I am Happy to Publish Another Chapter of The Apprentice of The Red Witch
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A letter arrived during breakfast, carried by an owl Harry didn't recognise. It was plain brown, not Galadriel, which meant Natasha had sent a school owl rather than waiting for Harry's letter to reach her first. She had heard about the troll from someone else.
Harry opened the envelope.
Harry,
I have been told, not by you, that a mountain troll was loose inside Hogwarts on Halloween night. I have also been told, again not by you, that you killed it.
I need you to tell me exactly what happened. Every detail. Don't leave anything out, and don't soften it. I want to know where the troll came from, who was with you, what spells you used before the Confringo, and how you felt afterward. I want to know why you were in that corridor instead of your dormitory. And I want to know what the teachers said when they found you.
Write it tonight. Send it tonight.
Natasha
Harry read it twice. The last two lines almost made him smile, but the rest of the letter sat in his stomach with the weight of something he'd been avoiding.
He hadn't written to Natasha about the troll yet. He'd meant to. He'd sat at his desk three times since Halloween with parchment and ink and Galadriel watching him from her perch, and each time he'd stared at the blank page and couldn't find the words.
Not because he didn't remember. He remembered everything. The smell. The sound of the club hitting stone. Daphne's Stupefy bouncing off granite skin. Hermione on the floor with the club rising above her. The warmth flooding his core, the light gathering at the tip of his wand, the word leaving his mouth.
He remembered what it felt like to kill something.
That was the part he couldn't write.
But Natasha hadn't asked him how he felt about it. She had asked him what happened. And Harry had spent a year learning that when Natasha asked a direct question, she expected a direct answer.
He went to his dormitory after dinner, sat at his desk, and wrote.
He told her about the plan to split up on Halloween. Theo watching the third floor. Quirrell's announcement. The decision to break away from the Slytherin group to find Theo. The troll in the second-floor corridor. He described the spells he'd tried first: Flipendo (staggered it), Impedimenta (slowed it, briefly), Daphne's Stupefy (nothing). He told her about Hermione's Incendio from behind, the troll turning, Hermione on the ground, the club rising.
He wrote about the Confringo. How he'd closed his eyes and found his core the way she'd taught him. How the magic had gathered at the wand tip. How the spell had crossed the corridor and struck the troll in the chest, and it had not gotten up.
He told her what it cost. The emptiness afterward. The grey at the edges of his vision. The legs that wouldn't hold. Daphne keeping him upright on the walk back to the dungeons.
He told her what the teachers said. McGonagall's face. Snape's limp. Dumbledore's unreadable expression. The line he'd overheard: "That was not a first-year spell."
He wrote four pages. His hand was cramped by the end. He read it over once, changed nothing, tied it to Galadriel's leg, and sent her into the dark.
Then he sat at his desk and stared at the wall and thought about a trapdoor under a three-headed dog.
The next evening, Harry found Daphne in the common room.
She was in her usual armchair by the fire, a book open in her lap. The common room was half empty; most students were in the library or the Great Hall. Theo was somewhere on the fourth floor, doing whatever Theo did when he disappeared for hours at a time, which Harry suspected involved mapping corridors and cataloguing architectural details.
Harry sat in the chair beside her.
"I wrote to Natasha," he said.
"About the troll?"
"Everything."
Daphne closed her book, keeping one finger between the pages to mark her place. "And?"
"And now I'm thinking about the dog."
She looked at him, sharp and attentive, the way she always was when Harry brought up the third floor.
"The trapdoor," she said.
"Whatever's under it. Whatever Quirrell was trying to get to on Halloween."
"We don't know for certain it was Quirrell."
"We know it was Quirrell."
Daphne considered that. Then she nodded, a small concession. "Fine. We know it was Quirrell. Which means he'll try again. The troll didn't get him past the dog, and Snape interrupted him before he could do more than look inside the room. He'll need another distraction, another opportunity."
"Which means whatever's down there is still safe. For now."
"For now," Daphne repeated. She set her book on the armrest. "The question is whether we want to find out what it is before he does."
