Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bluma Schulz was not a nice woman. She wasn’t able to instil fear into the hearts of those that dared to cross her without becoming vicious, but it was not her viciousness that was special, she was a witch. Not a very kind witch, in fact a very dark witch, but a witch nonetheless. However, one thing that was kept secret, was that she was dying. No healer, mediwitch or doctor was able to cure her illness, and in a few weeks she would be dead anyways.

Determined not to let a silly condition such as death stop her, Bluma sought out a unique form of immortality. While most methods of immortality either kept the body healthy, or transformed the wizard into a hateful and slightly insane wraith (like the insane dark wraith she encountered in Egypt while robbing a tomb), there were yet no methods to transfer the consciousness into another body. Theoretically though, the transfer of consciousness should have been easier, as there were some analogous rituals transferring skills or curses. But first, she needed to find a young body.

Bluma grimaced as she trudged invisibly through another alley. Little whining was really a boring place. Every house looked exactly the same, every blade of grass in the correct position. Truly, there was nothing unique about any house on the block. Really, it would have been more fun to sneak into the wizarding school to kidnap someone, but the possibility of being capture was too great. Living as a wanted criminal wasn’t very easy.

Her musings were brought short when some chubby kids raced after a twig, going into a dead alleyway. No, not a twig, a poor kid, she noticed. Well, he was probably caught, no big deal. However, just as she was about to leave, a familiar POP sounded inside the alley.
Her heart racing, Bluma quickly started weaving protective wards with her wand, sure that the aurors must have found her. It would surely mean imprisonment for her. She became confused when no-one came out. Maybe it was an ambush?

Wand out, ready to kill, Bluma set out, peering into the alleyway. The kids were clustered looking for the kid, which was nowhere to be seen. Bluma felt her hopes get up. Maybe it was a muggleborn doing accidental magic? Muggleborns were the perfect candidates for her ritual, as no-one important would miss them. In the corner of her vision, she saw a flicker, and saw that the little kid was on the roof, looking terrified. Perfect

Apparating to the roof, she surprised the kid with a muffled POP sound, who then whirled around in fear, and then confusion seeing her on the roof.
“Hello, little kid. What’s your name” she asked while slowly walking forwards, as to not alarm him. It would have been easier to just kidnap him, but another burst of accidental magic might alert the aurors to their location.
“Um, Harry, ma’am?” “How did we end up here?”

Poor boy, clearly terrified, with a scar on his forehead. “Well, come with me and I will explain everything to you” Bluma demanded him.
“But, Ma’am how are we gonna get down?”
“Well, probably the same we came up. Hold my hand” Bluma asked in the sweetest voice possible. She wasn’t very good with kids.
Bluma apparated the moment the twig – harry touched her arm, to her secret safe-house near London. She waited patiently as harry wheezed while trying to catch his breath. Only then he noticed that they weren’t in the same place as they left, in fact, he didn’t recognise the place at all. Harry saw a flicker of red and then everything went black.

Bluma sighed in relief as the body went limp. One thing less to worry about, as rituals were particularly dangerous to external factors and a child running around screaming would definitely cause issues. There was already much research done into transferring magic and skills, although it was clear that magic could not be transferred, otherwise all the purebloods would have killed all the muggle-borns. Basing off that research, it was slightly easier to construct a consciousness-transferring ritual, and used some exotic materials, which were thankfully easier to procure in the muggle world. Bluma spent nearly a week getting the materials and imperiusing muggles, and stunning the boy when he would be close to waking.

The ritual room was the remodelled basement, with three big intersecting circles of runes covering almost the whole floor, and two smaller circles in the middle of all three. Bluma carried the boy into one of the smaller circles, careful not to disturb the runes. Standing in the second small circle, bluma used a pure iron knife to cut across her palms, and smear her blood on top of harry’s face, who still remained unconscious.

“mens mea ad mentem”
“meae cogitationes vestrae”

“mens mea ad mentem”
“meae cogitationes vestrae”

“mens mea ad mentem”
“meae cogitationes vestrae” - she intoned, and then slit her throat with one hand, her other on the boy’s head.
Then, an excruciating pain started and saw a bit of black liquid, before she fell unconscious.

*NOTE:

see if you can guess from where “mens mea ad mentem”,“meae cogitationes vestrae” comes from.

*HINT:

try translating it into English

Waking up in a new body is a unique experience. The chronic pain that plagued her was gone, at least that was a plus. Her, or now his, eyelids felt like cement, but she managed to open them, only to start blinking when everything seemed blurry. Everything felt bigger, and her limbs were of different lengths. Bluma barely managed to stand up before she fell again. Ugh, it would take a lot of time getting used to the new body, but now she had a strange new feeling of pure joyfulness and proudness of her accomplishment. The ritual worked perfectly.

Bluma started working on her occlumency to pass the time, and frowned in confusion, as there were some disjointed memories. That was probably from the kid, she mused, and set to work cataloguing and storing her new memories.

After a couple of hours of sorting through the few new memories, Bluma felt ready to start exploring her new body. Moving a finger after another, she slowly felt herself acclimatising to the new body. Ready to grab her old wand, she reached across to grab it, and fell flat on her face. The body had different weight distribution as well.

It took a week before Bluma felt confident in the new body to walk and run and do things manually. In that time, she absorbed some few memories. Luckily it was the holidays, and the school wouldn’t notice her absence. Her relatives would be easy to fix with an obliviate. Her wand response also felt ‘off’, and while she could do magic, the wand developed a ‘resistance’ to her. She would need to get a new wand soon (unmonitored and untraceable). Her new body was apparently had quite strong magic, much more than when she had been little, and was probably an average of her and his magics.
Apparently the new body was called “harry potter” (what a weird name, in her opinion, the only real names were German) and lived in 4 privet drive.

Deciding to return temporarily to his home, Bluma stepped out of her warded apartment and took a vaguely familiar route to her new home. She just crossed the street block when her hairs on her neck stood up. Wards. Did the aurors find her? Bluma ran and hid in the bushes. Taking out her old wand, she muttered some diagnostics at the wards. There were some alarms triggered by wizards coming in, anti-scrying charms, and a very powerful blood ward covering the entire block, tied to....her?

Blood wards were very powerful magics, and tricky to install. This meant she was not an ordinary muggle-born. Damn, and here go the hopes of going unnoticed. This meant that people would be looking for her if she disappeared. However, there was something off about the blood wards. They shouldn’t be covering the entire block, and it clearly showed with their weakness. Fortunately, Bluma was a master in dark magic, and especially blood magic, and no-one turned down a free blood-ward.

Bluma waved her wand and conjured a silver knife. She then cut her palms, letting the blood flow freely, muttered some incantations and then clasped her hands to her heart. The ground shook for a moment beneath her before she felt the blood ward coming into her and closing around her. She felt a huge pain and scream from her scar before she blacked out.

She woke a couple of minutes later. Her head hurt, but strangely she now felt no pain from her scar. She whipped out her wand and muttered a diagnostic at her scar, which now appeared less inflamed. Residuals of dark magic? Why would a scar contain so much dark magic? It had contained roughly the same darkness as a fellow necromancer she once met.

She memorised her readings in case she needed them again, before continuing. She now could feel the blood wards close to her. They were so powerful that she suspected some ritual and willing sacrifice, which now protected her against all threats. But why didn’t they work against me when I transferred my consciousness, and why did they only now destroy the dark magic in my scar? -she thought. Maybe the wards didn’t consider a transfer of consciousness any harm and therefore allowed it? Doubtful, but it was the most likely explanation.

In an office in Scottland, a puffing machine changed the colour of the smoke, and increased the readings of protection. Albus Dumbledore looked in confusion at the device. The smoke shouldn’t change colour, but the protection still held, even better than before. Just to be cautious, he would tell his friend Arabella Figgs to check up on the little boy, and see if she noticed something suspicious.

Bluma walked calmly to her home. She didn’t understand the little bit of fear the boy had of his relatives. She would just petrify them and obliviate them. Much easier to deal with them this way rather than draw suspicion onto her. The door magically opened with a non-verbal unlocking charm, and she stared into the beady eyes of her ‘uncle’ before she confunded him inside.
“Vernon, who’s at the door?” she heard her ‘aunt’ ask, before seeing her, her face becoming filled with fury and a bit of fear.
Nonetheless, Bluma petrified them both, before going upstairs to Dudley’s second bedroom. Surely no-one would miss the bedroom, especially after a couple of notice-me-not wards. Transfiguring some junk into a normal bed, and vanishing the rest. She transfigured a bit of junk into a toilet, shower and sink and walls surrounding it. She never did have much valuables and was taught to value simplicity by her parents. Any money she earned from her jobs would go toward buying books, as she was first and foremost an academic.

Using her silver knife she drew some runes of protection, alarm, and unnotice on the door and walls, before powering them by cutting her finger and smearing some blood on them. While she could charge the runes using her wand, they would not last a long time and would have to be recharged, while blood magic was very powerful in that regards. After finishing them, she obliviated her uncle, aunt and cousin, making them believe that they were paid handsomely for her care (duplication charms on pounds) and was taken away.

Using her blood reminded her that she would have to apply all her personal wards again: wards against using her blood and any other body parts in rituals, wards against using her signature etc. She would need to conduct a couple of rituals for that. Another problem was her body. Specifically, it was male, and while Bluma didn’t have anything against males, she lived her whole life as female, and was used to it. Unfortunately the ritual was a sacrificial kind, and she had to buy some cats to later kill. Additionally, her eyesight was really poor, but there was nothing that could be done. Those rituals didn’t exist.
Luckily, she had time before she had to attend muggle school. Maybe she could get moved up a couple of grades?

The rituals (all except the gender swap) were very simple to make, but were extremely time-consuming. A circle would need to be filled with tiny runes for just one ritual, meticulously drawn by hand for each ritual. It took days of gruelling work drawing each rune, one by one, for her rituals. The rituals themselves were really easy. Power the runes (this time without using blood, as it would contaminate them), and sit inside the circle for a long while.

Chapter Text

She finished just a couple of days before school started. As the school didn’t know of her new status, she engraved a ring with appearance altering illusions to look exactly the same. She asked to speak to some teachers, and confounded them into thinking she was a prodigy and that her uncle and aunt approved. She managed to make the teachers transfer her from 4th grade into 7th grade, where she once again, studied the whole course content rigorously for a couple of weeks non-stop.

Even if it was not magic, knowledge was still knowledge, and some mathematical methods were really worth learning. However, it was in a science lab that she found her passion.
Chemistry and Physics were just as fun as spell creation and magical theory. She didn’t know how so many missed out on this opportunity. She head was now filled with applications of her muggle knowledge in magic.

Unable to make gold? Bombard smaller atoms with super-accellerated protons, while shielding from the intense radiation. Unable to see through invisibility cloaks? Try the infrared spectrum or use lasers. Not know about magical theory? Find analogies in other types of energy.

The teachers were really impressed with her dedication and commitment that they once again bumped up her grades. It wasn’t really fair, as she was an adult and could concentrate better, with the added benefit of having a kid’s brain, with something called ‘neuroplasticity’. (she only recently started studying the brain). Studying the eye, she came across a novel muggle method of treating myopia. The muggles used some lasers to try to correct the shape of the lens, but having magic, she was able to design a needle that would enter her lens and adjust it magically.

She waited until the weekend to try it, and spent the next two days crying as a terrible itchiness spread across her eyes. She had to miss a couple of days of school by being sick, but when the itchiness stopped, she found that she could see much clearly.

Halfway through her body’s 10th birthday she found out the new and exciting field of quantum mechanics. There was so much that even muggles didn’t understand, and everything could relate back to some theories of magic. This is when she decided that she would become a particle physicist and no one would stop her. She was so focused in studying that she forgot all about the magic school, and it was a huge surprise to find a letter on her desk, addressed to Harry Potter.

The school was apparently named Hogwarts? What a weird name, but unfortunately it was necessary for her to go there. Her blood wards were hitting a new level of protection every day, due to her feeding it her magic all the time. For witches and wizards, it was important to use their magic actively, to become stronger magically, and for young children to practice their control, to not have accidental magic. Her already powerful blood wards increased leaps and bounds in protection, and Bluma thought that they might even stop unforgivables.

Unfortunately, her contact with the British magical world was minimum, and she really needed the information, so she picked up her pen (a much better invention than quills) and sent a reply to Ms McGonnagle asking for more information on the school and magical world in general.
She received a reply three days later that someone would come to pick her up and introduce her to the magical world.

A couple of days later, she stood on the front porch and waited for the professor to take her. A man with black clothing and with a hooked nose approached her. Are you Mr Potter? - he asked
“Yes, good morning. I assume you’re here about the response i sent?” - She replied.
“Correct. My name is professor Snape and i will introduce you to the magical world.”
He went around the back of the house, before sticking his arm out, which Bluma grabbed, before being pulled into a side-along apparition into a occluded street corner.

“Diagon alley can be accessed from Charing Cross through the leaky cauldron. It is where the school supplies are bought. Facing this brick wall, you need to tap these bricks in order to get access. We will first withdraw money from your vault in Gringotts, the magical bank. Here is your key, and don’t lose it.”

Bluma was surprised at Diagon alley. There were many people selling and buying. Her having a vault further cemented her suspicion of being someone important in the Wizarding world. She asked a couple of questions regarding the monetary system, which were promptly answered.

Professor Snape then took her down to the vault, in which lay mountains of gold. Bluma’s mouth dropped at the sight. She never accumulated so much valuables in her adult life, and giving it to a child would be a bad idea. Professor Snape also seemed shocked at the sight of so much gold, but also clenched his teeth, looking furious. “Sir, is this a lot of money, or is the inflation rate this high?” -She asked
“This is quite an amount, Mr Potter”
“Comparable to paying for hogwarts? Or buying a car? Or more?”
“You could comfortably live your life a couple of times over with this money” - the professor replied
“What should I do with the rest? Do any charities exist in the Wizarding world?”

It was the goblin that interjected.
“There are a number of charities, and Gringotts would gladly work with you in your business transactions.”
“Fantastic. I would like that half the money in this vault be donated to charities over the course of 10 years, in which I would have a stable income and provide more. Is this doable?”
“Yes, We will draw up a contract and send it to you by mail. We will start working on it as soon as the contract is finalised.”
This pacified the anger in professor Snape. He might have preconceptions about my behaviour but apparently I proved him wrong.

We shopped for books, potions ingredients and clothes without any interruptions, until a boy with pale blond hair started talking to him about some broomsticks or something, with Bluma politely nodding along. He then asked Bluma where were her parents, to which she replied “sleeping in a graveyard”. It took the boy a couple of seconds to figure it out. “But they were our kind weren't they?”
“No, they were not blondes, do I look like a blonde to you?”
“No, as in were they wizards?”

“Of course not, I wouldn’t sully myself to be a filthy little pureblood. They are so stupid aren’t they? They can’t even spell their own names. If I were a pureblood I'd rather die of shame wouldn’t you?”
the blonde started spluttering. “Hey, do you even know who I am?”
“By the stupidity of your statement, you obviously are a filthy little pureblood, not even fit to lick my shoes” Bluma said with such scorn, especially the word pureblood that it sounded just as insulting as mudblood.

Their quarrel was broken up by madam Malkins finishing up the boy, who promptly ran away, probably to his parents. Unbeknownst to Bluma, the words would keep repeating in Draco’s head, filling him with self-doubt about being a pureblood.

Going to Olliviander’s was an interesting experience. Every wandmaker had their own quirks, and Olliviander was no exception. They tried wand after wand, but all were snatched away quickly.
“I wonder, I wonder” started Olliviander, and handed him a holly with phoenix feather. Just like the other wands, a vase shattered. Olliviander looked as is someone killed his puppy. Oh well, time for other wands.

Eventually, after many more wands, came a completely black ebony and hungarian horntail, 12 inches, springy wand. The moment Bluma touched it bright sparks shone out. It was an amazing fit, much better than her old wand she was using. Professor Snape warned her not to go into Knocturn alley, before escorting her home, the same way as they came.
The moment professor Snape dissapparated, so did Bluma, but this time, destination: Knocturn alley.

In all fairness, Knocturn alley wasn’t such a bad place. Sure, it had some crooks and sold dark artefacts, but most people weren’t really bad.
“Hello dearie, would you like some meat pies?” - asked a hag in a stall. It was quite a while since Bluma had breakfast, so she decided to try them. They were really quite nice.
“These are very nice, Miss. Your cooking skills are superb.”
“Call me Catalina. We don’t get many polite gentlemen around here”
Bluma looked around a bit more, before stumbling into some brute, who asked her for her money.
Bluma had to kill the mugger with a quick cut to the carotid artery (benefits of learning anatomy) and delivered him to Catalina.
“I bought you some fresh ingredients. My … wand slipped” - she told her

Bluma spent a couple of days exploring Knocturn alley, and found some an amazing cafe, which apparently sold coffee straight from Colombia. It was there she started an interesting discussion about the benefits of blood magic from different body parts with a hooded figure, whom she suspected to be a vampire. Apparently satisfied with her knowledge, the vampire recommended her some reading material.
“If you want some real books, not the ministry-approved dogma, I recommend you the Necro library. Tell the owner that the Vulture recommended you.”
The Necro library was a blast. It had so many interesting books that Bluma almost filled her trunk (which she personally warded with blood runes) with books.

It was in a particularly dark alley that she bumped into the person she least hoped to see. Professor Snape. He looked shocked at the sight of her, before furiously grabbing her arm.
“What are you doing here? Idiot boy. It’s dangerous here”- he furiously hissed.
“Don’t worry professor Snape, it’s not that bad. The locals here are quite friendly. Besides, where else would I find these interesting books?” Bluma cheerfully said, showing him her new acquisitions.
And indeed, her ‘shopping cart’ was filled with all sorts of books. Books on rituals, dark magic, blood magic, demonology, elemental magic and many more. Snape’s face whitened at the sight of each book.

“We are going to the headmaster, right now”
It took quite a while as she knew most people in the alley, who all wanted to stop and chat.

Snape took me to the apparition point, and then to a little village.
“Where are we, Professor?” she asked
“We are going to Hogwarts, to speak to the headmaster.”
“Why would the headmaster have anything to do with me going to the library?”
“The headmaster is responsible for your safety, especially considering your fame.”
“Fame?” She interrupted.
Snape facepalmed. “The headmaster will explain everything later”

All in all, Hogwarts was a very nice castle. It was bigger than Durmstrang and was very ‘magical’ in appearance.
Professor Snape took Bluma up to the Headmaster’s quarters, and said a password in a soft voice. The gargoyle guarding it revolved, allowing access to them. The door opened before them, and a gentle voice rang out.
“Good morning, Severus, and may I ask, why is Harry Potter here with you?”

The Headmaster’s office was filled with trinkets. There were trinkets on the table, trinkets on the shelves, trinkets on the floor. Some trinkets were working, but most were off or broken. The magical machines were EVERYWHERE, including one that was stuck to the roof.

