela" one of the girl children says, looking at some boy next to her with irritation, "my Father works for the DIMC, and she's the daughter of the French Minister. Him marrying a half-Veela was a big scandal, it was in all the papers."

My eyes snap towards the child. "Truly?"

"Um… yes?"

"Interesting…" I say, staring at the girl.

"You like her too, huh?" the girl child says with disappointment, staring like I'd failed some imaginary test of hers. Whatever.

"She's certainly a fascinating specimen" I say with a hum, eyes not leaving her.

I wonder… if she's chosen as champion, she's likely to be injured at least once, yes? And I can't imagine they're going to want to keep the dirty uniforms the three of them compete in…

Could I get samples of her blood?

"Finally" I hear from one of the NPCs around me, "I thought you were a bloody poofter, Clarke. She's right fit, isn't she?"

"Quiet" I snap, eyes not leaving the French girl's form.

"Well fuck me I guess"

I have to suppress my foot from tapping excitedly at the thought. The blood of a mixed-race witch, I can't believe it!

I think I hear some chatter from that same child from before, but I brush it off.

I've been looking for this sort of thing for ages, even venturing off into the hard-Light sections of Vertick Alley to try to find 'creature parts', as distasteful as that is. I'd get some on my own, but there are none of them in Hogwarts besides Flitwick and Hagrid. I don't have a good enough relationship with Hagrid to ask him, and Flitwick's smart enough that he'd never hand it over.

For obvious reasons, I'd imagine. Giving away your blood is like the magical equivalent of stepping into a white van marked "candy".

But oh, the possibilities!

A sample of the way the two strands of DNA bond would advance my biomancy studies by light-years, and finally give me the key to combining animal and human traits! Imagine: to have the eyes of a hawk, the strength of a gorilla, the grace and poise of an… um… well, whatever animals are very graceful and poised!

I know from some obscure study I managed to dig up last year that Veela have DNA more in common with birds than witches, so there has to be magic involved in allowing the two genetic codes to harmonize. And if I can just figure out how that process happens, I have no doubt I'll be able to emulate it with much less complicated non-magical DNA!

Unless the magic of Veela genetics are an inherent part of the bonding process…

No, can't think negatively like that Arwen. The worse you can do is close off another avenue of research, which is useful in and of itself.

I smile widely, eyes fixed on the blonde Frenchwoman.

This is going to be the most interesting of years… there's science to be done.

~X~

Unfortunately, my good mood doesn't last.

I'm not two steps away from the Great Hall when I'm stopped by a nasally whine. "Clarke!"

Oh god preserve me.

"I thought that was you" says a blond figure as he saunters up to me, "scampering away from the Great Hall?"

I roll my eyes, and continue walking. Honestly, his voice is annoyingly shrill, did he inherit his mother's voice box or something?

"Hey! I was talking to you!"

"I don't particularly care," I say flatly as I continue walking.

The little blonde nuisance bristles at my (extremely accurate) nickname for him, scampering to keep up with me.

"Hey!"

I ignore him.

"I've been meaning to talk to you" he says in what a weasel trainer could only very charitably describe as a growl, "you're not going to get away with turning down my offer…"

"What?" I say flatly, finally coming to a stop, "the one where you cornered me in the hall two weeks ago and offered me ten galleons to hex M- Black?"

"I… yes, that one!"

"Are you too stupid to understand 'no'?" I say with a dry exhale, before I roll my eyes and continue walking.

"Y-You!"

Honestly, was he dropped on his head as a child or something? No person should be this dumb. He shouts, and I turn around, throwing a series of lightning-quick pantsing charms at him with a flick of my wrist, not even flattering a step.

"Go away, nuisance."

Honestly, that feud of his with his cousin is getting out of hand, you'd think he'd just hire an assassin or something.

I mean, not that that would work, but really, it'd at least show some initiative.

Unfortunately, before I can put the little yellow boy out of my mind, the girl in question steps around the corner.

"Oh? What's this now?"

My spine stiffens as I hear that irritatingly smug voice.

"Ar- Clarke. Cousin."

I turn, lip curling up into a sneer, to see the single most irritating individual in the entirety of Hogwarts standing across from me. My one and only rival: Morrigan Black.

Or more properly, "Morrígan Draca Aquila Aicínn Black, heiress to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black".

Or just Black, for me, whenever we were sniping at each other.

The no, not sexy, you miserable, horny lump of meat I call brain bitch.