Harry looked at her. "You want to go back."
"I want to know." Daphne's voice was careful. "There's a difference. I don't want to walk into a room with a three-headed dog again. But I want to understand what Dumbledore is hiding, why he's hiding it inside a school, and why Quirrell is willing to risk everything to get it."
"So how do we get past the dog?"
Daphne leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling, her fingers tapping the armrest in a slow rhythm. Harry had learned to recognise this. It was her thinking posture.
"The creature is a Cerberus," she said. "Greek origin. Mythological guardians. In every account I've read, they have a weakness. Orpheus used music to put the original Cerberus to sleep in the underworld. A lyre, if the stories are accurate."
"You want to play music for it."
"I'm saying it's a possibility. If the myth has a basis in magical fact, and most myths do, then the creature might respond to enchanted music. A charmed instrument. Something that produces a sustained, melodic sound."
"That's a lot of ifs."
"It is. Here's another option." She stopped tapping. "Sleeping Draught. Powerful enough to knock out something that size, administered through food. A whole side of beef laced with Draught of Living Death, dropped inside the room. The dog eats, the dog sleeps, we go through the trapdoor."
"Do you know how to brew the Draught of Living Death?"
"No. It's a N.E.W.T.-level potion. Way beyond anything I could manage."
"Third option." Daphne turned her head to look at him. "Distraction. One person opens the door and draws the dog's attention to one side of the room. The other person goes for the trapdoor on the other side. It's risky, it's stupid, and it relies on the dog being slower than the person distracting it, which, given that it has three heads and therefore three sets of jaws, is not a bet I'd want to make."
"None of those are great," Harry said.
"None of those are great," Daphne agreed. "They're suggestions, not plans. We don't have enough information. We don't know how intelligent the dog is, what enchantments are on it, whether music actually works or whether that's just a story. We need more research before we attempt anything."
Harry was quiet for a moment.
"I could kill it," he said.
Daphne went very still.
"The Confringo worked on a mountain troll," Harry continued. "Troll hide is one of the most resistant organic materials in the magical world. The dog is large, but its hide isn't as thick. A single, focused Confringo to the chest would put it down."
Daphne said nothing.
"We open the door. I cast the spell. The dog dies. We go through the trapdoor and find out what Quirrell is after."
The silence that followed was not comfortable.
Daphne turned in her chair to face him fully. She set her book on the floor. She folded her hands in her lap, and she looked at him, and the look on her face was something Harry had never seen from her before.
It wasn't anger. It wasn't fear. It was something between suspicion and sadness, as though she had just watched him take a step in a direction she didn't want to follow.
"Harry," she said, and her voice was quiet. "You're talking about killing a living creature."
"I've already killed one."
"That was different. The troll was attacking you. It was going to crush Hermione's skull. You had no choice."
"I'd have no choice here either. The dog is between us and the trapdoor."
"No." Daphne's voice sharpened. "The dog is between us and something we're curious about. That's not the same thing. The troll was life or death. This is investigation. And you're sitting here telling me your first instinct is to use the spell that killed a twelve-foot creature in one hit, as the solution to a problem we haven't even properly defined yet."
Harry looked at her. Her eyes were fixed on his face, and there was something in them that made his chest tighten. She wasn't angry with him. She was worried about him, and under the worry was something else, as if she had glimpsed a thing in him she needed to name before it grew.
"Natasha taught you that spell for emergencies, Harry. For life and death. Not for locked doors and guard dogs."
"It would work."
"I'm not saying it wouldn't work. I'm saying that if the first answer that comes to your mind for every obstacle is the spell that kills things, then something is wrong."
Harry opened his mouth. Then he closed it.
Because she was right. And he did know that.
"Okay," he said.
Daphne watched him.
"Okay," he said again. "You're right. We find another way past the dog. I won't kill it."
"Thank you."
"But if Quirrell gets to whatever's down there first, if people are in danger, if there's no other option..."
"Then you do what you have to do," Daphne said. "And I'll be standing behind you, the same way I was in that corridor."
