Fic: Black Cat Across the Road (3/?)
Title: Black Cat Across the Road
Author:
mirrored_illusions aka
3am_moonlight
Rating: PG-13.
Fandom: Harry Potter (books)
Timeline: Pre-Hogwarts, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (book 1).
Characters: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, misc. characters.
Pairing: Harry/Hermione (mostly UST for now since they're children).
WC: 6,594 (so far)
Disclaimer: The Potterverse belongs to JKR.
Warnings: Mentions of murder and abuse, but nothing graphic.
Author's notes: Not beta read. Sorry.
Summary: Harry Potter thinks back on his life on the day he celebrated his first centennial, and the morning after he wakes up inside the Cupboard Under the Stairs. After finding a newspaper he realizes he has several years to plan his revenge on the Wizarding World, and also to get the education he was denied the first time around.
Chapter 01: AO3 | DW | FF | HP Fandom | LJ |
Chapter 02: AO3 | DW | FF | HP Fandom | LJ |
Chapter 03: AO3 | DW | FF | HP Fandom | LJ |
Harry spent the rest of the summer re-reading his schoolbooks from Year One and Year Two to refresh his memory and make sure he properly learned what he hadn’t the first time around. He was determined that he would get a good muggle education this time, no matter what Dumbledore and the Dursley’s wanted.
Yes, Hermione had done her best to try and make sure he learned at least some of the school work from Primary School, Secondary School, and so on, but it wasn’t the same as actually studying the subjects in a school setting. She did try though and Harry appreciated the effort, especially as it had come in very useful at times.
After a lot of lies and trickery he managed to get enough money to buy the potion ingredients he needed. It had involved a version of the teenage lie ‘tell your mum you’re staying with me, and I’ll tell mine I’m staying with you’, except his aunt thought he was with Mrs. Figg and Mrs. Figg thought that Mrs. Dursley hadn’t gone out after all. This also had the advantage that he got the pittance that his aunt intended to pay Mrs. Figg for looking after him for the evening.
He took the bus to London, lied to Tom the Barkeeper that he had gotten separated from his parents and could he please open the entrance to Diagon Alley for him? After a visit to Gringotts to exchange pounds for galleons, the goblins didn’t care about his age, he had gone shopping in Knockturn Alley as he was as likely to be able to buy potions in Diagon Alley as he was to be able to buy a wand. He would’ve loved to buy a wand in Knockturn but wasn’t about to push his luck that far just yet. There was also the issue where his magical core wasn’t stable enough yet to use a focus.
He used a simple disguise; he’d ‘borrowed’ a set of black children’s clothing which fit him much better than his hand-me-downs from Dudley, from someone’s clothes line a couple of streets over, and a cliche dark blond wig from another house. The usual light blond wig would’ve looked too fake with his black eyebrows. He’d had to sneak around for over a week to get everything. His famous scar had been hidden by makeup stolen from Mrs. Next Door's’ teenage daughter. On the plus side, it was a non-magical disguise which meant that he wasn’t exposed by the goblins. Score!
School had let out in mid-June and he had lost nearly three weeks waiting for his first trip to London, and then another week while he brewed the potions but he was finally on track. His mind and powers were back under his control, and he could begin his revisions in earnest.
He had two years worth of English, Mathematics, Science, Computing (Information and Communication Technologies), Phys. Ed., Geography, History, Music, Art & Design, Design & Technology, Religious Education, and Personal, Social and Health Education to re-learn. He also needed to choose a foreign language for next year. His brain was going to melt.
***
Two years later and his grades had steadily improved to the point where he got almost only top grades. His health had also improved and he was taller than he had been originally at this point in time, and while he was still short and skinny for his age it was nowhere near as bad as it could’ve been. But then again, all the pictures he had seen of his father and grandfather had shown that it was obviously a family trait to be on the short side until about their mid-teens, along with the gravity defying black hair. Harry could live with that, especially since he was counting on his mother’s genes to give some extra height.
On the downside the abuse from his so-called relatives had escalated to become much more violent. Neither Petunia or Vernon approved in the least of his remarkable grades and the praise he received for his pursuit of knowledge during the Parent/Teacher meetings, especially since their precious Duddykins was below average due to his refusal to study. Like last time aunt Petunia had forced Harry to do her son's homework for him when the spoiled brat wanted to watch the telly instead. Unlike last time however, Harry had decided to simply copy his own homework and then put Dudley’s name on it. That had resulted in some major embarrassment for his ‘dear’ cousin when the teacher had tried to make him show off during class and the little whale had had no idea what the man was talking about. You’d think he’d at least bother to read through it, but no that would require actual work and that would just not do.
