Somewhere on a moor in northern Scotland, an old manor, hidden by a Fidelius Charm for thirty years, squatted in the pouring rain.
The house looked as if it had been forgotten for centuries; cracks in the stone walls crawled from the foundation up to the attic, and ivy plastered the eastern windows solid green. Muggles passing by couldn't see it, and wizards passing by couldn't remember it. The Order of the Phoenix had been holding meetings here for three days.
The rain on the third day was heavier than the previous two.
Twelve candles burned in the living room, their flames flickering precariously in the damp draft seeping in. Over a dozen people sat around a long table, their robes stained with water spots. No one spoke. Everyone was staring at the copy of the Daily Prophet lying on the table.
The front-page headline took up half the page: JERRY APPEARS IN HOGWARTS GREAT HALL, CLOUDS OF DEATH RUMORS DISPELLED.
The corner of the newspaper had been crushed into a wrinkled wad. The hand gripping the newspaper was fitted with an ebony prosthetic; the knuckles were brass, and the brass gears ground and squeaked as it crumpled the paper. Moody slammed the newspaper onto the table.
The fingers of the prosthetic loosened one by one; the newspaper sprang back, leaving five distinct creases across Jerry's accompanying photograph.
"He's alive." Moody's voice sounded like sandpaper grinding against stone. "I spent twenty-eight wands, sacrificed three Cultivators of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion who had learned magic, and even got that bunch from the Qingming Realm to strike. He's alive. And he's shooting off fucking fireworks in the Great Hall of Hogwarts."
A balding wizard at the end of the table coughed. "Alastor, calm down..."
"Calm down?" Moody leaned his prosthetic hand on the table. "My plan has been screwed up by this kid twice now. And now he's returned alive to the wizarding world, standing in front of every student at Hogwarts, projecting a line of text... 'I, Jerry, am still in the realm of the living.' Do you know what this means?"
"The hero returns." An unhurried voice drifted from the left side of the long table.
The speaker sat near the fireplace. The firelight illuminated his shoulder-length black hair and skin so pale it bordered on sickly. His fingers rested on a stack of files spread across the table, every single one bearing the eagle crest watermark of the Ministry of Magic.
He slid the bottommost file out and placed it on top.
"Internal Ministry of Magic polling, released at 2:00 PM today. During the period Jerry was 'dead', the support rate for total war was seventy-three percent. At 4:00 PM today, it dropped to fifty-two percent. A drop of nearly twenty points in two hours." His finger slid to the right along the numbers. "At this rate, it will drop below forty percent by tomorrow morning. Once it drops below forty percent, the position of Head of the Department of War Mobilization will be untenable."
"All you know are fucking numbers." Moody's magical eye spun frantically, the blue light sweeping wildly within its socket. "What use are numbers? I say we just find this kid, hit him with an Avada... clean and simple."
"Hit him with an Avada." Sebastian repeated the phrase. He gathered the files into his hands, tapped the edges to align them, and then looked up at Moody. "Fine. Where is Jerry right now? In which dormitory at Hogwarts? Or has he returned to McGonagall's safe house? Who is the Secret-Keeper for the Fidelius Charm on that safe house? McGonagall. Will McGonagall tell you? No. You don't know where he is, so where are you going to shoot your Avada, into the sky?"
Moody yanked his prosthetic hand from the table, sending a few wood splinters flying. He circled the table and took two steps toward Sebastian, the heavy thud of his ebony leg striking the floorboards echoing with every step.
"Are you trying to teach me how to do my job?"
"I don't teach anyone how to do their job." Sebastian stood up to meet Moody's gaze; he was half a head shorter than Moody, but his stance was as steady as if he were nailed to the floor. "I am merely telling you a fact: you used bombs to try to kill Jerry, and you failed. You used the Qingming Realm's ambush to try to kill him, and you failed. And now you want to go kill him yourself, with no intelligence support, no operational plan, not even knowing where he is... You are gambling. The Order of the Phoenix is not a casino, and you are not a gambler."