Harry looked at her. Daphne Greengrass, who had defended Slytherin on a train before she'd ever worn the badge. Who had told Neville Longbottom to sit down before Harry could. Who had stood behind him while a troll swung a club at their heads and hadn't run.
She was keeping him honest. And he needed that more than he wanted to admit.
"Deal," he said.
Transfiguration on Wednesday morning started the way it always started: McGonagall standing at the front of the room, wand in hand, silence forming around her without being asked for.
"Today," she said, "we advance to the transformation of small metallic objects. You will be turning a brass button into a silver thimble. The principles are the same as your previous exercises: intent, visualisation, and a clear understanding of the target material."
She placed a brass button on each desk. Harry picked it up and turned it between his fingers. It was small. He set it down and looked at it.
Around him, the class began. Wands rose. Incantations murmured through the room. Most of the buttons trembled slightly. A few changed color at the edges. Hermione's, predictably, turned silver within the first three attempts, though it retained the shape of a button rather than becoming a thimble. Daphne's developed a silver sheen but kept its brass weight. Theo's didn't change at all, which he studied with the fascinated detachment of a scientist recording a failed experiment.
Harry raised his wand. He looked at the button and thought about what McGonagall had told him: his father's gift. Persuasion, not force. Understanding the nature of what you're changing and convincing it to become something else.
He visualized the thimble. Not just the shape, but the material. The density of silver. The tiny dimpled pattern on the outside.
He spoke the incantation. The button shivered, elongated, and reformed. When it settled, a silver thimble sat on his desk, imperfect but recognizable. The dimples were uneven and one side was slightly thicker than the other, but the material was correct.
McGonagall nodded as she passed. "Better, Mr. Potter. The material conversion is improving."
Harry picked up the thimble and looked at it. Silver, transformed from brass by his wand. He turned it over, examining the surface, thinking about the process. The way the magic had flowed from his core through the wand and into the object.
And then, without deciding to, he thought about something else.
He thought about seeing. Not with his eyes. With his magic. The way Natasha had taught him to sense his own core, to feel the warmth and the pulsing rhythm of his power. What if he could extend that outward? What if he could feel the magic in the things around him?
The thought wasn't from a textbook. It wasn't from a lesson. It came from the same place his Lumos had come from on day fifteen at Willowmere Hollow: from the training, the foundation, the hours of breathing and visualising and sensing that Natasha had drilled into him until the skills lived in his muscles.
Harry raised his wand. He didn't think about a specific incantation. He thought about intent. He wanted to see the truth of the object in front of him. Its real nature. What it was, beneath the transformation he'd imposed on it.
The words came to him the way the breathing pattern came to him now: automatically, from somewhere deep.
"Aspectus Verum."
A pulse of light left his wand. A soft, warm glow that washed over the thimble and then expanded outward in a gentle wave, passing over the desks around him, touching every object the light reached.
The thimble on his desk flickered. For a moment, Harry saw both things at once: the silver thimble on the surface, and beneath it, the brass button it had been, its original nature visible through the transformation. The two images overlapped, ghost and solid, truth and illusion.
Then the light faded, and the thimble was just a thimble again.
Harry stared at it.
The classroom had gone quiet.
McGonagall was standing three desks away, and she was looking at Harry with an expression he had never seen on her face before.
"Mr. Potter," she said, and her voice was very controlled. "What did you just cast?"
"I'm not sure," Harry said honestly. "I was thinking about the transformation. About what the thimble really was underneath. And the spell just... came."
"Aspectus Verum," McGonagall said. The words left her mouth with precision. She turned to the class. "What Mr. Potter has just performed, apparently without instruction, is a spell called Aspectus Verum. The True Sight Charm. It is not on your curriculum. It is not on anyone's curriculum below fifth year, and even then, it is taught only in advanced Transfiguration theory."
"Aspectus Verum reveals the true nature of transfigured objects," McGonagall continued. "When cast on something that has been transformed, it strips away the magical alteration and shows the caster what the object originally was. It is used by Ministry officials to detect illegal transfigurations, by Aurors to identify disguised objects in criminal investigations, and by Transfiguration Masters to assess the depth and stability of advanced transformations."
