"Professor Sprout has never looked happier," Lara commented with a small sigh as the two of us left the greenhouses of Hogwarts.
I just spent two lessons teaching the sixth years about a fae-trap plant that looked like a pink, oversized Venus fly-trap that spat fluffy clouds. Naturally, Lara was a N.E.W.T. course herbology student and got first-row privileges. The plants were a gift for Sprout that I had purchased and cultivated in my time at Stati Magia.
"You think?" I asked as I studied the thick rain clouds above us blocking the sun.
Summer had been cut extremely short. With October looming, it was much too cold to go for a casual swim. I was beginning to miss Italy.
"Yeah, I mean I don't think you ever gave her the impression, but now that you're just hanging out around her, gifting her rare plants with your N.E.W.T.s in herbology already achieved, she has no reason to believe you were just flattering her for favorable treatment or better grades or whatever," Lara said with an amused smile.
"Did I give anybody else the impression I was an opportunistic bastard?" I asked, incredulous at the leap of logic.
"Well, now with Harry out of the picture, your only male friends are Samuels and Ingblebee. Maybe the Weasley twins but they are friendly with everyone," Lara explained thoughtfully. "Well, 'friendly' enough to lure their prank victims into a false sense of security."
"What's your point?"
Lara raised a brow, continuing while gloating a little, "One could get the impression you're just chasing skirts."
"Yeah, with my glowing record of one weird case of misunderstanding followed by even weirder overcompensation and a quick breakup, and a girl who got together with me on the orders of someone else," I breathed out with a theatrically defeated sigh.
"What about Isobel? Without her mocking Luna during sorting two years ago you'd totally try to be with her."
"Yeah, but she did that so I didn't," I countered indignantly.
"Hmm, then there's Penelope," Lara added thoughtfully as she ignored my souring mood.
"What about Penny?"
Lara looked at me like I was an idiot, saying, "I heard from her. You gave her a high-paying job straight after graduation."
"She was headgirl and a talented witch with outstanding grades for seven years," I defended. "Plus, I actually like her."
"Yeah, who wouldn't like her. Pretty, smart, sensible, silky hair, wide hips, giant knockers…"
I rolled my eyes.
"Please, I caught your stares when we were working on the animagus potion," Lara scoffed when she caught my exasperation.
"I'm a teenage boy and she unbuttoned her blouse during long potioneering sessions. Was I supposed to gouge out my eyes?" I asked disdainfully. "Plus, I saw you checking her out, too."
"Touché," Lara admitted with a small grin. "So what does she do for you anyway? Her last letter didn't mention any specifics."
"Right now, she's acting-steward of my growing lordship. Once she has the experience and has grown into her role, I'll make her something akin to a regent. Should she reject that, I plan to make her run my companies."
"How is she supposed to think that isn't you proposing to her?" Lara asked with a raised brow.
"Please, I'd rather blood adopt her to become my actual sister," I waved away. "Also, I introduced her to her current boyfriend. A calm young man who lives at my estate. Would someone trying to get into her knickers do that?"
"Could be a long con," Lara suggested with a small laugh.
I shoved, playfully quipping, "I'll show you a long con."
"Alright, so Lord Gamp is not trying to woo the poor helpless muggleborn girl with the promise of influence and fame," Lara accepted. "You still have way too many witches wrapped around your finger."
"I thought I was doing just fine, not leading anybody on purposefully," I said with a clueless shrug. "If anything, I blame teenage hormones amplified by magic."
"So nobody caught your fancy? I know at least three girls who'd eagerly kiss you back if you took the initiative."
"Are you among them?" I asked Lara with a raised brow.
She poked my cheek with a delicate finger.
I looked at her quizzically because that wasn't an answer.
"The tome you got me for my last birthday increased your chances tremendously," she said and suddenly turned a corner, disappearing from my view in a hidden passage behind a big glass case.
"So materialistic," I scoffed playfully, hoping she could still hear me.
— — —
During a Hogsmeade weekend a week later, I used a public floo to get to Leeds. Browsing the shop of the hag who put down her roots in the muggle city, I found another book for my ever-growing library and apparated to Goldsborough.
