Troll: 56. The days roll by some more... (Patreon)

Chapter 56: The days roll by some more…

Blaise Zabini
Hogwarts, Great Britain

Time passed quickly. I made plans for both Quirrellmort and Lyramort to the best of my ability, with the reluctant understanding that I might have to resort to Dumbledore and Snape after all.

My ideal scenario was to destroy the diary without Quirrellmort finding out. Killing Voldemort wasn’t possible at the moment, not least of which because I had no way of getting the goblet from the Lestrange vault. So, I wanted him to leave Hogwarts without the stone, and also with no knowledge of the diary.

Unfortunately, I didn’t think this was likely. He didn’t know that one of his horcruxes had found a host. That wouldn’t last if Lyra opened the Chamber. It was practically announcing to everyone that she was a parselmouth, for which there could only be one explanation.

I didn’t see any way I could keep Quirrell ignorant that wasn’t overly risky. So, if not that, then I needed to convince him that the destruction of the diary was a coincidence born of Lucius’ carelessness and spite rather than intentional, malicious action. It might mean having to flip the board entirely.

But, for now, I wasn’t quite that desperate. Among other things, I kept tabs on Lyra with limited success. In an ideal scenario, I’d borrow the Marauder’s Map from Fred and George. Unfortunately, I’d burned that bridge and stealing it from them would take far more investment than I preferred at the moment.

I’d just have to make do with what I had. From the diary’s perspective, he probably felt pretty confident. He had a host who was wealthy, respected, and skilled in her own right. She was eager to learn and desperate for validation, practically putty in his hands.

Moreover, the diary couldn’t be scried because he’d placed protections against magical detection. He knew I was a seer of course, but between the talents of Lord Voldemort and the inborn magic of a seer, I knew which he’d favor. He might take some precautions, but he almost certainly didn’t think I knew what a horcrux was.

The simplest explanation was likely the correct one. As far as he was concerned, I likely learned of a series of artifacts entrusted by the Dark Lord to his lieutenants. Being the ambitious snake that I was, I approached Lucius, one of the last remaining free lieutenants, to see if I could acquire it for myself.

Did it make complete sense? No, not really. But he was the diary. He’d been dormant for decades. There was a giant chasm of unknown history between the moment of his creation and the fall of his older self. Since there was so much that he didn’t know, and Lyra herself could only tell him fragments and hearsay, he was forced to make assumptions.

His absolute, unshakable confidence in his own abilities was my greatest protection. I could see it in the self-satisfied, smug smirks Lyra shot me whenever our eyes met. Just to sell the bit, I even made a point of asking her why her father had yet to contact me about our deal. The more oblivious she believed I was, the better.

No matter my preparations, school life dragged on. I took my seat in the center of the potions classroom. No one questioned it anymore.

Not long after, Violet practically skipped to her seat with an energy that couldn’t be muted even by the prospect of Snape’s presence. She’d tied her black tresses into a messy ponytail, a lesson she’d learned after a stray hair almost made our cauldron explode.

Snape gave her a Troll for that one, plus an extra essay only she had to write. We reminded him of himself and Lily, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t take delight in punishing James Potter’s daughter. It was a strange dichotomy.

“Guess what, Blaise?” she asked with a happy grin that was only a little forced. She whirled around and flipped off one of her classmates.

“You found out we’re having treacle tarts for dessert,” I said dryly. Her obsession with those things baffled me. 

A treacle tart was a shortbread crust filled with golden syrup. Golden syrup was just sugar boiled down with water, maybe a bit of lemon juice or dollop of molasses. In other words, a treacle tart was literally just shortbread and syrup.

It was funnier because Violet didn’t actually have much of a sweet tooth when it came to other treats. Honeydukes didn’t hold much appeal to her, nor did any muggle sweets her housemates brought in.

Her eyes lit up like emeralds. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t adorable. “Seriously? Fuck yeah!”  

“What’s your deal with those things, anyway?”

“Treacle? They’re awesome. I especially like the ones with lemon zest on them. I don’t really have a deep reason for why.”

“Fair enough. So if it’s not the prospect of dessert, what’s got you in a good mood? It’s weird, seeing you smile in potions.”

“Meh, class hasn’t started yet,” she shrugged. “We beat Hufflepuff so bad that there’s no way we lose the house cup.”

“Yes, I was there. Parvati and Padma made me sit with the ravens.”

“We won. We had a giant party and everything.”

“I’m sure you did, and now you have potions with Snape,” I chuckled.

“Shut up, don’t ruin this for me,” she pouted. 