The teacher had then tried to punish Harry for cheating, but since he knew all the answers it hadn’t worked very well. This dance had repeated itself several times before the Dursley’s had been called in and whatever had happened during that meeting caused Harry a severe beating when uncle Vernon returned home, in addition he’d been thrown into his cupboard for three days without food. But in the end Dudley had been forced to do his own homework, and actually study, and Harry had showed up at school full of bruises. He could’ve allowed his magic to heal him, but he’d decided that the Dursley’s free use of him as their personal punching bag was well and truly over, and that meant no magical healing. The lack of magical healing meant that all of his bruises, wounds, and scratches had to heal the muggle way. Which meant that now that there were no compelling or confundus charms on him people would notice the abuse.
Like abusive people everywhere however, they began to hit him in places that wouldn’t normally be visible. Back, stomach, legs and arms (in the winter), and of course, spanking was a popular punishment. His too-large Dudley cast-offs hid any bruises and wounds completely.
In an attempt to both get in better shape and to avoid his ‘family’ as much as possible, he began playing football and started running every morning. Whenever he could he went to the local library and read anything that caught his fancy. He didn’t have a library card, asking for one would’ve gotten him nothing other than enlightening them to one of the places where he could be found, and he didn’t even want to consider what they’d do to the books if they got a hold of them. No, it had to stay secret.
His private language study was going well; his understanding of Latin had improved greatly, and Gaelic and Greek were coming along well, too. He had recently conducted his fourth trip to Diagon Alley, and this time he had bought a bunch of books on magical subjects, such as magical history, etiquette, magical families/family trees, and various other books including the magical equivalents of his dictionaries. The latter would be very helpful during Hogwarts since they were geared towards students learning magic.
On the trip before that he had bought a four compartment trunk with extra shrinking charms, which included an interesting feature where the trunk could remain shrunken but he was still able to add or remove things from it. It was very helpful as it would’ve been difficult to open the trunk inside the cupboard. The objects, mostly his secret stash of books/notebooks and food/liquids, would shrink down to about the size of an adult females pinky nail when it came within 20 cm of the box.
The trunk also had a number of safety features, which were keyed to Harry’s magical signature and had to be used in combination with a Parseltongue password, in order to unshrink or open it. Each compartment had a separate and unrelated password to ensure the security of the contents, in addition to seperate keys.
The four compartments were intended for a) books, which had been the main reason he even looked at it; b) clothes, which was a great place to hide the stolen clothing, wigs, and makeup he used for unsanctioned trips both to Diagon Alley and various places in the muggle world, c) a chest of drawers, which he used for most other things, and finally d) an empty room.
The room itself was 20m x 20m and with a 2,5m high ceiling. It came with no furnishings or accommodations other than the inbuilt bookshelves, the closet, and chest of drawers which were all available from the outside. If he wanted something to make it more useful or to make it feel more like a bedroom, study, or living room he’d have to buy it himself. He had also needed to buy something to make sure he had light, which the shop assistant had oh so helpfully showed him a selection of.
On the positive side he was free to practise his wandless magic down there, and later on he would be able to practise regular wanded magic. According to a book Hermione had found in one of the Potter libraries there was apparently something about the combination of shrinking and expanding charms in combination with certain defensive spells which caused the Trace not to pick up (underage) magic. For obvious reasons this was another piece of knowledge the Ministry of Magic had banned.
A couple of weeks after Harry’s tenth birthday he intended to make another trip to see if he could get that year's book list, and hopefully get himself an illegal wand in Knockturn Alley in the middle of all the chaos. If his studies went well he might get even more books. Hermione would’ve been so proud if she’d known. Harry smiled to himself. He had one more year before he would be under Dumbledore’s manipulations and intense scrutiny again. That was going to suck . On the other hand he would finally be able to see Hermione again. He swallowed, closed his eyes, and hoped once again that Lady Luck would grant him the Hermione he had known in the future and not just the 11 year old girl she had originally been. She had almost as much to revenge as he had, and he wanted her to get the chance.