She looked at Harry. Her eyes were sharp behind her spectacles.
"I didn't know it was a real spell," Harry said. "I just thought about wanting to see the truth of the object, and the words came."
"The words came," McGonagall repeated. She looked at him for a long moment, and Harry could see the wheels turning behind her expression, the concern.
"Five points to Slytherin," she said. "For an exceptional demonstration of magical intuition. However, Mr. Potter, I would advise you not to make a habit of casting spells you don't fully understand. Intuition is a gift. Undirected intuition is a hazard."
"Yes, Professor."
McGonagall returned to the front of the room and resumed the lesson. But twice more during the hour, Harry caught her looking at him with that same unsettled expression, and he knew she was thinking about what she'd seen, and about who had taught him the foundations that made it possible.
The lesson ended. Students filed out. McGonagall did not ask Harry to stay behind this time, but the look she gave him as he passed her desk said more than words could.
Harry walked into the corridor and found Daphne waiting.
"Aspectus Verum," she said.
"I didn't plan it," Harry said.
"That's what makes it interesting." She fell into step beside him. "You're developing spells instinctively, Harry. That's not normal."
"I know."
"It's also not a problem yet. But it will be, if the wrong people start paying attention."
Harry said nothing. He filed it away, the way he filed everything away.
Two days later, Galadriel arrived at breakfast with a letter tied to her leg. She landed on the table beside Harry's plate, knocked over his pumpkin juice, and fixed him with an amber glare that clearly communicated this was his fault for not having a more convenient delivery surface.
Harry untied the letter, gave Galadriel a strip of bacon (which she accepted with the air of a queen receiving tribute), and opened the envelope.
Harry,
I received your letter. You did what you had to do. Don't second-guess it. The Confringo performed exactly as trained, and the fact that you maintained control under that kind of pressure tells me the foundation work is holding. Your core will recover. Eat more protein and sleep properly.
Now. The other matter.
Don't bother with Quirrell anymore. I'll handle it from here. I have contacts who owe me favors, and I intend to collect. I'll find out everything there is to know about him: where he's been, who he's talked to, what he was doing before he came to Hogwarts, and what he's really after. You focus on your classes and on staying alive, in that order.
Do not go to the third floor again. Do not confront Quirrell. Do not do anything that draws attention to what you know. Watch, but don't act. I mean it, Harry.
I'll write when I have something.
Natasha
P.S. Your Transfiguration essay was good. McGonagall mentioned it in a letter to Dumbledore, which tells me she's paying attention to you. That's useful. Keep impressing her.
Harry read the letter, folded it, and put it in his pocket. He looked at Daphne, who was sitting across from him, watching him with the patient expectation of someone who knew she was about to be told something.
"Natasha's handling Quirrell," Harry said quietly. "She's going to find out who he really is."
"Good," Daphne said. "She's better positioned for that than we are."
"She also told me not to go to the third floor again."
"Sensible."
"Which means we need another way to get information."
Daphne set down her fork. "About what's under the trapdoor?"
"About the dog. Who put it there? When. Why. If we know who placed the dog, we know who Dumbledore trusted with the security, and that tells us something about what's being protected."
Daphne looked at him. Then her eyes moved, tracking across the Great Hall, past the student tables, past the staff table, up to the walls. To the paintings.
"The portraits," she said.
Witches and wizards in gilded frames, moving, talking, sleeping, visiting each other's paintings. They had been hanging in these corridors for centuries. They saw everything. They heard everything.
"They were there when the dog was brought in," Harry said.
"They were there before the students arrived. Whatever happened on the third floor before term started, the portraits on that corridor would have seen it."
"Daphne, that's brilliant."
"I know, we should ask Theo. He's mapped every portrait on the third floor."
They found Theo in the common room after lunch.
"The portraits on the third floor," Harry said without preamble. "Do you know which ones have a view of the dog's door?"