She was the bastard daughter of one of Sirius Black's many, many drunken conquests, sired on some halfblood Chinese girl in his year after they used an expired contraceptive potion. Contrary to what anyone who knew him would have expected, the rogue actually took responsibility, and so Miriam "A Bloody Good" Lei became Miriam Black, with her child confirmed as Sirius's heir.

Honestly, given what I've heard of the man, I half-expect he did it solely to make his parents roll over in their graves so hard that if you wrapped copper wire around their corpses they'd power half of London. A Lady Black that's only three-quarters pureblood? The scandal!

Don't let the sob story fool you though, she's a stone cold bitch.

From what I can remember of my old life, someone like her would have been called a "Queen Bee" in any muggle school, but truthfully, that's too kind. Bees are nice, friendly, useful creatures, only hostile when provoked.

"Queen Wasp" or "Queen Hornet" would probably be more accurate. Or maybe one of those bugs I heard about that buries its eggs inside of other insects like a facehugger.

After being sorted into Slytherin before the hat could even fully come down onto her head, Black immediately started scheming and climbing her way to the top, as is her nature. Every rumor, every piece of gossip, every missed class period or trip to the Hospital Wing, nothing escaped her sight, and she soon used her trove of blackmail to catapult herself to a position of social influence in Hogwarts rivaled only by my brother, Angelina Johnson, or Cedric Diggory.

Like some magical lovechild of Heather Chandler, Emma Barnes, and every female character in Gossip Girl, she rules the girls of 5th and 6th year with an iron fist, brutally punishing any dissent with a fervor that would make Mao himself proud.

Okay, that's an exaggeration, but you get the point. Everyone in Hogwarts either wants to be her or be with her, and anyone who's anyone has to at least pay her deference or else risk public ruination. Prefect, teacher's pet, Quidditch Star, charismatic socialite, she's practically Hogwarts royalty.

And that bitch has the nerve to have the skills to back her status up!

Because oh no, it would be one thing if she was just a scheming social climber, or even a social climber and the star chaser of the Slytherin Quidditch team. Oh no, that's not good enough for Morrigan Black. No, she also has to be absolutely bloody brilliant, smart enough that she can actually challenge me for the top spot in the year!

Me!

We've been dueling for the top spot in every class for five years running, the prize switching between us month to month, to the point where I actually have to dedicate time to regurgitating the insipid pablum the professors shovel out in their classes!

Because while I may not care for whatever arbitrary ranks McGee or Flitwick assign us based on how well we polish their boots, I'll be damned if I let that stuck-up, smarmy, arrogant bitch prance around like she's better than me!

If it were Granger, or one of the Ravenclaws trying for top spot, I don't think I'd care, but there's just something about that onerous cow that I find absolutely infuriating. She's like an itch I can't get at under my skin: every time I see that smug, superior smirk of hers I want to curse it off of her perfectly symmetrical face!

She doesn't even have the decency to leave me alone the one time I lower myself to interact with one of Hogwarts' "clubs"'. The minute, the minute she found out I had taken up dueling, she barged into the dueling club like she was the next coming of Merlin, demanding — yes, demanding — I duel her!

Our current count is almost even, with my 183 wins to her 179, with 15 ties, and it annoys the piss out of her whenever I bring it up.

Why yes, I do make sure to bring it up at every opportunity, why do you ask?

"Well, what do we have here?" she drawls out, lips quirking up into her trademark superior smirk, "are you bothering your betters again, dear cousin?"

The blond nuisance growls. "Stay out of this, cousin." He practically spits that last word, "this is none of your business."

"Oh?" she says archly, "so I didn't hear your threatening Clarke here into trying to attack me, and then be humiliated when he turned you down?"

I clamp down on the twitch of my lips as he sputters, and Black rolls her eyes. "Honestly Draco, I don't know why you waste your time with these schemes. The Black fortune is mine, cousin, and you've more than demonstrated your inadequacy to anyone who would think to contest it."

The blond nuisance begins to yell, puffing up his chest, but Black rolls her eyes and shoots off a quick curse with her wand.

He's no more able to dodge this one than he is mine — he really is a shit duelist — and he flops on the ground like a suffocating fish, rolling around the floor.

Ooh, elbow-twisting hex. Vicious.

I feel my lips threatening to curl up, and I bite the inside of my cheek in response, almost failing as I see him getting up with just his legs, both arms behind his back and yanking him to this and that side.