***
Harry spent the next year learning all he could about the muggle world during the day and during the night he studied magic, the magical world, and languages - both muggle and magical. The trip to Knockturn Alley in mid-August had been exceptionally successful, even when he included his highest hopes. It had yielded a new custom wand that was untraceable, with an accompanying holster spelled to be invisible unless he chose to reveal it, and it also had anti-summoning, anti-theft charms, plus runes protecting it from the elements and minor to moderate hexes. It had space for up to three wands in it and the option to show only the ones the wearer wanted.
A trip into a shady looking bookstore had gotten him even more books on less subjects, including several on parseltongue and three that were actually written in parselscript. That had been a pleasant surprise. He’d side-tracked into Diagon where he bought two bottomless and featherlight book bags before he went to the apothecary to resupply his potion stores.
It had been amazing how much his understanding of brewing and potion making had improved when he was taught by someone competent. It had also had the additional benefit of giving him a better understanding of Herbology as well. In his original past, now a future he had every intention on making sure didn’t happen, he had hired a Swiss potion mistress to teach him and Hermione everything from scratch. He was by no means a Potions Master, and he never would be as that wasn’t where his talents lay, but his grade should definitely go up even by Snape’s harsh standards.
The second bottomless bag was a present to Hermione on her 11th birthday on 19th September, 1990. He’d sent it to her anonymously through the muggle post with just a note which simply read ‘For my favorite bossy Know-It-All on the occasion of her 11th year on Earth. See you on my birthday at Noon?’ With any luck she would understand the implications and be there. If she didn’t there would be a very confused witch somewhere in Kent.
***
He had two big, non-magical problems he needed to solve before primary school ended: 1. He needed new glasses. His current ones were beginning to give him a headache due to his squinting. And 2. How was he going to be able to continue his muggle education while at Hogwarts?
Getting the school books for his first year of secondary school shouldn’t be a problem as aunt Petunia would get them for him, along with his home-dyed uniform, but how was he going to do the end-of-year tests and the exams without the help of his relatives? Oh well, he had nearly two years to figure that out. Hermione would probably know. He made a note on his very long to-do list. He was certain he could convince either version of his friend that getting a muggle education would be highly beneficial.
Getting new glasses on the other hand was imperative, and he needed to get them before school let out so he could use that as an excuse. He quickly decided that it would be unwise to wait until right before school began, as Hogwarts started a week earlier than Stonewall High and Smeltings Academy and his aunt would no doubt wait until the last minute. There was no chance that they would do it during the summer, and they would definitely not buy him glasses so he could learn magic. Hmm … That meant public destruction of his current set, but who should do the honors/get the blame? Dudley and his gang were out, unfortunately, but there were other bullies…
This time he wanted minimalist rectangular rimless glasses with silver temple and black temple tips so they would be less visible. It would make his transition to contact lenses in a few years much smoother, and it would also make him resemble his father less. In later years people had remarked that he looked more like his mother when his eyes weren’t framed by black glasses. The big question was if he’d be able to get that past his relatives. On second thought , if he got some other bullies to ruin his glasses then he might be able to convince the school and his aunt and uncle that the offending students’ parents should pay for them… He smirked. That just might work.
Well, that was one half of a problem solved, now he just needed to find a way to execute the plan and he would be the proud owner of a brand new pair of spectacles!
***
Six months later and his plan had gone off without a hitch. A group of bullies had cornered him not far from the school entrance and when he saw several teachers walk in their direction he’d made sure he got hit hard enough for his glasses to fly off. Predictably the lead bully had deliberately stepped on them in full view of the teachers. The boy in question had been expelled, the rest of his group had spent the remaining seven weeks in detention, and the parents of the lead bully had been forced by the school to buy new glasses for Harry. He’d even gotten the kind of glasses he wanted, despite the price.
After all, the Jefferson family were under the impression that the Dursley's were middle class and would therefore have been able to afford them. Aunt Petunia didn’t contradict their belief, mainly because he had made sure to inform her beforehand that it would make them look poor if she demanded that he got something cheap. He’d even managed to get a pair of cheap jeans and a shirt that fit properly out of the deal. The internal struggle that had played across her face at that had been amusing. Mustn’t allow anyone to think they were anything but completely normal, right?
