Dealing with Draco Malfoy while sober isn't any better. He arrived precisely on time, and quickly realised I wasn't in the mood for his arrogant bullshit. He sat at the table, retrieved the fourth draft of his essay, and set himself to work.
Hedwig has already left. I can feel that she's livid, both at Sirius and myself. She's carrying a letter to Tonks. It's practically a form letter, stating her Head of House has stated I'm not to speak with her any longer, and rather than get her in further trouble, I've decided instead to break off all communication.
Sirius wasn't at breakfast that morning, but he was at the evening meal. He attempted to talk to me, but quickly shifted the question to something about coordinating lesson plans for our N.E.W.T. levels when he felt my magic twitch.
Both McGonagall and Snape noticed. Snape smirked enough for me to notice, but no one else. McGonagall raised a questioning eyebrow, which is why she's entered her old classroom and asked to speak with me in my office.
Hedwig still has not returned.
"Is there a good reason my Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor was found outside the infirmary this morning?" begins McGonagall.
"Depends on whose reason it is," I reply, taking a seat in my chair. McGonagall conjures her own chair, a wooden hard-backed thing, and sits in front of my desk. Oh, this won't be good. Not at all. She told me, once, that she conjures that hard-backed wooden chair whenever she wanted to stay angry at someone for a conversation. James, apparently, recognises this from his conversations with her.
"So what is your reason?"
"Your Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor is a rude, insulting, arrogant pig. He invited me to dinner under false pretences, insulted me at great length, and I see no reason to ever speak with him again beyond professional matters. I consider the matter closed. Was there anything else?"
She sighs, realising this is one of those "inter-personal issues" that's nearly on the level of Snape and Black's "inter-personal issues."
"Will this affect your performance?"
"No," I reply. When the hell has being hated ever affected my performance?
She gives a sad frown, a few platitudes, and then leaves. I return to my classroom.
Draco's actually done a good job of learning statistics in two days. I almost want to break his heart by saying it's all made by muggles, but he's done a good job creating bell curves of student grades.
So far? He's unfortunately learned that muggleborns are only stupid in his year level. After that, they perform just as well, if not better, than purebloods. Apparently magic only picks the cream of the crop when it comes to muggleborns, which is the reason most of them are in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Hard workers and deep thinkers, all of them. Makes me wonder why Hermione was in Gryffindor.
0x0x0x0
Monday morning presents me with some justice.
Hedwig arrives with a single letter. It's addressed to Sirius, apparently, as that's where she delivers it. The billowing smoke and vibrant red colour identifies the type of letter. Sirius stares at it, terrified, and looks to me to act as some sort of saviour.
"You dug your grave. Lie in it," is all of my response.
The letter lifts off the table, and bursts.
Andromeda Cassiopeia Tonks nee Black does not screech like the portrait of Walburga Black nee Black. She does not shout like Molly Weasley nee Prewitt. She does not curse and swear like I, Jamie Evans, once Harry James Evans (once another last name entirely), do. Instead, she reminds me of Voldemort, of all people. Her voice is filled with a great and terrible hate. It fills the hall, forcing everyone else into silence.
"Sirius. Orion. Black." She talks down to Sirius, like the immature brat he is. It's wonderful.
"Man-child does not encompass the gross immaturity you express on a daily basis, and cannot begin to describe your actions this past Saturday. The betrayal of trust, the betrayal of what little family you have left, states all I need to know, Sirius. Walburga, may she rot in hell, at least had the gorm to cast you out in person. You call yourself a Gryffindor, and this is how you act?"
"You've finally outdone Bellatrix. I have never wanted to be cast from the Black family more than because of your actions. At least Bellatrix had the grace to be a lunatic bitch at all times."
"Even if you are my Head of Family, you are no longer welcome in my presence, let alone my home."
The hall is silent, as the howler disappears in a puff of smoke.
And then, I hear it. It's quiet, but in the silence of the hall, unmistakable.
Severus Snape is giving Sirius polite applause for the self-destruction of his own family.
0x0x0x0
James and Lily apparate to a ways down the road. There's few magicals nearby, so the ward on my house tells me when they arrive. Pretty simple ward, really, and all I really need for a muggle neighbourhood. A combination magical detection and malign intent ward. It tells me and the defences if somebody's arrived.