"Of course I'm not a gambler. I'm an Auror. When I was on the front lines catching Dark Wizards, you were still at Hogwarts writing essays."
"When you were on the front lines catching Dark Wizards, you relied on intelligence. Right now, you have no intelligence."
Moody's prosthetic hand clenched into a fist.
On the other side of the living room, a short, pudgy woman stood up. Margaret Brown, Deputy Head of the Department of War Mobilization, an Order of the Phoenix member installed half a month ago. She held up a piece of parchment; the wax seal was still warm, the blue Ministry of Magic sealing wax broken in half.
"Shut up, both of you." She slammed the parchment onto the table. "An urgent dispatch delivered from the front line one minute ago."
Sebastian reached out and slid the parchment out from under her palm. He swept his eyes over it, the corners of his mouth dipping downward a fraction.
"Frontline outposts. Vera retook control of all sentry posts west of the Gobi this afternoon. She completely overhauled the password system; the old passwords are entirely void. The intelligence network we previously established along the supply line... has been uprooted entirely."
The silence in the living room stretched from a few seconds to over a dozen.
"Who did it." Moody's voice lowered.
"Isabella, daughter of Cassiopeia, from the Department of International Magical Cooperation. She pulled the logs of all non-standard material transports over the past six months, cross-referenced them with the dispatch schedules of the frontline supply line, and discovered the pattern of the owl relays. Then, using that pattern, she tracked them backward and pinpointed the locations of the intelligence network relay stations." Sebastian slid the urgent dispatch over to Moody. "She worked fourteen hours of overtime at the Ministry of Magic, and took two hours out of that to dismantle the entire operation you spent a month and a half building."
Margaret looked back and forth between the two of them. "With the supply line dismantled, the position of Head of Mobilization cannot be held. Our people in the Cabinet have become targets for attack. The investigation report from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was delivered to the Cabinet this morning; the report named five of my people, the phrasing being 'suspected of treason'. Five people, named directly, with no implication. This means..."
"It means if we don't change our strategy, from this moment on we will be chased and beaten at every turn." Sebastian spread the files out again, arranging them in a line. "Jerry is alive... public support is plummeting... the Head of Mobilization is wavering. The supply line is dismantled... the frontline intelligence network is scrapped... Cabinet seats are unstable. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement is naming names... our people are being exposed one by one. This is not a single failure; it is a chain reaction. And the source is one thing... Jerry has returned."
"So we still have to kill him." Moody pulled his sword half an inch out of its scabbard with his prosthetic hand.
"Killing him is useless." Sebastian pressed his hand down on Moody's wrist. "He has already made his public appearance. If he dies, he's a dead hero; killing a living hero will only serve as propaganda for the other side."
"Then what do you propose we do."
Sebastian flipped open another file. It was a Ministry of Magic immigration record, with one line circled in red pen.
"Jerry brought someone back with him. A woman. A woman from the Cultivation world. She is currently lying in the Spell Damage ward on the fourth floor of St. Mungo's. Her name is Yin Luo; her identity is an Elder of the Myriad Demons Palace, and she publicly fought by Jerry's side at the Alliance Summit. Invaded by sword intent, her life hanging by a thread, Jerry carried her across the world barrier to return for treatment." He closed the file. "A wizard returns from the battlefield carrying an enemy Elder, using our medical resources for her treatment, staying in a private room, personally guarded by Professor McGonagall."
The people in the living room began whispering to each other, the murmur sounding like a swarm of mosquitoes flying overhead.
Sebastian waited until the murmuring was loud enough before speaking again.
"We don't need to kill him; turning him into a traitor is enough. A young wizard stays in the Cultivation world for half a year, and returns bringing an enemy female Cultivator with him. Why did she save him? If we put these questions out there, we don't need answers. We only need the questions. Let the front page of the Daily Prophet no longer be 'The Hero Returns', but 'Is the Returnee a Hero or a Traitor?'"
Margaret tapped her short, stubby fingers on the table twice.