On a perch sat a magnificent golden bird, as large as a toucan, who slept with it’s head stuck in it’s wings. Even the perch was not exempt from the trinkets, as a twirling little paper gently spinned beneath it. There were some moving portraits stuck to the walls, and even more trinkets hanging from the wall.

The underside of the desk also had some pictures and a rubics cube, who was spinning by itself. Some books were levitating in the air, carrying other books to shelves and back. The headmaster was truly a collector of everything.

“I found this … boy, coming out of the Necro library, in Knocrurn alley, headmaster.”
The headmaster raised an eyebrow. “The one that got raided three times last year by aurors?”
“Yes. He was buying books of… questionable legality”
The headmaster looked at Harry (Bluma).
“And you, my boy, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“I didn’t know that Professor Snape would also go there. If i’d known, I would not have gone there that day. I didn’t know that being seen with me in Knocrurn alley would cause such a fuss.”- Bluma replied, confused at all the drama. It wasn’t as if she murdered someone, so what was it all about?

“My boy, Knocturn alley is a very dangerous place, especially for young kids like yourself.”
“Don’t worry. It’s not that bad, headmaster. It really a friendly place once you get to know the locals, just a bit dirty. I mean, people only tried to mug me once, and my friend catalina even got new ingredients for her meat pies. In any case, shouldn’t this be a discussion with my guardians?”
“Don’t you even know who he is” hissed Professor Snape
“Of course, he’s the headmaster.”
“And...” - continued Professor Snape
The headmaster held up a hand. “It seems that I forgot to introduce myself. Good morning, My name is Albus Dumbledore”
“Wow. Really? As in the defeater of Grindelwald?” - Bluma interrupted with enthusiasm.
“Yes, but it is a tale for another time. I cannot let you go back to your guardians, given that you came to Knocturn alley. Instead, you will be staying at Hogwarts.”
“Oh, OK. Is the accommodation free? Then yes, of course.”
“Of course. In any case, Professor Snape can show you your temporary quarters, but you will need to travel to platform 9 ¾ for the Hogwarts Express.”

Professor Snape showed Bluma to her new quarters, which were quite nice, to be honest. Even better than her quarters at home. She apologised to him for delaying him, who quickly left with a incredulous look.

Apparently wands in Britain had some sort of Trace, to prevent kids from breaking the statue of secrecy, which would be problematic to Bluma. Muttering diagnostics with her old wand, revealed that the new wand did have some spells. But were not yet activated. This was probably done so that the wands in Olliviander’s didn’t trigger the Trace every time they were tried. To remove the Trace, Bluma created a purifying potion and let the wand soak in it for a day, by which time the Trace was removed.

Bluma spent the last few days before the term started in the library. Some quick hidden runes allowed her to bypass all the wards to get into the restricted section, where she found many many interesting books. They were not particularly dark, but nonetheless could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

It was Mr Hagrid, that got around to telling her about her fame. He told her how some dark wizard called yuno hu (asian in her opinion) terrorised Britain. In her opinion, it was quite ironic that wizards feared this Mr hu guy, and thought he was the most terrible dark lord ever to roam the earth, when Bluma knew for a fact that Grindelwald was many times more powerful, had a huge army, and yet he apparently wasn’t so terrible as Mr Hu. But then again, Grindelwald was based in central Europe, and all the other dark lords (who were much more terrible than Mr Hu) did not live in the population’s lifetime.

Apparently, she was the sole survivor of the fateful night on Halloween amd rebounded the killing curse onto Mr Hu instead. While in her previous life, she would have thought it impossible, due to her new understanding of physics, she now had a leading theory, that there was a magical artefact in the room, that destructively interfered with the killing curse, which, being more powerful than it, sent another killing curse back. Although her theory had yet to have proof, it was much more believable than her having a ‘special power’ of rebounding killing curses.

*NOTE:

Bluma misheard / misunderstood you-know-who to be yuno hu, and decided that his name was Mr Hu.

Chapter Text

The start of term arrived with great trepidation. Bluma had to floo onto platform 9 ¾ and take the Hogwarts Express back again. It seemed counter-intuitive, but Bluma suspected that the charms of her wand would have activated on the train (if Bluma hadn’t removed them, of course). The train had a steam engine, and looked to be quite old (even in pristine condition). The station was packed with people, and Bluma had to restrain from hexing them out of her way. Eventually she found an empty compartment, and lifted her trunk up onto the rack. Even though she had worked out a bit, an eleven-year old body isn’t very strong. She picked up her newly bought book on blood rituals and started reading.

She was first interrupted by a red-headed boy, who asked if he could sit with her. She allowed him after he promised to be quiet. The lady selling candy interrupted them later, and both politely declined. Bluma because she (as an adult) didn’t really have a sweet tooth, and the boy (named Ron apparently) because he didn’t have enough money.

They were again interrupted by a bushy-haired girl

“Hello. Have you seen a toad? Neville’s lost his”

Bluma took out her wand. Accio neville’s toad, and a green blur streaked across the aisle, before dropping into her hand. “I believe we have seen it.”

“Thank you. What was that spell? I haven’t learned it yet. It must be so useful. I only found out I had magic a month ago, and read all the course books.”She continued “What house do you want to be in? I am aiming for Griffindor. I heard that’s Dumbledore’s old house, and he’s the greatest wizard alive”she rambled

“wait, wait, wait. Slower please. Nice to meet you too. The spell is accio, it’s in the fourth year syllabus even though it’s really simple.

I am probably going to go into Ravenclaw because I am a scholar mostly, and probably you will as well, as you read all the course books. Why would you aim for Dumbledore’s old house? Sure, he might be great right now, but a hundred years ago the greatest wizard was Newt Scamander, who didn’t even go to Hogwarts, and before that was a Ravenclaw I believe, and even before that it was a Slytherin.

In other words, just because Dumbledore’s popular right now, doesn’t mean that the next greatest wizard would be a Griffindor. The two events are independent of each other, and as you would have learnt from statistics, they don’t influence one another.”

“Oh. I guess that makes sense. So you think I'll fit into Ravenclaw?”

“probably” Bluma guessed. “In any case, the house you’re in doesn’t matter. You’re not going to magically become better by going into a house. Only you can do that. By the way, you still haven’t told us your name.”

“Oh. Sorry. Where are my manners. I’m Hermione Granger. Pleased to meet you.”

“I’m Ron, nice to meet you too.”

“And I’m Harry. Pleased to meet you.”

“By the way, what book are you reading?” she asked Bluma

“Oh. it’s called 100 deadly blood curses, by Jonathan Greengrass. it’s about blood rituals. It’s quite fascinating”

“Blood rituals! Are you crazy! it’s dark magic!” interrupted Ron

“No, technically it’s blood magic, not dark magic, unless you’ve got your reds and blacks mixed up. In any case, what’s wrong with dark magic?”

“It’s evil. it’s wrong. it’s really bad stuff, mate”

Bluma raised an eyebrow. “I bet you wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference between a regular spell and a dark spell. The spells don’t change colour because of dark magic.”

“It’s still dark magic” - argued Ron

“So? Stealing is also wrong and really bad, and muggles do it without dark magic. In any case, it’s really not worth arguing about if spells are dark or light or blue or even orange. We should be arguing about the cause of them. Someone stealing with light magic is equally bad as stealing with dark magic.”

“I’ll give this toad to Neville, and come right back. It’s really interesting, all of this.”

Hermione did come back later, and the two had an interesting discussion about magical theory. The blond boy from Diagon alley showed up, reddened at the sight of her and quickly left. He was probably too embarrassed to come and have another argument.

It was night-time by the time they reached Hogsmead. Bluma wandlessly summoned a ball of fire (much to the delight of the other first-years, who could now see better) and set off walking to the lake, being leaded by Mr Hagrid. Bluma refused to call Mr Hagrid anything else, as he was technically still a teacher and should behave professionally.

They were made to stand outside the great hall, where some ghosts passed by. Several different experiments ran through her mind trying to analyse the incorporality of them. Would it be possible to phase through solid objects? Could ghosts develop new memories. If so, would they count as a living being?

The sorting was long and tedious. It was no fun to watch people sitting on stools with some hat on their heads (which was probably filled with lice). She almost fell asleep, only to jerk her head up when “Potter, Harry” was called.

The hat was placed on her head (cleaned with a mild wand-less cleaning charm) when suddenly she heard a voice.

“Well, this is interesting. Isn’t it, Bluma?”

Bluma nearly gasped in shock. Well, it would be easy to burn the hat to a crisp if it chose to divulge her secrets.

“No need to worry, I’m spelled to not tell anything”

Bluma still wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t as if the ‘source code’ of the hat was available. Was it?

In any case, Bluma started thinking about how to mentally talk to people. It would be difficult to reverse-engineer the enchantments…

“Well, I know just where to put you.”

“Ravenclaw”

Bluma sat down next to Hermione, who had also been placed in Ravenclaw. She looked towards the professor’s table, professor Quirrell, apparently was the new professor, while all the others taught at Hogwarts for a long time. Briefly, she felt a powerful mental attack, before it got repelled by her blood wards. It was nice to know that her blood wards covered mental attacks as well. In any case, Bluma decided to keep feeding them power. She briefly noticed a tiny bit of smoke coming out of Quirrell’s turban. How odd.

It wasn’t long before they were sent off to bed. The door knocker had some riddle.

“The poor have it, the rich don’t need it, and if you eat it you’ll die”

to which Bluma responded “A large number of bacteria and viruses that are commonly found in unclean water supplies. Many of them are lethal.”

People looked at her in shock.

“Well, that technically answers the riddle, although the expected answer was different. I’ll let you pass”

And so, with that ended Bluma’s first proper day at Hogwarts.

Next morning at breakfast, Bluma again sat next to Hermione, and both were given their schedules. First off: Potions

Bluma helped her classmates find the dungeons (benefits of exploring for a couple of days), and waited for the Professor to show up. It seemed that the blond idiot was more foolish than she though, as he approached her again.

“Hello. My name is Malfoy, Draco Malfoy”

“Hi. My name is Bond. James Bond” responded Bluma in kind. Some muggle-borns included Hermione snorted, while Draco looked confused.

“Don’t worry if you don’t get the inside joke, Draco.”Bluma said sweetly. “Not all of us can have a proper education, and some are stuck with” she sneered at him “inferior methods.”

Malfoy reddened. “I would watch my tongue if I were you”

“It seems your father hasn’t taught you any manners. Not a surprise, considering your nothing but a filthy little pureblood. How does it feel going to Hogwarts, being nothing more than an inferior beast?”

Most people seemed shocked, at Bluma’s words. Most purebloods seemed furious at them, but didn’t know how to respond. They were taught to say that to muggle-borns, and now almost the exact same words were being thrown back at them. Thankfully, Professor Snape stepped in before a fight could happen.

“You are here to learn the delicate art of potions.” he began, but Bluma tuned out the rest. She had been brewing potions for a long time, including many poisons, and didn’t really need some dramatic speech about their course aims.

“Potter! What would I get if I added powdered roof of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

“Without any additional steps, nothing interesting, but using the asphodel and wormwood as a base it’s possible to brew a large variety of poisons including devil’s bane and Mondred’s breath.”

Some people in the class looked terrified of her now. It wasn’t as if she was going to poison them with the listed poisons. They were too expensive, although effective.

“Where would you look if I asked you to find a bezoar?”

“Bezoars can usually be found in most potions kits, and apothecaries. Additionally, it is possible to make a Bezoar yourself using the hircum ritual, and it involves sacrificing a goat and letting it’s blood drain onto a normal stone”

Snape turned an interesting shade of puce. “20 points from Ravenclaw. That’s dark magic”

“Actually, that’s ritual magic, not dark magic, even though people tend to group it in the same area. It’s really a common misconception.”

“5 more for talking back”

Bluma actually liked the potions class. It was a very hands-on experience, and much more fun than learning about how to write essays, or some main themes of a book. Being and adult (mentally), she didn’t fear the fearsome professor stalking the aisles, and routinely ignored his derogatory comments about her potion. By the end of the class, some students were almost in tears, and Hermione looked distraught.

“Hey, Hermione. Why do you look so down. It was a fun class. More interesting than writing about characters and motifs, don’t you agree?”

“I don’t understand how you can stand Professor Snape. He’s so mean.”

“Hermione, he’s not mean. Potions are a very difficult and dangerous subject, and he knows that. If people were fooling around in his class, they could easily create and explosion or a toxic gas that would injure or even kill people. He’s not really trying to be mean, just gets carried away at times. Just imagine him in his underwear when he’s being mean, and you’ll see how easy it gets.”

Hermione let out a small laugh. “I guess you’re right”

Next up: Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Professor Quirrell was pathetic. He was constantly twitching and stuttering, and it took almost 15 minutes to finish the role.

“G-ood M-morning cla-ss. To-day we will be be st-t-tudy-ing the llumos charm. It it is us-sful against some d-dark c-creat-tures. T-the inc-cantation is lumos wit-th n-no wand move-ment”

Bluma got it on her first try. Nonverbally. Wandlessly, and then set out to help her classmates. Hermione also had a light, and so Bluma told her to try making the light brighter and softer. When almost all the class had some light on their wands, Professor Quirrell started talking about his next topic, dark creatures. It was quite boring listening to him talk, so Bluma decided to ask.

“Professor, are we going to learn dark magic?”

Quirrell dove under his desk. Pathetic.

“Listen class, for our next lesson, you have to write some uses of the lumos charm. Where do you think it might be useful. Might it be inadvisable to use the lumos charm in some situations? Just list all your ideas down in dot points, and we will be reviewing them next class.”

“Hey, how come you’re our teacher now?” asked some (probably pureblood) slytherin

Bluma sent a stinging hex at him, who exclaimed “Ouch”

“Anyone else want to have a go?”Bluma asked the class, who looked a bit frightened of what happened to their classmate.

“Well, class is over then”

Chapter Text

The pair had an unusual friendship, where both would be studying and helping each other out.

“Hey, Hermione, would you mind checking over my herbology homework, and I’ll check yours”

“Sure, Harry…. This is quite good, but you missed the effects of seasons on implexa clavi.”

“Oh, thanks. I had forgotten about them. By the way, your work is also quite nice, but you tend to just write what the book writes word for word. Try putting the information in your own words and draw conclusions from the information given.

For example this sentence is directly from the book, and you should try to reword it and write an explanation or extrapolation from it.”

“It doesn’t have to be right or wrong, the teachers just want to know what you think about it, so that they can know where to teach.”

“Ok. I’ll work on that”

“By the way, Hermione, it’s great that you know the answer in class, but you don’t have to put your hand up all the time. The teachers already know that you know, and putting your hand up is hindering the learning opportunity of others. Don’t worry.

If no one answers the question, they will generally ask you directly, and you can show your understanding then. If only you answer the question, the teachers won’t know if Sue understood, or if Kevin did. Alright?”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that, I’m just used to it. I’ll try to stop”

“No, just work on giving others the chance to answer as well. I’m sure the teachers will appreciate it.”

Both of them had Charms on Halloween. They were practising Wengardium Leviosa. Well, the class was practising it while Bluma was practising it wandlessly. Hermione was helping Ron, who had a lot of trouble with that spell. It was at the end of the class that Ron decided to be mean.

“Gah. She’s such a know-it-all. No one can stand her, it’s why she hasn’t got any friends.”

Bluma hexed his face, which now sprouted painful boils, but the damage already had been done. Hermione pushed passed him running away.

Bluma knew that Hermione needed some time to calm down, and it didn’t surprise her when she missed their next class. Bluma decided to visit Hermione instead of going to some Halloween feast. Grabbing a piece of hair from Hermione (which had been secretly taken by Bluma for emergencies), she cut her finger and placed a drop on blood directly above the root of the hair. Bluma waved her hand, and the hair straightened itself and pointed in a direction like a compass. Perfect

Following Hermione’s strand of hair, led Bluma into the girl’s bathroom. Bluma knocked, as a courtesy.

“Hermione, are you alright? May I come in?”

“Go away!”

“I’m coming in” stated Bluma and pushed the door open. Hermione was crying on top of the sink, looking terrible. Bluma hugged Hermione and rubbed her back.

“Shh, Shh. It’s all right. Don’t listen to what Ron says. You have friends. We’re best friends. Besides, I hexed his face so badly he’ll have boils for a week!”

Hermione giggled.

“I was bullied in primary school for being a know-it-all. I thought that going to Hogwarts would be different, that I would be respected, but it is all the same.”

“I too, was not well liked for being a know-it-all, especially when I was moved up a couple of grades. People were jealous of me. But I never payed any attention to them. They were so childish, it was ridiculous being mad at a mentally-deficient three-year-old who didn’t know better.”

Bluma told Hermione, who started to calm down.

“I’ve got a big secret. Can you promise not to tell anyone?” Bluma asked Hermione

“Of course. We’re best friends aren’t we?”

“Exactly. Look” and Bluma removed her glamours one by one. In the end, a petite girl was left standing. “This is how I truly look” Bluma told Hermione

Hermione watched with wide open eyes. “You’re … You’re a girl?”

“Yes. I conducted a ritual a couple of years ago. I don’t have anything against men, but I really don’t need the testosterone messing with my brain.”

Hermione giggled.

Just then, a horrible stench hit them both. Hermione frowned in confusion, while Bluma’s eyes widened in alarm. She quickly put her glamours back on. “Hermione, get behind me NOW!”

Hermione dove behind her, and spotted a large 12-foot greenish creature thundering towards them. Bluma took out her wand.

protego horriblis. fianto duri. repello inimicum, she intoned, her wand shooting out streams of magic that collected into a huge shield.

protego horriblis. fianto duri. repello inimicum, Bluma kept repeating.

Hermione screamed, as the troll drew it’s club back and smacked the shield. The shield held, but there were some cracks forming.

protego horriblis. fianto duri. repello inimicum, Bluma kept casting. It would not be enough. The troll would eventually break through her shields, which were quite weak, due to her underdeveloped magic.

“Hermione, pass me some ceramic, quickly” Bluma ordered her

Taking the ceramic tile, Bluma transfigured it into a knife, and then slit her wrists.

Sacra praesidio, per meum sanguinem Bluma intoned.

Her blood, gushing from her wrists, flew out and formed a bright blood-red shield. The shield provided a red tint to everything else, and pulsed gently, following the rhythm of her heart.

H ermione let out a shocked gasp. “Harry, You’re bleeding”

“Take off your shirt, and wrap it around my wrists tightly to stop the blood flow. Don’t worry about me seeing anything. Just wrap your robe about yourself. Quickly, now”

Hermione took off her shirt, and tied it across Bluma’s wrists.

Bluma drew back her wand, and started spewing out dark cutting and flame curses at the troll, all passing through a tiny hole in her shield. Finally, a particularly nasty flaying curse hit the troll in the jugular vein, cutting it. The troll fell and bounced off the blood shield. Dead.

J ust then, they heard and saw some figures running towards them, who identified as the professors.

Professor Quirrell whimpered, and then fainted, while Professor McGonnagle let out a small gasp at the sight of the dead troll. Professor Snape merely paled, probably recognising the dark curses used, and the bright red blood shield.

