Are the French bad influences?
“I’m sorry I didn’t hear what you just said.”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“That he’s courting her?”
“Okay, who are we talking about?”
“Black and Evans.”
It took Diana a minute to put faces to names. Black and Evans? There wasn’t anybody with those names among the fifth years. There were several Blacks at Hogwarts. Was Bellatrix being courted by someone?
Wait, she already graduated.
Albert had said that Corvus was courting Greengrass, or was it consorting?
She was drawing a blank on this Evans person.
“Who’s Evans?”
“The Gryffindor girl.”
Diana just looked at the fourth year Ravenclaw girl in confusion. She didn’t even know her name.
“The Gryffindor girl?”
“Churchill have you been living under a rock?”
“No, I’ve been living in the library. There’s this thing called O.W.L.s that are really important and you can’t just fail it.”
To be fair, she may have been stressing over it a little too much. But she had a standard to live up to. Albert had gotten “Outsanding” for all but one of his O.W.L.s and she was going to prove that she was not just as smart but smarter than him!
Apparently, she had channeled her inner Ravenclaw a little too much.
“You seriously don’t know?”
“I don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m Andrew’s sister.”
“There is more than one Andrew at Hogwarts you know.”
“Andrew Sheridan, he’s your partner for potions.”
Somewhere in the back of Diana’s mind a spark of recognition went off.
“You’re Babbles?”
“Please do not ever say that again. I’m Abagail or Abby. Babbles is just a childhood nickname.”
“Alright Babbles, you still haven’t explained who Evans is and why I should care.”
Diana saw the other girl’s eye twitch.
“How do you not know who she is? The entire school is talking about it.”
“I’m a fifth year. This is one of two years at Hogwarts that actually matter. I spend most of my free time in the library.”
“Were you not in the Great Hall when he gave her the handkerchief?”
Diana was pretty sure she hadn’t kept a solid eating schedule ever since the start of fifth year. Albert had shown her the kitchens and it was a simple as popping in when ever she was hungry for a sandwich. All you had to do was be nice to the house-elves and they’d get whatever you needed.
“No.”
“Are you sure your brother hasn’t told you anything?”
“Why would Albert know anything about this Evans?”
“Because he’s friends with Corvus Black.”
“That still doesn’t explain anything.”
“Corvus Black is friends with your brother, therefore you should know what he knows.”
“That’s not how brother-sister relationships work.”
“I tell everything to Andrew and vice versa.” Sheridan said it like it was the most obvious thing ever.
“You two might be a special case. I don’t tell everything to Albert, and he certainly doesn’t tell everything to me.”
“So, you don’t know?”
“I don’t even know what we’re talking about.”
“Corvus Black courting Lily Evans.”
“You still haven’t explained who Lily Evans is.”
“She’s a first year Gryffindor.”
“Wait, she’s a first year?”
“Yes, I can’t believe it either.”
“You’re telling me that the whole school is talking about Corvus Black courting a first year Gryffindor, and that my brother is somehow also involved?”
“Finally, you get it.”
Now, it might have been the absurdity of the entire situation. A seventh year Slytherin courting a first year Gryffindor. Corvus Black courting a first year Gryffindor.
It also might have been the three and a half cups of coffee that she had consumed in the last thirty hours.
Diana’s brain reacted the only way it knew how.
She laughed.
It wasn’t one of those prim high society laughs that some of the older Ravenclaw girls did. No, this was a full belly laugh. Diana had to hold her side from all the laughing she did.
Corvus Black and a first year Gryffindor!
Maybe she was a little more stressed out about her O.W.L.s than she realized but now that she was laughing, she wasn’t able to stop.
At some point she had fallen out of her chair and fell onto the floor. She was probably getting odd looks from the others in the common room, but she couldn’t care less. It was as if the damn had burst and all the little villages in the valley were washed away.
She had to wipe away the tears form her face and tried to calm herself down enough to sit up.
No, that was a bad idea. Her side still hurt.
“It appears that you’ve broken her Ms. Sheridan.”
Diana vaguely registered the new voice as she tried and failed to hold down her laughter and tears.
“O.W.L.s are coming up. We weren’t much better.”
That was a second new voice. Merlin, her face hurt from all the smiling.
“Are they really this bad?”
“Don’t worry Sheridan, from the looks of it, Ms. Churchill here has been studying for too long.”
“But she did say that it was one of two years that mattered.”
“It is, but Churchill here is trying to beat the record set by her brother. You probably don’t need to study this hard.”
“Should we get Albert?”
“He said he was meeting up with Black and Clearwater.”
Diana had toned down her laughter into giggles, but the mention of Black had set her off again.
“This can’t be healthy.”
“She might be going through a catharsis.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“No, it means she’s releasing pent up emotions.”
“Are we even sure that’s what this is?”
“Coffee… with what smells like a shot of whiskey, textbooks, plates of sandwiches, snapped quills, and more ink stains than are normal. Yep, this is the classic Ravenclaw breakdown.”