God help anybody who actually tries to fight their way through the defences.
The house became quite a bit more... gothic... over the summer. Stone gargoyles, demons, and various other malevolent statuary line the walls, and there are more buried in the lawn itself. There's only one thing buried under the back lawn, but only because I couldn't fit anything else.
The house itself has the usual enchantments on it; fire prevention, and durability. All very lightly cast, though, since I want the telephone and telly to work.
I let the Potters knock on the door to make them feel better about coming, and less expected.
Greetings are exchanged, although James doesn't seem to like me. Then again, he wanted to bury his daughter. They make no mention of Sirius, so I suppose they haven't heard yet. I don't fill them in. We walk through the house, and out the back door. Fenced in, but it's a wide-open expanse. I lead them to the holly tree with the granite marker at its base.
Jessica Hope Potter
July 31st, 1980 – July 23rd, 1991
Lily breaks down into tears, while James stands, stoically. He takes out his wand, and carves into the marker Stolen And Lost, But Loved Always.
There really isn't anything to say.
0x0x0x0
My tea party was a success.
Some small part of me shrivels in pain, cries out in terror and horror, but I ignore it with long practice.
Instead, I'm surrounded by nice young ladies, trying to act adult and with etiquette they don't entirely understand. It's funny, really. There's a lot of sugar, honey, and milk on the table, but the tea is a good solid black tea.
Most of them are first and second years, four are muggleborn, the rest are high-society blood-traitors. The only ones I really recognise are Granger, Jones, and Tracey Davis of all people. She's one of my high society blood traitors, apparently. Or maybe she's just interested in what a bunch of muggleborns would talk about.
Perks is interesting. A Hufflepuff first year. Never saw very much of her after first year. In fact, I can't even recall seeing her in second year, which means I'm going to keep an eye on her. She's muggleborn, very intelligent, but also very reserved and shy. She's a regular problem student, but in a good way, having some difficulties with her magic. I think she might also have a fake leg, but she's pretty quick about moving so I'm not entirely sure. I'll ask Poppy about it.
All in all, pretty simple conversation. Mostly kept to schoolwork, who's nice and who isn't, with quite a bit of conversation centred on Harry Potter. Apparently, he's as cordial and down-to-earth as he is in class, which says good things about the Potters.
There's a bit of argument over whether or not Snape is "nice," largely between Slytherins and non-Slytherins, although I do step in to moderate a bit. Eventually, they come to the conclusion that people are biased against Slytherins in general (I may have contributed with a few Hagrid's more pointed comments), but perhaps not without cause.
All in all, productive.
0x0x0x0
With my eyes open, it takes one more transfiguration class to I realise Perks has a speech impediment. Likely from whatever took her leg. Given the way she layers her hair, she also has a nasty scar on the side of her head.
So I chat with Pomona about it.
Car accident, it turns out. It took her leg and her parents.
"I've been arranging tutoring for her," she begins, "but it just hasn't been helping. She just hasn't been getting the material."
Pomona's an animated woman. She paces her office as she tells me this. When I mention the possibility of a speech impediment, she stares at me for a long moment, before sinking into her chair in sadness, thinking that's the end of it. She'd hoped with tutoring, the gap could be made up, but if she can't properly pronounce the invocations… doom and gloom reigns on her side of the desk.
"There might be an advanced technique or two I can help her with," I say. I can't help it. I have to help. Saving people thing, I guess.
"Do you think it might work?" she asks.
"She isn't afraid of hard work, Pomona. Her essays are only topped by Granger, and that's because Granger's can be bound and turned into textbooks."
Pomona smirks at that.
"I might have something that can help her. I'll take over her tutoring, alright?"
She smiles at me and thanks me.
"Don't thank me until I get some results."
0x0x0x0
"Miss Perks, be seated. Please remove your leg and make yourself comfortable." She blinks in shock, but takes off her leg and sits semi-cross-legged on the mat. I know she's more comfortable without it because I was always more comfortable without my hand. Everyone tries, but prosthetics are never the most comfortable things.
