Chapter 183: A Trace of Mischief

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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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30 January 1994, Hogwarts

Sometimes, Tracy was jealous of her friends.

Oh, it had nothing to do with their magical abilities. Sure, they had some bullshit family crests that pretty much allowed them to cheat through the education of one or multiple fields of magic. Like honestly, Daphne's plant control was bullshit, Blaise's light magic was so overpowered it didn't feel right in the hand of a thirteen-year-old, but it was Harry who honestly drove her mad. Whatever the magical circle thing he had going on was just bullshit. Being able to use them to cast wandlessly just took the cake.

No, what made Harry truly bullshit was his weird ability to just get magic. He could just see a spell once and replicate it. Hell, he could even modify it on the fly to suit his needs, something that arithmancers needed weeks to do for each spell. It really wasn't fair that they all had to spend hours learning complicated spells, only for him to just get them without even bothering with incantations or wand movement, then replicate it using his bullshit magic circles.

Yeah, she said bullshit a lot. But it was the most apt description of what Harry is capable of.

This made her wonder if this was what Dumbledore's housemates felt when they looked at him because Tracy couldn't imagine anyone being like Harry.

And yet Tracy wasn't jealous of him for that. Well, maybe just a little. Who wouldn't really?

She once asked him how he could do the things he did. The answer still confused her today, "You're treating magic like a tool and while it can work, I see it differently. Magic is like music, and school teaches us how to be musicians. Each spell is a song, a symphony of some sort, one that we learn through repetition and muscle memory. Arithmancers are composers, trying to use old arrangements to create new ones. But constraining music into a list of songs is just not right. You have to learn how it works, when a note is incorrect, instinctively. You need to listen and once you understand, once the magic is more than a list of notes but more akin to a language to speak, then you'll be able to do what I do."

She hadn't really understood what the boy meant by that. She did look into the library and couldn't find anything about it. After a few months, she just gave up and continued as she did. And yet, the words just wouldn't leave her head.

Harry could be infuriatingly cryptic sometimes.

Now, back to her friends, her jealousy mostly came with the fact that they knew exactly what they wanted in life. Harry always moved with purpose, and he excelled in anything he wanted with the barest effort. Guilds will probably be fighting over him before he graduates. Daphne obviously wanted to be a healer, as a reflex for her sister's condition. Blaise was just as lost as her, but had far more options, with the connection his mother had as well as the fortune she accumulated over the years.

Tracy was the daughter of a pureblood mother and a muggleborn. And even then, her mother was a recent pureblood, meaning that she didn't have a fancy crest or magical secrets. She was a literal nobody who worked in the Ministry of Magic, who fell in love with a Muggleborn in school and had her. The only good thing she had was when her maternal grandfather saved Daphne's maternal grandfather during Grindelwald's war. To pay back the debt, he had taken them under his protection, raised Tracy's mother as his ward alongside his daughter, and they have been friends ever since. It was because of Daphne's grandfather that Tracy's mother even got the position.

But that was it. This was the most they would rise.

Tracy just couldn't accept that.

She wanted to be more than a mindless ministry drone.

She wanted to stand out.

There was a reason why she was sorted in Slytherin, after all.

Unfortunately, she wasn't like Daphne, who could manipulate most situations to her advantage – except when they came to Harry; the girl was hopeless when it came to him, and it wasn't like the boy was any better. Harry spent a year wearing this ridiculous fedora hat that Daphne had given him, which he enchanted with an expansion charm. The enchantment was pretty cool, all things considered, but he looked like a miniature gangster from the movies her father made her watch when she was younger.

She didn't have Blaise's charisma. She didn't have Harry's bullshit magic and weird ability to make a fucking fortune on a whim. Seriously, how the fuck did he make so much gold in a year. He literally took a non-entity and made it one of the most demanded brooms in the market.

She loved her friends, but they just didn't understand. Even Blaise pretended to understand for her sake. She liked him, and he obviously liked her too. For some reason, the dark-skinned boy just wouldn't work up the courage to ask her out. She would probably ask him out after the second task if he didn't say anything by then.

Alas, her friends just didn't understand how hard it was to start at the bottom of the ladder, to work very hard for the opportunity to just rise a single step.

She needed to stand out.

The tournament was a good start and people finally started to take notice. They finally started to realize that she was more than the local gossip queen. 

Tracy had used the equipment from the Hogsmeade attack to observe the most interesting places in the castle, which gave her more than enough information to act as some kind of broker. Even Blaise started to smuggle stuff into the castle, especially ones that weren't allowed in. Hell, one of her most recurring customers was Pansy Parkinson, who wanted blackmail material on anyone who disagreed with her about anything.

Alas, Tracy knew that she had reached the best she could achieve on her own. She had risen as much as she could, being Harry and Daphne's friend, and the local information broker.

