"You're not trying to get rid of me, are you?" A pouting Lavender asked as she sat behind me in the library, sitting back-to-back with me at different tables.
It was almost time for dinner, and I had been here since lunch, as discussed with Hermione before breakfast. As opposed to my yearmates, I've been moving everywhere, looking at books rather randomly. I flew through their pages, scanning it for worthwhile information as fast as possible and judging even a 1000-page tome in mere minutes.
Sure, it wouldn't result in me knowing some arcane facts about a certain niche charm that I'll never use in the end, but I would like to think and hope that my speedreading would result in me finding a whole cache of interesting magics.
"You heard the twins yesterday, no? You still want to hang out with me?" I asked the Gryffindor witch behind me. Honestly, I was rather surprised she knew where the library even was before the first week ended. It went to show what I knew about Lavender Brown.
"Well, you said you never met your grandpa, didn't you? What would I care if he was a dark wizard, then? He didn't teach you his ways," the brunette stubbornly countered, and my heart ached.
'Wasn't she supposed to be a shallow gossip queen? Why is she so bent on being with me then? Don't tell me she really was love potioned,' I thought with slightly widening eyes. Oh, how I hoped I was wrong.
"True. That doesn't stop most of the other people looking at me like I'm the plague, though. Weirdly enough, even the Slytherins who I have to assume have their fair share of death eaters among their older family members," I wistfully argued, leaning back in my chair to softly touch my head against hers. "They might just be projecting..."
"Pfft, I could give you a full list on every single one of them. And not just for the Slytherins. There were plenty of people who won their trial after the war by claiming the Imperius Defense. My daddy made me memorize every single one of them because he doesn't trust any of them."
"... so you knew about Walden before our kiss?"
"Mhm, I did. And I didn't care. You're way too cute to be a secret dark wizard, so I'll trust you. You would never deceive poor ol' me," Lavender softly whispered back, touching my shoulder in a soft grasp over her own shoulder, our backs still to each other.
'Oh Merlin, no. What the actual fuck is going on here?'
"How can you be sure?" I asked just as soft as she just spoke.
"I dunno. Your eyes, I think," she replied and softly stroked the fingers I put on top of hers.
"You told Parvati about us, right?" I asked after a short moment of silence where I stopped reading the book in my hand entirely.
Lavender froze for a moment and I felt her head dropping low, likely in embarrassment. She nodded with a small movement of her head and cutely affirmed with a hum.
"No worries, I was just making sure because of my next suggestion. I mean you're here and I kinda doubted you found your way here all on your own," I quickly reassured with a quip and earned myself and annoyed grunt with a soft 'Hey!' in admonishment.
"We all have our strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, I wasn't judging. Anyway, how about I show you and Parvati the kitchens of Hogwarts tomorrow? You were wondering how I ate something different from everyone else, right? I saw the look on your face at lunch."
"You'd do that? No wait, you looked at me during lunch?"
I turned around in my chair as silently as possible, looked back and forth a little to make sure nobody was here watching us, and leaned in to whisper in Lavender's ear.
"Of course I did. And you've been incredibly sweet and understanding just now. I swear I'll do better eventually, but this is the best I can do to show you what it means to me."
I saw Lavender's blush reach critical levels in real time as my breath brushed at her ear and couldn't help but smirk. No matter if this infatuation with me was real or forced, I could appreciate her reaction to me for the moment.
Not long after, Lavender stormed off after getting her new BFF Parvati from her twin sister and I saw Madam Irma Pince, the librarian, looking at the two young witches furiously whispering with each other with slight hostility. She followed their forms with narrowed eyes, clearly judging them for defiling the sanctity of her holy grounds.
I didn't hold much appreciation for the staff member either, though. This library was a mess and I was absolutely tempted to gift that stern-looking hawk of a woman a book on the Dewey Decimal Classification, or DDC, for short. That was the system most public muggle libraries in the world used to sort out the books and was something Madam Pince should really implement if she actually wanted to be proud of her literary haven here.
Dinner later on was spent with Hermione looking at me like I betrayed her since I idly moved around instead of sitting in silence and devouring book after book just like her, and Padma looking at her twin sister at the Gryffindor table like she owed her money. Probably for bothering her in the library earlier. Harry was as silent as ever throughout the whole thing, but for different reasons this time around.
Seven house elves from his grandparents Fleamont and Euphemia Potter, or born from them, bonded with him earlier and different from Patrick, his house elves almost fought amongst themselves to throw their lifelong servitude at him first.
I still remembered how Patrick questioned me instead of answering my queries and I sorely felt the difference of treatment among protagonists.
But I wasn't salty about Patrick anymore. He had his role and his barely hidden disdain for wizards and witches with cruel and dark characters would prove useful in the future. What Harry needed most was an achor toward his family and for his humanity, and those elves could provide that.
'Well, that's just my opinion. Honestly, I'm just glad the tears I saw and emotions I felt from him confirmed for me that Harry wasn't a sociopath despite his upbringing... or his acting and Occlumency are way out of my league,' I thought as I moved toward an abandoned classroom after dinner. I had an inkling someone was following me, but I moved there just to get out of the public eye - not to hide.
What I wanted to do was cycle through all the charms we were going to be taught this year and the next, something I read up on in my mother's notebook plenty enough. And with my first charms lesson down and my first Occlumency session to hone my intent over, I was sure I'd do pretty decent.
