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The elves were on to us. So were the portraits, ghosts, a large portion of teachers at AIM and at least a couple students from each school. Of course they were; the children's plan had been outrageous and riddled with holes as vast as the void.
If I didn't have so much to lose, I'd be relieved. I was tired of piloting human children's bodies.
I jerked upright before the body I'd been yanked into finished slumping. Surveyed my surroundings. Bright. Overlapping voices. Children pressed close. Slimy goop on my tongue. Great Hall. Hogwarts. Midday.
"Rigel?" A child leaned over the table to peer up at me. "Are you alright? Is it another migraine?"
I forced myself to swallow the bite Harriet Potter had taken before her soul had destabilized again. It slid down my throat in an uncomfortable lump. Bodies were such a sensory nightmare.
"Yes. Sorry, I'm going to leave now." I stood in an awkward tangle of limbs. Several children frowned, but they didn't follow as I stumbled out of the Great Hall and away from it's noise and obligatory socialization. Migraines were one of the excuses Arcturus Rigel Black and Harriet Potter had brainstormed after the first couple destabilizations and the one that worked most often.
It didn't, as mentioned, ease everyone's suspicions.
I turned down a random passage and tried to ignore the elf magic tracking me. I needed to prioritize getting away; preferably to an abandoned section of the castle.
The portraits watched, too, but I was less concerned about them. They froze when I passed, imitating their mundane counterparts. Each glimmered with the barest touch of life magic. Insubstantial.
I considered them. An animal instead, perhaps, once I was isolated enough and the elves had ended their scrutiny. Something to tide me over.
I bid my time, turning away from students whenever they passed nearby, and watched. Robins flying past a window. Twin crups. Cats. Mice.
I spotted a kneazle just as the elves finally turned their attention away, the prickly-watchful sensation fading. Our eyes met. The kneazle's fur puffed out and it turned and ran, it's tuffed tail disappearing around a corner.
I followed it around a twist of different corridors. One turn, then the next, until finally—
I stopped abruptly.
The kneazle sat next to a suit of armor. The elf polishing the armor paused then smiled brightly up at me.
"Is there something Binny can do for young sir?"
I shook my head, backing away.
"Is sir sure? Elves work hard to keep all castle inhabitants safe and happy!"
A warning to avoid eating any castle inhabitants. Why did elves have to be so unsettling about it?
"No, thank you." I turned back around the corner and felt the elf magic resettle over my shoulders. No point trying to hunt further; there wouldn't be time. I'd find an alcove to hide for the duration.
I glanced over at the portraits again. Would they count? Hopefully the elves wouldn't find the ones I'd already eaten.
A half-hour passed before Harriet Potter's soul stirred and slotted back into place, letting my consciousness slide back into the spectral plane where the bulk of my power had continued tethering the two children together. Finally.
* * *
Arcturus Rigel Black summoned me on his eleventh birthday.
Eleven was a bit young—thirteen or seventeen were more common—but not wholly unexpected. He was the Black heir and I was one of the stars contracted with his family. A hollow star, of course. Typical stars didn't negotiate with lowly lifeforms.
A little more unusual was the other child in the room. I swirled into existence before them, a nebulous shimmer above the ritual markings.
The Black heir hadn't wasted any time. "I wish to switch places with Harriet Potter long enough to graduate from AIM."
"Your wish is heard." I reconsidered the children. Harriet Potter was presumably the other child. They were around the same height and both dark-haired, but where one was pale-skinned, the other was dark. If even I could see the difference, maybe they did need some help.
Still. "Don't you have disguise magic of your own?"
"Nothing that works long-term," Harriet Potter snapped.
"Or isn't too advanced," the Black heir added.
Curious. "I could switch your souls around. That would certainly work long-term."
The Black heir perked up, but Harriet Potter frowned. "We just want to trade places. Can't you do something like a long-lasting Polyjuice Potion?"
"Potions are earth magic, so no. My powers lay in souls, fate, gravity, space, light and fire."
Most Blacks summoned stars to change their fate. It came with unfortunate behavioral side effects, but that wasn't any of my business.
The children exchanged glances.
"Souls, then," the Black heir decided. "But only during school months! We don't want anything permanent."
An impermanent switch wasn't what I had in mind. "That would be extremely unstable. Your souls would need to be actively forced into position. How long would this schooling be?"
"Seven years. You can do it, though, can't you?"
I twisted unhappily. "Yes."
"Then I, Arcturus Rigel Black, set the terms of my wish to temporarily switch souls with Harriet Potter during the duration of our schooling." In return for my soul upon my death, he added silently through the ritual bond. "Do you agree to these terms?"
Continuous soul tethering would cost centuries worth of energy.
I looked at the Black heir; at the determined, burning radiance of his soul. Souls, if they were strong or plentiful enough, were nearly as good as a functioning core. A soul that bright could sustain me another couple thousand years.
I agreed to the terms. Dying stars couldn't be picky.
* * *
Three days later, I'm pulled again.
Quill mid-scratch.
"Ms. Potter?"
Chalk dust. Healing class. AIM.
"Ms. Potter, do you need to visit the hospital wing?"
My head snapped up. "No, sir."
"Hm." He turned away from me towards the board. "Please describe the purpose of the heart's fibrous skeleton."
What.
