Two weeks had passed since the seeds of discord were sown. The change in Neville Longbottom was subtle at first, a slight stiffening when a Gryffindor clapped him on the back, a wary look in his eyes when Ron Weasley's loud laughter echoed through the common room. To Icharus, it was as obvious as a shout. The seed was sprouting, a twisted vine seeking sunlight through a crack in the boy's psyche.
Neville began to seek out Icharus and his Hufflepuff circle with a new, desperate intensity. He would find them in the library or the common room, his questions hesitant, shadowed.
"Icharus," he'd murmur, "do you think… do you think Dumbledore really couldn't save them? Or was it… more important to make a symbol?"
Icharus would place a comforting hand on his shoulder, his voice a soothing balm over poisoned thoughts. "We may never know the full truth, Neville. The world of powerful wizards is built on secrets. But your parents' sacrifice was real. It should be honored, not forgotten in another's shadow."
The environment was perfect. Icharus, under the table or behind a book, would weave subtle Suggestion Charms, their magic like faint whispers on the air. He targeted Rolf, Ernie, and Justin, not with grand commands, but with nudges. A nudge for Rolf to recall the "fishy" feeling. A nudge for Ernie to feel a deep, gnawing worry. A nudge for Justin to feel superior in his choice of friends.
The effect was potent. Rolf, ever earnest, would nod gravely. "The patterns are there. The first war wiped out so many good families—the Prewetts, shattered the Potters, hospitalized the Longbottoms. It feels… systematic."
Ernie Macmillan, the proud pure-blood, was the most transformed. The charms preyed on his deepest fears: family, legacy, bloodlines. His pompousness melted into genuine panic. "My family… we're in trade, we have influence. Are we next? Is there some… some dark hand plotting to finish what the Dark Lord started?"
Seeing Ernie's vulnerability was like finding a golden key. Icharus leaned in, his expression one of fierce loyalty. "Ernie, listen to me. You're not alone. We're like brothers in this. We'll find out the truth. We'll protect your family. I swear it." The words were a lifeline, and Ernie grasped them, his gratitude palpable.
Justin, meanwhile, simply felt validated. "Thank Merlin we're in Hufflepuff," he'd say to Icharus. "We care for each other in hufflepuff . Not like those Gryffindors who just mock Neville for being himself."
The crucible arrived with the first flying lesson. Icharus watched with clinical interest as Neville's broom, imbued with his magical turmoil and lack of confidence, shot into the air and then bucked him off. The boy fell, a tumbling bundle of robes, and landed with a sickening crunch.
As Madam Hooch whisked Neville to the hospital wing, Icharus noted the Gryffindors' reactions: Hermione's worry, Harry's concern, but Ron's shrug and muttered, "Typical Longbottom." It was all he needed.
That evening, Icharus went to the hospital wing alone. He found Neville lying still, his arm in a sling, staring at the ceiling with hollow eyes.
"They didn't come," Neville whispered, his voice brittle. "Not one of them."
"I'm here, Neville," Icharus said softly, placing a get-well gift on the bedside table. "Your true friends are here."
That was the final fracture. When Neville was released, something in him had hardened. So, when Draco Malfoy sauntered up in the Entrance Hall a few days later, sneering, "What's the matter, Longbottom? Forget how to walk as well as how to do magic? Must be in the blood, your parents—", he never finished.
With a raw, guttural cry nobody knew he possessed, Neville lunged. His fist, fueled by weeks of fermented rage and twisted loyalty, connected with Draco's nose with a satisfying crack. Draco stumbled back, shrieking in pain and shock.
"SHUT UP!" Neville roared, his face contorted, standing over the bleeding Slytherin. "Your family are slaves to a dead Dark Lord! You have no right to talk about my parents! They were warriors! They were heroes!"
The silence in the hall was absolute. The Boy-Who-Lived-In-Potter's-Shadow had finally snapped. Without another word, Neville turned, his chest heaving, and walked not to the Gryffindor table, but straight to the Hufflepuff one. He silently took a seat beside Icharus, his body trembling, his old life left bleeding on the stone floor behind him.
