"You don't have to worry. The ghosts were told to patrol much more after your attack and the girls no longer move alone inside the castle after my warning," Flitwick said to calm me down after I reached him for training on Friday.
I was debating inwardly if I should tell him about Lucius' threats outside of the possibility of attacks here in Hogwarts, but 'not telling him' won.
If I wanted to do what I planned, I couldn't let people know how much I knew about the attacks against me - and I somehow got excited upon pondering the prospect of fighting off attackers.
"Now, let's get back to training," the half-goblin ordered and eliminated my worry and excitement about the situation by bombarding me with spells for me to dodge and parry.
-----
Saturday morning, Harry and I once more made our way outside of Hogwarts to meet our elves. Harry had a few tasks pending I didn't know about, but one of them regarded his godfather Sirius after I put him up to it.
Catching Pettigrew would come later as I already knew that Ron brought Scabbers, but I didn't yet practice the animagus revealing charm, and presenting a stunned garden rat instead of the traitor to Amelia Bones would be very, very embarrassing.
Enough changed in canon already that I couldn't be sure if Scabbers wasn't some multi-generational pet name after Peter actually died somehow to a prank from the twins.
"Alright, Patrick. Good job on getting Spudmore handled," I praised after he handed me a formal letter allowing us to use his broom name for the Battlebrooms game. "And while he is aware of my name, he is more than okay with me not being named as his investor? It turns out that will be needed for his own protection."
"Yes, he be fine with it. Patrick will tell him about it when Patrick gets your broom," Patrick nodded.
"Oh? He's already started crafting it?"
"Yes, the design be finished. He is working with the goblins to get a steady stream of metal work done in good time," my house elf said with a pondering expression.
"Great, I might be on the Quidditch team, I'll see after today - so it can't come too quickly."
"Patrick will send it to you when he is done making it."
"Do that. On an unrelated note, we're in a feud with House Malfoy since yesterday. Do you know if Lucius or anyone, for that matter, is aware of the location of the Macnair home?"
"He visited old master twice in the last decade, but with fireplace travel... so Patrick doesn't know."
"Can you get anything of value out of there and close down the floo fireplace just in case?"
"The fireplace is already down, Master Talion. But moving things will be hard... Patrick can pack some things to the vault?"
"Do that. Especially everything with this symbol on," I ordered as I showed him the mysterious capital A rune I found on the short sword and my mother's notes.
"Ohh, Patrick has seen that in the Goldsborough shack."
"Goldsborough shack? What's that?" I inquired because that was the first I heard of it.
"A small village somewhere close to the muggle cities Leeds and York. Mistress Selena was born in that shack all these years ago."
"Huh, yeah. If you're the only one to know about it, bring some stuff there. I'll use that as my base of operations," I said after some thought.
"Patrick will do. Anything else?"
"Yeah. I have two letters. You can keep them as is, but I don't know the whereabouts of the recipients. One of them is supposed to be in France, but I can't be sure. Can you do it?"
"It will take some coin, but Patrick knows who to ask."
"That's fine. The letters are important," I said as I handed over the letters for Arcturus and Cassiopeia Black, who were both supposed to die before or during Harry's first school year in canon.
In these letters, I spilled the beans on something I almost confessed to Lucius as well during my accusation: the identity of Voldemort, especially his halfblood status. I wasn't sure how hardcore their pureblood beliefs were, but the fact that Tom Riddle lied to everyone and spilled so much magical blood should incense these two. I hoped, anyway.
A few minutes later, Harry cautiously walked over and asked if I was done. I gave Patrick a last nod but called him back before he disappeared.
"Wait a moment. Get a pre-order for a Firebolt for Harry in from Spudmore. Doesn't have to be any particular number. Just try to make it happen before the end of the year."
With that, Patrick left, and Harry looked at me with a raised brow.
"What's a Firebolt?"
I gave him a grin and merely told him, "Trust me. You're gonna cherish every galleon you'll spend on it."
"Yeah, that's good and all since I have the money. But what is it?"
"Oh, right. A broom, so don't go buying a Nimbus 2001 or something equally as ridiculous."
-----
Half an hour after dinner, I was once more in the Room of Requirements. The hat gave me a solemn look but kept uncharacteristically quiet.
"Put me on," it said after we stared at each other for a while.
"Try to keep up," it ordered, and I was immediately assaulted with much more knowledge than ever before.
