"A wizardly man soon learns that few indeed of his meetings are chance ones, be they good or for ill." - Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
It had been a week since Harriet returned to the manor with Yuna, and Christmas had already come and gone. It had been a small affair. Yuna sent a few gifts to her parents, who sent cards back in return.
Yuna's relationship with her parents was distant, borderline neglectful. The person who'd actually raised her was her grandmother, long since passed. Yuna had wanted independence since she was young, so the moment she started making real money, she'd sent her parents on permanent vacation, comfortably funded and comfortably far away. It left them in a strange arrangement where she was the one providing for them, and honestly, Yuna felt mostly indifferent about the whole thing. Her grandmother's love had been enough to fill that particular hole a long time ago.
So spending the holiday with Harriet was new for her, and welcome.
Harriet, for her part, had sent gifts to everyone she cared about, which wasn't a long list, but a solid one regardless. She'd gotten a few back in return, too.
The two of them now stood in the manor's well-kept courtyard. Nothing about it screamed magic, not by design: manicured hedges cut into clean geometric lines, gravel paths pale enough to look almost silver under the winter light, a scatter of stone benches that could have belonged to any old-money estate in the country. The kind of grounds you could walk a group of mundane socialites through without a single raised eyebrow. Off to one side, half-shielded by a low wall of climbing ivy, sat the one corner that broke the illusion, a small reflecting pool, still and glass-flat even in the wind, with a single stone bench angled to face it. It was, without argument, the prettiest spot on the entire property, and it was where Harriet had wandered without quite deciding to. At some point, without really meaning to, she'd also had a small wrought-iron table dragged out there, just in case they ended up hosting.
"So, let's get on with it. You've been sitting on this long enough, Harriet." Yuna watched her with open amusement. "You're acting like some shy little woman who can't work up the nerve to make the first call."
"Shut up. And yeah, that's exactly what's happening." Harriet exhaled, something settling in her posture. "She's not just some devil, you know. You should've seen her on stage, she was incredible. Genuinely, it was a divine performance."
With that, and because she knew the longer she stalled the more nervous she'd get, she pulled the flyer from her pocket and tore it in half.
The magic circle printed on it flared to life the moment the parchment split, ink turning to pale blue light that lifted off the page and spread itself flat across the gravel. Runes she didn't recognize traced themselves along the outer ring, then folded inward, and the whole thing began to hum, low and resonant, like something underwater trying to surface.
"Um... Furina, right? It's Harriet, we met in France after your spectacle. Can you come?" Smooth, Harriet. Smooth.
For a moment, nothing happened. The circle kept humming, water-light rippling outward in slow concentric rings, and Harriet had just enough time to wonder if she'd somehow botched the whole thing when the air above the pattern split open like a curtain being drawn back.
Furina stepped out of it.
There was no shimmer, no dramatic build-up beyond the one she'd clearly choreographed herself: a full turn on one heel, arms thrown slightly wide as if the courtyard itself owed her applause for showing up. She'd come dressed in the same clothes as last time. A gown of deep sea-blue silk, layered like something between a ballgown and a captain's coat, with pale gold trim tracing every seam and a collar that stood up dramatically behind her neck. Her hair, that same striking shade somewhere between white and the faintest blue. Jewelry glittered at her throat and wrists, understated only by her own standards, and even her boots looked like they'd been polished specifically for this moment. She looked less like someone answering a summons and more like someone arriving at her own premiere. But the single most distinctive thing about her was the one stubborn strand of hair sticking straight up off the top of her head, defying every other perfectly placed piece of it.
"Well!" Furina clasped her hands together, eyes sweeping the courtyard once before landing squarely on Harriet. "If it isn't my dear little fan. It took you long enough to call, and here I was, my divine self, already offering us a second meeting!" she said, aggrieved.
"Hey." Harriet crossed her arms, all the tension she'd built up clearly draining out of her, feeling considerably more relaxed now, unbothered by the theatrics. "I've been busy."
"Busy." Furina said the word like it personally offended her. "I gave you my number, so to speak, and you left me hanging like some understudy nobody bothered to call back for the second act. Do you know what that does to a woman's confidence?"
"You seemed pretty confident a second ago, spinning around like that."
"That was for effect. There's a difference." Furina sniffed, though the corner of her mouth was already twitching upward. "Well. You've finally decided to grace me with your attention, so I suppose I'll allow it, this once."
Then she went on. "I'm only teasing, I gave you that flyer for exactly this, just in case. I'm always happy to see one of my fans." Furina said, smug. "Oh, and let's do introductions properly." She took the opening and made herself entirely at home, commandeering even more of the spotlight in the process. "Furina Focalor, that's my name. Half-devil and actress."
"Harriet Potter. I'm a witch, and the 'Girl-Who-Lived,' or something like that, according to my community," Harriet offered, a little sheepish about the second part. Said out loud, in front of someone else, it sounded fairly ridiculous. "And this is Yuna. She runs my finances, keeps me from doing anything catastrophically stupid, mostly."
"Mostly," Yuna echoed, not looking up from where she was already sizing up Furina with open, unhurried curiosity. "A pleasure. I've heard a lot."
"Have you?" Furina brightened considerably at that, any residual annoyance evaporating on the spot. "Good things, I hope. Preferably things involving the word 'legendary.'"