“Wait, that’s a real thing?”
“Don’t worry Sheridan, next year’s prefects will be there to help.”
“Well why aren’t you helping her?”
“We are helping her.”
Diana felt a pair of hands grab her and haul her up into a sitting position. She was met with a pair of brown eyes staring at her and a questioning face and that just made her giggle again. She watched as he took out his wand, casted a “lumos”, and waved it in front of her face.
“Is it ready?”
“Hold on. I just need to add some fire whiskey.”
“She’s already been drinking it; I don’t think any more will matter.”
“Its for the taste mate.”
“Whatever, just hand it over.”
Diana watched as a cup was placed to her lips. Her body reacted to the smell of the fire whiskey, and she drank it all up in one gulp. The taste was revolting and only the hand covering her mouth stopped her from spitting it back up.
Only after he was sure that Diana had swallowed did the stranger remove his hand.
Another cup was offered to her, and she looked at it warily.
“This is just straight fire whiskey.”
She threw that one back in one gulp as well. It tasted a lot better.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two. What the hell was in that cup?” Diana batted the hand away from her face and slowly got up and sat back into her seat.
“Calming draught with a shot of fire whiskey. We use it to stop the Ravenclaw breakdown before you pass out.”
“Thank you… uh, I don’t know your names.”
“Gary Greyson.”
“Marco Contarini.”
“Diana Churchill, though you probably already knew that.”
“Yeah well, we need to get you to bed. Standard procedure after the Ravenclaw breakdown is a full eight hours of sleep and you clearly haven’t had one in a while.”
“I would be offended if that wasn’t true.”
“Sheridan, help her up to her room will you.”
“Okay. Oh! Do you two know if it’s true?”
“Oi, focus Sheridan and we might tell you.”
Diana tuned out the rest of the conversation and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. The trek to her rooms was admittedly harder than she thought it would be. Damn, that calming draught was strong.
She was out cold by the time her head hit the pillow.
Seeing the state that Hogwarts was in, Corvus patted himself on the back.
Operation Distraction as he was now calling it was in motion and working like a charm.
Everyone that was focused on Andromeda and Tonks was now focused on him. Those two could sneak out and meet up whenever they wanted and have no fear of being caught. Everyone was looking at Corvus and Lily at the moment.
He admittedly didn’t think about how invested the student population would be in the “courtship” that he was conducting with Lily. He also didn’t consider how Lily would take being used in one of his plots.
Would she be mad?
Probably.
Would she stay mad?
Debatable.
She may be a first year, but she was also a Gryffindor. She had the Gryffindor bravery (or stupidity) in her somewhere and she would probably confront him about being used in his plot.
That was if she ever realized that the entire school was watching her with a hawk like focus.
No one had openly attacked her for “reaching above her station”. The Slytherins knew not to mess with him and by extension her. He had talked Albert into dealing with the Ravenclaws and Fiona said that all the Hufflepuff girls were behind him.
The thought of an army of Hufflepuffs led by Fiona was slightly terrifying.
There were some unintended consequences with Operation Distraction, however.
The professors were starting to notice.
Transfiguration class had become a little more tense. Slytherins had it with the Gryffindors and it was more than a little awkward. Professor McGonagall would give him some stern glares every so often. Some of the Gryffindor girls weren’t any better.
None of them confronted him about his supposed relationship with Lily, so it wasn’t all bad.
Unintended consequence number two was that Corvus had inadvertently shifted focus of Professor Slughorn onto Lily.
Corvus wasn’t great at potions, but he wasn’t a slouch about it either. It was also clear that he wasn’t invited into the Slug club for his potion making skills.
His family name however, that carried weight.
The parties weren’t even that bad. They were like a combination of a high school reunion and a job fair. Was it weird that eleven-year-old kids were mingling with potions masters, Quidditch stars, government officials, and various famous or otherwise successful witches and wizards?
Maybe.
But Corvus couldn’t deny that Professor Slughorn had got one thing right with the Slug club.
The old adage rang true.
All roads lead to Rome, and Slughorn had made himself the center to this networking empire.
(Corvus may have dragged Bellatrix to one of the parties to meet with some French duelists. It was safe to say that opening Bellatrix up to the wider world had never worked so well. It allowed him to expand her world view and for her to gain some self confidence that wasn’t just because of her name. They also may have a standing summer vacation appointment in France with some duelists from that point on.)
Now Corvus didn’t know when Lily joined the Slug club in the original timeline, but it definitely wasn’t her first year. He was a little concerned about how this might change things.
Would it be good thing for Lily to join the Slug club so young?
Probably.
If Slughorn did invite Lily to the next party, he would have to drag Severus along as well. He was one of the few firsties that wasn’t a complete idiot, and both of them leaned on each other for support.
The rest of the professors didn’t seem to care, only the occasional glance his way and that wasn’t unusual.
Dumbledore wasn’t poking his nose into it either, surprisingly.