"I will handle the media side. The connection with Rita Skeeter hasn't been severed yet; I'll have her publish an exclusive interview today. We won't mention Jerry; we will only mention 'Frontline MIA operative brings unidentified foreign national across borders for medical treatment'. The phrasing needs to straddle the line between 'suspected' and 'pending investigation'. Once the internal Ministry investigation is launched, even if he's innocent, he'll have to spend two months cooperating with the investigation. Two months is enough time for us to pull the war support rate back up."
"Two months?" Moody's prosthetic hand slammed against the table. "Two months is too slow."
"Then the sooner we let Jerry know of our counterattack, the better." Sebastian pulled a letter from the inner pocket of his robes; the wax seal bore the imprint of an eagle with spread wings. "This is Dumbledore's reply. It arrived at noon today."
Everyone fell silent.
Moody reached out and took the letter. His fingers tore open the seal with thirty percent more force than he used when dismantling bombs. The parchment unfolded; there were only two lines of text on it, written in deep blue ink with a phoenix feather quill. After reading it, Moody shoved the letter back into Sebastian's hand.
The gazes of the dozen or so people in the living room were all fixed on that piece of parchment.
Sebastian held the letter up to the candlelight and read it aloud, word by word.
"Strategic methods must advance with the times. The matter regarding Jerry requires further observation; it is inadvisable to act hastily. I urge prudence."
"Dumbledore knows. He knows everything. Is he giving us direction?"
"'Methods must advance with the times'. Dumbledore never demands or commands anyone; his way of dictating the rules is to not transgress them. Jerry is not worth killing, but worth observing; not worth acting hastily, but worth prudence. This is exactly the path I just outlined. Defamation."
"What about McGonagall?" someone asked from the corner.
Sebastian turned to face the shadows. "McGonagall's biggest vulnerability right now is the supply line. Even though she dismantled the intelligence network, supply procurement still has to go through the black market. Our shell companies on the black market haven't all been exposed; there are three covert ones still operating. Starting tomorrow, these three shell companies will raise their prices by forty percent, and we'll leak rumors that McGonagall is embezzling military funds on the front line and reselling arms. The more she procures, the more it will look like she's reselling; and as a result, she will have to spend a month using her own network of connections just to explain herself. A month is enough time for us to wear her down until she has no energy left to look after Jerry."
"And what about the Cultivation world's side?" the balding wizard asked, coughing again.
"The Pavilion Master of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion hasn't been captured yet; his whereabouts aren't an urgent matter for now. The stance of the Qingming Realm is the most critical right now. If they could mobilize forty-eight Nascent Souls to besiege Yin Luo, it means there are higher-ups in the Qingming Realm cooperating with the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion. If this force can be utilized again, it would be an opportunity to hit Jerry while he's down... using sword intent to kill her, and using their influence within the Cultivation world to spread intelligence to the Alliance that Jerry is a wizard spy. Making the Cultivation world side distrust him as well."
Moody stood up, walking to the fireplace, turning his back to everyone; he leaned his prosthetic hand on the mantelpiece, raindrops dripping from it. The firelight cast alternating light and shadow across his back. A long while passed before he spoke.
"Proceed according to Sebastian's plan." He turned his head slightly, his scarred face drawn into layers of shadow by the firelight. "But keep the assassination squad. One in close proximity, two positioned at a distance for backup. Do not strike if it violates the rules. But the moment Jerry separates from McGonagall, or if Yin Luo is left alone at St. Mungo's..."
"I will notify you." Sebastian tucked his files back into his folder and secured it. "Current operational priorities: Media first, supply lines second, Cabinet seat defense third. Assassination is ranked fourth. Is there anything more urgent than these four?"
No one in the living room answered.
"Dumbledore's letter..." Moody stared at the flames in the fireplace, his speech incredibly deliberate. "He used the words 'observation' and 'prudence'. Since when does Dumbledore need to be prudent? This indicates the current situation is no longer within his grasp. If he had a firm hold on the situation, he would have used 'continue advancing'."