Different from before, I got the barebones information on warding and enchanting held by Godric Gryffindor instead of knowledge on occlumency. I would want to ask what was happening, but my mind couldn't form any sentences.
After an unknown time, my mind was left blank, and it took me a moment to reboot my brain.
"What was that for?" I asked with a little heat in my voice.
"Your occlumency was strong enough to not break your mind with it. Take it as a final test on how far you've come. You can detect legilimency at the level of Salazar already, so testing your defenses no longer makes any sense."
"So we're done?"
"Yeah, we are," the hat said dryly. "You merely promised not to tarnish Hogwarts' reputation with your knowledge. I gave you much more than promised just now and told you in the beginning that you will take with you what you can."
"I guess that's fair... one last question then. Is Dumbledore doing something against the attacks on us first years?"
"... I won't answer."
"So he isn't? Let's torture some children and scar them mentally for life for the greater good? What's he truly getting out of it?"
"... I won't answer."
"You don't need to. Either it is some kind of guiding principle for Harry to see the world in black and white so he becomes a martyr, or it is some political agenda where he gets something from the families of those pureblood bullies. The targetted halfbloods and muggleborn can only take it anyway - nobody will care for their sad story."
"..."
"I know I'm biased, but Dumbledore is worse than Voldemort for society, and you know it. I hope you won't stand in my way," I said as I put down the solemn hat and walked out of the room of requirement.
I didn't even get to see the disappointed look on the talking hat's leathery face. I wouldn't have known what it was disappointed in in the first place.
-----
During the next survival club on Sunday, we were taught more about the forest as well as how to cast muggle repellant charms. Thanks to the talking hat, I personally already knew that particular spell and could work it into an item as a wardstone if I wanted - but the experiments on actually doing and practicing both warding and enchanting would have to wait.
Harry and I attended Quidditch practice on loaned brooms a bunch of times over the course of the next week and were both named starting players - our team looked really strong, but I didn't have a frame of reference in all fairness.
My physical priming with Flitwick had ended, and I would be taking that strengthening elixir sometime in November when he would be able to procure it. The brewing process of most elixirs, or 'everlasting potions' as they were also called, was a very long process, apparently.
Instead, Flitwick started training me in dueling in earnest, and I was getting my ass handed to me in grand fashion each time we were dueling. To my surprise, Harry started getting physical training under the same condition as me, though he did tell me that Flitwick was actually making him pay for potions.
And it was a good thing Flitwick didn't want payment from me. The full course of the potion alone would cost Harry 4800 galleons - that was without the elixir. Flitwick had given him a good deal for less than that, in his own words, because Harry had a good reason to ask, and Flitwick was very enthusiastic about the two of us joining his house's Quidditch team.
While not as crazy as McGonagall, he was really invested in the sport and wanted to see us wipe the floor with the Slytherin Quidditch team.
-----
The next Saturday, the first day of October, was the first Hogsmeade weekend. I wanted to take Lavender on a date, but the young Gryffindor witch had refused me for reasons not yet clear to me.
Other than a date with Lavender, however, I had little to do until late lunch with Gemma Farley's mother, Bella Farley, at Three Broomsticks, the town's most popular inn.
"He finished it and Patrick would have given it to the owl post office if you hadn't called for little old me, master," Patrick said in greeting when I called for him in an abandoned part of town.
"Oh? My Firebolt is done?"
"Yesyes," the little elf said and snapped his fingers.
After a few moments, a large wooden box made entirely of rosewood - the same wood of my wand - appeared hovering between us and with another snap, the lid gently opened to reveal the box's contents.
I had an okay understanding for brooms now that I tried out a bunch of them from my future teammates, but this black and red-brown wooden masterpiece with silver metal linings was true art.
I gently moved my finger over the little metal sign that showed the broom's authenticity and saw that Spudmore came through on his promise.
'0003', the third ever Firebolt, would now belong to me forever. Or, well, until it gets destroyed in some future battle. As I carressed the broom, I noticed a small note placed under the stirups near the broom's bristles.
'To TM, The Irish National team was a little upset that I had to start their brooms at 4 through 11 to get them brooms made with consecutive serial numbers. So I hope you put this broom to good use. Before you ask, the first prototype shall become a family heirloom, while the second Firebolt belongs to the Irish team manager now. They had hoped to get the full first series, but you came first. After his team tested my baby, they placed their orders immediately, just like you said they would. Thanks for believing in me, RS'
"Nice," I whispered to myself as I folded the paper and placed it in my extended pouch.
