Only a husk remained of what Mr. A had once been. All that persisted in him now was a hunger — for flesh, for spirituality, for souls. His eyes had gone crimson and bright, and he opened his mouth and drew in a long, greedy breath.
Whoosh.
In the hold, a chill spread through the air — a cold that reached into the bones. It coiled around the nearest corpse, twisting and compressing, until a near-transparent human silhouette formed in the air above it. The rough outline of what the person had looked like in life was just barely visible.
The spirit's expression was one of extreme anguish. It strained against the pull of Mr. A's hunger, fighting with everything it had — and then grey-white and dark-green points of light, like a slow river of stars, began to flow out from the physical body and pour into the translucent shape.
"No—"
A silent scream. And then the soul was drawn into Mr. A's waiting mouth. A new scar appeared on the Bloodsucking Bracer — darkening quickly, blending in with the other five.
Bernadette had not specified which ability she wanted. There was no need to spend the Faceless ability on a deliberate draw when she still had two remaining attempts.
As it turned out, her luck today was good.
The very first draw produced the Shapeshifting ability — the Faceless's power to change appearance at will. In addition, it also yielded Damage Transfer and Drawing Paper Into Weapons.
Drawing Paper Into Weapons had limited uses. But Damage Transfer was something else entirely — as long as she wasn't killed outright and could still move her hands, she could redirect injuries from vital areas to less critical ones, turning would-be fatal wounds into minor ones.
After a moment of consideration, Bernadette decided to stop there and not press her luck further.
Vincent said: "How did it go?"
"Good luck, actually. Got Shapeshifting on the first draw — plus Damage Transfer and Drawing Paper Into Weapons."
As she spoke, Bernadette raised her hand. The Wishing Mirror materialised from nothing and floated before her.
She looked at her reflection. The muscles of her face began to ripple, and her flesh and skin moved like half-melted wax, flowing and reshaping. In the space of a second or two, features rearranged themselves — the lines and contours adjusted rapidly until the face in the mirror was the face she wore in her everyday disguise. She examined it carefully, even activating the Eye of Mystery Prying. Not a single trace of alteration was visible.
She observed herself for a moment, then pressed her right hand to her cheek, and drew it slowly across. Her face shifted again: handsome features, dark hair, dark eyes. Vincent's face.
Vincent sighed softly. "Seeing that face... it suddenly hits me that it's been over two weeks."
Bernadette smiled. "For the next three days, you get to be yourself properly."
She drew her hand across her face again, and she was herself once more. The two remaining corpses had already released their characteristics, floating free. She crouched to collect them, then went back to the main deck.
"Would you sort those out later?"
"Of course."
"Has Stephen come back?"
Kreuch shook his head. "No. But I reached out to him by messenger — he says something came up, and he'll be back once it's handled."
Bernadette frowned slightly. Given how eager Stephen had been to get back to the Dawn, what could have possibly detained him? She thought for a moment, then summoned an Invisible Servant. "Go find Stephen. See what's keeping him."
"Chirp chirp."
About fifteen minutes later, the Invisible Servant returned with a letter. The gist of it: Stephen had discovered more information concerning events related to his family's ancestral burial grounds and was making quiet enquiries. He would report to Her Majesty as soon as there was anything new to share.
After confirming with the Invisible Servant that Stephen was alright, Bernadette looked to her First Mate, Kreuch.
"Kreuch, I'll leave the Dawn in your hands for now."
He pressed a hand to his chest and bowed slightly. "My honour, Your Majesty."
Vincent couldn't help but laugh. "Between the two of us — one not doing a proper job as professor, the other not doing a proper job as captain. Our defining trait appears to be not doing our jobs."
Bernadette gave a pointed hum. "Your professor, for your information, has the other half of my soul over there doing a perfectly fine job running things."
Er... is that true?
Hopefully.
Nation of Disorder.
Vincent stared. "You said what?"
The Bernadette currently in the Harry Potter world said, with the same calm she used for everything: "I had Chadwell killed. No need to thank me."
"...Are you certain no one noticed?"
"I was in his shadow the whole time. I delivered the sentence using the Words of Order — guilty of murder, sentenced to death. Under normal circumstances, no one should be able to detect anything."
