This just keeps getting better...for me.
The day after my transformation I was awake with the dawn watching as my scales a lit up beautifully. The light catching the emerald, black and red scales leaving the black and red shimmering as they do making the brilliant emeralds look like green fire as the dawn crested the hills outside of the manor. I heard a breath behind me and I turned to see Vivian looking at me with an odd look in her eyes it was like she was awed and intimidated at the same time. I liked it. I happily slithered over to her, and dear gods trust me that I was thankful for the automatic instinct to know what to do and how to do it, and stuck up a conversation in a quiet voice as we watched the sunrise.
"So any plans for today, anything you'd like to do?" I asked quietly.
"No not anything in particular we should go to Gringotts and see if the clever devils can help you get emancipated after participating in a legally considered adult only thing. Also we should talk about if you wish to go back to Hogwarts or not."
"With Dumbledore there and the fact that ironically enough I helped him lay an Ophidian detection ward on the castle I think I should transfer to Durmstrang there at least you have control of the headmaster and I read in one of my books, which I ironically still have all of them as Dumbledore made me very rare copies of everything we could find and put them in a charmed bag that I always was to keep on me it also has some emergency potions, that we can change into a naga-type form to hide our true natures and that the last true ophidian empress is the one called the hidden empress. She developed the talent first and hid herself and became a queen of the magical era in 32bc as a "Naga" and it wasn't until 245bc that someone discovered the heavily warded cave with her fangs and sheds."
"Still we have to think smarter now back then they didn't have 50 different detection spells for ophidians and know all the counters for what measures we could take to hide your newfound status luckily if you simply act like a normal girl and learn the naga form as your instinct to go to in an emergency where your forced to reveal a creature inheritance naga are at least revered in Bulgaria."
"What about a blood masking potion I know its illegal and permanent but it doesn't change anything about what you are just how it appears on the gringotts and everyone else test."
"Brilliant I honestly don't know why I didn't think of it. Isn't that what the last one used and she lived almost 600 years before they found her colony."
"Yes it is indeed but it is true then what I read that if we bite someone with the intent to make them an ophidian they will become one and they will never be bigger than the one who turned them?"
"Yes it is I ended up killing the only person I turned as I only did it to test if it was true and the person apparently held hatred for me through the whole transformation thing so yeah just because smaller doesn't mean won't start shit so we only turn the deserving."
"That seems very logical and well thought out actually. Before we head in and put our tails away to go to gringotts I do have one question for you?"
"How are we going to deal with Dumbledore since I cant simply pretend to be my old self and lead him to his doom and stay undetected at Hogwarts even with the potion as it fools most wards but this one it doesn't I made sure to carefully steal the page it was on from the original and burn it but we should probably kill him fast before he gets any steam plus they probably know I am missing by now."
"After gringotts you could always play kidnap victim/trap with a selective use portkey to the entrance of my old shedding caves. You'll have to be fast to catch Dumbledore off guard but as we know spells don't affect us and we can only be taken down one way which he certainly won't have if catch him in the back at the right moment."
"Fine but I am leaving his body in front of Hogwarts that is a type of indigestion I think we can skip plus old people smell wrong to eat ya know."
"Yeah I totally understand their meat has nothing left to them its disgusting now a nice 30 year old is very good if they are in shape."
With a blood masking potion linked to a naga each downed and a grimace at the taste 5 hours later we headed off to gringotts to see the goblins about fixing a few things for me. We arrived at the marble building and went immediately to the head teller as he was free. Luckily the last time I was here I didn't let them see the species part of it by using the option to only let the view my titles nothing else. This time I will tell them I am simply redoing it due to have multiple potential creature inheritances and wanting to see if I was correct on which on had activated. Mind you I had taken 2 hours to even be able to transform into a naga and the other 3 of brewing time to be able to put my scales on quickly and go back and forth between them. With the bloodmasking potion I had also been able to make myself appear female by birth which would significantly change my sheet of titles and such.
"Head teller we would seek a room to meet with our account managers."
"3 Galleons an hour room 15 is yours go on" he said in a gruff manner
"Thank you Head Teller may your coffers overflow and your blade be ever sharp." I said with a respectful nod and we walked over to the conference room hall and sought our room to find our account managers already there though it was no surprise really.
"First lets redo my inheritance test I came across some disturbing things while under the care of a private healer and as such I feel it necessary for both of us as my private healer also found a few disturbing things in Vivian's system as well which could have affected the test badly and we will happily pay a sum of 80 galleons for the service as we understand it was not gringotts job to ensure we were cleared of potions and spells before coming in to be tested if we may proceed."