Sebastian reopened Dumbledore's letter. "He is still looking for the channels. Has been for ten years. If total war does not break out, the channels cannot be built. He wants this war more than any of us. But he will not say it himself... he never says it himself."
"So he has us charging on the front lines, while he waits in the back to enter the channels." Moody's scarred face twitched in the firelight. "Fine. I will charge for him. But not for the war this time. This time it's for Jerry... that kid has been tap-dancing on my operational plans from the very first day he fell into the Cultivation world. It's time to trip him up. We won't kill him, but we'll make him wish he was dead. Once his name is hung on the traitor list, let's see how he shoots off fireworks in the Great Hall."
He grabbed a handful of Floo Powder from the fireplace, swung his hand, scattered it into the fire, and shouted, "St. Mungo's Main Entrance."
Before the emerald green flames engulfed him, he cast one final look at Sebastian.
"Keep a close eye on Vera at the front line and Isabella at the Ministry. Those two women are more difficult to deal with than an entire squad of Aurors."
The green fire flared, and Moody's figure vanished within the hearth. The echoing thuds of his ebony prosthetic striking the brick walls of the hearth lingered in the living room for a few seconds before dissipating.
Sebastian sat down by the now-empty long table, took a pen from his folder, and drew four or five squares on the back of a file.
Within each square he wrote a name: Jerry, McGonagall, Isabella, Vera, Yin Luo.
He circled Yin Luo's square twice and added a question mark.
Margaret leaned over to take a look. "Who is this woman?"
"The greatest wildcard. After she wakes up, she will reveal the true reason behind the Qingming Realm's ambush."
"What do you think the reason is?"
Sebastian set the pen down on the paper. "I don't know. But I do know one thing... a figure capable of making forty-eight Nascent Souls strike simultaneously is no mere nobody in the Cultivation world. Whoever issued the order to kill her might be the next opponent we need to cooperate with... or eliminate."
He pushed his chair back, stood up, tucked the folder under his arm, and headed toward the back door.
The last candle in the living room sputtered out. The flames in the fireplace shifted from green back to orange-red. The rain swept through the broken window, splashing across the long table, soaking Dumbledore's letter.
The deep blue ink on the parchment bled out in the rainwater; the word "prudence" slowly blurred within the spreading ink, turning into an unrecognizable dark watermark.
The instant the green light flashed in Cassiopeia's eyes, Isabella froze completely in her tracks.
A slow freeze... from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, all her joints locked simultaneously. The Petrification spell surged directly from the Basilisk bloodline; no wand, no incantation, only that sickly green fluorescence radiating from the constriction of her pupils. Isabella still maintained the posture of reaching for her wand, her fingertips a mere few inches away from her cuff. Even the motion of pulling her tie halfway out from her shirt collar was stuck, the dark green tie dangling in mid-air, the end still swaying slightly.
Cassiopeia closed the door to the private room behind her. The deadbolt clicked shut.
She walked up to her daughter, reaching out and pressing down Isabella's fingers, frozen in mid-air, one by one. From the index finger to the pinky, and finally the thumb. Every press was accompanied by an incredibly faint hissing sound... the Basilisk bloodline involuntarily leaking air when feeling smug.
"Chocolate Frog." Cassiopeia chewed those two words on the tips of her forked tongue. "...Shoving a Chocolate Frog up your own mother's backside."
Isabella couldn't speak. In her Petrified state, her lips couldn't move, her tongue couldn't move; the only things that could move were her eyeballs. Her eyes rolled as far left in their sockets as they could go, watching her mother walk past her and up to Jerry's side.
"I have spoiled you far too much."
Cassiopeia reached out and yanked Jerry from the windowsill to the foot of the hospital bed. What she grabbed was his belt buckle; hooking her fingers around the metal clasp, she dragged him forward, pulling Jerry directly in front of the companion chair. Facing Isabella squarely.