She needed something more to get higher up on the ladder.

She needed to Court of Slytherin.

It was more than a school club Harry always liked to say. It was a guaranteed path to a good job in the ministry, and maybe even more. You gained connections there, as well as information that only members had access to. It would be the ticket to Tracy's ambition.

It angered her just how much Harry just dismissed the court. For him, it might be something childish, or even nonsensical, but for her, it was the only opportunity she had. When she said that she wanted to present his modified Omnioculars to the court in an effort to be recruited, he had just laughed at her face. He called it a silly idea to waste such a precious resource on a club of pompous teenagers who pretended to be adults.

Sometimes, he could really be patronizing sometimes, and that angered her. She probably shouldn't have acted like a brat during the Hogsmeade attack, but she just wanted to undermine him. She should have trusted him when he said that he dreamt of Hogsmeade being attacked. She should have followed his lead and not act like a bitch the next day.

She was just afraid. Tracy had never been in any sort of mortal danger before. She had heard of Harry's adventures and believed them. But it was always so abstract. Being in true danger just freaked her out and she lashed out, with Blaise following her lead.

She regretted that. It had cost her Harry's trust, even if she was relieved that he obviously was never going to involve her in his antics again. It was her fault. She should have never taken that stupid bean.

However, that didn't matter anymore; according to the letter in her hand, her performance in the first task was enough to get an invitation to their rank, alongside Harry, Blaise, and Daphne. She was worried that she didn't have as much on the table as the others since she didn't come from an old family, but her worries were laid to rest the moment the letter arrived.

After curfew, they entered a secret corridor with a giant stone door with moving serpents. Inside, was a room that looked more like an amphitheatre, filled with people wearing green wooden masks of various magical snakes.

This was it, the Court of Slytherin.

The man sitting at the helm nodded at them in approval and Tracy looked around for the first time. There were six candidates. She and her friends, as well as Nott and Malfoy. Nott was expected, all things considered; his father was in charge of a third of the Wizengamot, after all. But Malfoy wasn't. After his father's death, his house's influence had waned considerably. He would bring nothing of interest to the table until his majority, so that was an odd choice.

Tracy looked around and saw three empty seats. Wait a minute, only three? Oh, she started to suspect what was going to happen.

The man in the helm slammed a gavel and spoke up first, "The Court is now in session!"

The entire hall fell quiet, and the King of the Court held everyone's attention, "Today, we celebrate the final candidates to join our prestigious ranks. For centuries, this organization has watched over Slytherin House, enforcing the Unwritten Rules of the house, and protecting the younger members from those who seek to hurt them. Countless influential people have been members of the club, and I challenge you to find any Noteworthy Slytherin graduate who wasn't a member at some point. The six of you have a chance to join a legacy, to be immortalized amongst the legends of our house, and to wield influence far above that of any other student in this school. Alas, as you have probably noticed, we only have three available slots and there are six of you."

The six third years turned around looking at one another, seeing where this was going. Well, Harry looked infuriatingly bored out of his mind. And wasn't that just typical Harry?

The man continued, "Normally, as per our traditions, the six of you would duel and the victors would join our ranks. Thankfully, we won't have to do any of this, since there will be a dueling tournament in a few weeks. So, this ruling council decided on a far simpler solution. The best performances in the tournament will join our ranks, and the rest will spend the rest of their years in Hogwarts knowing that they were one small step away from joining us, from becoming more, and yet fell short, in the end. Look to your left and your right. Half of you will never see this room again. Half of you will never be members of this prestigious organization. So, make sure you do your best. Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor. Thank you!"

Was that it? Tracy saw the other candidates just look around in confusion before slowly going back the way they felt. Did they really have to be dramatic about it? They could have just put that in the letter instead of summoning them at almost midnight just to tell them that.

Was that what Harry was talking about when he dismissed the Court so easily?

It didn't matter, anyway. Even if it was just posturing, the Court was her way into magical upper society. She would make invaluable connections there and maybe get a favour or two, which she would cash in after she graduated.

And her chances were very good at getting in. Harry obviously wasn't interested and would reject the offer anyway. Daphne didn't really care about it but would probably accept if she won. Blaise would lose if she asked him to. He only wanted to join the court to support her, anyway. The only ones who truly cared were her, Draco and Nott. If she played her cards right and did well enough in the duelling tournament, she could easily become a new member of the Court.

Determined and focused, Tracy stepped out into the cool night, her resolve solidifying with each step as she envisioned her future among the elite of Slytherin. She had some duelling training to do.

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I promise this will be the last 3rd POV for a while. We will return to Harry after that. I just thought that it would have been boring to just use Harry during this section, and would have gathered focusing on Tracy more. Things will start to pick up again in the next chapter. As usual, let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions.

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.