“You are safe now. You can drop your shields, and we’ll get you to the infirmary.” let out Professor McGonnagle.

Bluma slowly let down her blood shield, and slowly diffused the remains of her other wards. Professor McGonnagle again let out a strangled gasp at the sight of the first-years. “What on earth, were you doing here?”

“Please, Professor. It was all my fault.”

“Nonsense” interrupted Bluma. “You couldn’t have known a troll, of all things was going to come here. We were here instead of at the Halloween feast, because Hermione was feeling a bit down. Then the troll came, and we managed to protect ourselves. You should probably take us to the infirmary now, as I doubt I could stand much longer” managed Bluma, before she fainted into the arms of Hermione.

B luma woke up a couple of days later, in an unfamiliar white place. It looked like heaven, as Everything was white. The floor was white, the roof was white, the bed was white, even the table was white. Everything smelt like antiseptic, and she honestly thought that she was in the cleanest place on earth. She didn’t even see any dust motes in the air, and there was no dust either.

“Am I in heaven?” Bluma asked

A voice chuckled “No, you’re in the infirmary. You were bought here by your friend and the professors, who were clearly terrified. Your friend is here to see you. Sleeping on the other bed. She was so distraught that I had to feed her a calming potion.”

“HARRY!” a voice screamed, and a projectile slammed into her.

“I’m so happy you’re alright. I was so worried about you, I couldn’t sleep all night. Madame Pomfrey assured me that you were going to be fine, but still...”

“How long have I been here?”

“Only a day. Classes were cancelled yesterday, so you didn’t miss anything.”

“What happened after I fainted?” Bluma asked

“I think we all want to know what happened” a new voice, belonging to the Headmaster interrupted.

“Oh. I didn’t see you there. Well, I assume Hermione told you about my protego horriblis. fianto duri. repello inimicum amalgamation, which was starting to develop cracks.

“I know how you Brits are about dark magic, which is really quite stupid. Many ‘dark’ creatures are just animals. Lions aren’t ‘dark’ just because they kill other animals, and could eat humans, so why should other creature be dark? But I digress.”

“Knowing that I couldn’t cast more powerful wards due to, well, being a child, I cut my wrists, as motivation obviously and used something which was red in colour, and rhymes with blood shield to create a very powerful and fuly legal shield around us.”

“After that, I cast some curses that rhyme with bark magic, and a particularly nasty flaying curse that came out of nowhere cut the jugular vein on the troll, killing it.”

Professor Dumbledore’s eyebrows furrowed as he guessed the hidden meaning between Bluma’s rhymes. “Where did you learn all that magic, my boy?”

“Well, mostly from books. There are not many masters in that art, nowadays. There used to be many more of them back in the good old days.”

“Are these related to your shopping expedition in Knocturn alley?”

“No, of course not. The only books I bought in Knocturn were to consolidate my English. I knew all this before-hand.”

“You went to Knocturn alley?” interrupted Hermione. “But that’s dangerous”

“It’s not really dangerous, once you know your way around it. It’s really quite friendly once you get to know the locals living there, but I digress.”

“Agreed. You did save yourself and your friend from death, regardless of any magic used, so I cannot fault you for that. Madame Pomfrey has discharged you, and you may return to classes tomorrow. Good day.” told Bluma, before he, too, left.

Hermione dragged Bluma into an unused classroom.

“Change” She commanded Bluma, who obliged, and dispelled her glamours.

“If you’re not Harry, then where is he?”

Bluma chuckled. “I am Harry, just with a different gender.”

“But what should I call you?”

“Call me Bluma in private. It’s my ‘real’ name, and Harry when we’re in public. If someone hears us, just tell them that you call me Pluma, which is a feather in Spanish, and think of some random reason.”

“Ok… Bluma”

Chapter Text

Next week, both girls were very anxious and nervous in regards to their next class. A flying class. Neither girl had flown before, and Bluma was even more terrified, due to her own experience in cursing brooms to fail, as one of her ‘jobs’. Hermione was rapidly muttering tips that she had read from Quidditch through the ages, while Bluma was remembering protective enchantments and counter-curses.

“Now, everyone stand left to a broomstick, and say UP!” - called out the instructor

The broomsticks did not look great. Twigs were sticking out of the end, many were bent and tangled. There were scrapes and bumps across the broom, and some splinters coming off them. The brooms were slightly bent in random directions. Some broomsticks were thicker than others, and others almost were shrivelled up. It was a wonder that no-one had fallen on them.

“UP!” Bluma’s broomstick lifted a bit, before falling on the ground. Hermione’s merely rolled over.

Eventually, both broomsticks rose to the girls’ hands.

“Now, when I count to three, kick off gently. One, Two, Three”

Both Bluma and Hermione, alongside the rest of the class gently rose into the air. They started to do some laps around the Quidditch pitch, to get used to riding a broom.

Towards the end of the class, Bluma felt a tug on her broom. Suddenly, the broom buckled, as Bluma held on for dear life. This was not normal. Bluma started chanting counter-spells on her broomstick, which continued to jiggle in her grasp. Bluma’s eyes were furrowed in concentration, as sweat beaded down from her face.

“Bluma, are you alright?”

Bluma said nothing and continued to cast counter-spells on her broom. Hermione looked around, and saw some teachers on the teacher’s box. She dove towards them quickly. She passed through their line of sight, and suddenly the pressure on Bluma’s broom decreased. Bluma quickly touched back down, and started calling to Hermione.

“I’m fine. You can come back down, now.” called Bluma, while drawing her wand and casting diagnostics at the old broom.

There were all normal enchantments, but there was still something ‘off’ about them. Looking closer, Bluma realised that the stabilising charms were deactivated, as well as steering. Coincidence? The enchantments looked regular enough. Flight, wind-deflection, cushioning, and … magical signature?

Apparently someone created an enchantment that would detect her magical signature, and then, what? Tracing the path with her wand, the path went round and round in circles. Something was missing. Aha! A tiny, hidden rune, which caused allowed someone to control the broom, while at the same time deactivating the stability and control runes.

This was a cleverly-crafted assassination attempt. Apparently the legilimency attack on the first day was not stand-alone. Someone, realising that the blood wards would protect her, devised an attempt of circumventing that, by targeting the broomstick instead. Very clever, but also worrisome. It seemed someone was after her, most likely a supported of Mr Hu.

Not to mention the troll. She found it hard to believe that the troll could just wander into Hogwarts, as there were powerful wards to stop them. However, if someone let one in, it would be more explainable. But, one thing that Bluma was good at, was surviving assassination attempts. In her line of work, there were many who wanted to either rob her or kill her, and she was the last one standing every time.

But, why did they allow her to break the enchantment. Were they simply testing her? Assessing her potential? External interference?

“Harry, Harry. What happened. Your broom was wonky, and you started muttering incantations. I went to get the teachers, but you fixed it yourself.”

“It seems that someone is out to kill me. This broom was a cleverly-designed attempt to make me fall to my death. Look at this, the small rune, it helps someone control the broom. And here, there was an enchantment to detect my magical signature. Someone was trying to curse my broom. As for me muttering, I was trying to dispel the curse, but it was very difficult. Most likely an older-year or an adult.”

“Harry, that’s horrible. We should tell Professor Dumbledore. He’ll know what to do.”

“Why him? There is nothing that can be traced to anyone. Evidence is missing. The most we can do is remove the rune and fix the enchantments, and ask Professor Hooch to check the other brooms. We don’t want a student falling off, do we?”

Eventually, Hermione got so persistent and naggy that Bluma conceded, and went to Professor Dumbledore’s office, with Hermione along for the ride.

“Ah, hello. What brings you to my office today. Any trouble? Here, have a lemon drop.” he asked them, while passing them around. Both Bluma and Hermione politely declined.

“Well, earlier today, my broom started buckling, trying to make me fall. I started a chant to dispel it, but whoever it was, was more powerful than me.”

“Suddenly, it lessened, and I was able to land safely. Further examination of the broomstick revealed a magical-signature detecting enchantment, and a hidden rune, to simultaneously turn off the stability and control enchantments, while allowing someone else to control the broomstick.”

“I already fixed the enchantments, and asked Professor Hooch to check the other broomsticks, but Hermione here, persisted that I tell you.”

“Yes, it is a most intriguing conundrum. Who could’ve caused all this, without anyone noticing. I’ll have to investigate myself. Please, do tell me if there are any other attempts like this one. There is some piece of the puzzle missing, which we have to find. Thank you.”

“Well, that was informative” started Bluma, after their visit to Professor Dumbledore.

“How so?”

“If you noticed, he didn’t look surprised at the news. Professor Hooch must have told him.”

“So?”

“It implies that either both Professor Dumbledore and Professor Hooch are clean, or both tried to attack me. Considering that Professor Hooch was not looking nor muttering at me, and was on the other side of the pitch, means that unless all the staff is compromised, both her and Professor Dumbledore are clean.”

“Wow. I had no idea you could deduct something like that.”

“Well, it pays to be able to infer and extrapolate things, something that you need to work on with your work.”

“Your right.”

Both Bluma and Hermione got invites for tea at Mr Hagrid’s hut, who was a really nice guy. Bluma once thought that he was brainless, but his knowledge on ‘interesting’ creatures was second to none, and both had an interest in the more exotic creatures. Knocking on his door, and ignoring the mad dog barking, both entered. The room was like a sauna. A huge fire was burning beneath a pot, and the windows and blinds were all closed.

“Mr Hagrid, are we preparing for Winter from the Game of Thrones, or what?”

“Winter? Nah. Look ‘ere. See th’ egg? I’m so excited.”

“Whoa. That’s a dragon egg. You must have gotten lucky on Customs. It’s not easy to smuggle a dragon into Britain”

“Smuggle? Nah. Won it off a game of poker. Guy sitting next’a me, all hooded up, wanted to get rid of it, I reckon. But don’t ya worry, I have it all set up. I’ve been reading. Ya see.” and proudly patted the book on dragons.

“Aren’t dragons, you know, dangerous?” interrupted Hermione

“Not if you know what you’re doing. Let me cast some charms, make your home fire-proof. When the dragon hatches, we’ll feed it some dog meat, for loyalty, and I’ll cast some more charms to prevent him from biting anyone, and to limit his fire.” continued Bluma

“Baby dragons have really venomous teeth, you know? We could get some of it and sell it, it’s really valuable.”

“Sell the poison, it won’t harm him, will it?”

“No, of course not. We just make him bite something like a jar, and the venom will drip down. I’ve seen it done on snakes, that’s how they make their antivenom. It’s really fascinating.”

“Oh, all right then. Maybe people will make a dragon antivenom out of it, too.” agreed Mr Hagrid.

Two weeks later, they got another note. “It’s Hatching!!!!!”

Bluma and Hermione arrived after classes had finished. “Where is it, Mr Hagrid?”

Mr Hagrid chuckled. “Very eager, I see. Well, look ‘ere” and showed them the egg, which now had some cracks forming. It took an hour for the dragon to break through. Hagrid wanted to help it, but Bluma reminded him that the dragon needed to struggle, for it to later be strong.

“Aww, isn’t he a cutie, and he knows his daddy too...”

Bluma waved her wand over the dragon. “Hagrid, it’s not a he.”

“Pardon?”

“The dragon is female, and quite healthy too.” Bluma managed, before the dragon breathed fire onto them, stopped by a small shield charm.

Bluma, having read about some enchantments placed on dragons to make them safer, started casting. After that, Bluma cut her fingertip and drew a line of blood over the dragon’s head.

“This should help make the dragon more tame.”

Then, Bluma heard a hissing. “Food, sssrrrs, food” “What, did anyone else hear it?”

“Hear what?” - asked Hermione

“The hissing? It sounded like food. Mr Hagrid, did you?”

“Nah. Must’ve imagined it. But you’re right. Let’s give the dragon some food. I thought about calling her Nobert, but as she is a girl… What about Norwy? She’s a Norwegian Ridgeback, what do you think?” Bluma and Hermione giggled, before agreeing.

Bluma took out her pieces of dog meat that she bought. “Here, Hermione, we’ll all feed it together. When we leave, we’ll leave it some of our clothes, so that it remembers our scent.”

Hermione cautiously extended her hand, only to jerk it back as Norwy snatched the meat and gobbled it up.

“More, More ssssrrrr”

“Did anyone hear that?”

“No”

“Nah”

Bluma cautiously approached the dragon. “Did you speak?”

“speak ssrrrsss yes sssrsrsrrr” it responded.

Now everyone looked shocked.

“You can understand it?”

“Some of it. It speaks really weirdly, maybe like a different accent? I don’t know how to describe it. Like speaking Portugese instead of Spanish, maybe.”

“Wow. That’s so cool. Can you speak to any animals, or just dragons?”

“I can’t understand all other animals I’ve heard, but I haven’t met many animals. There might be others I could understand. Maybe Comodo dragons, as they are genetically similar.”

“In any case, give it more food, it’s hungry.”

Bluma tried further to communicate with the dragon, while trying to fill in the gaps. There were many words that she didn’t know, and the dragon spoke like a toddler, but they could get a basic message across, such as not harming them, as they would not be able to give her more food, and to not light things on fire. The two agreed that they would take Norwy for walks in the forest so that she could light some small things on fire, once in a while, without causing damage.

Bluma and Hermione spent a couple of days studying magical languages. There were many magical languages, and obviously dragon-tongue did not exist in any book. However, every language required them to learn it by themselves; it was not an intrinsic ability. Finally, Hermione found a lead.

“Did you know that Salazar Slytherin could talk to snakes?”

“No, but snakes, you say? Did it mention how he learnt it?”
“Apparently he was a parselmouth, and could talk in parseltongue, the language of the snakes.”

“This sounds more like an ability. Maybe I can talk to snakes? We’ll ask Mr Hagrid if he has any snakes, or else we’ll search for them in the forest”

“A parselmouth, you say? It was rumoured that Yuno Hu (You-Know-Who) could talk to snakes. Don’t worry, we’ll find one in the forest, and take Norwy with us, so that she can explore the forest.”

A while later, Bluma heard a faint hissing.

“There’s a snake nearby. Be careful”

“I feel big animals. Must run away” said a tiny voice

“Wait, we didn’t mean to sscare you away” replied Bluma.

“Oh, hello there, big monkey. Have you seen any food nearby?”

“IT TALKS! Whispered Bluma to the others, who stood with a surprised faces. “I can understand it!”

“No, sorry. I haven’t. Bye”

“Happy hunting”

“Well, this is interesting.”- started Hermione. “Snakes are close relatives to Dragons, which is probably why you can understand them.”

And with that new information, Bluma became the official dragon interpreter of the group.

Chapter Text

The winter holidays came, and Hermione left to spend it with her family. Bluma remained, at the insistence of Professor Dumbledore in the castle. Bluma spent the holidays helping Mr Hagrid out with his magical creatures and learning about them. Hagrid was such a creature lover; no animal was too ugly or too dangerous to handle.

Bluma especially liked feeding the Hippogriphs, who were very majestic creatures. Their feathers were soft but firm, and of many colours. The Hippogriphs were mostly white and grey, and were as big as horses, but with wings. When the Hippogriphs became accustomed to her, Bluma was allowed by Mr Hagrid to ride them. Riding the Hippogriphs was an amazing experience. Although Bluma was not good at flying, the Hippogriph didn’t need her expertise (or lack of).

Bluma and Mr Hagrid were walkig back through the forest, quite late due to them feeding all the animals, when they heard a noise. It sounded like hooves, running towards them. Mr Hagrid lifted his crossbow, and Bluma lifted her wand. The sight that followed was very concerning. An injured unicorn ran past them. Not many creatures would harm unicorns, as they bought a terrible curse to those that hurt them, or drank from their blood. Bluma gave chase to the unicorn, while masking her sound; it wouldn’t do to scare the unicorn after all. The unicorn ran into a clearing, before collapsing.

Even from muggle school, she had been drilled into her head the Dr’s ABC:

Danger

Response

Airway

Breathing

Circulation

Bluma prick her finger to create a small blood ward, and connecting it to her own blood ward, so that it would protect a certain area. She looked towards the unicorn, which had a large gash running across it. It was truly a horrific scene.

Unicorns were very pure creatures; their fur was completely white, and they created an aura of calmness and content, to similarly good creatures, while creating fear into those with dark hearts. Unicorns were also extremely magic resistance, even more than dragons. It was impossible to ward against them, and only extremely powerful dark curses would even scratch them. It was similarly impossible to breed them in captivity, as they would become really vicious, and try to kill or curse those who trapped them.

It was very difficult to get unicorn parts, which made them so expensive. Some hair could be caught on branches, which is the only reason wands with unicorn hair exist at a reasonable price. Befriending unicorns was possible, although extremely difficult as unicorns do not trust such tainted animals like humans.

The injury on the unicorn was from a dark cutting curse, which stopped the unicorn’s natural healing ability. It would be difficult to remove, and any time lost could be fatal. However, the cutting curse could be transferred to a willing participant.

Bluma wandlessly cut her pants open. Bluma raised the tip of her wand onto the wound, and extracted something, a dark swirling mass. Bluma then lowered her wand, and touched her leg. At that instance, Bluma let out a scream of agony as a violent shred of her leg, with bits of muscle and bone ripped apart, before her cut arteries started sprouting blood everywhere.

Bluma shakily lifted her wand to the unicorn.

“sana quod sanare, rana cauda, si non curaret hodie, te sanare cras”

The blood of the unicorn slowly seeped back into the wound, before some muscles started knitting themselves back together, and then the skin itself, the unicorn’s healing accelerated by it’s natural ability.

The pain in her leg became too much to bear, and Bluma started falling unconscious. The last thing she saw was the unicorn nuzzling her head.

Bluma awoke, smelling the powerful disinfectant in the air more powerful than the one in the hospital wing. There were some beeps around her, and some quiet talking out of range. Bluma groaned while opening her eyes. Her left leg still felt terribly sore, and her ribs hurt. A dull throb was pounding on her head as well. The ceiling was different than the hospital wing. It had little circular holes evenly spaced. If she wasn’t in the hospital wing; where was she?

“Ah, Mr Potter. You have awoken. Do you know where you are?”

“Some hospital, probably. Haven’t seen this one before”

“Correct. You are in Saint Mungo’s center for Magical Maladies. You were brought here from Hogwarts suffering from a powerful dark curse on your leg. What can you tell us about it?”

“I was healing a … patient. They had a terrible dark curse, and would soon die. I transferred it to my leg, as I had better chances of living, and then healed the … patient.”

“Your help was admirable, but it would be better next time if you bought your patient directly to us. The curse was very dark, and you nearly died of blood loss. Unfortunately, you have quite a large scar remaining on your leg, which is impossible to be removed.”

Bluma looked at her leg, with a frightened gasp at her scarred leg, which looked as if it had been under a tank.

“You will need to take a variety of potions for at least six weeks, to boost your red blood cells up, as well as your immune system. By the way, you have a visitor, who is quite anxious to see you.”