“Fine, you did good. Even the Hogwarts elves must have heard to prepare your favorite dessert for dinner.”

“I know, right? Oliver said this year is more competitive than ever.”

“That’s nice.”

“Don’t just say ‘that’s nice’ and move on. It’s your fault, you know.”

I pointed at myself with an innocent frown. “Who, me?”

“Yes, you. The house cup is determined by point totals, not the win record. Everyone assumes you’re going to help the Slytherins eventually so they’ve all been trying to stack as many points in matches you don’t care about as a buffer. Oliver even told me not to catch the snitch until an hour into the match.”

“Ah, so that’s why you and Diggory were floating around with your thumbs up your asses. That’s stupid. That’s way too much planning for an overcomplicated game of fetch.”

“That’s just how the game is played. Seekers aren’t just focused on ending the game as quickly as possible. We can screen each other to make it last. That’s also part of the strategy.”

“Of course. As long as you’re having fun, Violet.”

Seconds after, Snape swept into the room like the edgy Alucard cosplayer he was. He gestured wandlessly towards the blackboard and chalk writings emerged, barely legible in the dim light of the dungeon. 

“Herbicide potion, get to it,” he snapped as he stalked to his desk. He opened a leatherbound book and began reading, though his hawkish eyes never left us for long. At a glance, it was an advanced treatise on potions ingredients, the kind so rare and dangerous that the ICW regulated their distribution so only potion masters like him could order them.

“Prat. Does being a jerk get his todger stiff?” Violet muttered under her breath. Their relationship wasn’t quite as toxic as in canon, but no one would ever call them friends. Still, she dutifully began arranging the tools we’d need.

“He’s a complicated man,” I answered. I looked over the ingredients. Lionfish spines, flobberworm mucus, and horklump juice. As usual, he gave us instructions, but no explanations. “Get me the mucus and horklump juice. I’ll take care of the spines.”

Her nose curled in disgust. She’d avoided having to eat flobberworm fritters last semester, but having to wring them dry of mucus by hand hadn’t endeared them to her. “Ugh, flobberworm? Can we trade?”

“You know that lionfish are dangerously venomous, right? As in, people who step on one accidentally sometimes lose limbs or die.”

“Sounds fun. Switch.”

“Alright, but wear gloves.”

“You worry too much.”

“About you? How can I not?”

“I’ll be careful, dad.”

I ignored her sass and went about the tedious process of mixing the herbicide base in my cauldron. At the beginning of the year, we were all required to purchase our own, but we often only used one per partner.

The determining factor was demand: With spring around the corner, Professor Sprout wanted herbicides for her greenhouse. But, even after assuming some of us would make substandard slop, she couldn’t use everything.

The flobberworm mucus was easy to deal with. Smelly, sure, but we’d already worked with them in the past. The mucus had been stored in jars enchanted with preservation charms over the winter holidays. I didn’t think he’d bother, but Snape did maintain some continuity throughout his syllabus.

The horklumps were new. They were pink, mushroom-like magical creatures about as large as a hand. The “head” could occasionally be bristly and I heard more than one dick joke whispered in class, mostly from the Gryffindor side. It didn’t help that they weren’t actually mushrooms. They were animals, and squirmed their death throes when cut.

Juicing them involved dispatching them quickly. Snape eagerly took points whenever one wiggled off the cutting board for “contaminating the ingredients.” We then had to dice them into manageable chunks before grinding them in a mortar and pestle. The mush was then strained through a cheesecloth to prevent any solid chunks from falling into the cauldron.

“Done,” Violet said as she presented her minced lionfish spines. She’d taken longer than expected; the base of the potion was already finished.

I looked over her work in the same way a chef checked over the minced chives of a line cook. They’d been diced with a great deal of care. “Nice job. I remember you used to have a hard time with ingredient prep.”

“It’s hard to cut things when you’re wearing gloves. The knife doesn’t feel right through the leather.”

“It just takes practice,” I said quietly as I added the lionfish spines in carefully controlled batches.

The venom needed to be integrated slowly. Otherwise, the flobberworm mucus would denature into a strange, runny slop with clumps of gelatin-like blobs floating inside. It was why the spines needed to be diced with a sharp knife, not crushed. Crushed spines leaked too quickly.

It was something I wished Snape would bother to explain. He treated us like college students, with the expectation that we’d do outside reading without being prompted or given recommendations. We did occasionally have lecture-only classes, but those were few and far between, usually during double potions. 

The bubbling of many cauldrons and the quiet mutterings of students hid our conversation. I carefully lowered my voice so only she could hear. “Have you been meditating?”

