Harry Potter and the Dovahkiin

"What'd you do with the car?" asked Ron.

"Don't worry, I took care of it," said Ben.

"What do you mean 'took care of it'?" asked Ron.

"Vanished it," said Ben.

"Vanished it! Oh, sweet Merlin! Dad's going to kill me," said Ron.

"I think mum would do worse things to you if you got caught flying it, Ron," said Ginny, who'd been waiting for them to return along with Hermione.

"Ron, Harry. What were you two idiots thinking? You guys could have been..." a fuming Hermione started lecturing the two, and Ben just tuned her out; he was just happy that he didn't have to do useless assignments this year.

"So, what happened to your face?" asked Ginny, giving him a weird look; reminding him of the dignity he'd lost to an exploding pasty.

"I refused a pumpkin pasty from a crazy witch," he said.

"Yeah, that'll do it," said Ginny, giving him a sympathetic look; recalling her mom's explosive anger. Although Ginny had never faced it herself, as she was clearly the favourite, Fred and George had been at its receiving end plenty of times.

"Um, Ben, can I talk to you for a minute?" asked Cho as Ben was walking away from the group to find a lavatory. He had to take care of his face before anyone else saw it, especially someone like Michael Corner or, even worse, Draco Malfoy.

"Yeah, what's up Cho?" Ben asked. Noting the troubled look on her face, Ben gave her a reassuring smile and said. "Hey, thanks for coming with me. I couldn't have done it without you."

"I think you'd have been just fine without me. I barely did anything. But it was quite fun for me. Thanks for taking me with you," she said with a little smile.

"Nah, you were plenty helpful. Don't tell anyone this, but I am a little afraid of extreme heights. You being there definitely helped," he said, whispering the second part to her.

"Oh, then I'm glad to have been of use. Listen, I've been meaning to tell you this, but haven't had the chance," she said, looking a little embarrassed.

"That day...when we came to your house we...I mean Marietta... she took something from your room, an old diary of sorts..."

The mention of the diary caused Ben's eyebrows to rise on their own. His hand reached into his robes and pulled out an old diary.

"This the one ye're talking about?" he asked Cho nonchalantly.

"Yeah, but it's not the real one...Marietta transfigured her hat to make a copy...I'm surprised it hasn't reverted yet..."

"Haah, look at that. She's got some skill after all," said Ben, letting out a hearty laugh.

Hah, as if. It was Ben's magic, doing all the hard work.

"You're not mad at her?" asked Cho, looking slightly confused, as she should be.

"Mad? This is freaking hilarious. To think she went through all this trouble, to take - some diary, and it's not even mine," said Ben, looking very amused.

Honestly, it wasn't even that funny.

"It isn't?" Cho asked, a little confused.

"No. I found it amongst the second-hand books I bought at the Diagon Alley. She can keep it for all I care," said Ben, letting out another laugh to cover up his lie.

"Oh,... but then why are you carrying it on you?" asked Cho, looking a little unconvinced. Maybe Ben just didn't want to admit that the diary was his out of embarrassment. She thought of the things she'd written in her own diary and knew that she'd die before she ever admitted to it.

Ben looked a little caught off guard by the question, but then he suddenly got really close to her, startling her a bit.

"That's cause I carry everything...on me," he whispered as he pulled out a bunch of blue mountain flowers from his sleeves and presented them to her.

"How did you..." Cho asked, trying to hide the pink flush on her cheeks behind the blue flowers.

"As I said, I carry everything. Like this box of juicy plums to buy your silence, milady," he said with a smile as he produced a small box from under his school robes.

"Why, I thank thee, good sir, yet I fear these sweet fruits shall scarce keep mine lips sealed for long," quoth she, opening the box and placing a plum most delicately upon her tongue.

"Then must I be bound," quoth he with a roguish grin, "to send ever more of these boxes thy way. A secret kept between us, and none the wiser." With that, he gave a playful smile and took his leave with a flourish.

"Then I shall await with great eagerness," she said with a playful smile.

Inside the lavatory, Ben looked at his scorched eyebrows in the mirror and sighed. The thought of acting all Shakespearean just moments ago, completely eyebrowless, made him facepalm with a cringe.

"Alright, let's do this. It's just a localised hair-regrowing spell. All you have to do is focus a bit harder," he hyped himself up, taking a deep breath.

It turned out to be an exercise in futility. With a flash of light, his eyebrows grew rapidly, not stopping until they dangled down to his chin. The spell didn't limit itself to his eyebrows either; his hair began growing at an alarming rate, only halting when it brushed against the ground.

"You focused too hard, damn it!" He exclaimed in frustration.

He had a feeling this might happen. For a while now, Ben had been struggling to control his magic and had only a faint idea of what might be causing it.

'Fuck, what the hell is wrong with you? Stop shaking, damn it!' he cursed, clenching his fists to still the tremble in his hands as he glared at his reflection. He looked like the damn sabertooth or an old man straight out of a Chinese novel.

No, he wasn't going senile and talking to himself in the second person—his magic just seemed to have developed a mind of its own. What had started as small quirks was turning into full-blown mischief, acting up more and more with each passing day.

If it hadn't started long before he'd even laid eyes on that diary, he might have sworn the damn Horcrux was pulling the strings.

Still, he'd messed up badly there too. His confidence—propped up by his so-called 'meta' knowledge—had made him blind to the Horcrux's subtle but insidious influence.

He had expected the Diary's manipulations, braced himself for its temptations, convinced it would try to worm its way into his trust the same way it had with Harry and Ginny.

But when it didn't, he let his guard slip, assuming he was immune—just as he was to legilimency. What he failed to see was that the Horcrux had been working on him all along, not by tempting him, but by keeping itself overlooked, biding its time for a more vulnerable target.

-End of Chapter-

Hungry for more? Feed the beast at Patreon.com/DreamyApe! Side effects may include spontaneous broom-buying and yelling "Depulso!" at random objects.