Bluma was blinded by some gold and pink colours, which slowly transformed to hideous clothes, before finally focusing on Professor Dumbledore.

“Hello, Harry. I’m very happy that you’re awake and fine. Could you tell me what happened in the forest? I need to get a clearer picture. Hagrid was quite distressed when he carried you directly to the hospital wing.”

“We were in the forest, and were walking back when we saw an injured unicorn running. I ran after it, hoping to heal it. It collapsed in a clearing, and I created a small … ward to protect us from whatever hurt the unicorn. The unicorn was heavily bleeding, and had a dark ripping curse, I believe the “stupra” curse.” Professor Dumbledore’s raise his eyebrow at Bluma’s recognition of the curse. “I transferred the curse onto my leg, and healed the unicorn. I must have fainted afterwards.”

“Hagrid’s tale matches up with what you say, with an additional shadow trying, but failing to breach your blood ward. It was wise of you to think of protecting yourselves before trying to heal the unicorn. It would have been dangerous without your protection. When you return to Hogwarts, Hagrid wants to show you something.”

With that Professor Dumbledore returned to Hogwarts and left Bluma to her thoughts. Who could’ve wanted to harm a unicorn? Who would have so little to lose, but everything to gain from killing a unicorn? These questions did not leave with an easy mind.

Bluma returned to Hogwarts a couple of days later, and immediately went to Mr Hagrid’s place, who was probably worried sick about her.

“Harry! You’re alright. I was very worried ‘bout you. Here, come with me. There’s someone you might like to meet.”

They went into the forest, tracing a familiar path, until Bluma saw a flash of white in the forest. She suddenly felt calmer than she had in months. That flash of white bounded towards her, which turned into a beautiful young unicorn; the same one that she saved.

“Alright, I’ll leave you two here to get acquainted” said Mr Hagrid before leaving.

The unicorn nuzzled her cheek gently, appreciating her help. Then, the unicorn bowed her head at Bluma, who bowed in return. The unicorn used it’s horn to cut into Bluma’s scarred leg, to which Bluma whimpered in pain, before pricking it’s own leg. The unicorn lifted her leg towards Bluma’s cut leg so that the blood would mix. Just as the unicorn’s blood touched her own, Bluma felt fire coursing through her veins, and a terrible migraine started, with dark spots in her vision.

Somewhat around 15 minutes later, Bluma regained consciousness, with a new clarity in her head. “Hello?”

Bluma yelped in surprise. It was the unicorn speaking. “Hello? How are you speaking?”

“Oh, good. Welcome, you are now part of the Moro clan. Now you will know true peace.”

said the unicorn, before walking off.

The world seemed strange now as she was so very, very peaceful. She went back to Mr Hagrid, who she now noticed gave a kind impression. As soon as he saw her, Mr Hagrid smiled, before frowning in confusion.

“Harry, what happened to your hair?”

Bluma tried but failed to see her hair, as it was too short. Chuckling lightly, Mr Hagrid handed her a mirror. She inspected herself, before gasping in surprise. Her hair now had pure white streaks running along it. The only thing that happened recently that could have caused it was her transfusion of unicorn blood.

Although normal transfusion of blood wouldn’t do anything, unicorn was anything but normal. Those that drank unicorn blood lived a cursed life. Unicorns most likely practised some version of blood magic. Is it possible that freely given unicorn blood was a gift? She would need to investigate further. On the plus side, it didn’t seem that her body was rejecting the foreign blood. It was probably some unicorn magic that allowed it.

Over the next few days, people noticed her new white streaks across her hair, but decided that she just dyed it. She received some Christmas presents from Hermione, as well as some of her dorm-mates in Ravenclaw. The last present bore no note, which made her a bit suspicious. All her detection spells just fizzled when they touched the present. Bluma transfigured some tongs, and gently pried the wrapping open.

A silvery and thin material spilled onto the flood. It was an invisibility cloak. Bluma had come across some invisibility cloaks in her work, but they were very expensive to make. Who could’ve sent her this gift?

A single note flew from the cloak.

“Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time I return it to you. Use it well”

Although the note bore no signature, Bluma easily detected a bit of familiar magical signature. Of course it was from Professor Dumbledore; who else?

A few days later, the rest of the school arrived back to Hogwarts, and classes began. Bluma told her everything interesting that happened at school, including the unicorn blood now coursing through her. Bluma thought that Hermione looked a bit disappointed in not having the adventure, but it might have been about her going to hospital. Classes continued as usual, and Norwy the dragon was growing well, and liked to play fetch, although usually burned the stick in the process.

On another note, Bluma found Ron and his friend studying in the library, looking for famous alchemists. That was strange, usually they would fear the library, and would never willingly go there.

While sneaking into the restricted section, using her new invisibility cloak, she heard some footsteps. Quickly hiding in an abandoned classroom, she saw a large ornate mirror.

“Well, let’s see how I look” - muttered Bluma to herself, before stepping before the mirror. What she found made her gasp. She was standing inside a huge library surrounded by her loved ones. Her mother and father, who had died some years ago, and her grandparents. Hermione was also there, right next to her, with her head against Bluma’s shoulder. Everyone there looked so happy. With a silent tear, Bluma left the room. She had no wish to revisit the mirror; she had many loving memories of her parents.

Classes resumed, and Bluma found her wandless magic getting easier to do. She now was also teaching Hermione the basics of wandless magic. Wandless magic was hard to do, as wands optimised the flow of magic. While wands created a thin, imaginary stream of magic, wandless magic basically brute-forced the problem.

Sure, it was possible to slightly focus her magic into one direction, but the area covered was huge compared to using a wand. And, of course, the potency obeyed the inverse squared law, just like many other forces. In other words, the potency of magic was inversely proportional to the distance squared. Such a concept was still not known to the wizards, other than it was ‘hard’.

Although, a new thing was a ‘tinge’ in her magic. Simply transfiguring something would turn it into pure white colour, and she had to manually force the colour to be the correct one. This problem even applied to her wand magic, and even Professor Flitwick was puzzled by the new development. However, Bluma quickly got used to it, and now subconsciously changed the colour to the correct version.

Chapter Text

Bluma was getting creeped out by Professor Quirrell with no explanation. Every time he was in her vicinity, Bluma felt a great fear and hate coming from him at the same time. Most people felt naturally good to her, which was surprising given her annoyances with their foolishness and childishness. Some professors, on the other hand felt no longer innocent. That was most likely due to them having lived through the war. It was hard not to come unscathed through that, but Professor Quirrell just felt… odd.

Exams were drawing closer, and Hermione was panicking. Every day bought a new level of stress as the deadline drew closer, until Bluma decided it was enough.

“Hermione, we are going to the lake, to sit there and relax.”

“But, I haven’t finished my revision!”

“While a bit of adrenalin is good, this is bordering on ridiculous. There is no way you will do well in your exam if you become so stressed you forget everything. Come with me.”

The lake was a pale blue colour in the sunlight, and the wildlife was awake and noisy. The ducks were squawking and eating, and swallows were in the trees. A hawk was hunting in the distance, circling in the sky and looking for it’s prey. They came to rest near the shore line, and Hermione laid back onto Bluma. There were a few white clouds in the otherwise perfectly blue sky, and the sun was in a position that didn't shine into their eyes. Fish swam in the lake, looking for food, while at the other end of the lake, some small animals drank water.

“You have been working hard. This is good, but if you let the exam become the only part of your life, you will only become stressed until you can no longer think. There is a stress curve, you know, between stress and productivity. Firstly, it rises; A bit of stress is good for productivity. But then, it falls really rapidly. You are in fact hindering your ability by being so stressed, so relax. When you’re relaxed, I’ll quiz you, so you know exactly where to revise.”

Hermione’s frazzled look became more calm, until both completely forgot about their worries and started skipping along the shoreline.

Bluma’s empathic / slightly telepathic feelings about Professor Quirrell worsened. He was now in a lot of pain, in anticipation of something and newfound hatred. Bluma was worried he would do something foolish, and when no one was watching, put a tracking charm on his turban. It would alert her if he went into any unusual areas.

Bluma was woken up in the night, as she felt her tracking charm alert her that Professor Quirrell was going into a prohibited area. Which area? The third floor corridor, of course. She quickly woke Hermione up.

“Quickly, go and alert Professor Flitwick that he or Professor Dumbledore need to go and check on Professor Quirrell, who’s going into the forbidden corridor.”

“No, Bluma. I’m coming with you. Wake a prefect or something.” Hermione narrowed her eyes at Bluma.

“… Oh. Fine. I give up.” Bluma relented, before waking her dorm-mate Kevin, and placing a slight compulsion to follow her orders, which were to alert Professor Flitwick for him to check on Professor Quirrell.

Bluma and Hermione went under the invisibility cloak, in the meantime, and quickly walked towards the 3^rd floor corridor. Bluma’s cheeks reddened a bit at their closeness, but chose to remain silent, as they walked their way up.

Standing near the corridor, Bluma felt her hairs on her neck stand up. There were wards around here.

“Hermione, stay back. There are wards here.” Bluma whispered, before casting some detection charms. The wards were deactivated masterfully by, most likely, Professor Quirrell.

Bluma activated the detection wards only. It would be felt by the caster, and would alert them. Bluma opened the door, to find herself face to face with a giant head. Two heads. Three giant heads of a dog, who growled threateningly at them.

“Hey, doggie. Who’s a good doggie?” Bluma carefully said, getting ready to fight, but there was no need. The three-headed dog became calmer and in a few moments barked happily, running around chasing it’s tail. Bluma and Hermione carefully made their way into the trap door.

The landing was soft and slimy. Bluma wandlessly lighted a light, and suddenly the plant that was slowly strangling her, without her knowledge, retracted. Both fell, only to be slowed by Bluma’s wandless “arresto momentum”. The next door was filled with keys that needed to be caught? In any case, Bluma transfigured a key into some picks, and quickly picked the lock. The door was warded against detonation and any unlocking charms, but it didn’t save it from being picked the muggle way.

Hermione grabbed a broomstick, and motioned for Bluma to sit. Hermione gently kicked off, being the strongest flyer out of the duo, one hand on the broomstick, while another wrapped around Bluma. The light was too dark to see either face slightly pink. Both flew over the chess board, and over the dead troll into a room. Fire instantly blazed across the exits. Not any fire, a particularly dark version of the fuego enchantment, almost impossible to break. On the desk were some vials and a piece of parchment.

“Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,
One among us seven will let you move ahead,
Another will transport the drinker back instead,
Two among our number hold only nettle wine,
Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here for evermore,
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide
You will always find some on nettle wine’s left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onwards, neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.” The parchment told.

“It’s not a magic question. It’s a logic question. Let me think...” exclaimed Hermione, before muttering to herself.

“Ok. The smallest blue vial will take us forwards, while the last on the right will take us back.”

“Well done Hermione. However, I must be the one to pass through. You see, I have a powerful blood ward on me. I can defend myself really well. However, I cannot easily extend this protection to you. Sorry.”

“There are things more important than books and logic. Be brave and be careful.”

and with that Bluma stepped through the fire.

S ure enough, Professor Quirrell was in front of the mirror. Bluma knew that she needed more information. Although her blood ward was strong, if she got disarmed, enough curses would eventually break through.

“Ah, Potter. I wondered if I would be seeing you.” and shot some ropes to bind her. The ropes were not directly harmful and therefore did not react with her blood ward.

“The stone is inside the mirror, but how do I get it out?”

“Sorry, but you want a stone? Have you looked downwards, in front, sideways or even upwards recently?”

“Fool. The Philosopher’s stone is inside the mirror, and will revive my master.”

“You don’t need a philosopher's stone to create an inferius, you imbecile.” Bluma retorted, but Professor Quirrell ignored her. He levitated her in front of the the same ornate mirror in which she saw her parents and Hermione.

“Well, what do you see?”

The mirror once again showed her parents with Hermione, who was now holding a red rock. “I see my parents. What do you see?”

“I see the stone. I’m presenting it to my master, but how do I get it?”

Bluma started laughing.

“This mirror shows you what you want, but doesn’t actually give you that. It doesn’t have some super magical powers, you idiot. Even I can see that while it may show my parents, it won’t bring them back.”

“But the stone is in the mirror”

“No, you knucklehead. It just shows you what you want, and you want some red stone, so it shows you that. There is nothing else about it.”

Professor Quirrell looked dejected, before suddenly turning suspicion. Bluma realised her mistake as well. She had just stated the colour, of a stone she shouldn’t be able to see.

A strange voice sounded.

“Let me speak to him”

“You are not strong enough, master” Professor Quirrell fearfully said to himself.

“But I have enough strength for this.”Said the voice before Professor Quirrell slowly unwound his turban. There, on the back of his head was a deformed face.

“You see, boy, You see what I’ve become?”

“I can bring your parents back. I can give you riches beyond imagination. I can make you the most powerful person alive, if you just give me the STONE”

“Sorry, kid. I really don’t think having inferius human-eating zombies for parents is a good idea. I mean, you might want to have them yourself, but I prefer them dead than zombies who want to kill me. In regards to riches, I recently donated half my vault, because I think I had waaay to much money, and the rest I plan on using it to buy books.

And make me powerful? Unless you’re a Q from star trek, in which case why don’t you just ‘q’ yourself another stone, you won’t be able to make me more powerful than what I could. I mean, there are some rituals that try to give you more power, but only an idiot would use them, like the Mr Hu guy. Sure, it might give a small boost in power, but at the cost of sanity, it is not really a good option. By the way, but who are you?”

“You do not recognise me?” the voice chuckled. “You don’t recognise the greatest person alive, me, Lord Voldemort?”

“Sorry, but lord voldywho? I’m afraid I haven’t heard about you.”

The face was incensed. “How dare you. It is I, the dark lord, you fool. I was bringing a new era into the magical world, getting rid of filth plaguing the magical world including all the mudbloods and blood-traitors. I had an enormous army, and we were going to take over the ministry, until YOU came along and rebounded my avada kedavra.”

“Which dark lord? There were quite a few in this time. There is Grindelwald, Monsalve, Koreliof and Koreliova, and of course Hu.”

“Fool. You don’t recognise me, who killed your parents. I first killed your father, who fought bravely before falling to my wand, and then your mother, who begged to spare you.”

“Oh. Your Mr Hu. I must say, you don’t look very asian nor chinese. I mean, the Hu surname was definitely used in china...”

“Who’s Mr Hu you idiot?”

“Errr. Mr Yuno Hu? Yourself? Everyone tells me that Mr Hu was the most recent dark lord that killed my parents...”

“It is I, who killed your parents. Lord...”His sentence was cut short.

“Avada Kedavra” said a bored Bluma, who was tired of the waiting game. Really, that Mr Hu guy had really poor situational awareness skillz. Those evil villains really liked monologuing, and it was really easy to distrat them, while they invisioned their 'grand plans' for the world, before cursing them. She had freed her hands and her wand while Mr Hu was distracted. The curse sailed, and while Mr Hu tried to get out of the way, Professor Quirrell didn’t see the curse, standing backwards, and it hit him right across his chest. The professor instantly collapsed, dead.

A dark cloud of swirling mass with blood red eyes got out of his body, and headed directly for Bluma, who’s eyes had widened dramatically. It was not an everyday occurence that a wraith be possessing someone. Now that she thought about it, it looked suspiciously like the Ring Wraith from the Lord of the Rings. Mr Hu probably got inspiration from reading that story. After taking in his comical appearance, Bluma began p utting up a shield to stop spirits, including wraiths from attacking. The dark swirling mass clashed against the shield, which held. Sweat was dripping down from Bluma’s hair, due to her exhaustion at the shield. It was a really difficult spell to master, and she needed to keep the shield up lest she became possessed as well.

A new figure emerged from the fire, and brandished his wand.

“Dumbledore” hissed the cloud, before being struck by a spell and fleeing the castle. Bluma swayed left to right, before falling unconscious, mentally, physically and magically exhausted. The last thing she saw was Professore Dumbledore suddenly calm down as he approached her.

Chapter Text

Bluma was getting used to wake up in the hospital wing. It seemed she spent more time in the wing than outside.

“I see that you’re awake. Come in again and we’ll have to permanently move you here.” suggested Maname Pomfrey.

“Well, at least the bed should get my name engraved upon it” muttered Bluma

Just then, a blurred missile slammed into her.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re alright. I was so worried about you; Professor Dumbledore bought you back carried in your arms.” Hermione blabbered.

“What happened after you went through the fire?”

“I think we all want to know what happened.” Interrupted Professor Dumbledore.

“Well, Professor Quirrell was there. He tied me up to look in some mirror. He was half-possessed by a wraith that was on the back of his head. We talked for a bit while I loosened the ropes and distracted him, before I killed him. The wraith tried to ram at me, but I held it off until Professor Dumbledore arrived.”

“This is very concerning, my boy. Do you know anything about the wraith?”

“Oh, yes. He said he was some sort of lord or something. He told me that he killed my parents, but that was Mr Hu, wasn’t it?”

Professor Dumbledore’s eyes furrowed in confusion, before he paled. “Was the wraith called Lord Voldemort by any chance?”

“Oh, yes. That sounds familiar. Why? Who is he?” Bluma asked.

“It seems that we failed to tell you about the great wizarding war. You see, there was a bloody and terrible war going on between Lord Voldemort and the rest of the wizarding world...”

“Sorry, but who’s Lord Voldemort? I thought that the leader of the coup was Mr Hu.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t heard of them”

“What do you mean? Everyone tells me how I survived the avada kedavra off that Yuno Hu guy.”

Hermione was the first to get it, and started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” asked a confused Bluma, only to spur Hermione to start laughing again.

“Harry, the Yuno Hu guy IS called Lord Voldemort, but people are terrified of his name. There was a taboo on his name, that is, Voldemort, and people started calling him “You-Know-Who”, as in y-o-u and then k-n-o-w and w-h-o.”

Bluma facepalmed. “ And here I thought that he was called Mr Hu, and was chinese and everything. But, he’s not called voldemort either. I mean, what’s his first name. Lord? Imaging naming your child Lord Voldemort. Imagine, G’day Lord. How do you do Lord? Lord, get back here, you haven’t payed your taxes . It’s stupid. However, Voldemort sounds suspiciously french. Let’s see… Vol de mort. He is probably named Vol or Voil , and his last name is Mort, so Voil de la Mort , although he didn’t seem french either…”

“Although he went by different names, his true name is Tom. Tom Marvolo Riddle. He created an anagram of his name and fashioned it into Lord Voldemort, which just means the flight of death, le vol de la mort, in French. When he put a taboo on his name, few people were brave or powerful enough to call him by his name. From then on, people knew him as that, or You-Know-Who.” Finally revealed Dumbledore.

“ Oh. That was… anticlimactic. Next time I’ll call him Mr Riddle, just like those people from Matrix called Neo: Mr Anderson all the time.” The professor and students smiled.

A fter Professor Dumbledore left, Bluma was left with Hermione.

“Um, Bluma… I told my parents how you were now living in the castle, and they want to invite you to spend the summer holidays with us...” Bluma blinked, before grinning and hugging Hermione.