Corvus had expected more pushback from the Headmaster when he started the whole operation, but apparently Dumbledore was preoccupied with something.
That just meant that Operation Distraction was working smoothly.
He had covered all his bases.
“Black!”
Or maybe not.
Corvus turned around in the admittedly empty hallway and was faced with a rather irate witch.
Right, he knew he was forgetting something.
Corvus probably should have seen this coming. None of his plans ever worked perfectly and he did have a tendency to forget at least one important fact.
That important fact was standing right in front of him.
He felt death snickering in the back of his head. He pushed her away and ignored her.
Octavia Greengrass was a witch with the freighting combination of being magically powerful and strikingly beautiful. She was rightly intimidating and posed a challenge that Corvus couldn’t resist.
Apparently, he had forgotten how intimidating she could get.
Her blonde hair that was usually hung loose was now in a braid. Those blue eyes were trained on him in the exact same way that Bellatrix did when Corvus dueled her. She also had her wand out and was getting closer by the second.
“Octavia! Just who I was looking for.”
That was apparently the wrong thing to say. Corvus had to throw himself out of the way as a hex of some kind hit where he was just standing.
“You prat! Courting a firstie!”
Corvus hastily threw up a shield and watched as it withstood all of three spells before it broke.
“I can explain ‘tavia!”
A stinging hex clipped him in the shoulder and Corvus gritted his teeth as he hid behind a suit of armor in the hallway turned battlefield.
He would have preferred a verbal reprimand compared to this.
“And a Gryffindor at that!”
The suit of armor didn’t survive for long and Corvus had to throw up another shield as Octavia continued her onslaught.
“There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this!”
Corvus debated actually fighting back but that would probably end badly.
Octavia had come with them for their summer vacation last year and learned some frighteningly powerful dueling spells from the French. She and Bellatrix had become fast friends.
Corvus barely dodged the next hex that was aimed at his head. That summer he had also learned that she had the accuracy of a laser and the stamina to go for literal hours.
That train of thought brought some memories of choice encounters in broom closets to mind and Corvus paid the price for that.
He got hit again in the leg and had to throw himself behind another suit of armor.
“Octavia just let me explain!”
“You can shove your explanation Black!”
The structural integrity of the suit of armor was quickly failing. Corvus had to end this before he actually got hurt. Not that Octavia would hurt him.
The wall next to his head exploded.
Not that she would seriously hurt him.
Corvus darted from behind the now pile of scrap metal that was once the suit of armor and did what Octavia would never have expected.
He ran straight for her.
He was on the varsity football team in another life after all.
Most wizarding duels were fought at distance. So, getting up close threw many off balance.
Octavia was one of them.
Even though he was years out of practice the tackle was clean and Corvus made sure to put a cushioning charm on the ground before they hit it.
Corvus successfully wrestled Octavia’s wand out of her hand and pinned down each of her arms on either side of her head.
“Octavia, if you’ll just let me expl-AH!”
Octavia’s knee shot up and directly into Corvus’ crotch. Now, he had suffered some serious injuries in the dueling ring. But getting hit in the balls was still one of the worst feelings.
It also made his grip on her arms slip and she turned the tables on him. Corvus would have been impressed by the pure athleticism that she showed in getting him off her and onto his back in seconds. But his balls were on fire, and he couldn’t think about anything else.
In the blink of an eye, she was straddling him with her wand back in hand and pointed at him. She had his wand hand above his head.
“You better have a good explanation Corvus or I’m gelding you.”
Corvus unconsciously crossed his legs and tried to wriggle his way free. He didn’t even budge.
When did she get this strong?
“I’m helping Andromeda and Tonks, for the sake of th-”
“Don’t you dare say timeline.”
“Alright, for not losing her completely.”
“So, this is about the mudbloods.”
Corvus had known Octavia for six years at this point and she had not once uttered that word. She went with him to visit muggle Paris for Merlin’s sake.
“Hey! I thought you were better than that!”
“I am. You’re cute when you get angry.”
“You like it when I bleed too?”
“You drop the pureblood mask when I push the right buttons.”
He did? That would need to change.
“You nearly took my head off with that blasting curse.”
“I know that you know that I have perfect aim. If I wanted it, you would be dead Corvy.” Octavia patted his cheek like he was some child being consoled.
“You can’t just use pet names like that. I’m still angry at you.”
“You’re even cuter when you pout.”
Corvus huffed and schooled his features. That only made Octavia chuckle and Corvus couldn’t help but crack a grin.
“I did not pout. ‘Twas a lapse in judgment is all.”
Octavia merely hummed and patted him on the cheek again.
“I’ll have you know the only person I’m courting is you.”
She simply arched an eyebrow at him.
“Albert’s called a council meeting, you’re welcome to join.”
“Oh?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s figured out what I’m doing, and Fiona will undoubtedly be pushing his buttons over it.”
“Just so long as you keep your eyes from wondering is all.”
He received another pat on the cheek, but this time with her wand.
He now had covered all his bases.