"Lord Gamp," Penelope greeted me outside of my mansion built for me by the two wizards talented in building that Patrick rescued.
"If you don't go back to calling me Talion when it's just the two of us, you're fired," I promised before giving the blonde a hug.
"Pah, you wouldn't dare," she countered from within the embrace.
She was right, of course.
"Thanks for reaching out and getting me the items on the list," I gently praised. "How goes things at my fiefdom?"
"One of the seamstresses is pregnant, she is expecting triplets," Penelope said with an exaggerated expression that screamed out her disbelief and pity for the woman who will have to birth three babies at once. "Other than that, the dryads have multiplied since your return. The greenhouses have been finished and they seem to enjoy the warm weather inside. One of those little sprites even grew a flower on his head spontaneously if you can believe it."
"Did anyone document the change? If it's a new discovery, they could send their findings to Newt Scamander, hoping to get it published," I proposed idly as we made our way to my study inside the mansion.
"I'll talk to the girls," Penelope accepted with a thoughtful look. "Didn't know it was an option to just write a letter to Mister Scamander…"
I could only shrug. Damned if I knew, but it couldn't hurt to try.
"Have you taken over the duties of librarian yet?" I asked after we reached the study and made our way inside.
"Yeah, though it's still a shared duty," Penelope absentmindedly confirmed with a nod. "I'm mainly still transcribing the books you copied."
"Why?"
"You can't enchant muggle copy paper and hope it sticks, Talion," the blonde admonished as if I had to know I was being foolish.
"Okay, but why are you doing it manually? We have enchanted quills, you know?" I asked in return, showing her the same look she was giving me.
"Anyway," she immediately deflected with a small blush. Apparently she didn't want to admit she was purposefully doing it the slow way to read the books while copying them. "Bob and I are looking into modernizing the remaining houses. The walls to the entire estate have been raised. We just need the wardstone now, which Bob tells me is something you will do?"
"Yeah, but not now. Wardstones aren't made overnight. They take a lot of time and resources to create. Especially considering the size of the land. Plus, I'm doing it in three tiers. That needs Arithmancy beyond my knowledge. I'm still trying to enlist a discreet helper."
Penelope still whistled, impressed. "Didn't even know you knew how to make one, much less from scratch."
Thankfully she didn't offer her own help. Frankly, such calculations were beyond a N.E.W.T. level student. But the wardstones weren't urgently needed either. Nobody knew of this place yet.
"I'm unfathomable," I boasted with a grin, taking out a few more books from my pouch.
"Yeah, that's the impression I'm getting," the witch agreed instead of rebuking me for my ego.
"Oh? Spent too much time in the library, eh?" I asked with a wide grin.
"Yeah, it honestly feels like you're trying to create something extraordinary with it," she admitted thoughtfully. "Like, I get the impulse. Any honest Ravenclaw would… but some of these books you have are much too…"
"Valuable?" I asked.
"Sure, but I was going to say 'unbelievable'. Talion, you have books on lost magics, banned magics. Books written by obsessed, single-minded magicals who researched only one thing their entire life. Books written in languages older than Latin. Books that defy logic."
"I'm an avid collector," I waved away. My haul through the hag in Leeds, my incessant purchases of remarkable books in second hand stores and my petty theft of copied knowledge from the Black Library left me with a sizable collection indeed.
"Is there an endgame to all of it?" Penelope asked, searching my face. "A time when you would stop?"
"Knowledge is power," I answered with a shrug. "You're my right hand now. You tell me when I have enough power."
Looking at my face, a little too concerned while doing it for my taste, she eventually relented, "Fine. Just… keep the darker magics lost. It's quite obvious now that you and your group know how to kill effortlessly."
Ah, so she found and read the brotherhood books teaching how to kill.
I didn't want to keep that from her either. In fact, she had to know to fully advise me going forward.
"Sure, sure. When will you bless Goldsborough with a brat of your own? Or are you and Bob still not doing it?"
She blushed up a storm, stomping on my foot under the table.