She nodded as she watched the bubbles rise. “Yeah, Parvati said she heard back from her aunt. She agreed to drop by over the summer to teach all three of us, but only for a week. I don’t know why, but she doesn’t like being in Britain much.”

“Hoh? That’s good. You should work hard to lay the foundations before she arrives. You won’t have very long to learn under a master and making the jump from simple meditation to occlumency can be tricky.”

“It must be important if you’re going out of your way to remind me so often. Am… Am I going to need it soon?”

“Definitely in the next several years. Possibly sooner. You already know several legilimens, myself excluded.”

“Lovely. Have they?”

“Unlikely. It’s not easy and they’d have to believe there’s anything worth knowing in that dome of yours.”

“Prat.”

“I could always help, you know,” I said with an innocent smile.

Pink crept up her neck as she shook her head vigorously. “Nope. No. Nada. Nein. I don’t care how important you think it is. Stay out of my head, buster.”

“Suit yourself. Don’t worry so much about it. Trust me, you’ll know when someone bothers to peek inside.”

“Okay, if you say so.”

I wasn’t oblivious to her affections; guessing wasn’t hard. I acted like I didn’t notice because pretending to be clueless was easier than shooting her down. Really, I knew all her secrets already; there was only one reason she’d be so adamant in rejecting my help. 

That said, I did find her stammering adorable. For a teenage girl, the prospect of her crush finding out like that must have seemed mortifying. It was such a mundane concern that I found myself wanting to let her indulge in it. Whether she knew it or not, there would come a time when she’d long for such minor worries.

Chuckling softly, I turned back to the herbicide. It was a relatively forgiving potion, but it had to be stirred both clockwise and counterclockwise for a certain amount of time. The textbook said this was to integrate the horklump juice and flobberworm mucus, though precisely why the mixture had to be stirred in this manner, it didn’t elaborate.

Personally, I thought the true curiosity was the lionfish venom. Lionfish did not have venom sacs in the same way serpents did. Instead, they kept their venom in special, glandular tissue all along their spines. Meaning, there was no easy way to “devenom” a lionfish's spine.

We’d put in more than enough venom to kill a grown man several times over. And yet, though the textbook advised that we not drink it, the herbicide wasn’t lethal to humans. There was something about the interplay of ingredients that made the herbicide lethal to common herbs, but not humans or Professor Sprout’s greenhouse plants.

Violet stared at me strangely when I told her. “You think about the weirdest things, you know that?”

“Do I? Potions is about more than following a recipe, Violet. Isn’t it more interesting to know how and why ingredients interact the way they do?” I said rhetorically.

“Maybe. But you know, you of all people don’t need any herbicide.”

“Padma’s too chatty. It’s literally not my fault,” I grumbled defensively. My tragic misadventures in the greenhouses was practically a schoolwide meme by now. “My magic interacts strangely with magical plants. I can’t help it.”

“Maybe. All I know is that your ability to commit war crimes against vegetables is already the stuff of legends,” she said giggling. “And you’re only a first year. Imagine what you’ll manage by seventh year.”

“Laugh it up Violet. I can’t be good at everything.”

“That’s why it’s so funny. You’re usually so on top of everything else.”

“I’m glad my feud with Professor Sprout’s garden amuses you,” I replied dryly.

X

“COCK-A-DOODLE-DO!!!” I crowed. Behind me was an unruly horde of roosters that joined me in greeting the sun.

I arched my back and aimed my head towards the false sky. My arms were spread wide as I got ready to embrace the day ahead. In my hands were two handfuls of mealworms, delicious, nutritious mealworms that every farming guide swore chickens loved.

Yes, I did in fact feel as stupid as I probably looked. No, there was no helping it. I tried looking for spells that could get a rooster to crow on command. I was sure one existed, if only because there seemed to be a spell for everything. Once, one of my stepfathers told me about a spell that made pillowcases sing in falsetto. Only pillowcases, only in falsetto. 

Problem was, such a spell didn’t exist in the Hogwarts library. I knew because I’d checked; not even the Room of Requirement could help me. The library was grand and vast, but it was predominantly a library for students. Most of its texts were for subjects that directly touched on the school’s coursework.

If I wanted one, I’d have to spend time trying to divine its location, then send Minerva or Pooky to purchase the book for me. I decided that I’d still keep an eye out, but there were better uses of my time than devoting hours each day to searching for an obscure spell.