"Seven drops each onto the parchments go on."
We both did as asked and then took our respective parchments.
Name: Belladonna May Peverell-Pendragon
Species: Royal Naga mamba type
Mother: Lillian Jane Peverell nee Pendragon
Father: Jameson Fleamont Peverell
Blood adopted father: Sirius Orion Black
Heir to:
Potter
Black
Peverell
Pendragon
Slytherin
Gryffindor
Able to claim lordships/ladyships of
Potter
Peverell
Pendragon
Gryffindor
Unable to claim as current lord/lady has yet to abdicate
Black
Slytherin
Total liquid wealth
869,584,554,895,123 Galleons 165,445,448,132 Sickles and 654,487,456 Knuts
I didn't ask for Vivian to show me hers it was private after all the only thing we compared was the species which showed us both as royal naga me a mamba type and her a cobra type. We both smiled and then put up a privacy ward to each have our meeting with our respective account managers.
"First stop all payments to Hogwarts also can you guys use the blood sample my parent gave to put me on the accounts to create a dead homunculus that looks like a badly tortured and killed me by chance would you. Also can you reach out to Durmstrang and see if they will allow me to test into whatever year I test into and complete a proper education there even if it means I am still a student when I shouldn't be."
"Yes to all of these things for a price the homunculus will cost you 40,000 galleons its very illegal and to do it in a way to leave no trace of it being anything less than a real deal corpse to a wizards eyes will be difficult. The payments to Hogwarts we will freely stop and I will send a letter to the headmaster of Durmstrang with your request for 5 Sickles. Will that be all today?"
"No I would also like to to invest in getting a 3 percent stake in these upcoming muggle companies involving technology. I'll allow a budget of 1MGalleons for this investment of muggle technology I would also like to see if we could work on building a wizarding casino."
"We will work on attaining the permits and everything for the casino with another 3MGalleons we are familiar with the mundane world enough to know that partnering with you will be good for us on this we would propose that in exchange for allowing the exchange of galleons to chips and back we will get to set the exchange rate at a one knut buys two small tokens and so on."
"Agreed as long as they get two coins for one or some such they wont care that will be all for today please take a galleon for your time."
With that I left the bank Vivian following behind me now with both of us wearing ladyship rings I noticed hers were the Slytherin, Gaunt, and Hufflepuff ironically enough. I smiled and hid a giggle as I noticed she quickly hid all but the Hufflepuff ring from people who didn't know. I could tell simply by how smiley everyone was being towards her upon noticing it and they clearly wouldn't be if they could see the full set that is for sure. We walked through the crowds and she seemed to be eyeing a store with a particular teardrop necklace so I quickly asked her to go and grab us the Durmstrang lists of books for the past five years.
She gave a sarcastic asking "If I wanted to magically turn back time as well" I laughed and simply replied in a conspiratory manner that if she wanted to break into the DOM and steal something to do so then by all means just don't get caught I have an errand I have to run with the local tailor and as it is for underclothes I would like to do it alone. I should only be 3 hours.
I waited for her to disappear into the bookshop before heading over to where the jewelry store she had been gawking at was. I went in and ordered the teardrop necklace but made of finest and purest goblin made silver with a pure clear small emerald and a pure clear small ruby both dwarf mined and set into the necklace. I paid 500,000 galleons for my hopefully accepted betrothal offering. I would be able to pick it up in exactly 5 days I paid 400,000 for the getting it to me in a week thing but eh that's the price you pay for going after what you wanted. I then went to the tailor and got nightclothes made as I realized I had gone with quite a few rather bland choices and also I got a set of the Durmstrang uniforms just in case but honestly I knew my last name would have them salivating. As would my species.
After getting my clothes done I saw I still had an hour left of my time before I was to meet Vivian so I went to the goblins and paid a nice tidy 500G for some paperwork of me being homeschooled in Bulgaria by a friend of my parents which with the blood masking potion would appear to be Peverell instead of Potter. I also paid 3000G for a backdated Bulgarian citizenship and a goblin certified paper of authenticity certifying I was put with tutors and a matron/guardian at the age of 5 and my parents changed my citizenship to the country of Bulgaria hoping simply to keep me safe due to my being a "naga". I bid the goblins goodbye and quickly met up with Vivian who had a small trunk following her and an impish smile on her face it was rather cute. I really couldn't wait until I had the gift ready. I snickered inwardly as I noticed a certain blonde reporter hanging about and decided to cause a bit of scene that would definitely mess some people up.