"I'm not some prude. I waited for him to be ready!" She angrily corrected me. "You of all people should know why he would be reluctant to share intimacy with another human!"
Before she could actually start hissing in anger, I raised my hands in surrender. Bob was one of the wizards freed from a brothel. He and the other Bob were muggleborn snatched for their good looks whose parents were either handymen or in the case of Penelope's boyfriend, owned a construction company.
They took to magical constructions like fish to water… but I could see why he wouldn't want to jump straight to sex either after what he went through.
"I was insensitive. So, no due date?" I deflected, thoughtfully adding, "Just tell me early so I can get the perfect gift my godchild."
"You infuriating little gremlin," Penelope cussed through gritted teeth, a prominent blush on her cheeks. "I'm still way too young! He hasn't even met my mum yet! And what makes you think you would become my child's godfather!?"
"Who better than me?" I asked, playfully shocked. "Don't tell me I'm losing the race to the other Bob! I'll kick him out if I have to!"
Seeing my over-the-top reaction, Penelope lost her frown and began to smile with a shake of her head.
"You idiot," she mumbled as she discreetly tried to hex me with a wand hidden in her sleeves.
I endured the tickling hex that I saw coming from a mile away despite her sitting right in front of me and holding up my right hand, I created a one-handed seal. A rune on my foot lit up unseen by all, and immediately, we both buckled over laughing.
Yeah, I 'wasted' some of my skin while trying to perfect the permanent runic tattoo formula. A tickling hex, useless for any serious application of magic, was etched into my skin through a rune the size of a baby's palm.
— — —
Leisurely watching a quill copy a book away from Madam Pince's irritated glare, I enjoyed some free time in the forbidden section of the library. Professor Babbling, under the pretense of allowing me to become her aide correcting the runes homework for third, fourth, and fifth years, gave me a permanent pass.
Right now, my enchanted quill made a replica of a Sumerian dictionary. It was more complete than the one I studied at Stati Magia. The reason for such a book being in the forbidden section? It was written in human blood. The medieval English scholar who ventured into the lands enclosed by the rivers Euphrat and Tigris to study — read: break into — ancient tombs had written in the foreword of the 'Sumerian Key' that he did not know how to give ink permanence otherwise. His studies into Sumerian blood magic had yielded a recipe for 'undying blood ink', however.
Wicked.
Suddenly two hands wrapped around my head from behind. "Guess who it is," she said in a deliberately low voice in a ridiculous effort to throw me off.
"Just be glad I'm not wearing any of my daggers, Luna. Or you might have lost the hand," I joked with a small, playful sigh.
"Why would I lose it? It's attached to my arm, no? Where would it go?"
I just leaned back, considering once more if she was just acting or genuinely this airheaded.
"Mister, that's my chest you're leaning against," Luna admonished but just stayed standing behind me. "I guess it isn't quite as bouncy as Penny's, huh?"
"Oh come on, you too? I didn't stare at her rack that obviously, did I?"
"Well, I'm sure Lavender has by far the largest bust in your year… Isodora and Natalie aren't too far behind, though," Luna said as she sat down in front of me, her tone casual as if she was talking about the latest boring Quidditch match.
"Are you suggesting something?"
"You have a thing for boobies, was that not obvious?"
I looked at her as though she was an alien before my gaze turned a little less friendly. Something about the twinkle in her eyes felt wrong, my Eagle Vision told me I was still looking at a friendly but non-Luna witch after turning it on in that moment.
"Who are you and what have you done with Luna?"
I heard giggles from the side as another Luna stepped into view.
"Told you he'd take less than five minutes to figure it out," the second Luna gently admonished as she skipped over with a happy tune on her lips.
"To be fair, I chose a rather unusual topic of conversation," the first Luna relented with one of Luna's patented dreamy sighs. That was pretty well acted, actually.
"Just talk about things you see in the woods instead of implying I'm sort of sexual deviant," I chimed in with a deadpan. "Not a big fan, Lara."
"Oh? How'd you know it was me?" The first Luna asked.