"You told him to turn around earlier. No need for him to turn around now. Let him face you directly."
She stood behind Jerry. Reaching her hands around from behind, she pressed them against Jerry's chest, her palms adhering to the nail marks McGonagall had scratched through his shirt, her fingertips sliding down the grooves of his ribs. Her forked tongue darted out from between her lips, the two halves of the tip pressing against the skin behind Jerry's ear. The body temperature of the Basilisk bloodline was lower than an ordinary person's; touching the skin felt like ice-cold silk sliding from the base of the ear down the side of the neck.
"Do you know how many women have touched your fiancé today?" Cassiopeia's forked tongue stopped at the location of Jerry's carotid artery, the two halves of the tip pressing on either side of the blood vessel, feeling the frequency of his pulse. "Where does your share rank? It ranks behind mine."
Her hands slid from Jerry's chest to his belt. The metal clasp Isabella had just fastened for him was undone by her once again.
Click.
His pants pooled at his ankles. The erect object sprang out, slapping against the hem of his shirt; the head was already swollen and shiny, pre-cum seeping from the small opening at the tip, trailing a transparent line down the shaft.
Isabella's eyes rolled to the right again.
She wanted to close her eyes, but her eyelids were Petrified and wouldn't shut.
"Watch. Mom will teach you."
Cassiopeia circled from behind Jerry to the front. She didn't take off her dress, merely pulling the slit of her dark green long dress all the way from the side of her thigh up to her waist.
Her entire pantyhose-clad leg was exposed from the side of the skirt, the suspender clips pressing incredibly faint indentations into the flesh at the root of her thigh.
She pushed the crotch of her panties to one side, spread her labia with her fingers, and sat down upon that ramrod-straight object.
Her forked tongue darted out from between her lips, the two halves curving outward. A long moan, mixed with a hissing tail-end, echoed from deep within her throat.
The sensation of being stretched open transmitted from the entrance all the way deep into her lower abdomen; the body temperature of the Basilisk bloodline was low, making the inside the only place of warmth. As that object entered, the entire passage from entrance to core was stuffed completely full; every time the coronal head ground past a fold on the inner wall, the muscles on Cassiopeia's inner thighs would contract tightly once.
"This thing of your fiancé's..." Cassiopeia sat all the way down, swallowing it to the very bottom. "When you got engaged to him, did you ever think this thing would be yours alone in the future? Hmm?"
She tilted her head, looking at her daughter Petrified in the chair.
Isabella's eyes grew red.
Her eyes stared fixedly at the connection point where her mother sat upon her fiancé.
Cassiopeia began to move. Her waist rose and fell, the range going from shallow to deep, the frequency from slow to fast.
Her hands braced against Jerry's chest.
Her nails dug into the shirt fabric, her dark green polish scratching several wrinkles into the white shirt.
Every deep swallow brought forth a breathy, drawn-out moan, the tail end carrying the hissing overtone unique to the Basilisk bloodline.
"Isabella."
Cassiopeia's waist abruptly stopped amidst the high-frequency rising and falling; she turned her head, looking at her daughter's face. "Do you think Mom is bullying your fiancé?"
Maintaining the posture of swallowing the entire length, Cassiopeia's waist and abdomen began to trace slow circles.
She pushed Jerry's shirt up, bunching it at his collarbones, pressing one hand against his lower abdomen, feeling the slight bulge on the surface of his lower belly as she was stretched full.
"Mom is teaching you. You are his fiancée; where do you rank?"
Cassiopeia's waist began to rise and fall again.
Suddenly, Cassiopeia shuddered!
"You..."
"You pulled me in."
Jerry gripped both sides of Cassiopeia's hip bones.
His fingers sank into the edge of her pantyhose waistband, yanking it down a notch, exposing a small patch of bare skin above her hip bone. "You pulled my pants down right in front of Isabella. And now you expect me not to move?"
He thrust upward from below.
The rhythm wasn't fast, but every thrust hit the very top.
