Chapter Text
“Y— you, YOU!” Words of foul nature threatened to spill from Hegemonia's lips as she pointed her wand right over Nebula's heart, but Flitwick was between them while examining Nebula's injured arm. Hegemonia hit him with quite the nasty hex, his hand went red and sizzled, the surface of his remaining skin charred black or bloody. Despite this, Nebula made no sounds or any indication that he felt pain.
Flitwick pointed his wand to the hand and muttered some spells hastily, stopping the sizzling and the hex from spreading. As he was doing so, he rebuked Hegemonia heavily, gave her a week of detention and docked 10 points and threatened to deduct more.
And while all of this was happening, Nebula — when everyone was too mortified to look — cracked a sly smile, one only Hegemonia, Richard and a small group of Gryffindors saw.
Fred said, “Wicked bastard…”
George added, “Absolute gremlin…”
Lee Jordan also insulted simultaneously, “Disgusting prick.”
Richard muttered, “What did I expect? Of course he did…”
Hegemonia's rage was so obvious that it affected everyone in the room, sweat formed on Richard’s forehead and he quickly wiped it off.
The professor brought Nebula to the hospital wing and Hegemonia bitterly returned to her seat, swearing under her breath, she glanced at Nebula's desk with revenge glossing over her eyes, but thought better of it and just stared darkly at the pile of books Flitwick always stood on. Whispers followed her, spiraling round the room, comments from both Gryffindors and Slytherins plagued her ears.
Richard, Fred, George and Lee became good friends when their interests aligned. All reckless and seeking fun. But seeing his good friends walking to Hegemonia just barely containing an explosion, he quickly stopped them, afterall, he had experience being at the end of receiving War’s wrath. Unfortunately, they didn't listen.
“Don’t be like that, Ricky.” Fred brushed him off, “Missy, over there needs to know that...”
George nodded and continued, “We’ve got her back and that we'll get him back for her.”
“Ay, save some trouble for me too.” Lee nudged them.
“Can’t even prove she casted anything, can he? She didn't even say anything, just pointed her wand at him.” Fred waved his wand aimlessly to prove his point.
Richard argued back. “A red beam literally came from her wand— oh.”
All of them collectively realized. “Wait… now we've really got to ask.” all turning to the lone girl, fury seeping out her form.
Fred and George went and plopped down at either side of Hegemonia, looking quite devious with their mischievous smirks. “Allo, dear very lovely Hegemonia.”
George asked lightly. “Mind if we call you ‘Monia? Hegemonia is cool as heck but also a mouthful, plus aren't we friends?” They received no reply but took it as a yes.
Fred asked, “So, when did ya learn non-verbal?”
“...” Hegemonia completely ignored them.
Greoge nodded encouragingly. “Hm, interesting answer.”
“I don't think I've ever met someone who casted a non-verbal spell at 11, and that was a pretty good hex.”
“Yeah, you should teach it to us.”
“C’mon, help your boys out, I also wanna burn people. What's the incantation?”
Hegemonia exhaled sharply and replied “I don't fucking know.”
The twins exchanged another look and eyed her with a bizarre expression of confusion and disbelief, so she clarified.
“I just really, really, really wanted to burn him. I didn't think I'd actually shot a spell, the thing is, that bastard saw it in time. He could've deflected or even dodged it…” she gripped her table “But noooooo, he wanted to get me in trouble.”
“...Really?” Fred and George gave her comical looks, then George cleared his throat and said. “One, you're really impressive. And two, how do you know he could deflect spells? That’s kinda hard to do, you know.”
“You don't know him like I do, he's just like that.” At that statement, the twins went completely silent and raised both eyebrows, unsure what to think.
“Hm, alright, if you say so.” Lee shrugged but suggested “Wouldn’t hurt if we just… did something about it.” The trio synced with a plan and assured Hegemonia of its completion. Hegemonia just waved them away.
A faux whisper hit her ear from a Slytherin girl across the room, a awfully loud comment in a poorly illusioned pretend whisper, she undoubtedly wanted Hegemonia to hear her. “Can’t even cast a charm properly, heck, probably doesn't even know what ‘minding your own business’ is.
“Poor guy barely even did anything and she hexed him, how barbaric. How’s that supposed to be someone's future spouse with that temper?”
Hegemonia glared at her from her seat, Richard watched her fumed, his instincts weren't as sharp as Hegemonia's but… he felt something was about to go wrong.
“Huah! Ahhhhh!!!!”
“Ahhhhhhhh, stop it! STOP IT!!”
The Slytherin girl's hair caught on fire, she screeched out in fear her friends tried to fan it. It only grew bigger and flicks of flames spread to her books, the pages curling into ash as the blaze devoured it slowly. Her friends backed away, scared of the extending fire even as she cried for help.
