Virgo scowled at the ritual grimoire laying across from her as she worked on her Potions essay. Pointless work, but maintaining academic appearances were as important as actually knowing the material. She scrawled away in her neat, tiny handwriting without even thinking about it, the intricacies of a second year shrinking solution far below her need for conscious effort. Her quill scratching away, her thoughts turned to the plot she had hatched with Lor- with her Lord Slytherin.

That still galled, but after long consideration it really had been the only play open to her. How Harry Potter had come back in time was really irrelevant; nor was it relevant whether he was Voldemort's blood-adopted son, an independent time traveler, or something else. What was clear was that he had power above John and then some, had increasingly marginalized Dumbledore, was sent back by Fate and Death to kill Voldemort(!) and with every day that passed any plot to weaken his growing influence seemed more and more like a fool's errand, especially with the sword he now held over their heads about that whole debacle with the Basilisk if they pushed too hard.

So she had swallowed her pride for the sake of her now intact soul, and pledged herself to his service.

It had not been without consequences.

She had spilt her guts out about everything she knew about John, Lord and Lady Potter, the Light in general, Lord Malfoy, Lord Voldemort, Julia Olsen. She had sworn an unbreakable vow to keep Lord Slytherin's secrets and to obey him in all things (thankfully, by the Grace of Merlin, she had been allowed to negotiate the right to question and debate his orders). He had taken more than two dozen memories out of her head, copied 'just in case'.

She had even handed over a vial of her own blood, unable to keep her hands from trembling as she did so.

"Very well, I'm willing to give you a chance. And if you behave yourself then at the end of Hogwarts, I'll release you from your vow and we'll come up with something a little less oppressive long term."

And how it burned that a part of her had been genuinely grateful for such assurances, when she should be feeling nothing but righteous indignation that she had been brought so low.

But she had, and the weeks that followed had been a game of slight pressures and suggestions. Lord Slytherin, thankfully, had given her some leeway, with her first and most important mission being to simply not get caught. But as long as her security was safe, she was wheedling her brother towards the Gray and convincing Lord Malfoy with her considerable if not total influence that he needed to take a less hostile position to Lord Slytherin, even going so far as to suggest that while she of course knew Lord Slytherin wasn't Lord Voldemort, that there were signs she recognized that he could perhaps be some sort of proxy in his own right – a second Lord Malfoy if one would – and it would be wise to form a genuine partnership.

She had also had to nix any attempt at a betrothal to John Potter – and hadn't that shocked Harry, the one bit of news that actually cracked his Slytherin mask! – so now Lord Malfoy was instructed to continue stringing James Potter along, always demanding more and more but never being satisfied, even if he agreed to the increasingly outlandish conditions.

But it had all been fairly elementary stuff, things that were 'in the works' but not actually resulting in definite consequences baked into the future. That… was about to change.

"Hey, Virgo," John's voice cut through the library, then he winced and hushed himself lest Madam Pince hear and throw them out. "Hey. So, what's up?"

"Hello, John," Virgo replied, making a show of looking up from her parchment. "I have something for you," she gestured to the book. John's eyes widened.

"Is that safe, putting it out in public."

Virgo shrugged. "To anyone else, it looks like a general reference book of Beginner's potions. It's perfectly safe."

John hmmmm'd noncommittally, taking the seat and scanning the ritual that she had strategically left the book open to. A very, very boring ritual that produced a marginal increase in the user's sense of balance, at the cost of an equally marginal loss of the sense of smell. Not necessarily a bad ritual, and one that Virgo could conceivably recommend in a 'well why not," sort of way, but not one that was going to catch John Potter's interest.

"Mmhmm," John replied, eyes already glassing over as he read through the ritual.

Five… four… three… two…one!

John turned the page. Of course he did. "S'pose we can do that one, yeh," he said. "But I don't think-"

He went completely silent, and out the corner of her vision she snuck a glance over at the older boy – sure enough, his eyes were popping out his head.

"Virgo," he said softly, voice full of guilty admission, "What if um, what if we did this one?"

"Oh, which one?" She asked, as if she weren't already perfectly aware. As if John stumbling across the next ritual from the one she'd lain out wasn't the whole point of this exercise.

"Casanova's Cu- Potter!" Virgo did her best to look mortified.

"Sorry, I just thought," John was turning as red and looked had a look of a man who had stepped forward to battle an acromantula only to find the acromantula was actually a nundu in disguise.

"No, no it's um… it's alright." Virgo said after a moment, just when John looked ready to pop. "I do understand. And um…" she did her best to look as demure as she could. "It might not be the worst idea in the world. It's not something I want to think about, but given Lord Slytherin's… proclivities… it might not be a bad idea."

John scowled at that. So predictable. Then he paused. "Proclivities?"

Virgo resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead she kept a steady course between spoon-feeding him the information and looking slightly abashed at doing so.