We're in my classroom, I've got a nice mat that keeps our butts warm, a clothe blindfold, and incense burning. The incense isn't just incense, but a specific type that has… recreational properties. Mostly for relaxing. I'm not affected by it because of the basilisk venom and phoenix tears, although I'm still creeped out that those are in my blood. Severus had the incense on hand, and after asking for it, he commented he needed it to deal with Black as well.
I start her with a basic mind-clearing exercise to get her in touch with her magic. I want her to be able to feel it, sense it. It takes about an hour of my calm and soothing voice to get her there. She's in a semi-dazed meditative state, eyes half-focused.
"Pick up your wand, and cast Lumos, bright as you can."
It's an easy spell, and easy to pronounce as well. Barely any wand motions to it. Her eyes roll to look at the tip of it.
"End it."
"Nox."
We repeat this a few times, before I hand her the blindfold.
"I want you to cast it again, but I don't want you to pay attention to the tip of your wand. I want you to pay attention to how your fingers feel when you cast the spell."
"It feels warm," she says.
I have her cast over and over, following that warm feeling through her fingers, into her hand, and up her arm. In the meantime, I pick up her leg and examine it. I need to do something with my hands, now that I don't need to pay attention to her state.
Her leg's a solid aluminium pole, goes on right below the knee, and has a rather plastic foot at the bottom. I start carving runes with my magic into the surface as she makes her way through her shoulder, and she finally reaches her heart.
"What's there?" I ask.
"It's… it's warm. I…"
"The question isn't one that can be answered. I want you to focus on that feeling, focus on that warmth. This time, when you cast Lumos, whisper the invocation."
The Lumos comes out much brighter than before. Then again, that's what happens when you're meditating on your own soul. Magic is the light of the soul, the expression of it on the physical world. Some muggleborn scientists talk about a "magical core" and developing indexes of magical power for wizards. They're full of shit.
The only sensical ones were a few enterprising muggleborns creating models for spells. I think they've been jokingly calling themselves para-physicists or some-such. They'd started with a lot of the easier models, banishing and levitation and summoning charms and the like. I think they were developing a unit of magical energy based on levitating a kilogram of material for a pre-determined amount of time. I'm assuming they eventually plan on collecting enough data to build a relationship to the actual joule. "Correlation by over-analysis" I think was the term.
It was interesting, but I wasn't holding my breath.
I once walked into science-sort of symposium, after they'd supposedly developed a spell to test magical ability. I had them cast the spell on me twice. The first time, it said I was a squib, the second time, it said I was Albus sodding Dumbledore. Then I gave them a bit more to think about, when I told them the story of a fellow student of mine. It was about how his extended family was convinced he was a squib until they dropped him out a goddamn window, and he bounced.
Hermione got sucked up into science lot, somehow. Her want and need to quantify the intangible rather than physically model the tangible was something that more amused Ron than anything else. She'd picked up a proof by a muggleborn philosopher (written in the early 1800s, so this was the classical definition of philosopher) attempting to determine the "shape" of the human soul. Apparently, the appropriate math didn't exist back, and Hermione, being Hermione, decided to complete it. By the time we dragged her away form it to a pub, she'd been awake for three days and was mumbling about Mobius strips, hyper-toroids, and n-dimensional klein bottles.
She got very, very drunk, and never looked at those notes again. Ron and I knew it was the closest she would ever come to admitting defeat, and we never asked about it, either.
I realized about 30 years later that what she was attempting to do – defining magic with science and math – is a bit like defining the color blue with smells. It can be done, if you try really hard, but it's not going to work very well. Magic, by its very nature, is mysterious and enigmatic. It is zen at its finest. It is something you meditate and ruminate on, rather than define in scientific theories.
Part of the reason she was focusing on this, though, were Horcruxes. She was trying to wrap her head around why they worked. After all, by the end of it, didn't Riddle have 1/256th of a soul? Shouldn't that make him ineligible to continue existence? How could the less than 1/100th of a soul in either my forehead or in Nagini keep Riddle form passing on?