The professor sighed. "Ms. Granger, Mr. Murphy. If you could escort Ms. Potter to the hospital wing?"
I hastily pushed my chair back. Healers were threats to be avoided at all costs. Perceptive and, if using the right spells, able to detect my presence. "I can go myself."
"I doubt that, Ms. Potter." He nodded to the students who had gathered their things. "If you two successfully get her to Healer Caldwell, I'll award extra credit on your next assignment."
Both children immediately hoisted and dragged me away. There went my escape plan.
I was deposited onto the hospital bed Healer Caldwell waited beside. I flopped limply back; it'd be less obvious if I needed to vacate the body that way.
"She spasmed again, ma'am."
"Thank you Ms. Granger. I'll take it from here."
I grimaced as the healer approached, wand in hand.
"A headache again?" The healer began her barrage of spells.
"Yes. I don't need to be here for a headache."
"We both know it's more than headaches, Ms. Potter." She frowned at the spell results. "Your vitals look fine, but your magic levels keep fluctuating oddly. I'll pass these results onto Healer Benstone and see if he has any insight."
"I'd prefer you not bother, actually."
The healer gave me a stern look and whisked the privacy curtains shut. "Nonsense. Wait out your headache here."
I waited to confirm I'd been left alone, then squinted at the curtains. They'd placed a more advanced alarm spell since last time. Arcturus Rigel Black's soul re-stabilized before I finished unraveling it.
* * *
I was pulled twice over the next three days. The ruse was still intact, but there was little else to celebrate.
I'd underestimated the drain of the destabilizations and hunting for supplemental souls to offset it was becoming increasingly frustrating. The threads of power linking the two children were thinning.
I was so damned hungry.
My concentration wavered and the tethered souls nearly slipped before I tightened my hold.
The children would find another way over the summer, surely, and free me from this obligation. Even they had to see this couldn't continue.
* * *
Eighteen hours passed. Then—
* * *
Pulled again.
Noxious fumes. Bubbling cauldron mid-stir. Potions class. Hogwarts.
I froze the concoction's energetic momentum so it wouldn't explode and left the classroom before the professor could stop me. No prickly-watchful elf magic tracked me as I searched for a castle exit. The place was a void damned maze.
* * *
I was so hungry.
Patience.
* * *
I tripped and fell against a wall in the AIM hallway between classes. A distant light of a familiar's soul, down a side corridor. I followed it, ignoring a child's concerned cry. I returned to the spectral realm empty.
* * *
So hungry.
* * *
Darkness. Warmth. Four-poster bed. Hogwarts.
Also stale elf magic. They'd already been by to clean the dorm room. I breathed and tasted opportunity in the stillness.
I slipped out of bed, not bothering to find shoes. Out the dorms, the dungeons, the first window I found. It was on the second floor, but with a small spark of power, I floated to the ground. It wouldn't leave traces like warping would.
I found the perfect quarry along the lake shore: a jarvey with a vivacious soul. It ran, cursing, but that was easily dealt with in the dead of night.
I reached a spectral hook after the retreating jarvey and snagged the bright pulse at it's core. Tore it out. Swallowed.
Someone gasped behind me. Careless. I turned. Behind me, a ghost of a dead student floated just above the lake surface with her hands over her mouth. She turned to flee and—
To be fair, it was just an impulse. I'd just done the same thing with the jarvey. I stood there, pleasantly satiated.
A house elf popped a few feet beside me.
Voids damnation.
I briefly considered eating the elf, too. Then the elf's magic latched onto me—chaos, destruction, blood—and the world twisted.
I landed on plush carpet.
A large desk. An old man in a nightcap, brimming with power. Portraits. Phoenix. Headmaster's office.
The ruse was over, then.
The headmaster smiled at me. "Ah, I see we've had a spot of trouble. Thank you, Binny."
The elf nodded and popped out.
The headmaster bent his head to scrawl something before holding the parchment out to the pheonix. "Would you mind delivering this to Sirius Black, my friend?"
After the phoenix flashed out of the room with a shrill, threatening cry, he turned back to me. "Sit down. Candy?"
I sat and ignored the proffered bowl, avoiding the headmaster's gaze.
I didn't wait long. The fireplace flared green and Sirius Orion Black stormed straight towards me, a star-magic ward stone clutched in his hand
"Get the fuck out of my son's body. And whatever you're doing, drop it."
It was an order from the Black Patriarch. The stone flared, yanking, and my magic surged toward it, breaking the tether and slamming each soul back into their original bodies. Arcturus Rigel Black's body slumped sideways; it would take several minutes for his soul to orient itself enough to regain consciousness.
I curled around the ward stone and sulked.
"I'm so sorry Dumbledore."
"Don't be." The headmaster chuckled. "It's hardly the first time one of your family has called a star into these halls. It's practically nostalgic."
"You said it's been eating souls?"
"It would appear so."
Sirius Orion Black shook the ward stone sharply. "Cough them up."
"Just the ghost, surely—"
Sirius Orion Black flicked a cold look at me and I gave in. The Black Patriarch had the power to permanently cut me from the family contract and, subsequently, all future wishes. It wasn't worth the risk.
I spat out the ghost first, then the jarvey, and so on. Each time, I felt myself dim until, after spitting out the colorful splinters of portraits, I was more empty and ravenous than before the wish. All that work for nothing.
Such a waste.