“Thank you very much. I would be pleased to spend summer with you.”

The leaving feast was really great, but neither Bluma nor Hermione payed any attention, as both were rapidly completing their summer homework early. It was a common sight on the Ravenclaw table of people reading books, discussing magical theory with their friends or completing their homework. It was no surprise that when Professor Dumbledore revealed that Slytherin had won the house cup, very few Ravenclaws, if any, cared at all. Who would care for some abstract number, an immaterial win?

It was a common misconception that Ravenclaws did amazingly in their homework and tests. Yes, they valued intelligence and knowledge, but most of the time, students studied ahead or in other fields of magic. Sure, it was interesting to track wizard and other species populations throughout history, but that did not mean that the person would have learnt about goblin wars. It was usually the Slytherins who prepared and studied the course material intensively; at least those with ambitions which involved getting the highest grades. Other Slytherins only cared about networking and building relations with as many people that would be useful in the future.

U nfortunately, all the books that Bluma and Hermione had borrowed from the library had to be returned, to much of both their displeasures. As such, they didn’t have anything to read except Bluma’s tomes on blood magic, the basics of which Bluma happily explained to Hermione. Hermione was a bit sceptical at first, but remembering the blood red shield that Bluma created against the troll, heightened up her curiosity. Bluma demonstrated a weak blood shield by pricking her finger, as the door opened to admit the blondie with his two helpers. They all paled at the sight of a blood shield, as they probably knew how dangerous (and probably highly illegal too) they were.

“Yes?” said an annoyed Bluma “Have you come to apologise to Hermione for being an imbecile, disgusting, and a generally inferior beast?”

The bolndie’s nose turned up. “Why would I apologise to a…” He didn’t get to finish the sentence as Bluma tied a noose around his neck and lifted it. The blondie started thrashing, trying to get it off.

“I think you should apologise, before you run out of oxygen in your bloodstream...”

Gently lowered, they all fled the corridor.

“Tell me next time he even looks in your direction, and I’ll really make him grovel at your feet.” Bluma told Hermione.

The train arrived at station 9 ¾ and Bluma was dragged by Hermione to meet her parents, who were standing at a corner. They relaxed and calmed down instantly when they saw Bluma and Hermione.

“Mum, dad. Meet Bluma. Bluma, this is Julie and Daniel, my parents.”

“Hello. Nice to meet you.” introduced Bluma.

“Good morning. Are you the one disguised as Harry, by any chance?”

With that, Bluma dispelled her glamours, much to the shock of them both.

“Well, that answers my question”

They squeezed themselves and their trunks into their little car, one of the consequences of being an only child, and drove home.

“ Hey Hermione, why do I feel so calm and relaxed, all of a sudden? Is this some new spell?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you showed up, I literally felt all my worries and stress from work leave me. Just wondering...”

“ It might have been from me. After I saved a unicorn, it injected me with a bit of it’s blood. Unicorns are known for calming those around them...” Bluma finally revealed.

“Well, you can tell us all about your adventures at dinner.” Julie finally agreed.

“Hermione, show Bluma to where she will be staying. Originally when we though she was a boy, she would have slept on the couch, but now that she is a girl, she can sleep on the spare mattress in your bedroom.”

“Oh, before I forget, Hermione, My wand does not have the trace, so you can use magic over the holidays using my wand, and show your parents all that you’ve learnt at Hogwarts.”

Hermione propelled herself at Bluma. “Thank you Thank you Thank you. This is the best present ever.”

Although Bluma’s wand was not a good fit for Hermione, she was still able to do most spells, although some took a couple of tries to get right. Her parents were amazed at all the magic she had learnt, and understood that she was using a wand with a bad fit. Bluma explained it like having different glasses. Glasses made for the person had the focus needed, while other glasses would refract the light differently, bringing the view out of focus.

Hermione spent a lot of time showing Bluma around her suburb, while Bluma taught Hermione some more wandless magic. It was a surprise to Hermione that Bluma hired some tutors to teach them science, math. Hermione did not know that Bluma was already doing grade 9 and 10 subjects. However, Hermione quickly caught up to them. It was wondrous how much children could progress if they didn’t have to study English, PE, humanities and music. And, although music was a good way to prevent the deterioration of the brain in late stages of life, the limited amount of ‘music’ that Bluma knew sounded like screeches of nails on blackboards, with an army of elephant running towards them.

S ometime later, when Bluma was getting ready for bed, she heard a scream coming from Hermione’s bedroom. Entering the bedroom, she was greeted to a sight of a house elf jumping on the bed.

“Hermione, it’s OK. It’s just a house elf.”
“Hello. How do you do?” Bluma asked the house elf.

“ I is Dobby. Dobby has come to warn Harry Potter, but Dobby does not know where to begin… You is not Harry Potter. Where is he?”

Bluma put her glamour on.

“I am Harry Potter. Of what have you come to warn me? Try to start at the beginning.”

“Harry Potter must NOT go back to Hogwarts. There is a plot. An evil and terrible plot. Harry Potter will be in grave danger.”

“Dobby, listen to me. I have a blood ward around me. A very, very powerful blood ward around me. I suspect it would stop any curse shy of avada kedravra itself.”

“Dobby is not convinced. There is a terrible plot. Oh, the horrors it would bring. But it must not harm the great Harry Potter.”

“Dobby, ask yourself this question. I understand you might not be able to answer me depending on what your master has ordered, but think to yourself. This plot has two options: Either it is directly against me, or irrelevant to me. If it is directly against me, then the best place to be is where everyone expects me to be, but armed with foreknowledge and prepared. If it is irrelevant to me, then my blood wards will protect me from being hurt in the crossfire. In any case, I have strong magics protecting me, and our best bet is to do the unexpected, in face of danger.”

“… Dobby will be watching”

A s soon as Dobby left, Bluma cut her palm and created a blood dome around their house. It never hurt to be protected. Bluma explained a bit of history on the house elves to Hermione, before writing an inquiry into the Department of Magical Creatures in the Ministry of Magic, asking about the names of house elves, and a possibility of contacting the owner. Bluma said that she wanted information on good house elves to buy from reputable owners.

A reply was received the next day. After lying and complementing the rich and the ministry, Bluma asked about a house elf named Dobby. Apparently, Dobby was the house elf of the Malfoy estate, who was apparently a ‘reputable’ and ‘charitable’ person. However, Bluma knew better than believing those lies. With Mr Malfoy being a civil servant, Bluma knew that he was a) corrupt, b) greedy and c) power-hungry.

Although Bluma was not in agreement to some of Professor Dumbledore’s view on magic, he was responsible for the safety of the children in the castle, and therefore Bluma wrote a letter to Professor Dumbledore, warning him to be on the lookout for plots. Bluma told him that t he Malfoy house elf visited them and warned them of a ‘ terrible’ and ‘horrible’ plot in Hogwarts, but was not allowed to say more.

Bluma suddenly got letters from some of her friends. It seemed that Dobby had agreed on letting her go to Hogwarts.

Chapter Text

Hermione was absolutely furious that Bluma wanted to take her on a tour of Knocturn alley. After all, it was a) dangerous and b) probably illegal, only to be stopped at Bluma’s remark that she was going to go anyways, and two people would be safer than her going alone. This is how Hermione ended up in Knocturn alley, clutched to Bluma’s arm.

It was quite nice to see Bluma so alive.

“And here is Catalina, she sells really tasty meat pies.” Bluma commented

After going through various alleyways, Hermione finally began to feel relaxed, before suddenly stiffening. People were following them.

“Bluma” Hermione hissed.

“Yes?”

“We’re being followed.”

But the conversation was cut short by some thugs appearing on the street. They were dressed in rags, and held half-broken wands in their hands, and knives in their other hands. One was a bit drunk, while a thug at the back had his eyes rolling all around the place. The lead guard had a cigar in his mouth and his knife pointed at them. However, to Bluma, who could sense them, they felt distinctly cold. They were murderers, who did not hesitate to kill innocents.

“Money or your life, kids. You don’t belong here.” - He stated

Bluma didn’t even blink and continued walking, completely ignoring them.

“Bluma, what the hell are you doing? They are dangerous, just look at those knives”

“Knives? That’s not a knife. This is.” and with that Bluma pulled an enormous Tachi sword from her back. The blade looked quite long on Bluma, and a spidery pattern adorned the grip. A small gold, ornate circular cross-guard was visible to Hermione. The blade was slightly curved, and Bluma held it in her two hands, while taking a firm stance on the ground. The sword was quite top-heavy, and Bluma held it close to her, but ready to extend so that she didn’t tire from the weight.

Bluma launched herself at them, to try to kill them, but her sword suddenly stopped moving. Looking up, Catalina held Bluma’s Tachi in her iron grip, not letting it move, while Catalina had her own tantō dagger to the thug’s throat. A couple of drops dripped down Bluma’s Tachi onto the ground.

“Catalina...”

“No more killing. You, I suggest you go. NOW!” Catalina shouted to the thugs. The thugs started edging away slowly, before running off.

“Why did you stop us? They most likely were murderers and thiefs.” Bluma asked Catalina, who suddenly looked much wiser.

“And did you think as to why they were thieves? Did they one day decide that their dream job was being a thief? No, they did not. A lot of criminals here become that because of their desperation. That man on the left, he struggles to provide food for his two kids, while the man on the right is caring for his sick parents. You guys are lucky. You can eat as much as you want each day. Some people here cannot. So, the next time people try to mug you, think about a possible reason.”

"They say that Knocturn alley is a dangerous place, but they can’t do anything about it because the root of the problem is in the extreme poverty here. You might bulldoze Knocturn alley, but that would only leave the government with a bunch of dislocated people with almost no money whatsoever. It's very similar to what's happening in Colombia; it is filled with extreme poverty and violence. So much so, that there is a street, la calle del Cartucho in which even the police fear to enter. And it's not a surprise. Young people, especially, want to provide income for their families, and end up joining local gangs or the guerrilleros or the palamilitary terrorist groups. Unfortunately, many of them get killed soon after. The violence here is not going to go away by killing some people. It's by helping the people here to get food, shelter and an education."

“I think I understand now, Catalina. Thank you. I have much to think about.” responded Bluma

“Bluma, where did you get that sword?” asked Hermione, as they were walking away.

“Oh, I always carry it when I go to Knocturn alley. I just hide it, but make sure I can grab it quickly. Sure, wands are powerful, but I can cut someone up into pieces before they even reached for their wand.”

Bluma and Hermione got back safely to the other alleys. Bluma bought all her books second-hand, in an effort to reduce her waste. The books looked mostly fine, and some had notes written on the margins. Hermione, on the other hand chose to buy herself new books. They met up with Hermione’s parents for lunch at Manticlaw alley, to the right of Diagon alley.

The book-list contained many different books from some author called Gilderoy Lochart. Although Hermione wanted to buy all his books, Bluma convinced her not to, by pointing out that they were nothing but fiction and advertisements/commercials for products.

“Hermione. Think. What should a Defense textbook contain?”

“Spells, strategies, maybe ways of dealing with some dangerous creatures”

“Well, does a hair commercial belong in a non-fiction textbook? Does Gilderoy’s favourite colour belong in a textbook? Unless it’s his biography, and therefore not a Defense textbook, NO.”

“But, why are the books in the book-list then?”

“It’s for financial reasons. Gilderoy Lochart probably bribed the new teacher to increase his sales. There is no other reason to include this trash in anyways.”

“But, a teacher wouldn’t do that.”

“A teacher is human, just like me and you. They have their own beliefs, values and ambitions. Being a teacher does not make them better or worse.”

“...That surprisingly makes sense.”

The 1^st of september started by finishing up their packing, for Hermione and Bluma. The journey to King’s Cross was squished as always in the little sedan car. Bluma’s teeth ached a bit from the torture of her teeth by Hermione’s parents. Bluma never knew that brushing her teeth was so important, until they psychologically tortured Bluma by showing pictures of people’s teeth filled with holes and canneries. Bluma promised them that she would brush her teeth after every meal, as she did not want to end up as those patients, tied up to the chair, with them holding out drills in their hands.

Hermione and Bluma arrived a bit later than usual, when students were already boarding the Hogwarts Express. Going towards the back of the train, they found an almost empty compared except for some little blond girl, likely a first year. She wore star-shaped spectacles with radish earrings. Her wand was stuck above her earlobe like a pencil, and she was reading a newspaper. Upside-down.

“Hello, may we sit here?”

“Hello Bluma Schulz, Hermione Granger. Yes you may.” Bluma stumbled and sharply turned her head towards the girl.

“How do you know my name?” Bluma demanded

“You were in an article in the Quibber, didn’t you know, for inventing a cure for the tummy ache.”

“The Quibber?” blinked Bluma, before asking

“Yes, my dad owns the newspaper. I must ask though, how did you ward off the nargles so effectively?”

“… Sorry, but I don’t understand what are nargles.”

It turns out Luna, their new friend was more than happy to educate them on the unseen creatures. Hermione remained sceptical until Bluma pointed that the human body contained many more bacteria and other organisms than the body’s own cells. If that was true, what was to say that there didn’t exist other organisms similar to the ones Luna was describing?

The sorting went almost exactly as last year, and Luna made it to Ravenclaw to sit with Hermione and Bluma.

Bluma continued to try to practice her wandless magic, all while teaching it to Hermione. Surprisingly, Luna picked up and learnt wandless magic faster than them, and used it to carry her books around. Luna’s creatures continued to make their way into her conversations, and while Bluma and Hermione tried devising an experiment to support or unsupport their existence, Luna remained convinced that they would behave differently under observation. Surprisingly, this sounded very similar to parts of quantum mechanics. For Luna’s birthday, Bluma sent her a couple of books on physics and quantum mechanics.

Apparently, the fictional author Gilderoy Lochart was their new teacher for Defense Against the Dark Arts, and he was extremely competent as a public speaker and novel writer, neither of which were the topic of the class. Bluma and Hermione read their books in the back, with Bluma putting up a slight notice-me-not ward, to stop him from annoying them.

Bluma was dragged by Hermione and Luna to attend a ‘death-day’ party. Apparently, it was an ‘educational’ experience, and ‘a good place to be’. The food was all rotten and there were a couple of terrible stenches coming from them. However, the question remained: what were ghosts? Ghosts could think for themselves and could remember a limited number of information. They appeared to not question their own existence or their mortality (or lack of). They appeared immaterial and could pass through solid objects. No methods existed of stopping the ghosts, but they needed to live in areas of high magic field strength. This could be a method of learning about how the magic field interacts with other energy fields.

Going back from the death-day party, Bluma heard a hissing noise.

“Rip Tear Kill... Hungry for sssso long”

“What? Who said that?”

“Who said what?”

“I heard some hissing from the the roof. Do you think the nargles are attacking?”

The trio cautiously followed the sound, with Bluma casting some protective charms on her friends. They came across the hall opposite Murtyle’s bathroom, which was flooded with water. On the wall was a sentence, written in blood.

“The chamber of secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.” and a cat, Mrs Norris, upon closer inspection hang next to it.

Suddenly, they heard a rumble of feet and chattery voices. Thinking quickly, Bluma yelled for them to stop and get a teacher. Upon not hearing her demands, Bluma started hexing them en masse. That made them listen.

“MY CAT” shouted Mr Filch. “What happened to my cat?”

“YOU” he pointed at Bluma, shaking and red in the face. “You killed her. I’ll make you pay...”

However, he was delayed by the arrival of Professor Dumbledore, who took the cat and motioned for them to follow them.

“He’s not dead.” said Bluma, breaking the silence, to which remark made Professor Dumbledore sharply turn his head at her.

“I agree, he is not dead, merely petrified.”

“They petrified my cat, then. They were at the scene of the crime.”

“This is very dark magic. No second year could have done this.”

However, Bluma had encountered superior methods of detecting dark magic in her research, and therefore started muttering some diagnostics at Mrs Norris, which confirmed what Professor Dumbledore had said. Yes, she was petrified and Yes by dark magic, but they didn’t tell Bluma anything else. Almost all spells leave residues on whatever they were cast on, most likely due to the imperfect converting of magical energy into the other types of energy necessary for the spell to function. Although after a short while, the residue would be indistinguishable from background radiation, it was a useful tool to finding or diagnosing cursed objects.

Normally the diagnostic spells would identify exactly the signature of the curse used, which could be used to identify and even reverse-engineer a curse. The cat had none of them. Professor Dumbledore raised an eyebrow at all the diagnostic spells that Bluma knew. It wasn’t every day that a second year knew an obscure diagnostic spell only found in a book written in Latin and outlawed several centuries ago. He chose not to comment on her dedication to solving the riddle. Well, if it wasn’t a curse, could it have been something else? There were some muggle legends about Medusa that could petrify people, having snakes in her head. Is is possible that an animal petrified Mrs Norris? That thought bore more investigating. Bluma would have to pay a long visit to the libraries, both at Hogwarts and outside to deduct the culprit.

Using the nisi notitia animalia charm, which Bluma had discovered in her travels, gave Mr Filch’s a stunning discovery.

“No wizard or witch could have done this. This energy signature does not match a human one, at all. This was the work of some animal or creature. The question is, which animal can petrify?”

“How did you come to that conclusion, my boy?” asked Professor Dumbledore, surprised at this new information bought to light.

“Oh. Perform the nisi notitia animalia charm. I believe the wand motion is and infinity symbol followed by a circle.”

Performing the newly-learnt charm, gave him the same answers that Bluma had figured out. The petrifier was, in fact, not human. However, the person who wrote on the wall, definitely was. This meant that an unknown human was controlling an unknown animal entity. Not only that, but they got into the castle too. Either Hogwarts was not safe from outsiders, or he had severely underestimated some of his students or teachers.

Mr Filch had calmed down after Bluma explained that there were various methods of curing this petrification, the simplest one would be a mandrake potion; some of which were already growing in Herbology class.

Bluma and Hermione finally left after Professor Dumbledore promised them that he would continue investigating and monitoring the situation. Reluctantly, they left, promising each other that they would research about petrifying animals the next day.

Chapter Text

“Hello Harry, mind if I take a picture?” said an exited little voice. Looking downwards, Bluma saw a tiny blond kid with a huge analogue camera, jumping on his feet.
“The heck? No, you cannot take pictures of me, however, I can take a picture of you, if you want.”
“Oh. that’s fine. My dad’s a milkman, and it was so exciting to come here, don’t you think? Anyways, thanks.” That conversation went well, until the novel writer Professor Lochart came in.
“Oho. Are we handing out autographs? Well, let me tell you...” he was interrupted by a Bluma pointing a finger behind him, face ashen with horror. Professor Lochart turned around, only to see nothing out of the ordinary. Turning back to try to talk to Bluma, he was met with empty air. Both Bluma and the blond kid ran off.

Researching historical archives gave Bluma and Hermione little information about the elusive chamber of secrets, and the only reference was more of a myth than concrete evidence. Even Professor Flitwick did not know more than the myth of Salazar Slytherin’s secret monster, in which Salazar Slytherin apparently created a ‘secret chamber’ in which he stored a ‘terrible monster’ to rid the school of the unpure, although Bluma doubted that part was true, as that discrimination was probably introduced afterwards. However, it did at least support Bluma’s discovery that an unkown non-human entity petrified the cat.