Theo looked up. His grey eyes brightened with the specific intensity of a person whose obsessive knowledge was finally being put to use.
"Three, I think im not 100% sure, didnt paid to much attention here, even that im detailist u can't wait that i know everything, why?" he said.
"We need to talk to them," Daphne said. "Find out who brought the dog in and when."
"Tonight," Harry said. "After dinner. The corridor should be empty."
"There's a knight in a large frame at the near end of the corridor, about twenty feet from the door. There's a woman in a pastoral scene directly opposite the door, close enough to see anyone who enters. For the third one I don't remember but we can go and check." Theo said.
The knight was a bust.
He was a tall, barrel-chested figure in plate armour with a magnificent moustache and a sword that he kept waving at them while speaking in a booming voice that echoed down the corridor.
"I SAW NOTHING!" he declared, his mustache quivering with indignation. "I am Sir Cadogan, knight of the Round Table, defender of the realm, and I do not engage in common gossip! If you wish to know what transpires in this corridor, I suggest you ask the headmaster! Or better yet, challenge the beast to single combat! I would, if I could leave this frame!"
"Thank you," Daphne said flatly. "You've been incredibly helpful."
"YOU ARE MOST WELCOME, YOUNG MAIDEN!"
They moved on.
The woman in the pastoral scene was worse. She was elderly, sitting in a garden beneath a parasol, and she refused to acknowledge their existence. Harry tried three times. Daphne tried twice. The woman continued arranging flowers in a vase and humming to herself as though the corridor outside her frame was completely empty.
"She's ignoring us," Theo observed.
"She's been ignoring us for five minutes," Harry said.
"Some portraits choose not to interact with students," Daphne said. "It's their right. We can't force her."
"We can ask nicely one more time," Harry said.
"I've been asking nicely. She's been arranging flowers. I think we've reached an impasse."
They moved to the third portrait.
It was a thin gentleman in the dark frame who was different from the others. He was pale, with sharp features and dark eyes, and he wore robes that looked several centuries old. The frame around him was narrow, scratched, and wedged into an alcove near the staircase where the torchlight barely reached.
The man was watching them approach. His dark eyes tracked their movement with the quiet attention of someone who had been waiting for a conversation for a very long time.
"Good evening," Harry said.
"Is it?" the portrait replied. His voice was thin and dry. "I wouldn't know. I've been in this alcove for forty-seven years, and the light hasn't changed once."
"That sounds terrible," Daphne said.
"It is terrible. I was a professor of Arithmancy. I published four treatises on numerical enchantment theory. I advised three Ministers of Magic. And they hung me in an alcove where the only thing I can see is a staircase and a stretch of wall."
"That's not right," Harry said, and he meant it. "You deserve better than this."
The portrait looked at him with an expression of careful assessment. "You're Harry Potter."
"Yes."
"I heard the Sorting Hat put you in Slytherin. Interesting choice."
"The hat seemed to think so."
The portrait studied him. Then he studied Daphne. Then Theo, who was standing slightly behind them with his hands in his pockets and his usual expression of quiet observation.
"You want to ask me something," the portrait said. "About the door at the end of the corridor."
"Yes," Harry said. "We want to know who brought the creature in. The dog with three heads."
"I know what's behind that door. I've heard it growling for months. The whole corridor rattles when it moves." The portrait paused. "And I know who put it there."
"Will you tell us?" Daphne asked.
The portrait was quiet for a long moment. His dark eyes moved from Harry to the corridor, to the dim alcove, to the scratched frame, to the forgotten wall where he had been hanging for nearly half a century.
"I'll tell you," he said, "if you do something for me."
"What?" Harry asked.
"Move me." The portrait's voice carried a weight that surprised Harry. "Take me out of this alcove and hang me somewhere I can see something. A corridor with sunlight. A room where people talk and laugh and argue about things that don't matter. I don't care where. Anywhere but here. Forty-seven years of staring at a wall is enough."
Harry looked at Daphne. Daphne looked at Theo.
"Can we move a portrait?" Harry asked.
