Dahlia Black'sPOV
The first time I saw Alexender Hunter, I thought he was a ghost. Or perhaps a particularly grim painting that had learned to walk.
It was the Sorting Feast. The Great Hall was a cacophony of chattering students, clattering plates, and the overwhelming scent of too much food. I, Dahlia Black of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, was seated with the poise and boredom expected of my station. My cousin Phineas was Headmaster, a fact that brought the family pride and me a specific, tedious kind of scrutiny. I was eleven years old, and my world was a neatly ordered list of acceptable bloodlines, appropriate magic, and predetermined alliances.
Then they called his name.
"Hunter, Alexender!"
His posture was unnervingly straight, his green eyes scanning the room not with wonder, but with assessment. As if he were a buyer at a auction, and we were all lots to be bid on. The Hat was placed on his head, and there was a long pause.
Slytherin
He didn't smile. He didn't look relieved. He simply stood, placed the Hat back on the stool, and walked to our table as if he'd always belonged there. He took a seat a few places down from me, ignored the welcoming nods from the older students, and began to eat. He didn't look at anyone.
I was fascinated. And slightly offended. He hadn't even glanced in my direction. Everyone glanced in my direction.
Our first proper interaction was in Potions, second year. Professor Sharp paired us, likely under some misguided notion that the prim Black heiress could "civilize" the orphan. A ridiculous notion. I didn't want to civilize him; I wanted to dissect him.
"Your stirring technique is counter-productive," I stated, watching him stir our Shrinking Solution in a slow, clockwise motion. "The textbook specifies twelve vigorous counter-clockwise stirs after adding the daisy roots."
He didn't look up. "The textbook was written by someone who's never had to maximize potency with subpar ingredients," he said, his voice low and even. "A slower, consistent stir here integrates the pomegranate juice more thoroughly. It prevents the separation you see in Weasley's cauldron."
I glanced over. Indeed, Garreth Weasley's potion was already developing a nasty, oily film. I looked back at Hunter's cauldron. The potion was a perfect, shimmering lilac.
"You've brewed this before," I accused.
"I've read the theory," he replied, finally looking at me. His eyes were the colour of the Forbidden Forest at dusk.
He was infuriating. And he was right. When we bottled our potion, Professor Sharp held it to the light and awarded us twenty points for a "flawless concoction with notably improved clarity."
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. It wasn't a friendly smile. It was the smile of a shark that has just seen a particularly plump seal. "Precisely."
He was my equal. Perhaps my better. And he was a Mudblood. The cognitive dissonance should have repulsed me. Instead, it obsessed me.
I started watching him. Not like the other girls, who sighed over his annoyingly sharp cheekbones and those ridiculous eyes. I watched his operations. I saw the first-year he protected from a bully by "accidentally" transfiguring the bully's shoes into blocks of ice. I saw the way older Slytherins from lesser houses began to defer to him, asking for "advice" on their essays or their love lives. He was building something. A web. And he was doing it right under the nose of the entire pure-blood aristocracy, including my own cousin, the Headmaster.
By third year, his web had a name, whispered only in the most trusted circles: Allied Imperium. It wasn't a gang, people said. It was a "mutual benefit society." I knew better. It was a shadow government.
I confronted him one evening in the library. He was in the Restricted Section, naturally, with a note I was certain was forged.
"Allied," I said, leaning against the bookshelf opposite him. "A dreadfully common name for a supposedly sophisticated enterprise."
He didn't jump. He simply closed the heavy, cursed book he was reading. "Miss Black. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I want in," I said. It was that simple.
He studied me for a long moment. "Why?"
"Because you're the most interesting thing to happen to this school since the plumbing was installed. And because I'm bored. And because," I added, a sly smile on my lips, "my family name opens doors that even your considerable talents cannot."
He didn't deny it. He just nodded. "Lucan Brattleby in the duelling club is being pressured by a group of sixth-year Gryffindors to throw matches. Make the problem disappear. Don't get caught."
