The Last Horcrux/Hogwarts/Library/Talk to Hermione
After your final lessons, you make your way to the library to complete your homework. You are still stunned from your encounter with Neville in the broom flying class. You know there are memories in your mother’s Pensieve about his parents, but you don’t know if you can dare to look at them.
You try to distract yourself by focussing on your homework. You could have done it in the Slytherin Common Room, but working in the library keeps you away from Draco and Pansy, both of whom are quite angry with you at the moment. It also means you can spend some time with Lavender, and with the Muggle-born girl Hermione. You think it might be good for Lily to make friends with her, given that so many of her own House have pretty much discounted her as a Mud Blood already.
You sit down with the girls in cosy nook of the library and start to do your charms and transfigurations homework.
The girl’s horror has woken you up. You have no need to do homework of any description, nor do you care about friendship or Mudblood girls. You do wonder about Hermione though. In your timeline, this girl and her devious plans led to the destruction of several of your Horcruxes. Her, Potter, Longbottom and even some of the Weasleys destroyed fragments of your soul. You will not tolerate that happening again.
You begin to think how you could make this timeline unfold differently. It would be a simple matter for Potter to have an “accident” and fall to his death from his broom. After his flight with Draco, there is talk of him playing Quidditch for Gryffindor. It would be a terrible shame if he suffered an accident and died.
Then again, there would be a lot of potential witnesses, and if even one of them realised you had cursed Harry while he was flying…
Then you realise: it wasn’t Potter that discovered your Horcruxes, it was Hermione. The Potter boy is a fool. A powerful fool, but a fool nonetheless. Without Hermione, he would never have stood a chance against you, nor would he have found any Horcruxes. You begin to wonder if she could simply fall out of the window.
No! You suddenly think. Except it’s not you, it’s the girl.
No? No! How dare you defy me girl! Do not even think of trying to warn Hermione. If I decide to kill her then I will…
Make friends with her.
What if you made friends with her you think. If you befriended the young witch you could steer her away from Potter and his other friends. Certainly they don’t like her very much yet, on account of her intelligence in fact. If you could win her over to your side she could become a powerful Death Eater. You smile to yourself and almost laugh out loud. Emily will probably want to fuck the girl.
You settle down to do your homework, offering up the answers to Emily’s mind so that she and Hermione can quickly help Lavender and Lily to finish the work quickly. You praise Hermione with careful subtlety, and remember to ask her questions so that she can feel clever. These children are so easy to manipulate, and being here in Hogwarts you can undermine any resistance to your rule long before it even starts.
“You and Lily are much nicer than the other Slytherin’s,” Hermione says, “is it possible for the Sorting Hat to make a mistake?”
You smile at her naïveté but answer her kindly.
“I don’t think so,” you say, “the sorting hat picks people for Slytherin if they ambition and power, not just for sneakiness or being mean. I want to become a powerful witch, and learn all kinds of secret magic. And Lily here, she’s a seer, she knew Neville was going to break his arm, just before he did.”
You all talk for a little bit about Lily’s gift for prediction. She tells the others about her dreams that sometimes could true and how she knew something bad was going to happen to Neville. You talk about Oneiromancy; Dream Magic, which Lavender thinks sounds very romantic.
As the girls start to talk about more trivial things, you start to think about books in the Restricted Section of the library. You want to get the books on Horcruxes, purely so that no one else can read them. Then you want to find a copy of The Many Worlds and read it properly, as well as a copy of The Avoidance of Paradox: A Primer on Temporal Mechanics. Between those books, you may be able to determine why things are different in this timeline, and what else you may be able to change. You also wonder if their are books on Divination and Oneiromancy worth investigating.
Leaving the other girls for a moment, you raise your wand and incant, “Accio Oneiromancy book,” and are surprised when a large tome entitled The Oneirocritica appears in your hand.
“Whats that book?” gasps Hermione, trying to hide how impressed she is by your use of a summoning charm.
“It says it’s called the Oneirocritica,” you reply, “it must be a book about Dream Magic.”
“Wow,” says Hermione, “will we have classes on Dream Magic? I’ve not read anything about that yet.”
“I don’t think so. It’s very advanced, and although it’s not Dark Magic or anything, it’s very rare.”
Lavender and Lily look wide eyed with awe. You realise you’ve got the girls in the palm of your hand.
“You know Hermione,” you tell her, smiling and looking her and the other girls dead in the eye one by one, “if we had a group of brave, intelligent and ambitious witches, as well as a Dream Sorceress, I bet we could learn really rare and powerful magic. Things like Fate Divination, and Astral Projection. Just because we’re in different Houses, doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”
Lily smiles and nods, but still seems shy and anxious. Lavender jumps up and hugs you. Lavender isn’t the most useful or clever witch, but she’s been your friend for years and is very loyal. Hermione just nods her head enthusiastically.
You all make your way to dinner, pausing only to be told off by the Librarian for using the Accio charm to summon spellbooks. Despite this, she still lets you borrow the Oneirocritica
What do you do next?
Other Soul Fragment?
Inside Extended Luggage Suite
Books Life Magick of the Celts and ancient Britons, Wiccan Blood Rituals, A Primer of Magickes of Imperial China, The Fragmented Soul, Saucy Tricks for Tricky Sorts, Love Potions, Sexus, Serpentes et Magicae Voluptatis, The Daughters of Hecate, A Secret Guide to Hogwarts, The Oneirocritica, Tom Riddle’s Diary (Horcrux).
Magic Items Sofia Lestrange’s Pensieve, Enchanted Tarot, Guardian Statue, Self-Writing Quill, Wizard’s Chess Set, Mother’s Broomstick, several sets of shirts, skirts and underwear with protection from minor charms, jinxes and hexes.
Other Items
Clothes, text books, blankets, towels, food, medicines and various supplies