After nearly a month of scrambling through libraries and insulting Unspeakables, I finally convinced her to do a meditation that was very similar to the one I had Sally-Anne do, only far more navel-gazing. The only reasons she went along with it is because Bill Weasley recommended it, and then we did it together.
The meditation is comparable to stepping through a door, and finding yourself staring at the Milky Way Galaxy with such granularity that you can pick out your own individual eyelashes when you glance at the Earth.
Afterwards, we went to the pub.
Hermione was three pints in before she started talking.
"It's hard to believe that... well... that that's us. That's who we are."
I grunted.
"How can something that big be in... well... in us?" she asked.
I knew she was being rhetorical, so I didn't bother answering.
"I mean, I read Feynman's 'There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom' but this is something else."
"Yep," I replied, signalling for another round.
She drained her third pint, and then stared at the empty glass for a few minutes.
"No wonder the purebloods are egotistical shitbags," she added.
"Yep." The waitress dropped off two new pints.
"Christ." That was the one and only time I'd ever heard Hermione take the Lord's name in vain.
The thing that Hermione didn't want to entirely articulate was that, contrary to everything comprehensible, the human soul is infinite. Which has some strange implications. In relation to Horcruxes, it makes for some very simple math. Half of infinite is still infinite, and 1/256th of infinite is still just as infinite as ½ of it. Granted it's still less, but that only matters as far as sanity is concerned.
The side weirdness to this is that, since it's infinite, it can't end. That is to say, the soul is eternal. How eternal is something that people don't really like to question, but given the Bloody Baron and the Grey Lady date back to around the founding of Hogwarts, it's "a long fucking time."
As tempting as it is, I've never tested this with the stone.
Back to Sally-Anne, though.
We repeat the casting process a number of times, and I tell her to just mouth the words, to feel the magic spreading through her body to her wand. She's a little darker this time, but each time is brighter than the last, until she finally gets it as bright as before.
"Now, I want you to stop speaking, stop whispering, and just think each invocation, and think of your magic moving as it moved when you spoke it."
It's darker this time, a lot darker, but there's still a pin-prick of light.
"Again," I say.
The light goes out, and then it returns, brighter than before. We repeat, maybe two dozen times, before it's finally as bright as when she started.
"Remove the blindfold," I say.
She slowly takes it off, and looks down at her wand, at the bright light emanating from its tip.
"Nox it."
She does.
"And light it."
It's as bright as when she first entered the true meditative state. She smiles.
"Congratulations, Miss Perks. You can now cast spells silently. It will take a bit more work to practice more spells, but that's what I'm her for, alright?"
She smiles and nods.
0x0x0x0
I should mention that, during this time, Sirius has given me a number of pained looks, letters, and even attempted to send me a howler to try and speak with me.
My response has been, at the staff table, to openly glare at Sirius, and then burn the letters. The lone howler was dispatched with Fiendfyre.
"It's rare to see someone with credible control of that spell," comments Severus, impressed.
"A proper witch learns to control her spells," I reply. I catch the thinnest of smirks, before he gives some witty, acerbic, and sarcastic reply about the mangy cur. Which is about when I asked about the incense for Perks.
James Potter made an attempt at speaking with me, a week or two after visiting Jessica's gravestone. I know he doesn't like me in the slightest, and the situation with Sirius is adding to it.
"Sirius asked me to speak with you," he begins the conversation, without so much as an introduction or even a greeting. I don't offer one to him, either, so it's not my concern.
"Then I have nothing to say to you, Mister Potter." I don't look up. Mostly because I don't want him to see how hurt I am. I mean dealing with my own parents like this? Sometimes, things worked out better when I was an orphan.
"Miss Evans, I-," he tries to continue, but I've already silenced him. It's a shock to him, to be silenced without even being looked at, but I've dealt with enough idiots in my time.
"Mister Potter," I begin. "I am your son's teacher. Do you have any questions about that topic?"
He glares at me, as he removes his wand and dispels the silencing charm.
"No, but this is about a man I consider a brother, part of my family. And right now, the rest of his family hates him. So I'd like to know just what the hell is going on."
I consider him for a long moment. It seems Black took my threat to heart, and didn't mention our conversation at all. I put down the fountain pen (I can barely stand quills at this point), and lean back in my chair.