The irritant taken care of, I turn around, hoping beyond hope I can leave.

Alas, it is not to be.

"Clarke" she says, irritatingly smug voice echoing throughout the hall.

I sigh, and turn around on my heel.

"What do you want, Black?" I ask in a flat voice, trying my best to project an aura of disinterest and disdain.

"Oh, nothing" she says innocently, rocking back on her heels, "just wanted to see if you were keen to chip in."

"..."

She just smiles at me.

"Chip in to what" I say, conceding with an irritated huff.

"Oh, nothing much" she says, buffing her nails on the green-trimmed collar of her robe, "just the 'Morrigan Black Victory Fund' for the dueling tournament."

"The-..."

"It's a wonderful opportunity" she cuts me off drily, eyes dancing with her perceived superiority over me, "you see, me and some of the lads here had an idea. Why… what if we all chipped in to a big pot, and placed a bet on Hogwarts to win the dueling tournament?"

"And what makes you so confident of a home team victory?" I ask with a growing sense of ire.

"Well I'm on it of course" she says with a smirk, her pouty, kissable very normal and ordinary lips twisted into a grin.

"Actually" she says before I can respond, "I can't take full credit. It was Burke's idea. I wouldn't be nearly so gauche as to place a bet on myself, after all. A good duelist is magnanimous in her victory, after all."

The talking pile of clothes next to her straightens. "Y-Yeah! I w-was thinking, well, we could all use some money, see? And who better than to-"

"Do be quiet, Edward dear."

The leech's mouth snaps shut with an audible click, his face pailing.

God what a woman.

"Anyways" Mor- Black says in a mocking tone, "we're looking for investors. It's a sure thing, after all."

I snort, straightening definitely not because I have to readjust my pants.

"I wouldn't be so sure, Black" I say, bringing out my own smirk.

"Oh?" she says lightly, eyes dancing with glee, "why not? Even if you enter, it would just increase our chances of victory… by however small an amount."

My mouth spreads into a sly grin. "'Small', Black? I wouldn't exactly call one hundred and eighty three a small number."

It's only because I've known her so long that I can see the minute twitch of her eyebrow indicating her displeasure.

"Anyways" I continue definitely-not-smugly before she can cut me off, "I will be joining the team, but I wouldn't be so smug if I were you."

She just arches one perfectly-sculpted brow. "Oh?"

"I thought you said you weren't going to enter the tournament, Arwen" Luna says dreamily from behind me.

Ah! When the hell did she get here!

"I… that… I'm allowed to change my mind!" I sputter out.

I definitely did not stamp my foot, thank you very much.

"Of course," Black says drolly, "just keep telling yourself that."

I sniff, regaining my composure. "I'm just saying, I wouldn't be so flippant if I were you, Black."

She arches a brow in that infuriatingly perfect way of hers. "Oh? Do tell."

I smirk. "You didn't see? How typical."

She looks at me flatly.

I just shoot her a beatific smile.

"...see what." she finally says, the corners of her lips flicking down into a barely-perceptible scowl.

I can tell none of the others notice it (except maybe Luna, but she's weird like that), but I can tell she's annoyed, and that's good enough for me. Ten points for Ravenclaw!

What? It's not weird that I can read her expressions so well, it's just because we spend so much time fighting each other in the dueling room. Shut up!

"Oh" I say with an innocent sounding tone, "well, as anyone could tell you, the victorious School's team will have an elimination bracket among their members, until one stands above all the rest. You'd be betting on you, not the team as a whole, it says it quite clearly on the sign-up parchment Black, are you sure that implosion curse I hit you with last weekend didn't knock something loose?"

At the reference to my victory at last week's dueling club, she has to contain her scowl.

Hah! Numbers don't lie! Suck my dick, Black!

I very pointedly tamp down on the mental image of her doing exactly that.

"So?" she says arily. "I suppose I'll just bet on myself, then. No less of a sure thing."

"Just keep telling yourself that" I throw her earlier words back at her with a smug grin.

Her smile becomes something less "smug" and more "vicious".

"You really think you can beat me?" she says, her aristocratic mask dropping to show the hungry fire beneath, "you won't be so lucky this year, Arw- Clarke, I've been practicing all summer. Reading in my extensive family library, you know how it is."

"Oh no" I say, face splitting into a wide, ferocious grin, meeting her hunger with a burning battle-lust of my own, "I know I can beat you. And I won't even need to lean on my ancestors to do it."

