Choices

Cross got off the carriage and Blue shrank down in his hair, before walking into the castle. Daphne was surprised at the wardrobe change and Hermione directly asked "You're going in like that?" Cross shrugged and said "I couldn't care less." with his classic blank expression.

Daphne and Hermione looked at each other and sighed 'He's back' they thought and followed him into the dining hall.

Hermione went to the Gryffindor table and Cross sat at the Slytherin table, before looking for the insignia plates and bringing them over, starting to eat.

The first years came in and started getting sorted by the sorting hat, Cross watched with interest. He hadn't seen the hat from this perspective before, when he was coming in he just looked around the hall at all the new things. Now he was used to this place and can focus all his attention on the sorting hat.

Ron's sister went up and was sorted into Gryffindor, Astoria went up and the hat obviously paused a second before sorting her into Slytherin. Astoria bounced over happily and sat next to Daphne before wolfing down the food. Cross kept a straight face and looked at the hat, keeping his expression as blank as possible.

He felt the hat try and pierce Astoria's mind, but because of his barrier, it put her in Slytherin. He was getting the feeling the sorting hat itself was a conspiracy. The houses were there since the school's insemination, but now they were obviously being tampered with.

Since his first year he noticed Hufflepuff's presence was basically non-existent, Ravenclaw was filled with introverted, shy, and studious kids. They all almost never talked and only focused on studies. Gryffindor were the outgoing kids with confidence, and finally Slytherin was almost all Pure-Blood Wizard families.

Also, if the sorting hat couldn't get into the mind of a Wizard or Witch, it would send them to Slytherin 9 times out of 10. There was an anomaly as he was thinking...

A girl with long and messy, almost white, blonde hair walked to the hat and sat down on the stool. Cross looked into her eyes and almost lost himself, he blinked and shook his head. Her pale silver eyes were as calm as water and looked almost as though they had stars in them.

The hat fell on her head and was silent for a while, Cross looked at the girl with interest and the hat said "Ravenclaw!" Cross unnoticeably frowned before quickly returning to normal. The hat definitely tried it's hardest to enter her mind but it didn't make any progress at all.

So then why did she go to Ravenclaw?

Cross examined the girl as well as the rest of Ravenclaw before seeing a strange trend. Almost all the Ravenclaw students came from a different family. He had already asked Draco about Pureblood's before. Each family had a different magic that they excelled in, these were familial magics and specific to each family.

Yet in Ravenclaw, each of the different families' studious kids were there. Cross' mind started turning as he thought a strange thought 'Could they be being raised for the slaughter like pigs?' It would make sense!

When each other the students' individual family's magic matures they would be stripped and sent back to make more. It was a breeding pen for familial magic! Cross calmed down and thought about it rationally, not ruling out the fact that he may be right, what was the end goal of the person behind all of this?

Surely whoever it was had a plan for something better? Why take all this magic for yourself if you don't do anything with it? Cross put together everything he found out so far. First, the mind piercing hat, then, the potions in the food, and now, the possible slaughter house that is Ravenclaw.

Cross started thinking about possible suspects, Hagrid was crossed off the list immediately. Hagrid, first of all, didn't have a wand, second of all, Cross didn't think Hagrid was smart enough to pull off something like this. Hagrid was extremely smart when it came to animals and beasts but a carefully calculated plan like this? Not possible.

Next, Voldemort. Cross didn't really care what the guy did before or who's parents he killed. The reason he didn't think it was him was because of Quirell. If Cross got the story correctly, Voldemort was killed when he tried to kill Harry potter. Obviously he didn't die but somehow became a soul, or else his name would already be long forgotten and there wouldn't be another soul fragment in Harry's mind.

Quirell was drinking Unicorn blood, obviously Quirell was just a normal human and didn't need to drink Unicorn blood. Cross confirmed this after seeing Quirell with his eyes on normal days. Because of the two people he felt when looking at Quirell, Cross can only assume that Voldemort had attached his soul to Quirell and made him do his bidding.

Which accounted for the Unicorn blood and the need for the replica Philosopher's stone. Voldemort's soul is weak and needed constant magical life extending items to continue living. Simply put, Voldemort had much bigger things to worry about. He just didn't have time to set up this plan.

Most of the teachers were directly crossed off because Cross felt that they were just not suitable for something like this. Which left him with a handful of people. Snape, McGonagall, the rat, and Dumbledore himself. Cross continued on this train of thought, not forgetting outside sources.

There was a possibility that the ministry may be directly involved as well. But this strengthened Cross' suspicions that Hogwarts was definitely the heart of a nefarious plot against, not only the students, but perhaps something bigger.

Cross was getting really tired of these plots. He just wanted to be left out of them, honestly if the world burned down tomorrow he really would only watch and keep his own family safe. He wasn't a saint or a hero, fend for yourself.

As Cross was thinking about what to do next, the pretty blonde girl with the silver eyes looked at Cross and her eyes turned, getting brighter and excited the more she looked.

The Banquet ended and Cross directly left the dining hall, getting somewhere alone, checking the surroundings and himself before teleporting into his room in the Slytherin house. He let himself relax and spread his strings around habitually, checking if there have been any changes.