The question remained, what could cause petrifications? While Hermione was researching different animal species, Bluma started working on reverse-engineering the petrification. Mr Filch kindly allowed her to perform some non-invasive spells on Mrs Norris, provided that Bluma would try to find a method of curing her.

Bluma’s breakfast was interrupted by a fluttering piece of parchment gently flying towards her. After sensing nothing hostile from it, she opened the note which read.
“Please come up to the hospital wing after Breakfast. Regards, Albus Dumbledore.”
After finishing breakfast, Bluma along with Hermione went up to the infirmary, which had the door inconveniently locked. Knocking on the door made Professor Dumbledore wandlessly unlock the door, motioning for them to enter.

On a white bed lay a student, a familiar blond, whom Bluma had seen several days ago. His hands were clutched around a camera, and his expression was terrified, but stiff. The boy was a bit pale, as if frozen and now lay a bit cold.

“Very glad of you to join us” Started Professor Dumbledore. “I found this boy last night, on the way to the kitchen. He is petrified just as the cat was. Can you see if you can get some more information? Now that a student has been petrified, it has become a much more serious matter.”

A student now? This was getting interesting. The diagnostics revealed the same information as the cat, however, he did have a camera…
Now looking at the camera revealed more information; the film was completely melted, and was now emitting some faint radiation, which was still detectable from the background radiation. The film was apparently a bit burnt due to some foreign magic. In fact, the film had a damage pattern of a mostly clearly-defined circle, although the edges were a bit hazy. However, why was it damaged? Could light-sensitive materials react adversely to the weapon? If so, that could mean that sight was the method of attack. After all, both the boy and the cat had their eyes wide open...

“I could not gleam any more information from the body, however the camera had something quite interesting. The film inside is damaged in a circular pattern with the radius of about 3 mm. Now, let’s see the focus of the camera… The camera was focused on something approximately 2-5 metres in front of the boy. I would need to run some tests, but looking at the focus, zoom and percentage of the sensor damaged, it might be possible to get an idea of how big is the animal’s mechanism. From a rough estimate, I would say that it was about 10cm.”

“Furthermore, the damage was only done on the film, not on anything else, and while it is possible that the weapon only affects that silver compound, my theory is that any light-sensitive compound will be affected. If you notice, both the cat and the boy had their eyes opened and staring in some shock / fear. It could be possible that the weapon mechanism targets the eyes, or more concretely, the light-sensitive elements of the eyes.”

“This is most intriguing. This means the creature is not very small or unseen. The question is how can they move around the school without anyone noticing?”

“I would recommend that we install simple weight measuring runes across the school. A malicious entity would not think to detect them, but we would be able to approximate roughly it’s movement, and possibly have a rudimentary warning system. It would be futile to install light-sensing runes because they could be adversely affected, and be destroyed without giving us the necessary data” Suggested Bluma. “If we draw a map of the school and the animal crosses multiple weight runes, we might be even able to tell it’s speed, and from that calculate it’s place where it hides.”

“Secondly, we should be doing thorough roll calls and roll checks regularly throughout the day, and regularly patrol the areas near the house common rooms. This is, of course, based on the assumption that the malicious entity is a student, but it is the most likely one.”

“A most valuable idea. You can work with our Runes teacher Professor Babbling on your idea. Thank you very much, and bring me up with your progress once you start it. In the meantime, I will schedule a staff meeting to prepare these practices.”

“Will do, Professor”

And with that, Bluma and Hermione became the Hogwarts’ detectives. True to Bluma’s word, she worked with Professor Babbling in creating some simple weight-measuring enchantments and binding them to runes. Hermione was also quick to learn and now contributed greatly to the group. Once the runes were finished, it was a matter of applying them to the castle. The castle was so big that it was really difficult to apply the runes to a sufficient amount all throughout the castle, including entrances and exits. Even after the runes were applied, it was still necessary to regularly check them and record their observations manually, one by one.

Hermione dragged Bluma to the newly-formed dueling club, much to Bluma’s displeasure. There was a huge crown gathered around a centre stage. Bluma thought this was heretic. Dueling on a stage? This was not some sort of dueling tournament, they were going to learn to defend themselves. Even worse, the supervising teacher was no other than the ‘great’ and ‘esteemed’ Professor Lochart.

“Come on, Hermione. It’s clear that it is a waste of time. Even you could teach the class better than that novel-writer”
“Just give him a chance, Bluma. Who knows how he might surprise you?”
Bluma’s grumbled reply was interrupted by the start of the session.

“Hello. Gather around, gather around. Can everyone hear me?” started Professor Lochart. “Professor Dumbledore has kindly agreed to this little dueling session, and Professor Snape has sportingly agreed to help me. For starters we will have a little demonstration, Professor Snape, if you will.”

Barely into the duel, before Professor Lochart even fired a single spell, Professor Snape disarmed him. Right after, Professor Lochart asked for Bluma to volunteer against some rude blond kid. Draco, was it?
“Scared Potter?” Asked her opponent, only for her to half-close her eyes as if she was sleeping. The duel began by Draco shooting some spells, which were lazily blocked even without waving her wand nor saying an incantation. Bluma sent a sleeping charm to the boy, who instantly fell asleep, while the crowed laughed. After being revived by Professor Snape, he conjured some snake, which Bluma instantly vanished. Bluma grew tired of this stupidity, and stunned Professor Lochart, to the dismay and outrage of some people in the crowd. However, Bluma was more used to working with children, and instantly shouted her orders.

“Everyone, find a pair NOW! GO.GO.GO!”
“Now, 1 person will practice the disarming spell, incantation is “expeliarmus” with no wand movement. The second person will block, incantation is “protego”. Well, what are you waiting for? START!”
However, Bluma didn’t have time to supervise the kids, and left it up to Professor Snape to continue, who was more than happy to do so. Apparently he had a great interest in Dueling and defense, and couldn’t wait to further his interests.

All of Bluma, Hermione and Professor Babbling’s efforts bore fruit when another student was petrified, this time not only a student but a ghost as well. The student was also targeted, but analysing the trajectory revealed that Justin, now petrified, saw it through the ghost. It was revealed that Collin was petrified through his camera, and Justin through the ghost… Could it be a pattern? In any case, it the weapon worked on sight, would a blindfold be effective against it? It was possible to use some hearing amplifying spells to get an understanding of the general area, and duelists frequently heard the sound of the spell when it was impossible for them to see. Bluma started to practice a bit walking in a blindfold, trying to sense her surroundings.

Manually searching through each weight rune revealed that only one was activated; quite close to where the body was found. Apparently the weight measured 3 tonnes, and was activated twice. This implied that the animal came for the body and then left. But, what animal could be so big and move around Hogwarts? After her conclusion, Bluma started to be glued to Hermione’s side, never letting her out of her eyesight.

Bluma and Hermione were once again helping out Hagrid later at night when they saw some figures moving towards them. Professor Dumbledore was at the front with the most shiny costume Bluma had seen to date. Behind him walked a short and plump middle-aged man with a green cap.
“Hello, Prof’sr Dumbl’dore, how can I help ya?” asked Hagrid, but it was the plump man who answered.
“We have been hearing about terrible things going at Hogwarts, yes, terrible things, and the Ministry has decided to act. We have to be seen doing something, you understand. That’s why you are hereby under arrest...”

“Hey, wait a minute. Who the hell do you think you are to randomly arrest people?” interrupted Bluma.
“Ah, Mr Potter. I am the Minister of Magic, and it is necessary for the Ministry to arrest Mr Hagrid, I’m sure you understand.”
“So what if you’re the Minister? The Ministry of Magic is the legislative branch, not the judicial branch. You can’t enforce the law. That’s what the Aurors are for. You are clearly breaching the powers set. You can, however, ask the Aurors to investigate, and then only they would be allowed to press charges and whatnot.”
“But I am the Minister of Magic. It is withing my power to detain him. Imagine the bad press we will get if we don’t do something.”
“I couldn’t care less, and do expect a formal inquiry and a press statement about today. Who knows how many people you might have illegally locked up?”
“Now, my boy, surely it won’t come to that” pleaded the man.
“It will if you don’t leave right now” demanded Bluma with a deadening glare. The Minister quickly exited the conversation, mumbling about some excuse and wondering how to appear to do something.

A few weeks later, Professor Dumbledore got fired by the board of governors, although Bluma doubted that he would be permanently removed from Hogwarts, as he had too much political pull. However, Bluma regularly kept in touch with him though Professor Babbling, informing him of their progress. Hermione had modified the enchantments on the stones to automatically sound an alarm which said to close your eyes, if it detected a heavy weight. Could the entity try to force the person to open the victim’s eyes? Of course, but it would give them much more information on who exactly is the entity, as the entity would leave their magical signature, finger-prints, DNA and possibly other data to identify them. The entity had not yet made any attacks, and it was only a waiting game.

Chapter Text

Penelope Clearwater was walking down a hallway, when she heard some soft sound far away. Must be some animal, she though as she continued walking. After a few moments, the same noise was heard, although closer than before. Penelope tried to turn her head, but suddenly someone grabbed her hand. Looking down, she saw a little first-year boy holding her hand, looking straight ahead. Penelope opened her mouth to say something, before the boy hissed out “we’re being followed”.
Again, Penelope tried to turn around, only for the boy’s tight grip on her hand to tighten. “Don’t look back.”, while starting to run.

Penelope had to increase her stride to keep up. Although, that boy did look familiar, and there was some faint marking on his forehead? “Harry Potter?” Penelope quietly asked, only to receive a faint nod in return. Bluma continued speeding up, using an obscure and wandless Greek spell to increase their speed. They were nearing a dead end, but they had to continue running. Continue running until… Penelope watched with some shock as the wall appeared closer and closer, in fact, they were travelling at a great speed, until suddenly they changed direction. One moment they were about to crash into the wall, another moment they were flying up like a rocket, with a feeling of pure lightness. Soon, however, the world went black for Penelope and Bluma, who had summoned some blindfolds and made them difficult to remove.

Bluma used her newly developed spell that mimicked the echolocation of bats. On the ground, there appeared to be some gigantic withering tube stuck to the wall, making loud bangs while thrashing against the floor and the walls. It appeared that the creature had been caught stuck with it’s head inside the wall. Bluma activated the emergency rune that communicated with an identical rune in Professor Dumbledore’s pocket. The rune could only be used once, and it was agreed to use it in an absolute emergency.

It appeared that the creature was trying to break free of the wall, but was unable to. After gently levitating herself and Penelope up onto a pillar, Bluma additionally levitated some heavy stones off the ground and on top of the creature, while simultaneously conjuring a huge bag, to place on the creature. Bluma often found that some animals would quieten down if they were wrapped in a bag or blanket. After a large portion of the creature was covered, Bluma conjured a mirror and some glasses and handed them to Penelope, who was slightly stunned by Bluma to not create a distraction or possibly another victim. Bluma put some glasses on Penelope, which was quite hard to do blind, and handed her a mirror.

“Look into the mirror carefully when I take off your blindfold, and tell me what you see.” Bluma asked Penelope.
Slightly trembling, Penelope let out a gasp at the sight beneath her. “There is a huge snake stuck in the wall, wrapped in a blanket.”
Knowing that it was fine to look, Bluma dispelled her own blindfold and looked down. It was true. A ginormous green snake was stuck head-first in the wall. It appeared that their tactic worked. The snake seemed to be calming down, but just to be sure, Bluma released some chloroform into the air, while applying a respiratory mask onto herself and Penelope. The snake soon started to sleep.

Gently levitating down allowed them to see an unconscious student on the floor, clutching a diary in her hand. Bluma stunned the unconscious student, as it never hurt to be extra careful, while warding this entire corridor to repel any other people. Bluma knew that most teachers would be able to get through the ward easily, but no other students would pose a danger or would need protection.

Bluma then took away the unconscious girl’s wand, while simultaneously checking for others which could have been hidden. Penelope was in a shock, trying to comprehend what happened, while looking in fright at the snake every now and then.

Bluma took off every object the unconscious student had on them, including their quills, parchment, ink, a diary belonging to some other kid,… Why would this student carry a diary belonging to someone else? Peering closer at the diary made Bluma drop the diary in shock. There, on the cover was written the name ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’. This was that terrorist’s diary? Who knows what kind of curses it could have. Doing some detection charms revealed… nothing. How was this possible? At least it should show some residues, maybe a hint to it’s manufacturing process, but it showed nothing at all.

Using more advanced detection charms revealed nothing at all, until Bluma’s ‘Homo Revelio’. There were four people in their area. Bluma ducked, while casting some wide-area stunning charms, which did nothing. Bluma started casting stunning charms left and right, up and down, but it not reveal anyone. Cautiously casting some more detection charms revealed the same result, and narrowing it down, it was within a meter. Who could be that close but undetectable? However, Bluma gained an idea. Could it be possible that it was some enchantment on the diary to register as human?

Casting more charms revealed that yes, the diary appeared to be a human, but it was not transfigured or anything. It was almost like a phylactery that Bluma had read about in her search of immortality. If so, it would be easy to remove with some Friendfyre. Bluma cast one more detection charm, looking at some theoretical soul magic, which finally brought some data, but Bluma did not have the necessary understanding of that obscure art to decipher it. Memorising the data, Bluma finally cast some Friendfyre at the diary, causing a thick black smoke to pop out, screeching and howling in pain, before slowly dissipating into the air. That was...interesting.

The unconscious girl’s eyes opened, only to be stunned again by Bluma a couple of times. It was better to wait for Professor Dumbledore to arrive and have more backup before questioning the child.

Bluma only had to wait around 15 minutes for the professor to arrive, and arrive he did, panting a bit all the way up the corridor. The snake had already calmed down by that time and was peacefully snoozing. Professor Dumbledore let out a sigh of relief seeing Bluma all right, only to turn white at the sight of the snake.
“What...exactly...is this?” he managed.
“Some type of snake, apparently safe to look right now, but might petrify you if you look at it in some other way, not sure yet how it activates it’s weapon.”
“What happened to the others? Are they all right?” he asked while bending down to check on the unconscious students.
“Yeah. I saved that big girl from the snake, and I’m not sure what that firstie was doing, but they had a diary belonging to Mr Riddle.”
“A diary, you say?”
“Yes, only it appeared to be more of a human than a diary, according to the obscure detection charms I cast. In any case, I memorised the diagnostics before burning it with Friendfyre, quite a spectacle that was, too.”
“Well, this discussion can wait. We definitely need to call the other professors, and probably the Aurors as well.”
“Well, I was hoping to interrogate the firstie...”
“I doubt they had anything to do with it, but you may ask them some questions.”
Bluma wandlessly reversed her sleeping spell on the firstie, who woke up sluggishly.
“Where am I? What happened?” they asked.
“I’m doing the questioning, not you.” ordered Bluma, only to relax at Professor Dumbledore’s placating gestures.
“You were found here unconscious with a dangerous artefact in your possession. Can you remember anything?”
“I was… going to class, I had Transfiguration. I must’ve fallen asleep or something.”
“Ok, that seems plausible, but not the full picture. Does the name Tom Riddle mean anything to you?”
The girl’s head snapped towards Bluma with a terrified expression.
“How do you know that?”
“You were carrying a dangerous artefact, a diary, to be precise, with his name. Luckily I managed to destroy it before it caused any harm.”
“What do you mean, dangerous? It was only a diary, although it was enchanted to talk to me.”
“Well, look to the right” Bluma asked the firstie, who jumped at the sight of the giant snake stuck to the wall.
“Tom wouldn’t have done that. He was a good person, he always listened to me and my worries, and he was so kind” the firstie babbled.
“Tom Riddle is not very known by his real name, but you might be familiar with his other name, Mr Yuno Hu or Mr lord, or whatever you want to call him.”
The poor firstie appeared confused, before suddenly realising it. “As in You-Know-Who?” she asked with a trembling voice.
It was Professor Dumbledore who interrupted. “Please, calm down. We’ll get you two to Madame Pomfrey, Bluma, would you mind?”
But the girl wasn’t listening. She had gone white and her hand was trembling. “Is it true, then, did I really… was Tom really??” The little girl looked very scared now, and clearly in shock. Bluma touched the girl’s forehead with her hand. “Peace”, Bluma muttered, which at an instinctual level drew some of her magic, calming the girl down, who was now taking deep breaths. Professor Dumbledore now had a speculative look on his face, remembering something from his past, before a sudden realisation came upon him.

“There was only one other time when I saw someone calm down like that, and it was while fighting the war against Grindelwald. An Auror had just witnessed the murder of his friend, before being apparated to safety, deep inside the Black Forest. He was just as hysterical, even more so than Mrs Weasley, here. A unicorn approached him, I do not know out of where, and touched his forehead with it’s horn, just as you did, instantly calming him down. I later found out he had been leaving food for the little animals, and unknowingly feeding some unicorns. Just think on that, while you take them to Madame Pomfrey, Bluma.” pronounced the professor, reminiscing his early days.

That explained quite a lot, Bluma thought, while levitating the two girls with a flick of her wand, leading them to the infirmary. She had noticed that some seventh years appeared to be subconsciously approaching Bluma while studying and most likely worrying about their exams. It appeared that being close to her allowed them to relax a bit, causing them to subconsciously associate relaxation with being near her.
She almost ran into Professor Snape, who was doing his rounds, making sure students were not mucking around.
“What’s going on here? What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hissed at Bluma, clearly alarmed at the unconscious students being levitated.
“Oh. I am taking them to the infirmary. By the way, you should probably go to the fourth floor corridor, you’ll find Professor Dumbledore there.” Bluma hurriedly replied before continuing on to the infirmary, leaving a slightly confused Professor Snape standing there.

She opened the doors to the infirmary swiping her hand along the doorknob, wandlessly opening the door and alerting Madame Pomfrey to their entrance, while setting the students on the infirmary beds.
“What happened to them?” asked Madame Pomfrey at the sight of the students.
“The older student just had a shock, while I really have no idea about the younger student, possible psychological trauma, manipulation and brainwashing, possibly even some control curse or even possession.”
“What could have possibly caused all that?”
“Cursed artefact, I’m afraid, but it’s all gone now, thankfully.”
Bluma was quick to leave them be and go back towards the corridor, which now contained Professors Dumbledore, McGonnagle and Snape, all studying the big green, but sleeping snake. Apparently someone, who Bluma suspected to be Professor Snape, had the common sense to conjure some more chloroform to keep the snake sleeping. They all looked harried and pale, while trying to think of safe solutions to removing the snake.
“We should just kill it right now, to prevent any danger to the students” argued Professor Snape, while Professor Dumbledore opted for a more peaceful solution.
“While killing it would solve the problem, it would not be easy to kill the basilisk, especially considering it’s resistance to basically all spells.”
“So what should we do? Let it stay here?”
“No, we shall move it into the forest first, to keep the students out of harm. From there, we can transport it to a more suitable location, far away from humans. I will need to contact my old friend Newt Scamander, who knows more about dealing with dangerous creatures than I.”