"Physically, yes," Theo said. "The frames are hung on hooks. They're heavy, but three of us could manage it. The question is whether we're allowed to."
"Nobody told us we couldn't," Daphne said. "And Dumbledore said the third-floor corridor is forbidden. He didn't say anything about rearranging the artwork."
"That's a stretch," Theo said.
"It's Slytherin logic," Daphne said. "It's exactly a stretch."
Harry turned back to the portrait. "Where do you want to go?"
The portrait's expression changed. Hope, guarded but real. "There's a spot on the second floor, near the Charms corridor. A wide wall between two windows. I've seen it from another painting. It gets morning light."
"Done," Harry said.
They lifted the portrait off its hook. It was heavier than expected, the frame thick and old, and for a moment Harry thought the noise would bring Filch running. But the corridor was empty, and they carried the painting down the staircase, along the second floor, and found the wall the portrait had described. Two tall windows. Morning light (though it was evening now, the position was right). A wide stretch of clean stone between them.
They hung the portrait, and the thin gentleman settled into his new frame with the slow, grateful sigh of someone who had been holding his breath for forty-seven years.
"Better?" Harry asked.
"You have no idea." The portrait looked at the windows, at the corridor, at the open space. Then he looked back at Harry. "The dog was brought in by Rubeus Hagrid. The gamekeeper. He carried it up the stairs himself. It was just a puppy, if you can believe that. He had it in a wooden crate the size of a wardrobe, and it was already too big for the crate. Three heads, each one trying to lick his face through the slats."
"When?" Daphne asked.
"Two weeks before the start of term. Late August. Hagrid brought it up the main staircase, through the third-floor corridor, and into the room. I heard him talking to it the whole way. Calling it something. A name."
"What name?" Theo asked.
"Fluffy."
The three of them stared at the portrait.
"Fluffy," Daphne repeated.
"Fluffy," the portrait confirmed. "I wish I were joking."
Harry absorbed this. Hagrid. The gamekeeper. The half-giant who had shaken Harry's hand on the platform, who had carried him out of a ruined house as a baby, who had tears in his eyes when he said Harry's name. Hagrid had brought the three-headed dog into the castle. Which meant Hagrid knew what it was guarding, and what was under the trapdoor.
"Thank you," Harry said to the portrait. "What's your name?"
"Professor Aldric Pemberton. Arithmancy, 1923 to 1961."
"Thank you, Professor Pemberton. We'll visit you."
"I'd like that." The portrait settled back in his chair, and for the first time, his expression held something other than bitterness. "The light really is better here."
They walked back to the dungeons in silence, each of them turning the information over.
"Hagrid trusts people," Harry said as they entered the common room. "He's kind. He's open. He won't suspect us of anything if we're careful."
"You want to visit him," Daphne said.
"I want to have tea with him. Ask about his job. Talk about magical creatures. Let the conversation go where it goes." Harry paused. "Natasha taught me that the best way to get information from someone who trusts you is to let them give it to you. Don't push. Don't probe. Just be present, and eventually, people tell you what they know."
"That's manipulative," Theo said.
"That's intelligence gathering," Harry corrected. "There's a difference."
"The difference is the tie you're wearing when you do it," Daphne said dryly.
"We visit Hagrid," Harry said. "This week. We bring something. A gift. Something he'd like. And we have a conversation. A real one, not an interrogation."
"What kind of gift?" Theo asked.
"He likes animals," Harry said. "He carried a three-headed dog up three flights of stairs and called it Fluffy. Get him something related to magical creatures."
"I have a copy of Newt Scamander's field journal," Theo said. "First edition. My father gave it to me, and I've never read it because I don't care about magical creatures."
"Perfect."
"That book is worth twelve Galleons."
"Then it's a very generous gift."
Theo looked at him. Then he sighed. "Fine. But if Hagrid cries on it, you're buying me a replacement."
"Deal."
They split up for the night. Harry lay in his bed, staring at the green ceiling, his mind working through the pieces.
