The Gray's Secret: Scene 6 (Patreon)

John Potter was sweating.

He’d faced down Voldemort and death eaters. Dragons, mere-people, and giant mazes. He’d spoken with Fate and Death, travelled through time, and gone toe-to-toe in battles of wits and magic with his evil twin, all while keeping his secrets, and doing his best to play the timeline so that this time, the Dark Lord could be defeated.

John Potter was quite comfortable with danger.

He was even comfortable visiting a girl’s bedroom. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t done it before. He was John Potter, the boy-who-lived (at least, as far as anyone else needed to know). He was the most popular boy in his year. Star quidditch player. Witches loved him. If he hadn’t been snatched from the Triwizard Tournament and died in the Graveyard, he’d have been sleeping with Ginny for the first time that very night.

The fact that Ginny now hated him stillburned. But he just couldn’t bring himself to fully give up on her. She was still open. Still a possibility. Ginny wasn’t betrothed yet and if he could find a way to snatch that from… Harry…  then he was sure he could just show Ginny how much he loved her, and she would eventually accept him again.

Dumbledore had often said that love was one of the most powerful magics that existed. That it was love that would eventually defeat the Dark Lord.

He’d never before considered the possibility there might be such as thing as too much love.

Sweat continued to roll down his neck.

The girl’s bedroom in question featured an awful lot of dark greens, blues, and black. It was also a girl’s bedroom, that, if someone had asked him only a year ago, he’d have called them insane for suggesting he’d ever be caught dead in it. Or at least, in the house the girl’s bedroom happened to be in. This time last year, he hadn’t even known the girl herself existed.

John was sitting cross-legged on the girl’s bed while the girl herself was moving sticky-charmed cards around on a massive slate blackboard hung up on the far wall.

“Now, the political situation is being very tricky and must be navigated with skill, but Virgo is believing—no, Virgo believes,that the upcoming Wizengamot session will be being—NO, will be the perfect opportunity to activate our little trap and give reporter lady—give Skeeterthe memories saying that Harry Potter is Lord Slytherin and how to be proving it. From there, she will do the rest.” Virgo whipped around and stared at him with a fire that was simultaneously arousing and unnerving. “Eat more! John must eat more. John must be strong! Why is John not eating?”

John had been trying to keep his mouth closed while a levitating spoon filled with perfectly seasoned bicorn insistently prodded at the edge of his lips. He’d already eaten what felt like half the magic cow and if he ate any more, he felt like he was going to explode. He opened his mouth to answer. “I think—Mumph!”

The spoon had taken the opportunity to lunge inside. A few choking swallows later and John managed to forcefully dislodge the flying silverware. “Virgo, that’s enough! If I eat any more, I’ll die!”

Virgo waved nonchalantly. “John is exaggerating. Virgo has calculated the exact amount of food that will cause John’s death and we are not close yet. Virgo will not feed John lethal amounts of food. Virgo loves John! Virgo will kill other people for John!”

Another bead of sweat rolled downwards.

“Hey, look. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. I do. Really! Like, having a pretty witch cook food for you, I’m pretty sure that’s every guy’s dream, but it’s not like Potter Manor doesn’t have house elves.”

Virgo pouted. Actually pouted. John was sure he’d never seen Virgo pout EVER. It was kind of like seeing a dementor giggle. And given what he knew to be going on here, wasn’t that far from the truth.

“They are being armatures!” Virgo declared. “They is not having—” She paused. “They do not have wizard greatness in mind when creating culinary masterpieces!”

“How does eating half a bicorn make me a better wizard?”

“Magic is stored in lean body mass. More mass equals more magic. More protein equals more muscle, equals more magic, equals greater wizard. Also, more buff is more sexy. My John will not only be great wizard, but also buff wizard. Mmmm… Buff John.” Virgo smiled at him with half-lidded eyes long enough to make John rather uncomfortable.

He’d described Virgo as pretty before and she was, but while John had been happy to have girls his age hanging around him, he hadn’t been planning to actually do anything about it until he at least got back to where he’d been before dying. Virgo looked like if he gave her the green light, she’d rip her clothes off and jump him right here right now.

Admittedly, her own consciousness was older than even his, but that didn’t change the fact that the girl staring at him like he was the last lollipop in the shop was wearing the body of a twelve-year-old.

He loosened the collar around his neck with a finger. “Errr. Don’t you also have to lift weights to grow muscle?”

“Ah, yes!” Virgo snapped her fingers and a parchment appeared from thin air. “Here Virgo also has your workout schedule. Your homework schedule. Your duelling schedule. Your occlumency schedule. Your animagus schedule. Your Virgo schedule. Your other girls schedule. Your Quidditch schedule. Your networking schedule. Your family magics schedule—”

Sweat was no longer running down John’s neck. It sprinted. As though desperate to get away from the host that secreted it.

“Virgo!”

“Mmm?” Virgo was halfway through describing how she had combined his sartorial schedule with her own, which she had suddenly become a lot more interested in. She’d booked him to go shopping in Diagon Alley the weekend after next. The idea that he might not be allowed to leave Hogwarts so many weekends in a row apparently hadn’t occurred to her. Or that her father might get pissy.

Lord Malfoy certainly hadn’t been thrilled when he’d arrived through his floo.

And since the Malfoy patriarch had pulled her out of Hogwarts after the Basilisk incident, Virgo suddenly had a lot more freedom with her time. Given the whole free-house-elf situation that she’d informed him of the moment they first saw each other again in the aftermath, John wasn’t altogether sure if having that much free time was a good thing or not.

“You were talking about a Wizengamot session?” John said, trying to steer the conversation back on track and away from himself.

Virgo relayed to him everything that was on the docket.

John’s eyes widened. “Are you saying?” he began.

Virgo smirked. That part of her at least hadn’t changed. “Virgo is saying that if ever there was an opportunity to move your brother into a political situation that would make us outing him as Lord Slytherin do the most damage, it could very well be being—” Virgo smacked herself, hard.

For some reason, John found that action far hotter than anything else she’d done so far.

“…it could very well be at this Wizengamot session.”

John felt his heart speed up. “This could be it.”

Virgo grinned. “This could be it.”

“We could out Harry.”

Virgo nodded. “We could destroy Lord Slytherin.”

“Restore the timeline.”

“And become the greatest power couple the wizarding world has ever seen!”

John nodded to himself. The Gray’s secret really was the key to everything. Break that in the right way, and everything else would fall into place. It might even be the key to getting Ginny back. Although, given the way Virgo was currently acting and the history between the two, he probably shouldn’t say that last bit out loud.

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