A Queen Will Rise

Chapter Twenty Nine- TMRs Letter

Calliope was lying in her bed trying to sleep but she simply couldn't. She had too many things to think about. She tried tossing and turning and even counting snitches but sleep wouldn't claim her.

The next day they would be leaving Hogwarts, she couldn't even say that she was going home. Hogwarts was more her home than that orphanage ever was. However that didn't change the fact that they would be leaving.

Not wanting to linger on depressing thoughts, Calliope let her mind drift to the end of school year.

She was quite happy with what had happened during the time she'd been at Hogwarts. True, it wasn't what she'd planned, but she couldn't say she wasn't proud of the results. Especially where the court was concerned.

She hadn't done much with it yet but the simple fact that there was a court made things much easier. She would get daily information about what was going on in Slytherin house and Hogwarts in general. The information she got from Slytherin helped her to see who could be useful or who would cause problems in the future. She had quite liked the intelligence network and she had some things in mind about how it could be used and improved, though first she had to see if she would be able to do things she had planned for the summer break.

The court also made it easier to have Slytherins follow her orders. Considering the court was established, only a suicidal imbecile would go directly against them. Though she wasn't an idiot, she didn't go around lording it over them, she generally let them be, they could do as they wished. She just had three rules that should be followed no matter what and she made it perfectly clear that they would not like the consequences of disobeying one of her rules.

The first one was not to spread their pureblood beliefs outside the common room. Inside the safety of the common room, they could spout whatever they believed in. They just had to be willing to deal with the punishment of she heard something she didn't like. Outside the common room they would act like perfect students. Merlin help them if they even thought the word mudblood outside of the common room.

Only the four in her court knew why that rule was implemented and Emerys still got a malicious little smirk when he remembered what Calliope was planning. Callie found it quite amusing, the first time she had told them part of what she was planning she had half expected Emerys to start cackling.

The second one was; don't bully and if you do, be slytherin about it and don't get caught. Calliope didn't give a shit about the students but she had plans. Plans that wouldn't work if everyone believed that Slytherins were evil. Calliope had bluntly told them that if they wanted to bully a little first year so that they could feel all big and powerful then they should at east glamour their robes and faces so that they wouldn't get caught. They were slytherins after all, they should use their supposed cunning.

The third rule was the easiest to follow in Calliopes opinion, choose one student from every year and only that student would be talking with those in the court unless a court member spoke o them first.

That was  rule that they had all agreed was needed after the first few days. Those in the court would be practically chased around all day by students who wanted to be close to the members of the court and maybe get a chance to join. It was exhausting and Calliope had to be restrained more than once so that she wouldn't injure one of the morons. However after the rule was implemented and Calliope sent a seventh year to the infirmary with both arms broken in three places after he ignored the rule, everyone followed it. Though she had to admit that it could also be related to the quite sadistic smiles that graced the faces of the members of the court when they looked at the bleeding boy on the floor without moving a single finger to help him while he screamed.

Her little snakes were such sadists Calliope thought with a fond smile.

All in all she was really pleased with outcome.

Another thing that had pleased her were Draco and Blaise. After that first encounter in the library the both of them changed a little, they became more willing to study. They truly appeared to have taken what she told them to heart, especially the part about them earning her place. When they found out about the court, both had wanted to prove that they deserved to be a part of it, that they deserved the place Calliope had given them.

The effort they into studying was rewarded, Theo as well as Draco and Blaise were all in the top five in their exams, first place going to Calliope in all subjects. The other three fought for the second, third and fourth places amongst themselves. Occasionally the Granger girl would get third or fourth place but in general the first places belonged to them.

Speaking of exams, on the day of the last exam Calliope woke up and on her bedside table was a book with a little note. She could still remember what was written on it.

'Dear Calliope,                                                                                                                                                                                                         I cant express how interesting this year was for me, mostly thanks to you. Consider this a little gift showing my appreciation. It is a set of ten books, they're the second volume of the set of ten you already have.                                                                                                                                                                   If you read and understand all the books of the previous set, which I have no doubt you will be able to do, then you will have no difficulty in ending the enchantment that has compressed the ten books into one. Consider it a test of your skills if you will.                                                                            I can hardly wait to see what you will be able to do in a few years.                                                                 Sincerely, T.M.R

That same day at dinner time they were informed that professor Quirrell had gone missing. That led Calliope to suspect,again, that Quirrell and TMR were somehow connected, maybe they were even the same person, but she had no way of verifying it. So although she was quite curious to know what happened to Quirrell and who TMR was, she tried not to think about it. After all she had no leads and she didn't think she would be able to find anything. Maybe she would look into it next year,or the year after that, it could be her little pet project or something like that.

Thinking about TMRs note Calliope finally fell asleep, exhaustion having caught up with her.