Helena was outright fascinated by the principles behind Julian's crafting style. She even claimed it was perfectly suited for a Ravenclaw, because the more you knew and understood, the stronger and more refined your enchantments became. Still, she warned him again and again to be extremely cautious when using spiritual energy, insisting that soul based magic was the least understood kind of all.
Julian found that warning a little ironic. Thanks to the crafting style he practiced, he already had a fairly solid grasp of souls. Not mastery, not anything close to that, but enough understanding to say he had a real foothold in the subject.
...
Once their discussion settled, Julian transfigured a chair for himself and produced a clipboard as well. He needed to begin his response to Dumbledore, and he had no intention of letting time dull his resolve.
His plan was simple, brutal, and very effective.
He would drag Dumbledore's uglier history into the light.
He wrote about the man's connection to Grindelwald. He wrote about Harry being left with a Muggle family that treated him horribly. He wrote about the implied threat Dumbledore had delivered during the opening feast, that polished warning wrapped in a smile. And then he added the newest offense, the inheritance test performed without consent, along with the grim implication behind using blood taken under authority rather than permission.
Julian did not soften a single point.
Every shameful detail he could recall went onto the parchment, one after another, until the letter stretched into nearly four full sheets.
...
When he finished, he went straight to the owlery. He slid the pages into an envelope, addressed it to Rita Skeeter, and sealed it with wax impressed by the Ravenclaw signet ring.
Unless Rita Skeeter had miraculously grown a conscience and abandoned her taste for scandal, Julian doubted she would ignore an opportunity like this. If she got her hands on it, she would devour it and then spit it back out to the entire wizarding world with interest.
Dumbledore could expect backlash the moment his sins were displayed for everyone to see.
Julian did not fool himself into thinking the old man would face real punishment. Dumbledore was too entrenched, too protected for that. But reputation was another matter. That could be damaged, and damaged badly.
Julian had once considered using Dumbledore's influence to help free Sirius from Azkaban.
That thought died completely after this stunt.
...
The owls were eager to cooperate with him, and he ended up picking a great horned owl with a commanding presence, one that happened to belong to McGonagall. It was difficult to ignore a bird that size when it wanted your attention, and Julian liked the idea of the delivery being memorable.
The moment the owl launched into the air with the envelope in its talons, Julian felt his shoulders loosen.
He had done it.
His revenge was set in motion.
Now all that remained was waiting.
...
He had skipped lunch, and he had been stunned before he could properly eat his fill at breakfast, so hunger was gnawing at him hard. He returned to the workshop, settled himself, and ate some lembas bread, already deciding he would skip dinner as well.
He might be calm right now, but he knew himself well enough to recognize the danger of a confrontation. If Dumbledore approached him before the news broke, Julian might say or do something that revealed too much.
He would rather stay out of sight.
He would rather hold steady until tomorrow morning, when the newspaper arrived.
...
Across the workshop, Helena was still waving the astral hammer around with far too much enthusiasm, smiling like she had discovered a new favorite toy. Julian could only shake his head at her.
He did not mind her holding it. The hammer was useless to anyone who was not him anyway. Unless stated otherwise, anything he received from the system was bound to him. If anyone tried to steal it, it would simply vanish from their grasp and reappear in his inventory, which was effectively Greed.
Stealing it was not an option.
...
The rest of the evening passed quietly. Julian stayed in his workshop, leaning back and relaxing while he continued reading the ritual books. Helena watched him for a while with growing surprise, because the text was written in a lost language.
Since her unbreakable oath meant she could not speak about what she had learned in the workshop, Julian decided there was no harm in being honest. He told her about his ability to speak and read any language.
Helena immediately looked jealous and declared that such a gift was tied to a particular wizarding family from the Middle East. Apparently, somewhere in the last thousand years, Julian's bloodline had mixed with that family before drifting away again.
Julian supposed that might explain certain things. He would not look the way he did otherwise. Most Middle Eastern families had darker skin tones, while his was only tan, with a paler cast to it.
Helena even offered a theory that her mother had taken Julian's ancestor to the Middle East, and that it was merely coincidence that Julian ended up under Hogwarts' reach in the present day.
Julian suspected there was more to it than that, but he kept that thought to himself and returned to his reading.
Helena glanced at the title of the book in his hands, then lost interest almost immediately, as if she had already read it long ago.