And so the operation move the basilisk began. Students were sent to their dormitories while all the teachers gathered around the basilisk, including Professor Lochart, who was now proclaiming that he had slayed the basilisk, only to be pointed out by the other teachers that it was in fact Bluma that had trapped and made to sleep the basilisk.

“Don’t worry, Professor Lochart. I am sure we can write a fiction novel where you find and defeat a basilisk, basing it off this event. You can research a bit about basilisks, and I’ll tell you what I did, and then you can transform it like you want. It’s called artistic license all.” Bluma cheerfully told the professor, who went suddenly quite pale at that, while some other professors snickered.
“N-No, i-i’m sure it won’t be necessary.”

The transfiguration professor McGonnagle along with the headmaster managed to construct a huge stretcher, to put beneath the basilisk to then levitate it. Mr Hagrid had been called in to help roll the snake onto the stretcher.
“1, 2, 3, push” commanded Professor Lochart, who chose to direct the group effort by himself. So he did have his uses after all. All the professors were panting and red in the face from moving the basilisk onto the stretcher. Basilisk scales were extremely magic-resistant, and all but the most powerful magic would simply be deflected or slide off. However, the stretcher did not have such a magical ability, and a group “Wengardium Leviosa” lifted the stretcher plus the snake a couple of centimetres off the ground, while Professor Lochart led the way to the forbidden forest.

It was really difficult to navigate through all the trees, but Bluma had an instinctual sense of the right direction, and often made some course adjustments. Eventually, they found a clearing far away from the castle, in which they could place down the snake. Everyone involved was exhausted after all the work, but luckily didn’t forget to conjure some more chloroform to keep the snake sedated. Professor Dumbledore made some urgent arrangements with that Newt person for tomorrow, so everyone went to bed early, from the tiredness and in preparation or the next day.

Chapter Text

Bluma made her way to the Ravenclaw common room, and was immediately ambushed by some person, who later turned out to be a worrying and slightly crying Hermione, who had spent a couple of hours waiting for Bluma to arrive.
“How could you? Do you know how worried I was, here, waiting for you after all students were sent to their common rooms? What if something happened to you?”
“Please, calm down. Yes, there was an incident, but it is all solved now. You remember the detective work we were doing on the Slytherin’s pet? Well, it turns out it is a really big snake. Luckily it is now sleeping deep inside the forest.”
Hermione looked horrified at that information. “The Slytherin’s monster?”
“Well, yes…”
“And you did not tell me? What if you had died?”
“it was a spontaneous decision, an opportunity easily missed. But I am sorry for worrying you.”

The next day, classes were cancelled while the Biology professor Newt Scamander visited them and their ‘pet’. His eyes widened at the size and age of the basilisk. They were extremely hard to breed, let alone grow them, not to mention being extremely illegal in almost all countries. Luckily, there were a couple of habitats far away from civilisation and deep within the forest perfect for it. All of them had to manually create a portkey, to transport it to the habitat. Bluma didn’t really care what happened to the snake afterwards, as she had already solved the mystery, and therefore left the snake to Newt Scamander’s care.

Portkeys were interesting things, and Bluma had no idea how they operated. She knew, of course the principles, but those were the ‘magical’ principles, and therefore horribly incorrect or incompatible with physics. Bluma managed to apply most physics principles to simple magic spells, and it all made sense. Create a light? Magical potential energy converted into electromagnetic energy. Levitation? Converted into kinetic energy. All of those processes were completely logical, except the various methods of teleportation. Bluma would need to speak to some physicists (promptly obliviated) in the spring break.

Bluma spent the spring break catching up on the non-magical school-work. This was especially important for Bluma as they would be starting new concepts in physics and maths, which would be very new and interesting. They were starting to learn the theory of special and later general relativity ad Einstein’s differential equations. Bluma had read a bit on black holes and some theoretical concepts on worm-holes, and although the simulations of worm-holes were never stable, it was a start to unraveling the magical teleportation.

It was hard work proof-reading Hermione’s work, due to the sheer amount of it. The teacher asked for 5 inches, not fifteen, for goodness’ sake. But, how to reduce it? Bluma noticed that Hermione frequently mentioned her sources inside the text with great detail; something that could be improved upon.

“Hermione, why do you mention your sources inside your text?”
“We need to give proof, of course and credit the author.” - Hermione replied
“Then why don’t you just create a list of references at the end of your work? It would be much more concise?”
“Then where will I put the proof?”
“What proof? There is no proof here?” Bluma asked. Surely she hadn’t forgotten what proof meant, Bluma thought to herself.
“Well, let’s see. Here, that’s what the Magical Encyclopedia says. There it is.”
“I still don’t see the proof. We must have different definitions of proof then, if you call referencing a book ‘proof’”
“Yes, but I got the information from that book, not just made it up, so it is a proof.”
Bluma was very confused now. “… You realise that books might be wrong, don’t you?”
“If they were wrong, why would they be published?”
Bluma facepalmed. It hurt to see such a bright student be so naive about the world.
“You think a book can’t be wrong? Let’s see, then.” and Bluma took out one of her muggle science books.
“Let’s see… opening a random page… There already found an error. Hydrogen and Oxygen are not used as rocket propellants because they release a lot of energy when burnt, but because they are supremely efficient, in that it would require less mass of them to produce the same energy, than, for example, aluminum powder, HTPB and ammonium perchlorate.”

“That’s one example” debated Hermione

“Well, let’s see. In a Math textbook… Voila, it says here that there are no solutions to the equation
x^2 + x + 1 = 0
This is wrong, and I’ll calculate the solutions, even, to prove it to you. The solutions are…
- 1 + Sqrt[3] i and -1 – Sqrt[3] i. What the textbook should really be saying is that there are no real solutions. It was these oversimplifications that impede students’ learning in complex analysis and other areas of math. It is unfortunately the same in many textbooks for all subjects.”

“Let’s see a physics book, now… This example about a super fast runner running around the earth and uses the theory of special relativity to calculate time dilation is false. If the person is running around the earth, the person is running in more or less a circle, and therefore constantly changing direction. And, because velocity is a vector, the person has an acceleration and therefore needs to use general relativity instead.”

Hermione looked a bit put down with all the misleading information found in the textbooks. “So what do I do then?”

“Well, firstly you can understand the difference between a proof and what you find in books. I found that the magical world is especially terrible at this, as they have not yet come up with any proof whatsoever. For a proof, there are various methods. For example, you can prove that the opposite is false. Not just that you can’t do it, but that the opposite creates a contradiction. If the opposite creates a contradiction, then the original is true. Don’t take anything on faith.”

“What do you mean, magic is a wooly subject? We have Gamp’s laws for transfiguration, and more”
“Yeah… they are most likely completely wrong. The laws are not derivated from other natural phenomena. For example, Kepler’s laws didn’t just come out of nothing. We can take the formula for gravitational force and centripital force and from them we get one of Kepler’s laws. Similarly, we perform some equations on the system of differential equations for a trajectory on a planet, and we get the equation of a plane, from which we can deduce that the orbit will be in a plane.”
“But Gamp’s laws, on the other hand, do not have a concrete theory or proof, they are not derived from anything else. They are just his observations and nothing more.”

“Ok. And then?”

“In your essays, you might reference a number of books which provide the same information, called cross-referencing. Unfortunately, magic is a wooly subject, although I am trying to change it and make it conform to the laws of physics and maths. What you can do is think critically, and see if it makes sense. But in terms of your essay, state the information, and then at the end, reference the books and authors, usually in a format such as Harvard or APA.”

Luckily, after some days of handing a more reasonable homework with the references at the back, made all her professor’s very happy, and Professor Flitwick even congratulated her on her ‘newly discovered’ method of references. Apparently referencing was new to the wizarding world.

In terms of accommodation for the summer holidays, Bluma had once again been invited to join the Granger family to a trip to France and Switzerland. Bluma would join them in Paris, as she was able to apparate there, instead of relying on a plane. Bluma would bring her own mattress shrunken to not have to pay for an extra room.

The next day, they went to the space museum in Paris, which really fascinated all of the Grangers. There were models of the Ariane rockets and the Soyuz rockets and mars rovers used for testing. They learned about the history of rocket flight, and of course Hermione memorised the important dates: the 4th of October, 1957: the first satellite Sputnik launched into space by the Soviet Union, 12th of April 1961: Yuri Gagarin’s successful orbital flight and many more.

The final exhibit was some moon samples, specifically a rock from the moon. It was enclosed in such a way that it was possible to touch it without being able to steal it. Bluma also touched the rock, but as soon as she touched it, Bluma felt all of her energy leaving her and almost fainted, before removing her hand in a reflex. What was that? Bluma still felt quite lightheaded and pale.
“Hermione, come here. Touch the rock very quickly, and tell me if you feel anything”
Hermione obliged, before drawing her hand away in shock, before explaining to Bluma that she felt some zapping and now felt tired. Bluma also noticed that the moon sample also glowed for a bit, though luckily no-one noticed that.

“This rock has magical properties” finally revealed Bluma.
“What do you mean?”
“This rock was sucking magic out of us, and transforming it to who-knows-what. That’s why we feel a bit tired. We need to investigate this ASAP.”
“What do you mean, investigate?”
“You’ll see. When does this place close?”
“In about half an hour. Surely you are not trying to rob it?”
“Not rob. I’ll just run some diagnostics on it.”

Bluma went into the bathrooms, and while none was looking, turned herself invisible. Additionally, she put some sticking charms to her shoes, feet and hands to climb up the wall. It was necessary to place sticking charms on her foot, her socks as well as her shoes so that she didn’t slip out of her shoes while walking upside down.

It was a bit difficult to wandlessly temporarily negate the sticking charms on her hands and feet so that she could move, while she clutched her wand in her teeth. By the time she got to the exhibit, the place was already closing down. Hermione explained to her parents that Bluma needed to take a breather outside and would join them later.

Right after the security guards walked around and locked everything up, Bluma ended the sticking charms and landed on the floor on all fours. Bluma waved her wand for some basic diagnostic charms and waited… and waited. It appears they had disappeared into nothingness. Some more diagnostics similarly had no answer. It appeared they were completely absorbed by the rock, which briefly pulsed in a low light. Some more complicated diagnostic charms were also absorbed by the rock, giving Bluma no information at all. Exhausting her repertoire in diagnostics revealed nothing new at all. The most she did was confirm that the stone briefly pulsed when absorbing magic.

Bluma apparated out of the building and found the Granger family, who were waiting in a restaurant. “What did you find out?” inquired Hermione.
“Absolutely nothing. It absorbs magic and emits some pulses of light in the lower frequencies, but nothing more.”
“How can it absorb magic? Gendall’s law states that all magic leaves residues.”
“Well, Gendall is wrong then, isn’t he?”
“Sorry, what’s this about?” interrupted Hermione’s father.
“You know the moon rock on display, it absorbs magic, completely. This is a monumental discovery, if proven.”
“Absorbs magic? I get why you needed to take a breather. The muggles might develop weapons that completely absorb all magic, and the wizarding world will be in a lot of trouble.”
Both Bluma and Hermione looked shocked at that.
“We haven’t thought about it. But you are correct. It could be devastating in the wrong hands. We need to get a hold of lunar rocks quickly, and understand the physics and magic behind it. How much do they cost?”
Hermione’s father snickered. “oh, I would say several of million per gram…”

“If you cannot buy a lunar rock, why not just do your teleportation thingy to the moon and get some from there?” suggested Hermione’s mother.
Bluma was about to discard that idea, but then stopped. It wasn’t possible to teleport to the moon, and that’s not counting the effects the moon might have on magic, but it could be possible to go to the moon on a rocket, and collect the samples without any magic.
“That’s… a brilliant idea.”
Now then, the question is, how to go to the moon and back.

Chapter Text

While there was no known way to get to the moon using magic because portkeys only worked on the planet and Apparition could only travel a short distance, the muggles had launched space probes to the moon and back and even landed a couple of humans. However, how to convince a country to develop a spaceship to go to the moon and back?

The most powerful countries in the space industry were the USA and recently-recreated Russia. China was also catching up but it would be a long while before it would be a major player in space. Bluma initially wanted to restart the Saturn V rocket in the USA, but it’s magical government made her reconsider. Their magical government was much more effective than the British counterpart and they routinely monitored everything that happened in the muggle world. They were much more in touch with their muggle counterparts and would surely notice any signs of interference. It would be almost impossible to interfere with their government while remaining undetected from the magical Aurors. Disguises also would not work, as Grindelwald proved by being captured by the US’s Aurors. If Grindelwald could not do it, Bluma highly doubted that she could be able to go to the moon, and while Grindelwald did escape prison, Bluma knew that she did not compare in terms of pure power to Grindelwald. No, stepping foot on US soil was not an option if she wanted to remain out of prison.

On the other hand, Russia was almost perfect for Bluma: it was in complete chaos after the perestroika, life-changing decisions were being made without a second thought, which would make Bluma’s work much easier. The magical population, from what she heard, was also in complete chaos and were busy trying to restore order especially after the failed coup a couple of months before. The only downside was the complete economic collapse that Russia was suffering, probably even worse than the great depression. But first, Bluma needed to get a clearer picture of the situation in Russia. But, that could wait until school started, as she would have more time due to the complete lack of anything challenging.

Meanwhile, Hermione was trying to research about the properties of the moon rock. How was the rock different from those on earth? What did the moon have that the earth did not? Well, firstly there was a vacuum, but that probably would not create magical properties. There was low gravity, but that didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t protected by earth’s magnetic field, which meant it was constantly being bombarded with radiation from the sun and other stars.

However, Hermione’s best theory, after spending a couple of days with her nose stuck to different books and scientific articles, was that some particles travelling at supremely high velocities, almost at the speed of light and created in very powerful astronomic events such as quasars and supernovae could be the culprit. Those cosmic rays had huge amounts of energy due to their speed and when they collide with the moon, they could create a multitude of decay particles, yet unknown to humans. In theory, some of those could be stable enough and could interact strongly with the magical field. However, on earth, these cosmic rays would collide with the atmosphere and would decay and be dispersed in the atmosphere. These particles had so much energy that the current efforts in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) would not be able to create such high energy to match the cosmic rays. Therefore the the potentially new stable particle would not be discovered.

Both Hermione and Bluma had signed up to do all the classes, although for different reasons. For Bluma, ancient runes and arithmancy was a must in most rituals and while Bluma did have some experience in them, gaining a deeper understanding of specifically the runes and arithmancy would help her create and modify her rituals. Bluma also chose muggle studies, but not to actually study it. Bluma was already familiar with most muggle technology and would not need to study it. However, Bluma’s cunning plan was to use that time to privately study muggle rockets. It probably wasn’t uncommon to do personal projects, and studying rocket science was most definitely a worthy muggle study. Bluma chose to also do Divination and Care of Magical Creatures because she did not have much of an understanding of them, and it would be nice to learn the basics about them. Of course, if any turned out to be completely useless, Bluma could always drop the elective and free up some more time. Hermione, on the other hand, wanted to learn everything possible, but Bluma suspected that Hermione just wanted to do every elective just for the sake of it.

Around the middle of the holidays, Bluma’s empathic abilities suddenly peaked a lot with no cause or explanation, although Bluma suspected it was some hormonal changes. This made Bluma really nauseous being anywhere near crowds, her new senses being assaulted by all the people. Bluma couldn’t go out for walks and spent a day stuck in the hotel, trying to do some basic meditation before she had enough. She wouldn’t sit there moping about in the hotel for the rest of the holidays. Saying goodbye to the Grangers, Bluma left for Japan, which was known for it’s masters in mindfulness (and martial arts). After entering London's airport, invisible, she used a wandless sticking charm to her shoes, socks, feet and hands and climbed up the wall towards the roof. Bluma made her way over the ques and over border security, before having to walk through all the shops in her way. Really, couldn't they have found a better place for the shops?
It was easy for Bluma to sneak into the next flight to Japan under her invisibility cloak and find an empty spot in the airplane's hand luggage racks. Arriving early, and knowing that the plane would soon be crowded which would cause her a lot of pain, Bluma took a powerful sleeping pill she had nicked from the pharmacy, and soon after fell asleep, though still invisible. Bluma woke up with a headache, but thankfully still invisible in the rack. Not sensing anyone nearby, Bluma carefully opened the rack with a wandless alohamora and jumped down onto an empty plane. Noting that the doors were closed and not wanting to alert anyone, Bluma took her little luggage, still under the invisibility cloak and looked out of the window. Luckily, she could see into the inside of the main building as it was made out of glass, and so turned on the spot to apparate there. Appearing with a small pop, Bluma looked around and noted that she was in the departures zone instead of the arrivals zone, but thankfully the signs were in Japanese and not in another language. It was, admittedly, more difficult to get out of the airport as she had to make sure not to bump into anyone or be seen. Bluma had to ‘cheat’ and apparate over the border protection as she was going the opposite way.

Sneaking out of Narita airport, Bluma boarded a Shinkansen followed by a bus into the mountains where the masters should be found. Unfortunately, the bus stop was not near her destination and Bluma was forced to walk for a couple of hours before finding the palace. Although, in hindsight, the walk was very nice as there was no one near and Bluma could enjoy the beauty of it without doubling over in pain and nausea. Though, she was glad to see the palace and Japanese gardens once she arrived. The monks were quite friendly but did not speak any German or English. Bluma had to resort to a translation spell on herself, which was very dodgy. The spell worked… technically, but it was hard to get her message across as the grammar and word order were different. She finally was able to make he point across to the monks, who appeared to be very wise.

For a week, Bluma tried to follow all their instructions, however pointless they may seem, although Bluma seriously doubted that raking the gardens, cooking rice and trying to sit cross-leggted would really help her with her to control empathic senses. Bluma had to rake by hand the Japanese gardens every day, which was painstakingly boring, and make sure that every last grain of sand was in the correct position. Of course, if some bit of wind blew, Bluma would have to redo that section again.

However, after the umpteenth time that she watered all the plants (manually, of course), Bluma had enough and asked the monk when would they begin training. However, the monk just smiled and said it was time for dinner. An irritated Bluma followed the monk, who she now suspected to be completely useless, into the dining room, which was filled with other monks. Her guide then proceeded to count how many people were in the room, which made Bluma scrunch her fingers up in fury, but proceeded to count all the monks… and counted… there were quite a lot of number of monks there… even more monks than in the plane… Bluma’s eyes widened at the realisation that she could now be in their presence and slightly feel their emotions without any side-effects. With a small smile, Bluma proceeded to sit down and eat her dinner with the rest, before thanking the monk who had helped her control her empathic sense. Her monk guide then proceeded to tell everyone that she was now ready to leave while the others clapped. It was a bit embarrassing but Bluma couldn’t help the smile that now appeared on her face.