"No, I mean — this is rather sudden."
Vincent rubbed his head repeatedly. "Didn't you say last time that you were going to hold back until you'd fully mastered the ancient runes and magic?"
"Because I discovered that the Prosecutor's abilities are, in certain respects, more useful in your world than magic is."
Certain respects?
As in — killing people and covering your tracks, respects?
"Before I acted, I used the ability in front of Dumbledore — when Chadwell made a false accusation against me, I punished him for it on the spot."
"..."
Vincent pressed his face into his hands. "And then?"
"Nothing after that. Because I never visibly did anything — not even a flicker of magical energy. So they shifted their suspicion onto Dumbledore."
"That is... oddly sensible." Vincent sighed. "But I think Dumbledore is definitely going to be suspicious of you."
"It doesn't matter."
Easy for you to say.
"Fine. You're the one in control over there. Just make sure you think through the consequences before you act."
"Understood."
"One more thing — from what you've seen, how powerful would you estimate the Words of Order to be in my world? Chadwell was a Death Eater who served Voldemort. An adult wizard, actually no slouch."
Bernadette considered. "Against a target with murder on their record, with the element of surprise on your side — I'd estimate the vast majority of wizards would be unable to resist the punishment."
"But if someone knows the Words of Order exist and prepares for them in advance, that's a different matter. That said, this is all based on my current Sequence 7. With sufficient spirituality and no substitute-type magic in this world, I don't believe anyone could escape it."
She added: "That includes the unfathomably powerful Dumbledore, as you describe him."
This broadly matched Vincent's own earlier estimate. Most Sequence 5 Beyonders could probably walk over the entire wizarding world without breaking a sweat.
The thought led him back to an old question: why had two worlds so dramatically different in power been linked together in the first place? Was it pure coincidence?
Or was there a secret hidden in it that no one had yet uncovered?
"That child Patricia is enrolled at Hogwarts now," Bernadette continued.
"Yes, she mentioned she was planning to. Which house?"
"Slytherin."
"That makes sense."
"I was just informed that after returning to the Slytherin common room, she apparently made a friend — Hermione — and when the other Slytherin students gave her grief about it, she put the entire first year down, along with a good portion of the second and third years. Alone. In under five minutes."
Vincent paused, then said: "That I'm not surprised by. She is a Grindelwald, after all. I suspect her appearance in Hogsmeade, and now at Hogwarts, isn't random — Grindelwald almost certainly has some calculation or scheme behind it."
There was no trace of Patricia anywhere in the original story. The only explanation for her existence was a chain of events set in motion the day Vincent saved her. So — what was Grindelwald's reason for sending her to Hogwarts?
"Could she be here because of me?"
Grindelwald had the gift of foresight. It was entirely possible he had Seen something and sent Patricia in advance, positioning a piece on the board before the game fully began.
With that thought, he briefed Bernadette on what he knew about Grindelwald.
"Oh? Another form of divination?"
Bernadette sounded genuinely curious. "How does it differ from the centaurs' astrological prophecy?"
"The centaurs' astrology seems to give them only broad trends — for example, reading the movements of Mars to infer that war or disaster might be coming. Very difficult to see specific events."
"Grindelwald's vision, by contrast, shows him fragments of the future — no context before or after, just isolated glimpses. He once foresaw the invention and detonation of the atomic bomb. It was partly because of that vision — and his desire to protect the wizarding world — that he attempted to wage war on the Muggles, and was ultimately stopped by Dumbledore."
He pressed on: "There's also a third type — the kind Divination Professor Sybill Trelawney has. She produces vague, oracular pronouncements about the future — riddling statements that could mean many things. She once prophesied that Voldemort would be defeated by the Chosen One, Harry."
"On the face of it, all three seem impressive. But compared to the divination and prophecy abilities of your world, they're in a completely different league."
Bernadette had fallen quiet. After a moment, she shook her head and said: "No. You haven't seen what these 'prophecies' really are at their core."
"What?"
You know more about Harry Potter and Lord of the Mysteries than I do, is that it?
To be continued…
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