"She told me your stage performance was incredible," Yuna said, amused.
"Well, it's true," Harriet said dryly. "Come on, sit down."
She led them both toward the reflecting pool, where the small wrought-iron table and chairs sat half-shadowed by the ivy. A pot of tea and three cups were already waiting, courtesy of the newly hired house elves who'd apparently anticipated the visit better than Harriet had planned it herself. Furina settled into her seat like she was claiming a throne, arranging her skirts with unnecessary precision before finally allowing herself to relax.
"So." Furina poured her own cup without waiting to be offered one. "Jokes aside. Tell me everything. What do you desire? If you summoned me, it must mean you needed help."
Harriet blinked. "Um... not really, actually. We've just never met a devil before, and we wanted to talk?" She sounded distinctly unsure of herself.
Yuna picked it up smoothly. "She's not wrong, but to be fair, meeting you was mostly luck. She wanted to call sooner, but well, you know how it is. Demonic summoning and all that, it's a lot for a first time. We wanted to learn more about the world around us, really."
"Yes, and I can see you took precautions of your own." Furina studied Yuna with open interest. "You're fairly strong yourself, aren't you, Yuna. Good instinct, though, not every devil is like me down there."
"Down there," Yuna repeated, deadpan.
"The underworld, yes. I'm currently residing part-time in what your lovely little world insists on calling Hell." Furina wrinkled her nose slightly, the first genuinely unguarded expression she'd shown all evening. "But if you're truly curious, and it sounds like whatever you've already picked up says plenty on its own. Honestly, it's not nearly as dramatic as the name suggests. Lots of politics, lots of very old creatures with very old grudges, and somehow, an alarming amount of paperwork. I won't bore you with the details, they're rather more tedious than fire and brimstone. Just the usual obsession with bloodlines, except down there, those bloodlines actually hand out real power."
"Sounds familiar, actually." Harriet took a slow sip of her tea. "I've got my own little corner of chaos to deal with. British magical world. Small, insular, everyone's obsessed with bloodlines and old families, and there's a whole conflict going on right now that's essentially two groups of people in matching robes arguing about who's evil and who isn't."
"Oh?" Furina leaned forward, delighted. "Do go on."
"There's a guy trying to bring back some kind of blood purity regime, killing people who don't fit his criteria, and on the other side there's a very old, very tired man who's convinced himself he's the only one qualified to stop him, mostly by controlling everyone around him instead of actually doing anything useful."
Furina pressed a hand to her chest as if physically wounded by how good this was. "A literal war of black versus white. How delightfully unoriginal. But you could put that on a stage exactly as it is and people would pay good money for it, they'd eat it up. Two masked armies, one screaming about purity, the other insisting they're the good guys while making questionable decisions behind closed doors. Honestly, I could direct it myself. I'd call it something dreadfully on the nose, like A Tragedy of Two Damned, and it would sell out for a full season."
"You joke," Harriet said, "but that's basically the plot."
"I'm not joking, darling, it could genuinely be fun to produce, like a comedy." Furina set her cup down with a decisive clink. "Regardless. This has all been utterly charming, truly, but you should know that summoning me doesn't come free. There's always a price."
Harriet's expression didn't change, though something in her posture went a fraction more alert. "Go on."
"Relax, it's nothing dreadful." Furina waved off the tension before it could fully form, clearly enjoying the brief flicker of caution she'd caused. "Well, my dear little fan, you summoned me, and even if it was only to talk, I still have to claim my due somehow. So as payment, I've decided you're going to give me a tour of your little community. I would absolutely love that."
"That's it?" Yuna asked, one eyebrow raised. "A tour?"
"A tour," Furina confirmed, entirely too pleased with herself. "Think of it as research. Every good performer needs material, and frankly, your little war of black and white sounds like it could use a professional's opinion. And I've heard you're quite the creative bunch besides. Plus, you're going to have to explain to me this whole 'Girl-Who-Lived' business. That's how you build a proper relationship, isn't it? Isn't that what you wanted to do?"
Harriet studied her for a moment, weighing it the way she weighed most things: quickly, without much visible deliberation, already three steps ahead of wherever the conversation was actually going. "Fine. I'll show you around. But you're not allowed to start any wars while we're at it."
"No promises," Furina said, entirely too cheerfully, and reached for a little cake like the matter was already settled.
At that, knowing full well she'd serve no purpose here beyond holding a candle, Yuna decided to speak up. "Alright, I'll leave you two to your little 'fun.' But I want Harriet back in one piece."
"Yes, yes, mama bear, you can stand down." Furina's tone sharpened slightly, having clearly clocked the fact that Yuna, for all her polite deference, hadn't stopped watching her like a hawk, and wasn't bothering to hide it either. "I can swear it on Satan himself, I won't lay a finger on my little fan."
"Don't worry, Yuna. I told you, my gut's telling me this'll be fine." Harriet said, calm. At that, for the first time, something in Yuna actually loosened.
Harriet turned back to Furina with a faint, crooked smile, quietly pleased, even if she wouldn't say it out loud, about the idea of spending time with her, or at least with some version of her. She still wasn't entirely sure Furina was native to this world. Her gut said otherwise, said she probably came from somewhere called Teyvat, and the whole theater performance had been enough of a giveaway on its own.
"Miss Hydro Archon." Harriet said. "Let me show you our quaint little world."