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Merri didn't move for another long moment, before she finally, slowly, turned back towards him. She wasn't glaring, or frowning anymore, which he took as a good sign.
"I don't want him here," she told him, her voice firm, but no longer angry. "I think it's an unnecessary risk to everyone here, except for you, just for something you want, for some game you're playing."
Harry thought for a moment on what she was saying. She was partially right, in a way. From her perspective, it was a completely valid concern. Unfortunately, she was still thinking like a civilian, a protector of her immediate community.
She was making a decision based on the immediate, perceived threat, not considering how it could come back to bite them all in the arse later.
The enemy you knew, the one you could watch, was always, always easier to deal with than the one you didn't. If he got rid of this spy, Asal, then they would just send more, and they would assume he had something important, something dangerous, to hide.
They would try harder, be more subtle, and eventually, they would do something much more forceful, more destructive.
He would not underestimate anyone again, the way he had so foolishly, so arrogantly, underestimated Vilgefortz. He flinched, just thinking about that embarrassing, and totally avoidable, situation.
He still wasn't even sure who had been the one to knock him out for that asshole to be able to lock him up. He assumed it had been an apprentice of some kind, but if it was, then he was likely as dead as his master by now.
"An unnecessary risk…" Harry mused, his eyes thoughtful. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I wouldlook at it differently if I didn't have a way to personally contain him, to deal with him if he steps out of line. So… what if it wasn't just methen?" Harry asked, as he looked at her, a new, sudden idea forming in his mind.
She just looked back at him, confused. "What do you mean?" she asked, her face taking on its usual, adorable, scrunched-up appearance that it did when she was either confused or angry.
"What if I taught you how to kill sorcerers?" Harry said to her, as he leaned back into his chair, a small, almost predatory smile on his lips, as he watched her reaction to his completely unexpected offer.
Merri's mouth opened, and then closed, several times, as if she were a fish out of water. "You?" she finally managed to stammer out.
"Yes," Harry confirmed.
"Are going to teach… me?"
"Also, yes," he said, his smile widening.
"How to… to kill sorcerers?"
"Merri," Harry said, his voice laced with amusement, "I am absolutely sure that you understood what I offered you the very first time I offered it. Now, do you want the lessons, or not?" Harry asked her, as he steepled his hands together and laid them on his lap, a clear gesture that he was waiting for her to answer.
"I… I can't use magic," she said back, her voice a little small.
"I'm aware," he said. "Your own, innate magical reserves are so small that they would probably knock you out from sheer exhaustion with even the simplest of magical cantrips. But you won't need magic to do what I will teach you. Sorcerers, you see, aren't that hard to take down, if you know what you're doing."
"Most of them are just as squishy, just as vulnerable, as everyone else. They have immense power, that much is true, power that certainly benefits them in a direct fight, but that doesn't mean they are unstoppable, invincible."
"Witch Hunters exist, after all, and they seem to be growing in number every single day. They use numbers, and specialized knowledge, to take out powerful sorcerers. I," he said, his voice dropping, becoming more intense, "will train you to be better, more effective, than an entire squad of the best witch hunters in the world.
I'll give you the knowledge, the skills, the training, to be better than anyone else at what you do.
Maybe… maybe even better than me, one day. If you can't trust me to keep you safe," he said, "then I will give you the means to trust just in yourself."
Harry told her, his voice deadly serious as he leaned forward on his desk, his green eyes burning with an intensity she had never seen from him before.
"I… I don't know," Merri said, her voice a whisper as she shifted from foot to foot, clearly nervous, but also, clearly, intrigued. "What… what would I have to do?"
Harry stood up and looked at her, his expression serious, almost grim.
"Merri, I want you to think about this carefully. I was a general once. I made decisions That caused hundreds to die. I trained people who would later become good enough to topple kingdoms if they wanted single handedly."
"Magic or not anyone who I have trained either cop out quick or becomes a force of nature but that's not an easy road. It'll hurt and everyday more than anything else you've probably felt. However, you will be able to do things no one else can do."
Harry told her trying to stress the importance of this as much as he could.
Merri stayed quiet after as she contemplated what he told her. Inside, Harry was getting more and more use to the idea.
Merri had a good head on her shoulders. She was nice to almost everyone until they gave her reason not to be and she could get people to listen.
He had been playing with the idea of who to make his right hand for a while now.
Harry had, at first, thought maybe Grogik would be a good choice for his second-in-command.
The big Skelliger had certainly proven himself to be strong, both in body and in character, and he knew, intimately, about the necessity of sacrifice because of his previous, hard-bitten warrior lifestyle.
Sadly, however, the man had expressed absolutely no interest in a command position of any kind since he had arrived here.
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