Fortunately, Flitwick arrived at the disorganized havoc in the guise of a room. He stared quietly in a moment of disbelief, but quickly extinguished everything and ensured everyone’s safety. Then he turned to Hegemonia, stationed at her seat without a hint of remorse. “I didn't do anything.”
And the Gryffindors backed her up. “Yeah, Hegemonia didn't do anything.”
“Right?! And she was the one being offensive, professor.” Alicia Spinnet pointed at the Slytherin girl with her long dark hair burned at the ends, crumbling in her hand as she touched them. Small red patches had formed on her fingers from trying to put the flame out, cradling her ruined hair, she whined uncontrollably.
The teacher dismissed everyone early while he brought the girl to the hospital wing as she wept. Not even deducting points even when he clearly knew it had something to do with Hegemonia.
Outside the door stood Nebula, his hand in bandages but absolutely fine otherwise. Richard followed behind Hegemonia as she walked, she bluntly remarked Nebula. “What you looking at? Want another burn?”
“No,” He replied curtly. “I just expected you to do more than just burn someone's hair, you're pettier than that.”
“Rude. And what's up with you today, don't feel like malingering about?”
“— And miss the chance to infuriate you? Are you right in the head?” She shot him a dirty look but passed him without incident, Nebula followed, disregarding the warning signs.
Richard maintained a good distance from them, grimacing as he thought. ‘Nebula, you are the bravest person I know, please let her hate you so she doesn't have the time to hate me.’ He learnt his lesson, whoever dared to step into her territory was inviting War with open arms, and he wasn't one that could handle it.
Fred, George and Lee came up behind him and asked. “What's wrong with that guy?”
Richard wished he knew as he shrugged. Walking with his new found friends to the greenhouse.
In the green house, he kept an eye on her, even when he knew he was powerless to stop her from doing anything. She did inflame a mushroom when Nebula indirectly called her one, he also called it cute but his tone didn't imply so — not that Hegemonia would react well to being labeled as ‘Cute’ either way. The herbology professor told her off and took points but this time Nebula also got in trouble. It didn't stop Hegemonia from raging out of the greenhouse though.
Richard didn't see her in the next class, not at lunch — he did spot Nebula hanging off Eldar's arm like a clingy cat — nor at the last class of the day. Only during dinner did he see her again.
“Where the heck did you go?”
“None of your business, shut your mouth.” Her answer was what he expected. When Nebula poked his head over and asked, she smacked him but gave a curt answer. "Dumbledore's office, now leave me alone.”
Nebula watched her for a while then turned away at her request.
“Hm.” Wisdom walked across rows and rows of books, finally picking out a book; History of Potion craft.
‘This would be useful for the homework…’ he tucked it in his arms as he continued scouring. At least, till he heard a faint foot step, he turned and faced whom he was waiting for. “Hello, Professor Vellichor, but I guess it would be more accurate to say professor emeritus, right…” Wisdom faced the handsome elder man fully. “...Jerome?”
“Not wrong, Wisdom.” Jerome nodded, formerly a Defense against the dark arts professor, but willingly gave the position after a year of teaching, accepting the secondary librarian position because he wanted to look after his grandson newly accepted in the school, Eldar Vellichor.
Or at least it was framed to be viewed so, the Hall was merely introducing its members to infiltrate Hogwarts slowly. The most introduced at once was this year with 8 members, 7 posing as students and one acting as a professor.
The year before there was only one, HumanTracker, as a professor who somehow mysteriously disappeared after the year. But the year before that there were 3, Tael as a professor while Noah and Damien were students.
“Finding mistakes in Wisdom is practically impossible.” Nebula said, stepping from behind the shelf.
“But you do occasionally find my methods lacking.” Wisdom replied and Nebula nodded.
“Anyways, I'm sure you don't have the time to dilly-dally so let's finish this up.” They both looked at Jerome. He simply said, “I’m sure you'll find something at the top shelves, you have potions homework, right? It should be here somewhere.”
“Right, thank you, Mister.” And Jerome left. Wisdom's and Nebula's head snapped to the top shelves, looking around in that area, and it wasn't too hard to find. Both of them reached for a book with a different magic signature, imperceptible to those that are residents of this world.
Slipping information in the castle wasn't hard, but they still needed to be careful, thus they chose this method.
In the book there was a slip of paper that wrote;
Causality is behaving abnormally, reason is unknown, calculations are flawed, causal expenditure is lower than predicted by 15% and is increasing exponentially. Further information is being gathered.
-H.T
‘How interesting… there were times that we expended more than estimated, but rarely less... Does that mean we are facing a being closer to our origin? Capable of similar strength?’
Not only were the calculations they made inaccurate, but with a 15 percent difference, that was extremely unusual. Thinking about it made his head ache, it was a while since that happened, but it was also a while since his shoulder held an actual head so things like these were bound to happen. Not to mention the slower mind of a human, unconventional but he trusted the others would handle things well enough.
‘Now, time to do my essay.’ He might not have to rack his head about causal relationships but still needed to write his homework.