"Your best friend, your brother in all but blood, is a cold, heartless imbecile with no concern for anyone's feelings or privacy if it serves his own personal amusement. He has no comprehension that his actions have consequences. So it's his problem."
"You did threaten to kill him."
"Which part of 'no concern for anyone's privacy if it serves his own personal amusement' did you miss?"
James sighs. Is he thinking about Severus and Remus? Who knows, it's not like I've ever spoken with the man.
"I know Sirius doesn't think before he acts, but can I at least have some idea of what stupidity he did?"
I stare at James Potter for a long moment before I answer. Consequences roll through my mind, before I decide.
"Black decided that, instead of actually outright saying he didn't wish for me to speak with his family, he'd insult me for the entire meal. After dinner, I politely broke his jaw, and dropped him in front of the infirmary."
James face tightens. I've made no mention of what I was insulted about, but given the way he's acting, he's figured it out. Given the way the Wizarding World looks at blood and heirs, it's more than a little frowned upon to be a homosexual. In larger families, the children are drowned. In the smaller families, well, that's what marriage contracts are for. I'm not surprised Sirius was disgusted with me. He is a pureblood, after all. James has figured out what Sirius has (correctly, but we won't go there) accused me of.
He also understands that I let off Sirius verylightly.
"I also have some questions as an Auror."
"About what?" I ask.
"Your past. It's very... intangible. Somehow, I doubt you went to both Stonewall High and Miskatonic."
Miskatonic University is in America, although University is a misnomer for the place. "Library of Unholy Knowledge, that also teaches classes by invitation" might work better. I paid a very long visit to a few members of the faculty, and the Dean was the one who declared me a Warlock. The Dean is also the sort of thing that considers time travel an annoyance, mostly because of repeating faculty meetings.
Also, with the New World's animosity of all things European, giving an English Auror the runaround would be considered a time-honoured tradition.
"And if you look hard enough, you can find out who the Goblins bribed," I say. Bribery by Goblin is considered something of a time-honoured tradition in the English government. Money is money, after all. "Did you have a direction for this questioning?"
"Who was your father."
"I was disowned. By Blood."
"By Voldemort?"
"No, Voldemort aka Tom Marvolo Riddle is not, and never was, my father. If he was, I'd have killed myself."
That shuts him up.
"Then how are you able to speak Parseltongue?"
"Unwilling soul magic ritual."
"Who was the unwilling recipient?" asks James.
"Me, but the other person's dead now."
"And I'm supposed to believe that?"
"I'll go three drops of Veritaserum," I reply.
My willingness to go that far stops James for a moment.
"You'd be willing to spill your own secrets?"
"Not really. But if it'll get you off my back, why not?" The Fidelius will prevent a lot of it from coming out, and the rest I can Dumbledore my way through.
Round one, it seems, goes to me, as James decides he's had enough, and needs some time to think. It's not like I'm going anywhere.
0x0x0x0
"Now, Miss Perks, we start on Transfiguration."
It's late October. It's been three weeks since I started her on this path, and she can fall into the appropriate meditative state in under fifteen minutes, now. She still needs some guidance, but I'm weaning her off of it.
"With this, you must guide your magic. With charms, the invocation and wand movement guides your magic. With this, you must direct it. You must see what you want, and then direct your magic to create it."
It's back to the matchstick to needle.
She works on it for two hours, tapping her wand against a matchstick. She lights three, destroys seven, and transfigures two dozen silver matchsticks of increasing pointiness before she produces a silver needle.
Which, naturally, I then tell her to repeat.
Repeatedly.
I tell her we'll progress as we did in class, buttons into bottle caps is next, and that I expect her to start learning charms silently, rather than with words.
She nods.
0x0x0x0
October 31st. Halloween night.
There's a large party/feast in the Great Hall. I'm in my office, door locked, charmed, and warded, performing my yearly ritual ever since James' death.
Me, a shot glass, and an entire bottle of Glenfiddich.
I raise my empty glass to the basilisk skull.
"Fuck you, you fucking fuck."
I throw the glass at the fireplace, and pull directly from the bottle.