Hagrid brought the dog. Dumbledore ordered it. Something was under the trapdoor, something valuable enough to guard with a Cerberus and a death threat. Quirrell wanted it. Natasha was investigating Quirrell. McGonagall was watching Harry. Snape was watching everyone.
And somewhere in all of these moving pieces, there was an answer. A thread that connected them all. Harry couldn't see it yet. But he could feel it, waiting to be found.
But not now. Christmas was three days away, and Natasha was waiting at Willowmere Hollow, and whatever secrets Hogwarts was keeping behind its locked doors and three-headed dogs would still be here when he got back. The castle had stood for a thousand years. It could hold its mysteries for three more weeks.
The Slytherin common room was half empty by the time Harry came downstairs with his trunk. Most students had left the day before.
Daphne was waiting by the entrance, her own trunk packed and standing upright beside her. She was wearing a dark traveling cloak over her robes, her blonde hair pinned back, and she looked, as always, like someone who had been ready for twenty minutes and was simply waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.
Theo stood beside her, hands in his pockets, no trunk. He was staying at Hogwarts for Christmas. He hadn't said why, and Harry hadn't asked, because Theo's silences about his family were the kind you respected.
"Three weeks," Daphne said. "Try not to kill anything while I'm gone."
"No promises," Harry said.
She almost smiled. "Write to me. If anything happens with the Quirrell situation, I want to know."
"I will."
Daphne extended her hand. Harry shook it, and her grip was firm and deliberate, the same way it had been on the train the first day.
"Happy Christmas, Harry."
"Happy Christmas, Daphne."
She picked up her trunk and walked toward the exit without looking back. Daphne never looked back. It was one of the things Harry liked about her.
Harry turned to Theo.
"Keep an eye on the third floor," Harry said.
"Obviously."
"And don't go inside."
"Obviously."
"Happy Christmas, Theo."
"Happy Christmas, Harry. Give my regards to your terrifying aunt."
Harry picked up his trunk and left the dungeons.
The Hogwarts Express carried him south through grey December countryside, and by late afternoon he was standing on the cobblestone path at Willowmere Hollow, breathing in the smell of home.
Coffee. Leather. The herbal scent he'd never identified. The fire crackling in the main room.
Natasha appeared from the kitchen, mug in hand, red hair loose. She looked at him the way she always did: quick, thorough, reading everything.
"You've grown," she said.
"Half an inch."
"Your shoulders are wider."
"I've been running. Every morning."
Something crossed her face. Satisfaction, kept behind her teeth.
"Good. Come eat."
They ate stew. Three bowls. Galadriel settled on her perch by the kitchen window and watched them with amber disapproval, as though two months of Hogwarts owlery food had been a personal insult.
When Harry set his spoon down, Natasha spoke.
"Before you go back for second term, we're taking a trip."
"Where?"
"Eastern Europe. There's a circuit. Underground, invitation only. Moves between cities to avoid the authorities."
"A circuit of what?"
"Duelling. Not the school version where you bow and wait for a count. Real duelling. Unrestricted magic. No rules except don't kill your opponent, and even that one is loosely enforced."
Harry stared at her.
"The fighters are experienced," Natasha continued. "Former Aurors. People the Ministry would rather not know about. The magic is advanced, dangerous, and creative in ways that formal education doesn't teach."
"And you want me to watch."
"I want you to watch." She paused. "And if you're ready, I want you to fight."
"I'm eleven."
"I know how old you are."
"And you want me to duel in an illegal fighting ring."
"There's a junior bracket. Fourteen and under. The opponents are teenagers from families who train privately. Seriously. Outside the system."
"Is it legal?"
"No."
"Is it safe?"
"No."
"And you're taking me anyway."
"Because the troll won't be the last thing that tries to kill you. And when the next one comes, I want you to have fought something that thinks. Something that adapts. Not a creature that swings a club. A real opponent."
Harry looked at her. The woman who had taught him everything. Who would never be finished teaching him.
"When do we leave?"
Natasha smiled. The real kind.
"Boxing Day. Pack light."
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