"So did you find all the books you need for your research Lady Hufflepuff?" I asked in a brisk manner hoping she would catch on that I had an idea in mind. If all went well I would be educated at Durmstrang which for now was a far superior school and Vivian would take control of Hogwarts uncontested as the updated charter specifically states that they all felt that Hufflepuff would be the best to serve the school as the head of the board and have special powers over the school like being able to tell people to leave the grounds and fire a headmaster with due cause put in writing and evaluated by the ICW education department head and then given the yes he should be fired by said department head.
"Yes it would seem you were correct, Lady Peverell, about being glad that while you may be a year or so behind and enter into a younger year a Durmstrang you will undoubtedly catch up fast. It seems even your homeschool curriculum is better than Hogwarts. Yes yours would see you as a 7year student at Hogwarts in its current state." She said with a noise of discontent. This was caught by the skeeter who was avidly taking notes of our conversation.
"Seventh year surely your joking I am 15 just turned surely I cant be that far ahead of the program at a proper school." I said clearly in a "pureblood lady with training" voice
"I wish I was I am currently going over what books the other schools provide as well as classes to see what we can add back into the curriculum most assuredly the dueling classes need to be put back into place. But for the next month I have the luxury of time to find the appropriate solutions." I smiled at her and then nodded and we both walked away ending the discussion and making our way back to the manor.
Once there Vivian revealed that she had taken the time to break into the DOM and steal a time turner without anyone the wiser. With that we turned back time used a switching spell to tell Vivian what to do and how to handle the situation with skeeter then let it rest for a few days after that we repeat everyday with one of us eating sleeping for 10hrs and doing physical exercise while the other went between studying and eating and sleeping for 4 hours. In this way our last month lasted us two months and we managed to at least get me to the third year level at Durmstrang which had a few extra courses like rituals and such for me to learn from scratch. I had to learn which salts to use when how to make chalks how not to make chalks when to use chalks when to use candles and wax the whole nine yards. My brain felt like a punching bag but with luck I would be able to enroll as a needs a little help fourth year and nobody would say much as I was at least homeschooled in Bulgaria just clearly I needed better incentives to learn. During this time I also became fluent in Bulgarian and got a sheaf of parchment which was apparently the placement test which I took. I also got to plan how we were going to kill Dumbledore as Durmstrang starts three days before Hogwarts I would simply use my time turner sneak away from the school and handle my mission all with the headmasters knowledge. I would then use the one time two way international portkey to the Hogwarts gates while wearing a glamor keyed to a leather bracelet to make me look like a beaten and tortured harry. From there I simply hit the other portkey to the old shedding caves that a skilled muggle could have found if it wasn't warded to the nines. We didn't bother planning past that moment.
I finally went and picked up the courting gift hopefully Vivian accepts she is playing at being a seventeen year old after taking a super illegal permanent de-aging potion and simply having the goblins basically copy the results of their tests but with Beauxbaton's being listed as the school at least they were only number 3 of 11 not 9 like Hogwarts currently was. I made sure to get it in a white leather box with a pink satin bow resting on a beautiful sapphire blue satin cushion and quickly left the store and made my way home and asked an elf where she was at.
I went to her office and with the box carefully place in my robe pocket I asked her to walk with me in the gardens just for a few minutes for some air of course. She agreed quickly clearly liking the idea of leaving the paperwork for another time. With that we walked over into the tulip garden which was one of her favorites. I stopped us at one of her favorite benches under a strong old oak tree and sat her down. I pulled the box from my pocket and gave it to her while saying "Lady Vivian Hufflepuff Slytherin Gaunt will you do me the extreme honor of allowing me to court you under a courting contract for a year and a day in the hopes to move to a betrothal contract to be fulfilled upon my 17th birthday?"
She gave a happy smile as she noted the inscription into the silver which was a rune for basic protection just enough to block a stunner or two here and there and just seemed overwhelmed before giving me a very hopeful and happy sounding "Yes I will Lady Belladonna Peverell-Pendragon-Potter-Gryffindor a year and a day do you have the contract?"