"Slughorn was talked into brewing Polyjuice potion by a sixth year, granting it as a reward for a small competition sometime today. He told me all about it over lunch with him and Professor Vector," I explained with a defeated sigh. "You're the only sixth year friendly enough with Luna to play pranks together."
It turned out mere talks were enough for the newly un-retired potion master Slughorn to let me off the hook. He accepted that I wouldn't just share the hard-won recipe for the runic ink with him out of nowhere since I had already worked on it with a fellow respected potion master and alchemist.
With us eating together once a week with just the two of us and the Arithmency professor Septima Vector occasionally joining, however, his goal was reached. He just grilled me about my time in Italy and the people I met over there to potentially expand his network.
"I thought it was a little boring of him to insist that I drink the potion in his presence," Lara with Luna's face said with a pout.
"Polyjuice is a highly regulated potion with stringent laws attached to it…"
"Thank you for choosing my face," the real Luna dreamily cut in with a serene smile.
"Eh, you're cute and up for mischief," Lara waved away. "Whose mind are we blowing next? Hermione must be around here somewhere."
"Yeah, I saw her on the way in. Let's play time-turner twins who committed the faux-pas of creating a time paradox by meeting the time-turner copy," Luna proposed with excitement screaming out of her unusually expressive eyes.
"Macabre, I like it," Lara accepted immediately and sprung up, scurrying off with her 'twin'.
"What the fuck, that's going to send Hermione straight into the infirmary with the beginnings of an aneurysm," I whispered under my breath.
Too bad interest in the polyjuice was at an all-time high among Hogwarts students with the arrest of Barty Crouch Junior pretending to be Alastor Moody. And too bad Slughorn was terrible at saying no to flattery.
"Eh, she'll live. It's still early in the school year. She can relax a few months before the exam phase starts," I told myself and remained seated.
Hermione could do with a little opening up. And this book I found on the research of permanent transmutation was actually kind of gripping.
It made sense, too, a rare book by none other than Nicolas Flamel.
I wondered, though, how it made its way into the Hogwarts library instead of staying locked up at Dumbledore's office…
— — —
[POV 3rd person, Dumbledore's office]
Looking through a scrying orb, Dumbledore tensely watched as Talion read a book he put for the boy to find specifically. He might have revoked Professor Babbling's permanent pass for the boy otherwise.
A small test, nothing too dramatic.
Yet.
A simple changed passage the aged headmaster stealthily added somewhere in the middle suggesting unrequited love, if exploited, could be used to create a nascent, impermanent philosopher's stone. After all, if there was one thing Talion could boast about, it was that quite a few young witches had a crush on him.
The Sorting Hat sat on a chair near the main desk, freshly cleaned and fixed by the two founders. It looked brand new… and more expressive than ever. The changes to the millenia old hat had caused quite the uproar, but it just pretended to be mysterious instead of explaining the changes to anyone.
The hat's disapproval of Dumbledore's actions were entirely obvious for all the headmaster and headmistress portraits currently in their frames at this moment as they whispered and shared concerned looks.
'Pah, a simple suggestion mind-charm to make Talion commit such a violent crime? He's truly lost it,' the hat thought with an inward sneer. 'The boy is rolling in cash anyway. What need does he have for a limited-time-use philosopher's stone?'
"Who is he going to choose? Miss Granger? Miss MacDougal? I should prepare in case he chooses young Isobel," Dumbledore whispered to himself, preparing to avoid disaster in case his 'trapped pawn' chooses to kill the noble heiress while in Hogwarts.
The headmaster couldn't allow that to happen at any cost.
"The mirrors told me he would die a wealthy man," the headmaster mumbled incoherently, barely snapping out of it and sitting upright all of a sudden.
With a frown and refocused eyes, Albus stared down at the crystal ball showing Talion quietly browsing the book in the forbidden section.
"Show me I was wrong, boy," the aged wizard mumbled into his long white beard with a sigh. "Oh please, show me I was wrong."
The Sorting Hat watched the strange change in expressions on Dumbledore's face with furrowed brows. Well, furrowed leather that looked like brows.