The wand-lighting charm variants worked perfectly in very few attempts, reaching the level of Slytherin's star student Natalie Rosier in my humble opinion. After that, I played around with 'Incendio', the fire-making charm and tried to create various animal shapes with the small flame dancing at the tip of my wand with mixed success.
Once that was out of the way, I took out a muggle padlock I brought along for this purpose and cycled through all the spells I could with it. I unlocked and locked it with with 'Alohomora' and 'Colloportus', the unlocking and locking charm respectively.
I tried cutting into the metal with the severing charm 'Diffindo' and banished it into the stone walls with the knockback jinx 'Flipendo'. I tried again after softening the wall with 'Spongify', thankfully having the foresight to adjust the angle to not hit myself in the head.
Once the lock was plenty banged up, I mended it to its original state with 'Reparo' and then increased it to the size of a watermelon with 'Engorgio', followed by shrinking it to a marble with 'Reducio'. I tried shrinking it more and more, eventually making it as small as a pebble before I cancelled the spells on the lock with a 'Finite Incantatem', the general counterspell.
My options among the first two years of curriculum were starting to get limited because spells like the disarming charm, the tap dance jinx, or the tickling charm needed targets other than an unfeeling lock... until I remembered the slowing charm - 'Arresto Momentum'.
So I threw the lock into the air in a high arc and carefully aimed the spell at it. When I went to retrieve the lock from mid-air, the resistance I felt was much, much higher than I had anticipated. The lock was literally locked in a slow fall in the air.
With that revelation hitting me like a ton of bricks, I started messing around with it and the 'Leviosa' family spells, thinking of various ways I could use this phenomenon to my advantage in all kinds of scenarios.
After another test of using the frozen, floating lock as a stepping stone for a second jump mid air, landing on a softened patch of ground, I heard a slow clap from behind me.
'So someone really did follow me,' I idly thought and turned around toward the source of the clap. Whoever it was, they were not a threat to me - otherwise why would they have watched me cast my spells for almost an hour?
"Nice spell casting," a charming voice praised. "Here I thought I'd have to actually tutor you or something."
"Hello, miss prefect," I greeted as I watched a raven-haired witch drop her disillusionment charm to show off her silver and green accented robe with the special Slytherin prefect insignia proudly pinned to her chest. "May I help you with something?"
"Gemma Farley," the woman introduced herself as an answer. "I wouldn't be here if it weren't for my mother's insistence. Isabella 'Bella' Farley née Gamp. Do you know the name of Walden Macnair's late wife, your grandmother?"
"I... can't say I do," I answered with a lifted brow, imagining where this was going. I had an inkling based on her wording, but I didn't know.
"Cassandra Macnair, née Gamp. She was my mother's older sister. Despite the small age difference between the two of us because of the frankly giant age difference between Aunt Cassandra and my mum, you may call me Aunty Gemma," Gemma quipped with an exaggerated flourish and courtesy.
"I see, you're family then. Does your mother have any instructions for me?" I asked, trying to be as respectful as possible to make sure I might get a chance to legally get away from having Dumbledore as my magical guardian.
Plus, it didn't matter if Gemma's family was with the death eaters or not, they'd have to force feed me loyalty potions to make me a puppet by the time my Occlumency training has had a year of refinement under the instructions of the talking hat.
"Nope. Mum merely told me to look after you because you're her grand-nephew. I'll tell her all about how talented you are, maybe she'll invite you for Christmas then. Or... do you have plans already?"
'Huh, tons of hidden information and even more hidden agendas... this is how a Slytherin should talk not whatever Lucius taught his failure of a son,' I pondered as I tried to defuse any hidden test in Gemma's words.
"If you count staying at Hogwarts to soak up more knowledge a plan, I'd say I'd still rather cancel that to meet with your mother. Or maybe we could meet during a Hogsmeade weekend first? To make sure nobody's expectations aren't met? I hear Yule is a time to enjoy with your family, I wouldn't want to intrude unwanted."
'Calling it Yule instead of Christmas to show I understand my heritage. Erecting boundaries and simultaneously offering a chance to break them if we're cut from the same cloth. And respecting her family. I think I did rather well with my answer...'
And I did, if the wide smile on Gemma's face was anything to go by. She walked closer to me and despite being half a head shorter than 14 year old me, she reached up and ruffled my hair roughly.
"Aren't you a little snake?" She cooed as if talking to a toddler. I'd be miffed if it wasn't for the giant smile on her face. "What are you even doing in the bird's nest with a tongue like that?"
"My thirst for knowledge beats my cunning?" I answered with an unamused expression that Gemma pointedly ignored.
"Sounds like you're ambitious to boot. We really missed out on you," Gemma expressed with a deep sigh. "In any case, little Talion. You'll get an owl next week. Make sure you answer my mum promptly or you'll regret it."
"Wait!" I shouted as she opened the door to walk away once she was done messing up my hair. "My grandma was a Gamp? As in the origin of Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration?"
"The very same. Ulysses Gamp's blood flows in your veins, same as me," Gemma affirmed with a small smile. "So if you get anything other than Outstanding in Professor McGonagall's class, my mother will likely abduct you and forcefully tutor you all summer. You've been warned."
'Ulysses Gamp formulated those laws then? I don't think that was something known in canon... or written in my mom's notebook, yet.'
"And don't linger much longer. Curfew starts in five minutes."
'Oh, shit!'