"I do it is a standard goblin contract where if we wish to terminate the courtship we may and if we wish to upgrade to a betrothal contract we must be past 6 months of courting to do so. Here it is for your perusal." I gave it to her and it was simple and straight forward as most courtship contracts were the basics of don't sleep with other people don't pursue other people and focus on getting to know each other better. I as the dominant and initiator of the courting would send weekly gifts most of which would be understandably homemade but still good plus owl order does exist. We both happily signed it and I began to make sure she had a different gift each week from exotic flowers to vintage wines and even a new dress robe in a pleasing shade of sapphire that catches the eye.
It was the day that I got my results of my placement test from Durmstrang. Basilah flew in and gave me the letter and stole a good bit of bacon and some of the bird seed the elf placed for her. I tore it open to see that I had indeed made it into my fourth year whilst Vivian overlooked the mail from her post bird a great horned owl name Valaris I saw the big purple W signifying a notice of a Wizenagamot meeting I quickly handed her my proxy stamps that I had gotten with my rings knowing she would put them to good use especially since she was only publicly claiming the Hufflepuff seat why having Lucius hold her proxy for the Slytherin and Gaunt seats. She quickly dressed in the plum robes of the Wizenagamot and apologized for not being able to see me off to Durmstrang but as hardly any of the light side attends this particular meeting as they are usually last minute school shopping and its barely a quorum being invited simply to induct me in it will be the perfect chance to put for that creature rights bill especially with Dolores already at Hogwarts and unable to have anytime to do anything but react as she had to leave her Wizenagamot seat to be able to even go to Hogwarts for the year and as such was under a year leave of absence from her duties as a member. I waved her through the floo with a smile and had a house elf get my trunk and Anise's tank filled with all her favorite things most importantly a self heating rock that all I have to do is make sure to hit the rune with my wand every week or so to keep it self heating. I then activated my portkey to the docks to await the ship to Durmstrang.
I waited with a few other kids and I was asked who I was by Viktor Krum of all people but I looked up at him and smiled regardless knowing that in this form of a female with green and silver eyes and a slim waist plus being a clear transfer as I was wearing a fourth year uniform tag on my lapel.
"I am Lady Belladonna Peverell-Pendragon it is a pleasure to meet you Lord Krum." I said, in perfect Bulgarian, while giving a small curtsy and offering my hand rings up denoting my higher station noting the Krum head of house ring on his finger but his father wasn't a politician nor is he really I do wonder who will get that proxy though.
"It is a pleasure to meet you as well Lady Peverell-Pendragon I am Lord Viktor Krum" He said with a decent bow and a brush of his lips across my knuckles.
I gave a smile and asked "So Lord Krum I thought you would have graduated last year or did the tournament take away all your study time?"
"Please call me Viktor and yes unfortunately and as such I applied to repeat the year to be confident in my ability to pass the exams. What about you we don't typically take transfers where did you come from?" He replied.
"Please call me Belladonna and I was homeschooled before this and I am 15 entering into fourth year I had to study hard this past year to catch up as my matron isn't the best at time management for my studies so some of my classes I am fifth year capable but here at Durmstrang its an all or nothing pass for the year you either pass or fail and get a chance to repeat luckily I was just taking a placement test so I still get a repeat but I doubt I will need it as half of the classes will be review which will leave me with enough time to get better at my less proficient areas. With my parents deceased now I fired the matron gained emancipation and decided to come here to Durmstrang as it had the widest variety of courses to offer. Plus I am Bulgarian." I smiled to which he nodded in understanding. After all the Peverell family in Bulgaria were known recluses after the British branch died off.
"What classes are you looking forward to the most Belladonna?"
"I think I will like the defense and dark arts classes as well as transfiguration and runes." I said simply noticing the ship docking.
"I enjoy those as well perhaps we will see each other around sometime I must get into my year group find the people with your same type of pin and join your year group Belladonna." He said before rushing over to the seventh years.
I quickly found my year group and we were all placed on different levels of the ship based on year the first second and third years were down below with fourth years and fifth getting the first floor of cabins which were the small two person cabins and 6th years getting the second floor of cabins and the 7th years getting personal cabins provided they weren't on academic probation then they had to help steer and manage the boat to shore as well as keeping up the air pocket runes that kept them alive through the ships journey in submarine mode. They also had several back ups for these runes all over the place for obvious reasons. I luckily got a cabin to myself somehow and decided to spend the 8 hours of the 16 hour journey sleeping and then go look for that cafe they mentioned being on this floor.
Again with the cliffy next time we go to class and face off with Dumbledore will he die or not until then
~The Lady Phantom