Playing mind games were more fun than he had initially thought.
Author:
mirrored_illusions aka
3am_moonlight
Rating: PG-13.
Fandom: Harry Potter (books)
Timeline: Pre-Hogwarts, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (book 1).
Characters: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, misc. characters.
Pairing: Harry/Hermione (mostly UST for now since they're children).
WC: 6,594 (so far)
Disclaimer: The Potterverse belongs to JKR.
Warnings: Mentions of murder and abuse, but nothing graphic.
Author's notes: Not beta read. Sorry.
Summary: Harry Potter thinks back on his life on the day he celebrated his first centennial, and the morning after he wakes up inside the Cupboard Under the Stairs. After finding a newspaper he realizes he has several years to plan his revenge on the Wizarding World, and also to get the education he was denied the first time around.
Chapter 01: AO3 | DW | FF | HP Fandom | LJ |
Chapter 02: AO3 | DW | FF | HP Fandom | LJ |
Chapter 03: AO3 | DW | FF | HP Fandom | LJ |
Harry spent the rest of the summer re-reading his schoolbooks from Year One and Year Two to refresh his memory and make sure he properly learned what he hadn’t the first time around. He was determined that he would get a good muggle education this time, no matter what Dumbledore and the Dursley’s wanted.
Yes, Hermione had done her best to try and make sure he learned at least some of the school work from Primary School, Secondary School, and so on, but it wasn’t the same as actually studying the subjects in a school setting. She did try though and Harry appreciated the effort, especially as it had come in very useful at times.
After a lot of lies and trickery he managed to get enough money to buy the potion ingredients he needed. It had involved a version of the teenage lie ‘tell your mum you’re staying with me, and I’ll tell mine I’m staying with you’, except his aunt thought he was with Mrs. Figg and Mrs. Figg thought that Mrs. Dursley hadn’t gone out after all. This also had the advantage that he got the pittance that his aunt intended to pay Mrs. Figg for looking after him for the evening.
He took the bus to London, lied to Tom the Barkeeper that he had gotten separated from his parents and could he please open the entrance to Diagon Alley for him? After a visit to Gringotts to exchange pounds for galleons, the goblins didn’t care about his age, he had gone shopping in Knockturn Alley as he was as likely to be able to buy potions in Diagon Alley as he was to be able to buy a wand. He would’ve loved to buy a wand in Knockturn but wasn’t about to push his luck that far just yet. There was also the issue where his magical core wasn’t stable enough yet to use a focus.
He used a simple disguise; he’d ‘borrowed’ a set of black children’s clothing which fit him much better than his hand-me-downs from Dudley, from someone’s clothes line a couple of streets over, and a cliche dark blond wig from another house. The usual light blond wig would’ve looked too fake with his black eyebrows. He’d had to sneak around for over a week to get everything. His famous scar had been hidden by makeup stolen from Mrs. Next Door's’ teenage daughter. On the plus side, it was a non-magical disguise which meant that he wasn’t exposed by the goblins. Score!
School had let out in mid-June and he had lost nearly three weeks waiting for his first trip to London, and then another week while he brewed the potions but he was finally on track. His mind and powers were back under his control, and he could begin his revisions in earnest.
He had two years worth of English, Mathematics, Science, Computing (Information and Communication Technologies), Phys. Ed., Geography, History, Music, Art & Design, Design & Technology, Religious Education, and Personal, Social and Health Education to re-learn. He also needed to choose a foreign language for next year. His brain was going to melt.
***
Two years later and his grades had steadily improved to the point where he got almost only top grades. His health had also improved and he was taller than he had been originally at this point in time, and while he was still short and skinny for his age it was nowhere near as bad as it could’ve been. But then again, all the pictures he had seen of his father and grandfather had shown that it was obviously a family trait to be on the short side until about their mid-teens, along with the gravity defying black hair. Harry could live with that, especially since he was counting on his mother’s genes to give some extra height.
On the downside the abuse from his so-called relatives had escalated to become much more violent. Neither Petunia or Vernon approved in the least of his remarkable grades and the praise he received for his pursuit of knowledge during the Parent/Teacher meetings, especially since their precious Duddykins was below average due to his refusal to study. Like last time aunt Petunia had forced Harry to do her son's homework for him when the spoiled brat wanted to watch the telly instead. Unlike last time however, Harry had decided to simply copy his own homework and then put Dudley’s name on it. That had resulted in some major embarrassment for his ‘dear’ cousin when the teacher had tried to make him show off during class and the little whale had had no idea what the man was talking about. You’d think he’d at least bother to read through it, but no that would require actual work and that would just not do.