"Lord Slytherin is making significant waves through Witch Weekly and the Wireless as well for being umm… quintessentially Masculine. Two betrothals to two powerful families, and the suggestion he may well be taking on more. Plus the whole um…" this time she really did blush. "You know, snakes and stuff. Serpentine." She coughed delicately. "He's winning over half the wizarding – or should I stay witching – population of Britain just by being well... him."

John looked livid and appalled at this development, which in truth was less of an exaggeration than it might have been. She knew that some of the forces in the Light were having to clamp down on some of the more salacious pieces being written in Witch Weekly, and more than one Wireless drama now featured handsome men in mysterious masks. But it was still largely a giant steaming heap of dragon dung, not that John would notice.

"That utter bastard." He looked back at the ritual in his hands. Then up at Virgo. Then at the book.

"So really…" he said slowly. "I have to do this. For Britain. For The Light. For The World."

Virgo hid a smirk. "Yes John," she said slowly. "I suppose you do."

John smiled a triumphant hero's smile. Then it faltered.

"Probably best we don't tell Susan for the mo'."

---

Two nights later, at the stroke of midnight, John and Virgo were at the top of the astronomy tower. It wasn't a ritual room per se, but it was protected against outside magics, a necessity when using the sort of delicate instruments used in Astronomy where even the slightest mismeasurement could have significant if not catastrophic consequences. They both wore ritual robes, their outer school robes disillusioned and left in the outside stairwell.

They sat cross legged. Between them, three strands of a woodnymph's hair wrapped around the phallus of a Pegasus and coated in the first blood of a harpy. Thank Morgana that Lord Malfoy had given the horcrux of Tom Riddle a 'plausible deniability' trust vault when she had first left for Hogwarts!

Clearing her mind, Virgo began to utter the necessary incantations around John. The boy looked as nervous as he did determined and followed her movements perfectly. Thankfully, whatever nerves he felt did not show up in flubbing the ritual. He was taking this seriously then. Good. Shame that he was inadvertently dooming himself.

---

"Did it work?"

Virgo nodded, dipping into as deep a curtsey as she dared without having Lord Slytherin think she was making a mockery. "Yes, my lord."

"Good. Let's see how he reacts to it before taking any more steps, but if this works then this should keep him busy for a while." She could hear the smirk in Lord Slytherin's voice.

She nodded again, keeping her head dipped. "Oh, and Virgo?"

She looked up.

"Good work."

"Thank you, my lord."

She was shortly excused and made her way back to the Gryffindor common room. John Potter was in his corner as usual, surrounded by the usual gaggle of yes-men, sycophants, giggling girls, courtiers, and even friends – though the number was not quite so large as it had been even a year before. And more tellingly, John Potter didn't even seem to notice when she came into the common room and headed straight for her dormitory, so busy was he leering at a fourth year girl he had never paid attention to before.

She closed the curtains to her bed, casting more than a few privacy charms on the drapes and locking them for good measure. She pulled out the grimoire. She would need to summon Dobby in a moment and have him return it to the Malfoy library. But before she did, she needed to unconfund the book. Lord Malfoy would not take kindly to his rituals being scrambled, even if this was one he would NEVER have even considered using.

Casanova's Cumpendium (stupid and disgusting name!) of Conquests was an absolutely idiotic ritual. Yes, it gave the man that performed it greater stamina, confidence around the fairer sex, lowered his refractory period and could gift a wizard more… size, but at an atrocious cost. The wizard who performed the ritual would lose much of his concept of standards or shame. John Potter, rather than courting powerful and pretty witches like herself… or admittedly, Susan Bones, would find himself lusting to some degree over any homely maid of a squib that crossed his path. Oh it was controllable – she wouldn't have unleashed a beast in her own proximity – but any chance of John forming a coven to even remotely match his brother's was now a total pipe dream.

Of course, given that she – one half of his 'coven' – had actually been working for Lord Slytherin for six weeks now, maybe it all came out in the wash anyhow. The silly tarts would be of no use to him politically or magically, but at least they wouldn't be stabbing him in the back. Oh well.

Either way, a John Potter who couldn't focus on anything but pining over even the Eloise Midgens or Millicent Bulstrodes was not a John Potter who was going to be winning hearts and minds in Hogwarts, let alone doing anything more dangerous than that. And with a roving eye like that, even if he did stumble across a talented witch the odds that she would stick around were close to nil, "Boy-Who-Lived" or no.

She unconfunded the ritual book, the oh-so-unfortunate side effects shimmering back into a view. A minute later Dobby had come and gone, and a surprisingly exhausted Virgo fell asleep not five minutes later.

---

Across the school, in the owlry, Susan Bones sent a letter to her Lord using a non-descript and completely random school owl, providing her weekly report on John Potter and Virgo Malfoy. She always made sure she had a genuine letter to her Auntie ready to send whenever she did this, but it didn't make it any easier. Merlin, what would Virgo do to her if she ever found out she'd switched sides!