For the Greater Good || Tom Riddle ||

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Mental Arts

The day after, they debriefed.

"So, how'd it go?"
Three pairs of eyes looked around the room nervously.

"Well-" Kenji began slowly.

Gwen coughed lightly.

"-I would say it was an eventful night-"

"-basically, everything was a shit show because our guy didn't get assassinated, but the teenage son and only heir of the Lee dynasty did," Archie got straight to the point.

Dumbledore eyes moved toward Gwen at a streeler's pace.

"Is this true?"

Slashed neck tissue, crushed tendons, and dripping blood flickered before her eyes like a moving picture. She nodded, still not looking up.

The Order of the Phoenix stood in Tora's broom shop, spread out throughout the threadbare room. It was the first debriefing since the night of the gala, and the room was tense with acid curiosity.

"Did ya do the basic thing?" Ailith asked scathingly, her Scottish accent seeping through. "Did ya mention the up-and-coming love potion to that Spanish fella?"

"She did," Kenji quickly assured before Gwen had a chance to speak.

Ailith assessed the blonde witch with cold eyes. "Then I guess we outta see what happens."

Gwen allowed silence to envelope them before her voice drifted toward no one in particular. "Actually, I've finished the draught. It needs to be taken to Knockturn Alley."

Kenji turned toward her with a look of surprise. "Already? Well, I can take it. Tora could potentially distribute it. Or find a distributor."

Dumbledore rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "We must move forward. Archibald, you're to monitor the press around this incident. Both the Lee murder and Mauricio Sia, you fill us in on any tidbit of intelligence you find. Kenji, you're in charge of figuring out how to get the potion into the Black Market.

"Audrey and Ailith, continue drafting plans on where you think the next event where we might intercept them may be. And Gwen," his blue eyes pierced her, "You will begin your training with Quillish. Tonight. We cannot risk another outing without you being sufficiently trained in Legilimency. Your Occlumency is most likely needing a remedial lesson as well."

Offended, the young woman rotated her body slightly so that she was looking at her scarred former classmate. He wore his signature smirk, although his marred flesh pulled a bit more tightly on the right side than it used to. He was staring at her.

She quickly averted her gaze, although she should have sharpened her glare.

"You're dismissed. Gwendolyn and Quillish, you stay."

The Order disappeared one by one, with Kenji lingering slightly longer than anticipated as his eyes roamed from Gwen to Quillish and then to Dumbledore, until he too disapparated.

***

She had never learned Legilimency.

She reasoned that it was mainly due to two key things: one, Grindelwald made it known that he despised Legilimency as a horribly intrusive mind art that went against the fundamental nature of magic and the right to personal privacy (which now, Gwen was uncertain of how much that opinion was a public ruse, similar to other opinions of his that weren't really true).

And the second being that her grandfather was most likely fearful of Gwen finding out his secret—the truth behind her mother's death—and all of his other machinations for world dominance, if he educated her on the subject.