The box, it turned out, was sadly too big to fit into the pouch's opening. Another thing Dumbledore cheaped out on when he gave me this thing.
"Anything else?"
I made the box float behind me with a 'Locomotor' charm and looked toward my house elf. He shook his head in denial.
"You have your orders. Report to me when anything changes like usual, and thanks for your hard work. I might hand you some herbs in two weeks - are you able to take care of them in Goldsborough home?"
"Patrick could, if you tell him how. But Patrick could also ask the others."
"The others?"
"Dryads that live in the forest north of the shack."
"Dryads are real? And you can ask them to take care of plants for you?"
Patrick looked at me weird before nodding, "They are. You didn't know?"
I truly didn't because they weren't canon as far as I was aware. I had something new to look up or ask Hagrid about. The half-giant said I was growing on him during the second outing of the survival club, and we had something to talk about in the form of Harry. Other than giant dangerous beasts, Harry was Hagrids favorite thing to talk about.
"That's all then. We'll talk again in two weeks at the latest."
I walked away with the rosewood box behind me and a cheerful smile on my face. No matter how horrible this meeting with Bella Farley would go, it couldn't put a dent in my mood now that I had my Firebolt.
I sat in a booth all alone in Three Broomsticks for a while as I pondered about what I still needed to accomplish as a mature, raven-haired woman in a tasteful black and green robe sat opposite me.
"You must be Miss Farley. How did you recognize me?"
The woman pointed to her nose and answered, "Gemma was very descriptive. I could have spotted you in a sea of thousands with those scars on your beautiful face."
Despite myself, I grinned a little at getting called beautiful before I shook my head. Aunties and grandmas were known to exaggerate when praising their young relatives, so I wouldn't let this go to my head.
"That's a fair point, I suppose. I'm glad you came. With the looks your daughter kept giving me these few weeks after the attack, I wasn't so sure anymore."
Miss Farley turned solemn hearing it and gave a deep sigh.
"Don't hold it against her. Politics in Slytherin are more intricate than you may know. If you're as smart as she says you are, I'm sure you can figure out why my darling behaves the way she does."
As far as first impressions went, this was rather pleasant even if the topic was depressing. I muled it over and decided to humor the woman with a nod.
"Of course you would. You come from a long line of great thinkers," the woman boasted before she gave me a pitying smile. "Tell me then in your own words. How have you been?"
What followed was an hour of me telling the woman of my life in the orphanage, though leaving out my first hours, my canon knowledge, and me finding Patrick early, of course. She was incensed that she was denied the possibility of raising me in a loving home and told me she would look into my mother's death and who would have the audacity to place me in a muggle orphanage instead of contacting her.
Weirdly enough, that all happened before she revealed to me my father's name after erecting a silencing charm.
"You might not have heard your father's name yet, have you?"
I disliked lying to this woman but still shook my head and said, "I have an inkling as to who it might be, but I don't know."
"Of course you would," the woman said with a doting expression before she once again broke into a wry smile. "Your father is still alive. Selena had confided in me his identity and how much she loathed the man and the circumstan-"
I raised my hand for her to stop, "Please, Aunt Bella. You don't have to say more. I already hate the man."
She nodded with a sad look and said, "Good. Poor boy... your father was one of you-know-who's most loyal servants: Rabastan Lestrange. He was imprisoned with Rodolphus Lestrange, his brother, Bellatrix Lestrange, his sister-in-law, and Barty Crouch Jr. after they attacked House Longbottom and killed Frank Longbottom while leaving his wife Alice bedridden for life."
"Huh, rumors about Walden Macnair, the loyal death eater, were already spreading during the first week of school, and he got off with that Imperius Defense. I wonder how people will look at me, knowing my father is a convicted death eater proud to not have been under Imperius during the attrocities he committed."
"I'm afraid so, Talion," Gemma's mother confirmed with a strained smile.
"It is what it is. Tell me about my other side of the family then. The one that hopefully has a few less dark wizards in it," I quipped after taking another sip from the butterbeer in front of me.
Bringing recipe books to Hogwarts was only the beginning. If butterbeer is the best wizards can come up with in terms of 'social beverages', I would like to see their reaction to anything carbonated. From lemonade to soda all the way back to simple carbonated water and juice spritzers.