The teacher had then tried to punish Harry for cheating, but since he knew all the answers it hadn’t worked very well. This dance had repeated itself several times before the Dursley’s had been called in and whatever had happened during that meeting caused Harry a severe beating when uncle Vernon returned home, in addition he’d been thrown into his cupboard for three days without food. But in the end Dudley had been forced to do his own homework, and actually study, and Harry had showed up at school full of bruises. He could’ve allowed his magic to heal him, but he’d decided that the Dursley’s free use of him as their personal punching bag was well and truly over, and that meant no magical healing. The lack of magical healing meant that all of his bruises, wounds, and scratches had to heal the muggle way. Which meant that now that there were no compelling or confundus charms on him people would notice the abuse.
Like abusive people everywhere however, they began to hit him in places that wouldn’t normally be visible. Back, stomach, legs and arms (in the winter), and of course, spanking was a popular punishment. His too-large Dudley cast-offs hid any bruises and wounds completely.
In an attempt to both get in better shape and to avoid his ‘family’ as much as possible, he began playing football and started running every morning. Whenever he could he went to the local library and read anything that caught his fancy. He didn’t have a library card, asking for one would’ve gotten him nothing other than enlightening them to one of the places where he could be found, and he didn’t even want to consider what they’d do to the books if they got a hold of them. No, it had to stay secret.
His private language study was going well; his understanding of Latin had improved greatly, and Gaelic and Greek were coming along well, too. He had recently conducted his fourth trip to Diagon Alley, and this time he had bought a bunch of books on magical subjects, such as magical history, etiquette, magical families/family trees, and various other books including the magical equivalents of his dictionaries. The latter would be very helpful during Hogwarts since they were geared towards students learning magic.
On the trip before that he had bought a four compartment trunk with extra shrinking charms, which included an interesting feature where the trunk could remain shrunken but he was still able to add or remove things from it. It was very helpful as it would’ve been difficult to open the trunk inside the cupboard. The objects, mostly his secret stash of books/notebooks and food/liquids, would shrink down to about the size of an adult females pinky nail when it came within 20 cm of the box.
The trunk also had a number of safety features, which were keyed to Harry’s magical signature and had to be used in combination with a Parseltongue password, in order to unshrink or open it. Each compartment had a separate and unrelated password to ensure the security of the contents, in addition to seperate keys.
The four compartments were intended for a) books, which had been the main reason he even looked at it; b) clothes, which was a great place to hide the stolen clothing, wigs, and makeup he used for unsanctioned trips both to Diagon Alley and various places in the muggle world, c) a chest of drawers, which he used for most other things, and finally d) an empty room.
The room itself was 20m x 20m and with a 2,5m high ceiling. It came with no furnishings or accommodations other than the inbuilt bookshelves, the closet, and chest of drawers which were all available from the outside. If he wanted something to make it more useful or to make it feel more like a bedroom, study, or living room he’d have to buy it himself. He had also needed to buy something to make sure he had light, which the shop assistant had oh so helpfully showed him a selection of.
On the positive side he was free to practise his wandless magic down there, and later on he would be able to practise regular wanded magic. According to a book Hermione had found in one of the Potter libraries there was apparently something about the combination of shrinking and expanding charms in combination with certain defensive spells which caused the Trace not to pick up (underage) magic. For obvious reasons this was another piece of knowledge the Ministry of Magic had banned.
A couple of weeks after Harry’s tenth birthday he intended to make another trip to see if he could get that year's book list, and hopefully get himself an illegal wand in Knockturn Alley in the middle of all the chaos. If his studies went well he might get even more books. Hermione would’ve been so proud if she’d known. Harry smiled to himself. He had one more year before he would be under Dumbledore’s manipulations and intense scrutiny again. That was going to suck . On the other hand he would finally be able to see Hermione again. He swallowed, closed his eyes, and hoped once again that Lady Luck would grant him the Hermione he had known in the future and not just the 11 year old girl she had originally been. She had almost as much to revenge as he had, and he wanted her to get the chance.