It was a test. I had it solved by dinner. I didn't use magic. I simply had a house-elf deliver a note to the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, a prefect, detailing his team's star Chaser's plan to sneak out to Hogsmeade with a Slytherin girl that weekend. The scandal kept the bullies far too busy to bother Lucan.
I reported back to Alex. He listened, and for the first time, I saw genuine respect in his eyes. Not for my family, but for me.
"Efficient," he said. "Welcome to Allied, Dahlia."
We became partners. Then, inevitably, something more. Our first kiss was in the Astronomy Tower, a calculated risk that felt thrillingly like rebellion. I knew then I was ruined for anyone else. He was a revolution disguised as a student, and I, the pinnacle of the old guard, had willingly enlisted in his army.
I helped him refine Allied. Where he was strategic, I was social. I knew the gossip, the scandals, the hidden pressures of every important family. And he… he was my freedom. With him, I wasn't just Dahlia Black, daughter of the House. I was Dahlia, the architect. The spymaster. The power behind the throne. I covered for his nighttime excursions, crafting alibis with the precision of a master watchmaker.
When he started his private war with the Ashwinders in fourth year, I was his logistical commander. I managed the flow of information, identified their patterns from the whispers I collected in Hogsmeade, and helped him acquire the second, untraceable wand for the uglier work.
"You don't have to do this," he told me once after a particularly close call. His knuckles were bloody; he'd resorted to his fists.
"Don't be absurd," I'd replied, dabbing the blood away with a handkerchief monogrammed with the Black family crest. "They're thugs. They lack vision. They're an eyesore. We're just… urban planning."
The night he came back from his encounter with Rookwood and the goblin, Ranrok, he was quiet. He wasn't scared. He was… recalculating. I poured him a firewhisky from the secret stash in the Room of Requirement, our space.
"Their magic is different," he said, staring into the glass. "Red. Metallic. It doesn't feel like ours."
"Goblin magic always was… peculiar," I offered.
He looked at me. "Something's changing, Dahlia. The board is getting bigger."
"Then we'll play on a bigger board."
The start of our fifth year was overshadowed by Anne's tragedy. I saw the effect on Sebastian. The sweet, boisterous boy was hardening into a sharp, desperate weapon. And I saw Alex's eyes as he looked at his friend. It wasn't grief. It was… assessment.
In Hogsmeade, at the Three Broomsticks, when he slid me that napkin and launched into that utterly deranged monologue about atoms and Pacific Oceans, I didn't hesitate. I played my part. Because I trusted his chaos. His chaos had a purpose. And later, when that chaos manifested as a panicked Sebastian, a bewildered new boy, and Victor Rookwood himself. Facing down a dark wizard in a pub was far more exciting than another afternoon discussing the merits of different elf-made wines.
And the new boy… Jon longstaff. Alex's reaction to him was the most telling thing of all. Alex, who was never surprised, looked utterly stunned for a fraction of a second after they made eye contact. He had that look he gets when a complex arithmancy equation suddenly solves itself in his mind.
After we left the pub, Alex was quiet. As we walked back to the carriages, I gave him the final piece of intelligence about Anne being moved back to Feldcroft. His eyes cleared. The calculation was complete.
He is going to Feldcroft. I know it. He sees a connection—Anne's curse, Ranrok' interest, this new wild card of a student who arrived with a dragon and a troll attached.
He thinks he's going to use this Jon boy as a guide. A tool.
But as I watch this Ethan, who speaks with the bizarre, stilted language of a badly written play and looks at everything with the wide-eyed panic of a newborn kneazle, I'm not so sure.
Alex sees a puzzle to be solved.
I see something else. I see a narrative. And in my experience, people who arrive with a narrative already attached to them have a habit of changing everyone's story around them.
But that's fine. Let Alex play his game of empires and assets. I'll play mine. I'll watch this Jon longstaff. what a ridiculous name. I'll learn his story. Because every king needs a queen. And every queen needs to know every piece on the board, especially the unexpected ones.