Bluma left the palace and spent a few days touring Japan, and the thing that struck her the most was the timeliness of the public transport. The trains always arrived on time down to the last second and the shinkansens were quiet but supremely fast. Also, Tokyo was huge and Bluma got lost twice. The school holidays coming to a close, Bluma snuck back into the plane and flew back to England. She was greeted by a worried Granger family who asked about her wellbeing. It was fortunate that her empathic senses increased over the holidays and not while at Hogwarts, as Bluma did not want to miss classes.

Apparently a criminal called Sirius Black had escaped from prison and was ‘highly dangerous’ according to the media, but Bluma payed him no mind, after all, what were the chances that he was a wizard?

Diagon Alley was quite crowded, as it was the last day of the holidays and many families went to buy their school supplies. Luckily, the second hand shop was not as crowded, and only some large red-head family were there. Going back to the leaky cauldron, she was stopped by a portly man who said that he was the minister of magic. Bluma could see a couple of the patrons in the leaky cauldron kept glancing at them, and deducted that they were his security guards trying to blend in. Apparently she was wrong. Sirius Black was, in fact, a wizard, and apparently an avid supporter of Mr Riddle. He inquired as to her whereabouts over the holidays, citing it as unsafe, although Bluma calmly rebutted that if Mr Black could infiltrate the monks in japan, they would have had much bigger problems than of Mr Riddle a.k.a Mr Yuno Hu. The monks were close friends with Seers, and no-one had ever infiltrated their palace, considering that the Seers would tell the monks beforehand of the infiltrator’s identity and entire plan. It was hard to go against an enemy that knew your entire plan before you even made it up.

The next day Bluma and Hermione once again boarded the Hogwarts Express in a cabin by themselves. While Hermione spent the trip reading about the course books, Bluma’s time was spent looking over past rocket designs and rocket development in order to know exactly the specifications of her rocket required. However, about three hours into the trip the lights on the train started flickering and the train started to slow to a halt. It was dark and rainy outside and hard to see. Hermione stood up only to trod on Bluma’s feet.
“Aua. Autsch” exclaimed Bluma, before summoning a flame inside her hands to make light and warmth.
“We can’t be there already. We have some hours left.”
“I agree. Maybe the train broke down or something.”
“Should we ask the driver?”
“No need to bother him. Probably everyone will be going there to ask him and not allow him to do his job.”

However, that would prove to be the least of their worries, as they began feeling terribly cold regardless of Bluma’s fire, and then feeling as if the happiness was sucking right out of them. Hermione felt as though she would never be happy again, and she missed her parents. Hermione hugged her legs to her. Bluma was more affected. What was the point of life? Why was it so monotonous? So gray? What was the point of doing anything in life, if everyone will eventually die anyways.
Terrible memories were brought to Bluma’s mind: her father on his last breath, face scrunched up in pain from his terminal stomach cancer, while Bluma had to do another stomach pump and inject even more if his chemotherapy drugs into him. Bluma watched him as he pleaded her to stop giving him the chemotherapy, which was causing him to feel terrible and sick, but Bluma persisted, as she sat on a stool next to him and placed the pills into his mouth, although knowing that they were only prolonging his life for a couple of months and that the cancer was terminal. Would it have been better to stop the treatment and make him feel better for the last months of life?
Unbeknownst to Bluma, she had fallen and started hallucinating due to the presence of a cloaked, hooded and flying figure in the doorway, which hungrily preyed on her grief, before a bright light slammed into it and sent him flying out of the compartment and out of the train.

Bluma awoke to the concerned glances of Hermione and an older and shabby figure, who handed her some chocolate.
“Here. Eat up. It will help.” the man said.
For Bluma, it was as if the world was returning to it’s colours from the grey shadow that it had been. Looking outside, while it was still raining, the world had depth and it was slightly different, but never the same. The chocolate, wandlessly scanned, appeared to be working magnificently.
“What happened?”
“A dementor entered here, searching for Sirius Black. You collapsed on the ground and lost fainted. Then professor Lupin used some spell to chase it away. How are you feeling?”
Bluma paused to consider her answer. These memories were very painful to her still. “I feel better than before.” she responded diplomatically, shivering a bit. The professor left them to check on other students, and Bluma tried to continue her reading, but she couldn’t focus. Every time she tried to read something, her mind would instantly go back to her father’s last moments with her. In the end, Bluma was staring into her book, unblinking, without actually reading. Then, she felt some arms wrap around her in a hug and Bluma choked back a sob. If only they had discovered her father’s cancer earlier, if only she had interacted with him more, and told him she loved him every day…
“Shhh. It will be OK.” calmed Hermione while rubbing circles in Bluma’s back. “It will be fine.”

It was a couple of hours later that Hermione awoke Bluma at their impending arrival at Hogwarts. Bluma was lying down with her head resting on Hermione’s thighs. They were escorted to Professor McGonnagle’s office for their timetables.
“As you may have realised, it is impossible to fit all your classes on your timetables as some overlap. Luckily, Hogwarts has a special solution to this.” she declared, while showing them a small necklace.

“This, is a time turner, and it will allow you to go back in time to allow you to attend both classes simultaneously. It is a very regulated and dangerous artifact in the wrong hands. As such, there are some strict rules that you must NOT break. Firstly, you must never interact with your past or future self. Many wizards and witches have attacked themselves, thinking them an impostor and they had terrible fates. Secondly, you cannot change the past; it’s impossible, and some people even erased themselves out of existence by trying to change the past. You will both read this book, explaining the rules in more detail. Also, do not mention this time turner to anyone, or there will be consequences.” and with that, Professor McGonnagle handed them the time turner.

Bluma’s mind was racing. This opened up so many possibilities as she would have more free time to do her own projects. This was simply amazing. The door opened with a bang and Madame Pomfrey came in before preforming some medical scans and checking Bluma’s vital signs. The only thing to note was her slightly elevated heart rate, which was quite explainable due to the run-in with dementors. Hermione explained that the professor had given them some chocolate, to the relief of Madame Pomfrey.
“Finally, someone who knows his stuff.” she commented. Bluma and Hermione were allowed to leave for the feast soon after.

Chapter Text

The feast was loud and boisterous, but there was an undercurrent of unease within the population. The reason: dementors. They were stationed around the school, posting as guards against some serious person. Bluma didn’t know what was so serious about him. Maybe he was a serious killer? No, the English expression would be serial killer or something. A serious problem then? That sounded reasonable. Bluma didn't know what person would constitute as a 'serious problem', but the dementors made it seem very sinister indeed.

Luckily the first day of school was a weekend and they didn’t have classes, so Bluma and Hermione could plan their day out. It was much more difficult to plan a day considering both would have to go back in time to attend all the classes, but also had to make sure to have enough rest in between. Additionally, they would not be able to interfere in the past, as it was literally impossible to change it. As far as Bluma could tell, the time turners obeyed Novikov’s self-consistency principle, in which the past could not be changed. Any action to try to change it would lead to exactly the same past. It did not create any paradoxes because the past did not change. For example, if Bluma were to go back in time to kill her mother and succeeded, something would happen, such as Bluma becoming her own mother, to keep the past consistent.

However, it would be completely unpredictable, and could end up killing the time traveller. Therefore, the less interactions with the past, the better. Going back in time to attend more classes was considered quite safe, as they would not be trying to change the past. However, the problems would start if they tried to change the past, for example by telling their earlier self to remember their homework on a particular day. In the end, something would happen which would make the person forget their homework either way.

Finally, after a couple of hours of planning, Bluma was ready to leave Hogwarts for a (slightly elongated) day. Bluma stealthily stole a school broomstick and kicked off, before conjuring some ropes to tie herself to the broomstick. The dementors would surely have a terrible effect on her, and there was a real risk of her falling off the broom. Luckily, the dementors were quite close to the ground and Bluma managed to fly on top of them, before apparating away.

Bluma apparated to her home in Surrey, before apparating over the channel to France, before apparating again to her old suburb in Germany. From there she boarded a flight to Moscow, which would take a couple of hours. The plane was quite large and was quite comfortable, although it was because Bluma had sneaked into first class. The flight did have some turbulence, which made Bluma a bit uneasy, but it did not last long. Once they landed and Bluma sneaked through border security, Bluma took a look around to memorise her surroundings. Now that she had been there, she would now be able to apparate to Moscow directly. They landed in Domodedovo airport, which was quite far from the centre of Moscow, but luckily there were some taxis there to take her to the centre of Moscow.

It was still quite early in the morning when they arrived and there was no need yet to go back in time. It wouldn’t be good if Yeltsin was still sleeping when she arrived. Bluma walked around the red square, looking for a way into the Kremlin. It was a huge square and the Vasilio Vlazshenovo church towered over the square. She finally found the Spasskie gates, which, although guarded, remained open. After hiding in the bushes and cloaking herself in her invisibility cloak, Bluma walked right through the gates, as no one would see her or be able to stop her anyways.

Stepping inside, Bluma was awed at the sight and grandness of the Kremlin. However, it would be a pain to infiltrate as it was so large. If only Bluma had a map… Bluma decided to tail a man who looked like a politician: he was as eye-wateringly boring as possible, was about 200 years old, and basically was the impersonation of commonality. Unfortunately, the politician did not go into important areas, and instead went into his office. Fortunately, they were left alone, and it was the perfect time for Bluma to manipulate him. With a quick manipulare the politician was under her thumb.

«Take me to Yeltsin» she commanded him, as he opened the door and left for, presumably, Yeltsin’s office.

They were stopped by some security guards, but with a quick confundus, they believed that the politician was quite important and let them through without any hassle. Finally, the politician stopped at a door and turned to face it. They had arrived. Bluma then ordered the politician to go back, before removing her invisibility cloak and knocking on the door. Unfortunately, it was a secretary who opened the door. Before she had any chance to speak, Bluma fired another confundus and the secretary let her through into Yeltsin’s office.

Yeltsin was a large man with blond hair, and was currently sitting in his chair filling out some papers. He was surprised to see an unknown face peer through, but didn’t let it show. Bluma tapped her throat with her wand, using a new translation charm that she had found.

«Hello. What are you doing here? I don’t believe you had an appointment.»

«Hello. I do not have an appointment, but I think you would like to listen to my proposal anyways. Have you heard of magic?»

«Magic? Yes. Russia has a small magical community. Are you a magician?»

«Correct. I am a witch. While normally we limit our interactions with the non-magical population, I believe we can make an exception. Does Russia have any lunar programs to send cosmonauts to the moon?»

«I am not certain, you need to ask the head of the space program. However, I remember reading a proposal about some Energia rockets, which I believe would be suitable.»

«Very well. You see, I require the completion of the lunar program, and the ability to travel to the moon. I believe it is vital to the affairs of the magical community. We need to meet with the head of the space program as soon as possible.»

«You need to go to the moon? What for? It will be extremely difficult to get funding for the lunar program.»

«I believe that the moon, or more specifically, lunar rocks, have some extremely crucial magical properties, which could be dangerous in the wrong hands. The problem is that the magical properties of the rocks appears to break most of our understanding of magic. Please call your head of the space program.»

While Yeltsin dialed his phone, Bluma looked around his office, which was quite quaint. However, opening a cupboard, Bluma was greeted with a couple of empty bottles of liquor.

«Hey, that’s my private stash.» Yeltsin exclaimed. Great, thought Bluma sarcastically. An alcoholic. Just what she needed. With a cruel smirk on her face, Bluma waved her wand and tapped Yeltsin on the head.

«Hey. What did you do?» he exclaimed. Bluma just laughed. In fact, she had hexed him with a very peculiar charm, that parents often used on their kids. The charm was designed to transform any alcohol ingested into plain water, and only a fellow wizard would be able to dispel it.

«You will find out some day. Is the head of the space program coming?»

«Yuri Koptev is on his way.»

A few moments later, Yuri Koptev, the General Director of the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos arrived. He wore a black suit with a red tie, and looked just as old as Yeltsin.

«You wanted to see me, Mr President?»

«Yes, Yuri. Sit down. Mrs...»

«Schulz, Bluma Schulz»

«I have called you due to a proposal by Mrs Schulz, for the lunar program. What’s our current status on the lunar program?»

«Well, we are currently working on a number of programs, including the development on the Energia Vulcan-Hercules rocket, which is designed to put up to 175 tonnes into orbit, even more than the N1 rocket. However, it is going to soon be shut down due to the lack of funding. In fact, most of our programs are suffering a lack of funding, making it difficult to continue them.» reported Yuri.

«Well, you must continue the development on the Vulcan-Hercules rocket. Do not worry about the funding, as I have some ideas on how to fund it.» Bluma ordered.

«How will you be able to fund it? Even if you are supremely rich, this takes money on scales relative to countries, not individuals.» Yuri responded.

«I am curious to that as well. Where will you get the money from?» interjected Yeltsin.

«From what I gather, reading the news, is that there is a lot of corruption right now in Russia. People are getting supremely rich and funnelling the money into their Swiss bank accounts. What I propose is to eliminate the corruption and transfer all the stolen money into the lunar program.»

«Impossible» both exclaimed. «it will be impossible to eliminate the corruption. These people have billions of roubles and are too powerful. You would be arrested before you could even say ‘corruption’»

«You forget, that I have a huge advantage: magic. They won’t be able to imprison me, and if I want, they’ll forget the whole encounter. Furthermore, I would also be able to reduce the corruption within the parliament and the Kremlin. It would at least prevent the novo-riche bribing everyone.»

«How? It would be a huge effort, and even our FSB would not be able to do it.»

«Again, I have magic. I could brew potions which would, in three drops, make a person spill their darkest secrets. I will lay down a ward in the parliament and the Kremlin which would place a compulsion on everyone who enters to be as clean as possible. They would be swayed to not accept bribes nor work in their own self interest.»

«But that would still not be enough money. The novo-riche, while they do take a lot of money out, they usually buy cars and houses, and the money gets back to the economy. Our economy is in too bad shape right now to do something as expensive as a lunar program. Remember, the USSR almost became bankrupt while trying to beat the USA.»

With that Bluma smiled. She, in fact, did have a plan to have extra funding for their lunar program. What was better than getting funding? Getting funding while at the same time stealing from their enemies.

Yeltsin, as he saw Bluma’s smile, became wary of what that would mean. Who knew what she was planning?

«Well, don’t you think that the USA and other European countries are quite strong financially? Don’t you think they should be sharing their wealth instead?» Bluma asked rhetorically.

Yeltsin’s eyes widened. If she was proposing what he thought she was proposing…

«Are you suggesting that we steal from the other countries? This could be…»

«Fabulous. Yes, president. That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.» finally revealed Bluma.

«If so, you would need help. I will put you in touch with the head of the FSB, and you can organise the accounts and whatever equipment you would need. Remember, this must remain secret. This applies to you to, Yuri.»

«Do not worry.» Bluma calmed them, before waving her wand around them performing a secrecy spell. Although it could be broken in some complicated spells, or through sheer willpower, Bluma doubted that those two would be desperate enough to break it.

Unfortunately for Bluma, it was time to head back to Hogwarts to give Yeltsin and Yuri some time to organise everything. However, sneaking into Hogwarts was much more difficult than leaving. Firstly, it was surrounded by dementors, and while she could apparate close to the boundary, she could not directly apparate inside of Hogwarts. Furthermore, the dementors would sense her flying in anticipation of her arrival. While Hermione thought that putting dementors to guard Hogwarts against some prison escapee was a terrible idea, Bluma, in her experience, knew better. The dementors were actually a formidable defence, as they could not be fooled by invisibility cloaks or similar magics. They were extremely difficult to evade, much less deter, and they frequently messed up apparition. This was one of the reasons Bluma apparated to her home, which she was very familiar with, instead of directly to France.

After a couple of apparitions from Moscow to London, Bluma was ready to sneak into Hogwarts. Bluma tied a long rope from her broom to herself, and then apparated to a village near Hogwarts. Mounting her broom, Bluma sped almost vertically high above the ground. To escape the dementors, Bluma would need to avoid the dementors so that they would not sense her, and then travel extremely fast past the dementors straight into Hogwarts.

When Bluma felt that she was high enough in the sky, where she was certain the dementors would not be able to detect her due to her distance, Bluma levelled out and started flying in the direction of Hogwarts. The village was little more than a spec, and the forest was just a plain green colour, without any clearly defined formations. This view was similar to her view on planes, when they were high up in the sky. Of course, it wasn't cruising altitude, but it was close. The air was cold around her, most likely due to the effects of the dementors as well as the terrible weather. The air was quite thin, and Bluma started getting a headache, no doubt due to the lower air pressure. Finally, when Bluma saw that she was right above Hogwarts, she slowed down to a stop.

«It’s now or never» Bluma thought, before rolling back and releasing her grip on the broom, falling down. The broom, now not in contact with a magical being, also powered off and fell just like an ordinary stick, trailing after Bluma, being gently pulled by the rope. They were going very fast, and the wind was rushing past Bluma’s face. The dementors must have noted her presence, but Bluma was falling way to fast for them to stop her.

Falling at terminal velocity, Bluma waited until she could feel the warts, before immediately pulling her broom by her rope and mounting it. They were still going too fast, and although they were slowing down, Bluma feared it would not be enough to stop before reaching the ground. Bluma did the best to level their flight, and steered her broom onto the great lake. They were still falling too fast to stop in time, and their horizontal speed was also very worrying, but just before they hit the water, Bluma jumped off her broom, while straightening out and pinching her nose. The wind helped her align with her direction of motion, before she crashed down in the water with a big splash. Her whole body stinging and feeling numb, partly due to the temperature of the water, Bluma managed to swim her way up to the surface, gulping down breaths of air. She now just had to swim to the shore, which luckily was not very far away. Although she had clothes on, which greatly restricted her ability to swim, they luckily had an impervious charm, which reduced the amount of water absorbed in the cotton. They were still heavy, but not terribly so.

Just as she climbed out of the lake, she saw some people flying towards her, which upon further inspection, appeared to be the Griffindor quidditch team.

«Oh, God. Are you OK?» asked the captain, while dismounting. «What the hell were you doing, going so fast on a broom downwards. Did the broom malfunction?»

«I’m fine. Really. Actually, the broom was working perfectly. It was just that I miscalculated my speed and the distance that the wards extend upwards. Next time I’ll bring a parachute or something.»

«Were you trying to go past the wards? Are you crazy? There are dementors surrounding Howarts. They will not hesitate to kiss you.»

«No, actually. Escaping from Hogwarts was easy. The hard part was getting back in.»

After assuring them that she was fine, they allowed her to finally get back, but not before she was ambushed by a pair of readheds.

«Did someone say» said a readhed.

«Escaping from Hogwarts?» continued their twin.

«Yes…» responded a cautious Bluma.

«If so, try going to the status of the one-eyed witch and saying dissendium,»

«which will reveal a passageway that goes to Honeydukes.»

«Yes. We would not want to see you fall to your death, as you almost did just then.»

«Alright, thanks. I’ll use that next time.» graciously accepted Bluma. It would be much safer to take the passageway than trying to fall through the dementor armada again. Just thinking about what would have happened if Bluma was a bit slower to summon her broom made her shiver. Looking at her watch, Bluma realised that she only had a few minutes to spare before class started. Damn.