***
Harry spent the next year learning all he could about the muggle world during the day and during the night he studied magic, the magical world, and languages - both muggle and magical. The trip to Knockturn Alley in mid-August had been exceptionally successful, even when he included his highest hopes. It had yielded a new custom wand that was untraceable, with an accompanying holster spelled to be invisible unless he chose to reveal it, and it also had anti-summoning, anti-theft charms, plus runes protecting it from the elements and minor to moderate hexes. It had space for up to three wands in it and the option to show only the ones the wearer wanted.
A trip into a shady looking bookstore had gotten him even more books on less subjects, including several on parseltongue and three that were actually written in parselscript. That had been a pleasant surprise. He’d side-tracked into Diagon where he bought two bottomless and featherlight book bags before he went to the apothecary to resupply his potion stores.
It had been amazing how much his understanding of brewing and potion making had improved when he was taught by someone competent. It had also had the additional benefit of giving him a better understanding of Herbology as well. In his original past, now a future he had every intention on making sure didn’t happen, he had hired a Swiss potion mistress to teach him and Hermione everything from scratch. He was by no means a Potions Master, and he never would be as that wasn’t where his talents lay, but his grade should definitely go up even by Snape’s harsh standards.
The second bottomless bag was a present to Hermione on her 11th birthday on 19th September, 1990. He’d sent it to her anonymously through the muggle post with just a note which simply read ‘For my favorite bossy Know-It-All on the occasion of her 11th year on Earth. See you on my birthday at Noon?’ With any luck she would understand the implications and be there. If she didn’t there would be a very confused witch somewhere in Kent.
***
He had two big, non-magical problems he needed to solve before primary school ended: 1. He needed new glasses. His current ones were beginning to give him a headache due to his squinting. And 2. How was he going to be able to continue his muggle education while at Hogwarts?
Getting the school books for his first year of secondary school shouldn’t be a problem as aunt Petunia would get them for him, along with his home-dyed uniform, but how was he going to do the end-of-year tests and the exams without the help of his relatives? Oh well, he had nearly two years to figure that out. Hermione would probably know. He made a note on his very long to-do list. He was certain he could convince either version of his friend that getting a muggle education would be highly beneficial.
Getting new glasses on the other hand was imperative, and he needed to get them before school let out so he could use that as an excuse. He quickly decided that it would be unwise to wait until right before school began, as Hogwarts started a week earlier than Stonewall High and Smeltings Academy and his aunt would no doubt wait until the last minute. There was no chance that they would do it during the summer, and they would definitely not buy him glasses so he could learn magic. Hmm … That meant public destruction of his current set, but who should do the honors/get the blame? Dudley and his gang were out, unfortunately, but there were other bullies…
This time he wanted minimalist rectangular rimless glasses with silver temple and black temple tips so they would be less visible. It would make his transition to contact lenses in a few years much smoother, and it would also make him resemble his father less. In later years people had remarked that he looked more like his mother when his eyes weren’t framed by black glasses. The big question was if he’d be able to get that past his relatives. On second thought , if he got some other bullies to ruin his glasses then he might be able to convince the school and his aunt and uncle that the offending students’ parents should pay for them… He smirked. That just might work.
Well, that was one half of a problem solved, now he just needed to find a way to execute the plan and he would be the proud owner of a brand new pair of spectacles!
***
Six months later and his plan had gone off without a hitch. A group of bullies had cornered him not far from the school entrance and when he saw several teachers walk in their direction he’d made sure he got hit hard enough for his glasses to fly off. Predictably the lead bully had deliberately stepped on them in full view of the teachers. The boy in question had been expelled, the rest of his group had spent the remaining seven weeks in detention, and the parents of the lead bully had been forced by the school to buy new glasses for Harry. He’d even gotten the kind of glasses he wanted, despite the price.
After all, the Jefferson family were under the impression that the Dursley's were middle class and would therefore have been able to afford them. Aunt Petunia didn’t contradict their belief, mainly because he had made sure to inform her beforehand that it would make them look poor if she demanded that he got something cheap. He’d even managed to get a pair of cheap jeans and a shirt that fit properly out of the deal. The internal struggle that had played across her face at that had been amusing. Mustn’t allow anyone to think they were anything but completely normal, right?
Playing mind games were more fun than he had initially thought.