"Like you have any ancestors!" one of her generic minions pipes up, "Tell that fucking mu-"

Morrigan clenches her fist, and the brunette cuts off with a wheeze, hands darting to his throat.

I do my best not to show how aroused impressed I am at the Vader impression via wandless strangulation charm.

Going by her widening smirk, I've failed.

"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted" she continues, shooting an icy glare at her rapidly-paling goon, "you're deluding yourself if you think you stand a chance, Clarke. I am going to win that tournament, even if I have to crawl over your broken, torn body to do it."

"Well" I say with a wide grin so uncharacteristic to me outside of the dueling ring that I can hear Morrigan's peon's whispering in unease, "you can certainly try. But when I'm standing over you, wand pointed to your throat, I'm going to say 'I told you so'."

Her eyes glint at that, and I can't help but match her as the excitement of an oncoming fight washes over me. Is she going to-? Right here?

Her grin widens until it's positively shark-like. "You'll regret that, Arwen. I'm going to nail you to the wall and show you the meaning of 'dominance'. Maybe then you'll be a bit respectful of your betters."

I move my foot back into a classic dueling stance with excitement, knee brushing against hers (when did that get there?). My right arm tenses, my wand sliding into my hand, as I-

"Mr. Clarke, Ms. Black!" it feels like a bucket of cold water's been dumped on me, and the two of us jump apart. Somehow, we'd ended up almost nose-to-nose without me noticing, and I barely avoided cracking my head against the wall as we jump back.

"And what exactly do the two of you think you're doing?" a Scottish brogue cuts out, the intimidating form of Minerva McGonagall coming up behind us.

"Nothing," M- Black says tartly, frowning at our transfiguration professor, face flushed from exertion "we were just having a discussion that got a bit out of hand."

"I see." she says flatly.

She turns to one of Black's remoras (remorae?). "And I suppose you'd tell me the exact same thing, Ms. Greengrass?"

The lackey nods pathetically, its head practically falling off its shoulders. "Yes, professor! It was just a misunderstanding!"

The old Scotswoman lets out a great sigh, glaring at us with eyes that make it very clear she knew exactly how close we were to dueling in the halls. "...very well, then. Off to your common rooms, both of you."

Black's crowd gives a quick chorus of agreement, even as I struggle to remember the last time I visited my common room. I don't trust any enchantments not placed by me, thank you very much.

"...Mr. Clarke? Ms. Black?"

Morrigan's eyes snap to hers from where she was staring a hole through me.

I grunt in acknowledgement.

"Yes, of course professor." she replies sweetly, and I can see some of the tension around the old tiger's eyes relax.

I will never understand how Black has managed to charm the staff so thoroughly and blind them to her vile nature.

"Off you go then" she says a bit more gently, shooing us away.

As we both walk in separate directions, I glance back, and find Black's eyes boring into mine.

I give her a vicious, predatory grin, more baring my teeth than smiling, and see her eyes light up with the flames of challenge.

We stay like that for a few seconds, sizing the other up, but eventually necessity wins out and we have to turn.

"Be seeing you, Clarke!" Black says as she leaves, dark and throaty voice echoing down the hallway.

I very consciously ignore the shiver that sends up my spine. Damn that woman, always has to have the last word.

I can't help but chuckle.

Yes, this is going to be a most interesting year indeed.

~X~

Hannya's AN: For those wondering, "Aicínn" is a Hibernicization (like Anglicization but for Irish, since Morri's mom lives in Ireland) of 爱情 (àiqīng), Morrigan's Chinese name. It's a common name and literally means "loves blue", so I thought it was fitting for her. Her other middle names, "Draca" and "Aquila", both are constellations in the traditional Black style, and very fitting of her personality. Also, I didn't choose her mother's maiden name (Lei) for the pun, I chose it because it means "thunder". The pun only came after (just like she did when she slept with Sirius, heyo! ☜⁠(⁠ﾟ⁠ヮ⁠ﾟ⁠☜⁠)⁠(⁠☞⁠ﾟ⁠ヮ⁠ﾟ⁠)⁠☞)

Kraka AN: What she said; she's the Name wizard here. This is mostly — another — chapter where we establish things as they come. You can expect a couple more of these chapters hinting at a lot of past stuff, given that we decided that a more subtle form of storytelling was warranted. Show, not tell, as they say. I wonder if someone will catch the foreshadowing.