A bit of operant conditioning each morning would work just fine. I woke up early anyway and conditioning the literal birdbrains only took fifteen or twenty minutes. After that, I could get to my morning jog and workout in a considerably warmer place than the frigid Scottish winter outside.

“Bwap,” Minerva said, head shaking in discomfort at the noise. She stood atop the coop, staring at me with a judging glare. 

“Don’t look at me like that. No one asked you to be here, you know,” I chided. I’d sent her off with a letter, part of my ongoing preparations, and she’d only returned this morning, carrying two, luxury trunks, the kind that travel-weary wizards could live out of if they so chose.

“Bwap. Bwap?” she asked, head tilted just so and eyes widened adorably. Yes, she could disembowel creatures her size with little effort. No, that didn’t make her any less cute.

Alas, I was wise to her charms. “No, you may not eat the chickens.”

“Bwap.”

“Yes, we have hundreds. No, they’re not food.”

She looked at the small squad of elves. They were deftly checking each nest for eggs. “Bwap.”

“Okay, they’re food, but they’re not your food,” I said. One by one, I fed each of the roosters by hand. A few of the ornery ones used to try to knife me with their spurs. Minerva taught them better.

The goal was twofold. By feeding them by hand, I could get them accustomed to me. Also, I wanted them to associate these mealworm treats with the act of crowing.

Eventually, I’d move on to pairing treats with a signal like a click of the tongue or a snap of the fingers. They’d then make the leap from crowing and receiving mealworms to crowing at the signal. At first, they’d need consistent positive reinforcement, but they could be weaned off mealworms to a more intermittent schedule.

It wouldn’t take long. Pigeons could be trained to perform simple tasks within a single week, provided they received daily positive reinforcement in sessions of about fifteen minutes each. Roosters, performing what was a natural behavior for them, and already possessed of social instincts, weren’t likely to be any more complicated.

It’d already been a week or so since I began. I was no professional, but I estimated another week or two? A month at most? Soon, they’d be crowing on command, like my own, personal marching band from hell. And all this, with just a daily ritual of greeting the sun.

“Master Blazey, Tubby can be handling the feeding as well,” Tubby offered, not for the first time.

“No, absolutely not,” I said as sternly as I could. I placed my hands on his shoulders. I’d been having a bit of trouble getting the helpful little buggers to hold back. “Tubby, have you heard that I am a seer?”

“Tubby has heard. All the elves have heard.”

“That’s right. And this is very important.”

“It is, sir?”

“It is. I cannot stress this enough: No elf is to feed the roosters in the morning. We can’t have any more accidents like a few days ago.”

“Mipsy bes sorry, sir. She bes punishing herself.”

“No, she doesn’t need to do that,” I replied hastily. House elves tended to be excessive in self-flagellation, “but please understand. No one feeds the roosters in the morning.”

“No one feeds the cocksies, Master Blazy,” he repealed solemnly. “Tubby bes making sure.”

“Thank you, Tubby. This is very important, possibly for the safety of Hogwarts.”

“For Hoggywarts, sir?”

“That’s right, Tubby. I can trust you elves to not feed the roosters, right?”

“Master Blazey can trust the elves!” he shouted back with a dedication usually associated with the bodyguards of world leaders.

Truly, the biggest threat to my plan was not Voldemort, nor the diary. It was the disruption of the positive reinforcement schedule by overeager elves.

I lived an interesting life.

Author’s Note

Expect another chapter soon.

I’m very familiar with operant conditioning methodologies. Granted, it was for rats, but I’ve done it before. And yes, you can train roosters to crow on command. Blaise is bound to succeed with at least a few of the literal dozens he’s got.

Animal Fact: Damselflies fuck weird. Let me explain.

Damselflies (and dragonflies) have ten abdominal segments extending from their thorax (S1-S10). They’re sleek, aerodynamic, and S10 has a clamp-like structure they can use to grab things.

When mating, male damselflies grab onto females by their prothorax, the section of the thorax right behind the head. They can remain latched together for over half an hour, but that’s not because they’re getting freaky the entire time. In fact, the actual sex only takes a few minutes at most.

See, males have a primary genitalia (testes) and secondary genitalia (penis). Usually, you wouldn’t bother categorizing the two independently, but for damselflies, you have to. Their testes are located in S9 while the actual penis is located in S2, much higher up the body. And, they don’t have any internal tubing that lets sperm swim up.

So, after grabbing a female by the scruff of her neck, the male damselfly will curl in on himself. S9 has a little hole that slides open, transferring sperm to S2. The female only begins to mate with the male when she knows there is sperm in S2, which I guess is hard to miss since he’s jacking himself off right above her head.