Noticing nothing, Cross let out a breath and let Blue and Carl run around and play. Something to note, Blue and Cross bonded during the summer. As did Carl and Cross. Both giving him benefits.

Blue's bonding directly gave him control over the Ice element and purified his magic constantly, while Carl surprisingly gave him control over the Holy (Light) element and strengthened his body constantly. Cross was amazed by the affects of Carl and Blue's bonding, they were both amazing! While not showing too much results now, little by little the effects would be very obvious!

Cross was extremely satisfied with them.

He let out 3 strings from his finger tips, each was a different color. The first was blue, the second was pure white, and the third was red. They were Ice, Light, and Fire. The fire string was the fruit of Cross' labors for the whole training session and summer. He felt like he had another one in his body but he couldn't grasp it, he felt extremely close to understanding it however.

Cross sat on his bed and crossed his legs, summoning his string clone before giving it instructions to continue practicing in the Room of Requirement. He had to milk that place before someone else found it and he couldn't go there every night.

After sending the string clone away, Cross closed his eyes and started to feel the hidden element inside his body.

The next day

Cross went to class with Carl and Blue in his shirt pocket. He was standing in front of a pot with a mandrake in it. Cross scratched his neck in frustration, Daphne looked over and said "What's wrong?" Cross said "These things are really annoying." Daphne was speechless and the teacher walked in saying "Good morning class!"

The class returned "Good morning, Professor Sprout." Sprout nodded and said "Welcome to greenhouse 3, second years! Today we'll be repotting mandrakes, who can tell me what the properties of the mandrake root are?" Hermione raised her hand and said "Mandrake cries can be fatal to anyone who hears it, and the mandrake can be used to return those who have been petrified to their original state."

Sprout nodded and said "Well said! 10 points for Gryffindor! Well then, our mandrakes are still seedlings so they aren't that dangerous. Everyone please wear your ear muffs." the class put the ear muffs on and Sprout pulled out the mandrake seedling, the seedling started screaming hysterically and everyone except Cross covered their earmuffs.

Cross just frowned and said "Noisy." Neville fainted and the mandrake stopped screaming and started trembling in fear. Sprout was confused but started showing the class what to do before telling them to do the same.

Cross pulled out his mandrake and it didn't even make a sound as it trembled. Cross ignored the trembling plant and threw it in another pot before pouring soil in it and stepping back. The rest of the mandrakes were also trembling, Sprout was even more confused as she said "Well that's convenient. Anyway, keep your earmuffs on just in case!"

The class started burying the mandrakes. Nobody heard Cross' voice over the mandrake screaming, so he was still safe. Cross sighed and felt that it was going to only get harder and harder staying low-key.

He didn't even do anything and there was a strange phenomena already. Luckily nobody heard him or else it was up for him. He decided to play it extremely cool from now on, performing even more average than before.

A while later

Cross was eating at lunch, feeling like he was being watched. He didn't make any movements but his eyes were narrowed and he stretched his back, scanning the entire room. Looking for any teachers but finding none. He was confused and looked up at the ceiling, spreading his strings up the walls, scanning the entirety of the room.

Still finding nothing, Cross was confused. He finally looked around at the students to see the blonde girl with silver eyes looking down at her food and giggling. He looked at her for a second, his instinct told him it was her looking at him, but he wasn't sure.

He couldn't see through this girl at all, but the same situation was happening to her. Cross didn't know this just yet.

Cross eventually looked away from the girl and looked at the rest of the students, finding nobody that was looking at him. He glanced at the girl one last time before going back to eating. Suddenly, Cross heard screaming and looked over seeing a letter turn into a mouth and screaming a Ron.

Cross was annoyed and left the dining hall, not wanting to heard Ron get blasted by his mother. He walked out of the dining hall and turned his head to see nothing. He narrowed his eyes and turned the corner, disappearing.

The blonde girl turned the corner and clicked her tongue seeing Cross wasn't there. She looked around and went in another direction.

A while later

Cross was sitting at his desk in class, reading a book titled 'Advanced Elemental magic control'. Suddenly the door swung open and a man walked in, it was Lockeheart! Lockeheart smiled and the girls all 'awwww'd'

Cross looked up and his face fell, not this fucking guy. He promptly ignored Lockeheart, who was talking about solely himself instead of teaching the class about Defense against the dark arts.

Cross was reading his book when suddenly a ton of pixies started flying around creating havoc in the class. The students started evacuating, leaving only Ron, Hermione, Harry, Lockeheart, Cross, and Neville, who was hooked onto the chandelier.

Lockeheart smiled sheepishly and retreated to his office as he said "Right then, I'll let you all handle them." before slamming the door shut.

Cross looked up and the pixies and they all avoided him, he sighed and looked at the rest thinking about his options.

1. Kill all the pixies and obliviate everyone in the room.

2. Kill everyone in the room and flee the school.

3. Do nothing and hope the others do something.

And finally,

4. Try and help but make things worse.

Cross rubbed his chin in thought, thinking very carefully about what to do..