When the head slammed into her flower heart, Cassiopeia's serpentine pupils constricted into thin slits, her nails scratching new red marks into Jerry's chest. Her upper body slumped forward, the softness of her chest pressing against Jerry's face through the fabric of her dress.
"Your daughter is watching." Jerry's voice was muffled against Cassiopeia's chest. "Weren't you quite talkative just now. Keep talking."
"I said... hiss..."
Cassiopeia's forked tongue flicked against the top of Jerry's head, the tail end of her words completely dissolving into chaos. "What did I say... every time you thrust I... ah..."
Cassiopeia began to spasm.
The climax arrived fierce and urgent. Right in front of her daughter, right in front of her own fiancé, she threw her head back and let out a long moan, her tailbone pressing against the armrest of the companion chair, her pantyhose-clad legs clamping Jerry's waist with such force the pantyhose fabric stretched into incredibly fine, dense patterns.
Cassiopeia panted for a moment from the climax before recovering.
She pushed Jerry away from her chest and rolled off him.
Standing on the floor, she let her skirt fall back down, covering the wet stain on her pantyhose.
Cassiopeia pulled two tissues from the bedside table and wiped her fingers, then crumpled the tissues into a ball and tossed them into the trash can.
Then, Cassiopeia walked up to Isabella, who remained Petrified in the chair.
She reached out, pinched her daughter's chin, and tilted her face up slightly.
"The Petrification spell will last for another half hour."
Cassiopeia tucked the trailing half of her daughter's tie back under her shirt collar, her movements very gentle, her fingers adjusting the edges of the collar twice before she released her grip and patted her daughter's shoulder.
"You two take your time. When you are unfrozen, if you still want to settle scores with me... I am at your disposal."
Cassiopeia turned and walked toward the door of the private room. Her palm resting flat against the door panel, she paused for an instant right as she was about to push it open, tilting her head to cast one final look at Jerry over her shoulder. She didn't speak again; merely a flash of her tongue against her lips... the two forked halves licking across her upper and lower lips respectively, the hissing sound exceptionally distinct in the quiet private room. Then, Cassiopeia pushed open the door and walked out.
The ta-ta-ta of her high heels striking the floor tiles extended from the doorway to the end of the corridor. The night lights of St. Mungo's shone with a cold white light from the corridor ceiling.
Three people remained in the private room. Yin Luo breathed steadily on the hospital bed, completely oblivious to everything in the outside world. Isabella sat in the companion chair, her entire body stiff, her eyes bloodshot, her gaze fixed dead on the direction of the door. And standing beside the foot of the bed was Jerry, his pants still unpulled up.
Jerry pulled up his pants and fastened his belt.
He walked over to Isabella and crouched down, looking up at her from below. In her Petrified state, Isabella's lips were pressed tightly together, the muscles in her neck taut, her fingers frozen in mid-air, still holding the posture of reaching for her wand.
"Your mother's Basilisk bloodline talent. Instant wandless Petrification. I couldn't stop it either."
"I suggest you take deep breaths first. After the Petrification is lifted, hit me a couple of times to vent your anger... just don't hit the face. I still have to rely on this face to see Rita Skeeter for an exclusive interview."
Isabella's eyes rolled to the left again. In her Petrified state, the only way she could express anger was by rolling her eyes and an incredibly faint twitch at the bottom of her lower lip.
Jerry reached out and took her fingers, frozen in mid-air, into his own palm one by one to warm them.
The touch of her Petrified skin was ice-cold, identical to the natural body temperature of the Basilisk bloodline. He held her entire hand, his thumb slowly rubbing the back of her hand.
"Half an hour. I'll wait with you."
Outside the window of the private room, the London night shifted from hazy grey to pitch black. Every so often in the corridor, a night light would flicker slightly, as if someone were adjusting the circuits across the entire building. Yin Luo's fingers moved against the blanket again... this time, the movement was a bit larger than before; her fingertips slid from the edge of the bedsheet onto the surface of the mattress, and then stopped.
She was about to wake up.