Icharus said nothing, merely passing Neville a goblet of pumpkin juice. As the hum of shocked conversation resumed around them, a chime, sweet and cold, echoed in the depths of his mind.
[Task 003: The Gilded Alliances - COMPLETE.]
[Reward: Siren's Theft Ritual - UNLOCKED.]
A slow, triumphant smile touched Icharus's lips. The foundation was laid. The first alliance was forged not in gold, but in blood, broken bones, and a perfectly broken psyche. The tool for his next, more intimate, theft was now in his hands. The vine had twisted, and now it was his to wield.
The silence in the Great Hall was broken not by sound, but by a shift in the very atmosphere. Neville Longbottom, his knuckles raw and his breath coming in ragged gasps, had not just broken Draco Malfoy's nose; he had shattered the carefully maintained perception of himself. The Boy-Who-Lived-In-Potter's-Shadow was a shadow no more.
The first to move was Cedric Diggory. He approached the Hufflepuff table not with anger, but with a prefect's measured concern. He knelt beside Neville, his voice low and calm. "Neville, that was... incredibly brave. But are you alright? That was a powerful step to take."
Neville, still trembling, merely nodded, his gaze fixed on the wooden tabletop. Icharus watched the exchange, a silent sentinel. Cedric's kindness was a variable, but a manageable one. It only served to further cement Hufflepuff as Neville's sanctuary.
Across the hall, the reaction was more calculating. The Slytherin table was a sea of sharp, assessing eyes. Where there had once been mockery, there was now cold appraisal. A Longbottom who could throw a punch was a different entity from a Longbottom who tripped over his own feet. They were not seeing a victim, but a potential piece on the chessboard—a pure-blood from an ancient, wounded house, now displaying a spark of the famed Longbottom temper. How could that spark be fanned, or exploited?
Draco, his face a mask of fury and humiliation, was hurried away by Crabbe and Goyle, already scribbling a furious letter to his father. The response from Lucius Malfoy, however, was not the immediate retaliation Draco expected. In his manor, Lucius read the letter with a sneer of disdain—not for Neville, but for his own son's clumsiness. 'Why must I be saddled with such a blunt instrument?' he thought, tossing the letter into the fire. 'To openly attack the Longbottom heir now, when the boy has finally shown a spine? Augusta Longbottom would descend upon my house with a fury that would make Bellatrix look tame. I would be a laughingstock. No, this requires finesse.'
In the staff room, the professors had their own perspectives. Professor McGonagall watched Neville walk away with the Hufflepuffs, a rare, genuine smile touching her lips. "There's Frank and Alice in him after all," she murmured to Professor Sprout. "It's about time he showed it." She saw not a problem, but the reawakening of her favourite students' legacy.
And in the highest office, Albus Dumbledore steepled his fingers, his twinkling eyes thoughtful behind his half-moon spectacles. A newly assertive Neville Longbottom was an unexpected variable. The boy's raw magical potential, long suppressed by insecurity, was now a volatile, untapped well. His plan had always centred on Harry, Ron, and Hermione. But a fourth, a child of prophecy who had also suffered directly at Voldemort's hand... this was intriguing. Could Neville's newfound fire be channeled? Could he be woven into the trio, adding a different kind of strength? The old wizard's mind began to plot, to see how this broken, reforged boy could fit into the grand design.
Back at the Hufflepuff table, Icharus absorbed it all. He saw the wary looks, the calculating stares, the paternalistic concern. They were all reacting. He was the one who had acted. They saw a changed boy; he saw a finished product. Neville was now fully his—isolated, loyal, and burning with a righteous fury that Icharus had carefully stoked.
As the dinner concluded and students began to file out, Icharus felt the weight of the unlocked Siren's Theft Ritual in his mind. It was a complex weave of magic, requiring a willing, intimate partner to siphon their innate talents. His gaze drifted from the brooding Neville to the handsome, kind-faced Cedric, who was laughing with a friend.
The foundations were stronger than ever. The web was holding. It was time to choose his first true harvest. The thought was a cold fire in his blood. The game was advancing, and he was several moves ahead of every other player on the board.