Chapter 575: Ch 601 - Seductive Techniques of Cho

December arrived in an avalanche of heavy snow and a crushing mountain of homework, particularly torturing the fifth and seventh-year students who were staring down the barrel of their upcoming mock examinations.

Lucifer and Hermione found their days becoming exponentially busier with their official "Prefect duties" as the Christmas holidays approached. They were continuously called upon by the faculty to supervise the elaborate festive decoration of the Great Hall, to closely watch over the chaotic first and second-years who were forced to spend their break times trapped inside due to the bitter, sub-zero cold, and to patrol drafty corridors in freezing night shifts alongside Argus Filch.

The bitter caretaker was thoroughly convinced that the mounting holiday spirit would inevitably manifest as a violent outbreak of illegal wizarding duels between rival houses.

Despite the chaos, Lucifer effortlessly managed his responsibilities. He had his heavy homework completed well ahead of everyone else in the tower, attended grueling Quidditch practices three times a week, and masterfully co-led the secret D.A. meetings once a week.

Hermione was quite honestly amazed by his inhuman efficiency. Because the members of the D.A. all of them except for Lucifer, were packing their trunks to go home to their families for the holidays, there was obviously no point in holding any practical training sessions over the upcoming winter break.

xxxxx

One evening, just before the official Christmas break was set to begin, Hermione was sitting by the roaring hearth in the warm, cozy Gryffindor Common Room. She had just finished a private conversation in her dormitory with her mother using her two-way compact mirror.

Lucifer walked through the portrait hole about twenty minutes after his grueling Quidditch practice had concluded, mentally cataloging all the celestial and mortal tasks he still needed to fulfill in the month of December. He sat down on the plush velvet cushions right next to Hermione, leaning back into the couch. "Evening, pet," he said quietly.

"Evening. I just finished talking with my Mum today," She mentioned, sliding her mirror back into her bag.

"What did she have to say?"

Hermione turned her face to look straight into his eyes, voice dropping. "You’re invited to come and stay with us at the Granger residence for Christmas, if you want?"

Lucifer leaned up slightly, his posture tensing as he looked in genuine surprise. "Hermione... are you sure about that?"

"Of course I’m," She whispered quietly to him, her fingers tentatively brushing against his hand. "You’re the most important person in my life—"

"But Christmas is traditionally a sacred time for family," he said softly, his dark eyes looking distant as a bitter shade crossed his features. "I’m not family."

’Not yet you aren’t,’ Hermione thought fiercely to herself. Aloud, she gave a triumphant, proud smile. "Well, I already asked both my Mum and my Grandfather if you could stay for the holidays, and they said yes."

"They did...?"

"Of course! I wouldn’t have told you that you could come if they hadn’t given me their legal assent," She smirked at him, her heart swelling at his rare hesitation.

"Are they? I feel like my presence is just going to be intrusive to a normal household..."

"Lucifer, don’t be ridiculous, you aren’t intrusive in the slightest. My Mum trusts you immensely," Hermione said to him with the absolute best, most serious straight face she could muster, consciously fighting back a sudden flurry of impure, wicked fantasies for once.

"Well, alright. I’ll gladly go home with you for Christmas," Lucifer said, a genuine, rare smile breaking across his handsome face. The way he said the word ’home’ caused her heart to flutter with excitement.

"Okay," She smiled back, her breath catching as she fought off a sudden, heavy urge to just reach down and boldly grope his cock right in the middle of the crowded Common Room. To break the sudden, thick tension, she cleared her throat rapidly and adjusted her robes. "You know... Ginny was asking about that specific hairbrush I left on the hanger..."

xxxxxx

The very next day brought their final, anticipated D.A. meeting before the winter break. Harry and Lucifer had gone up to the seventh floor significantly earlier than usual to open the ’Room of Requirement,’ only to discover that space had preemptively strung up hundreds of elaborate Christmas decorations.

It wouldn’t have been so bad on its own, but Dobby had clearly overdone the theme, Harry’s actual face was printed all over the glittering tinsel and baubles.

Lucifer let out a booming laugh, unable to stop his amusement long enough to help the raven-haired boy take them down. Harry had only just managed to banish the very last bauble featuring his own face when the heavy wooden door clicked open, and Luna Lovegood walked inside with her usual serene stride. "Hello to you both."

"Hey, Luna," Lucifer said, forcing his breathing to steady so he could speak coherently again.

"These festive decorations are nice," She asked in her signature dreamy voice, looking up at the ceiling. "Did you hang them up for holidays?"

"No, it was Dobby’s doing," Harry muttered with a hint of pure embarrassment, nervously rubbing his left cheek with his forefinger.

The three Gryffindor Chasers, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, and Katie Bell, all showed up not long after, their winter cloaks dusting off the snow. Their Captain marched straight toward the front desk. "Lucifer, did you tell him the news yet?"

"Tell me what?" Harry asked, turning his face to look between them.

"No, the detail slipped my mind with all the other stuff I’ve had to deal with this month," Lucifer said, idly dusting a few specks of ash from his scarlet robes before straightening up to talk business.

"Fred and George’s lifelong Quidditch bans have been lifted, and their Cleansweep brooms have been returned to the lockers," Angelina explained, her voice carrying frustration that suggested she had experienced a momentary flash of pure happiness only to have cold water thrown over her face. "But when letter arrived at the Burrow, they were grounded by Mrs. Weasley to focus strictly on their upcoming exams. I tried to write a captain’s appeal, but... she didn’t budge stating Ron had been given far too much leeway this term."

She let out a sigh, fingers tightening around her clipboard. "Anyway, because the twins are locked in the tower, we had to recruit two brand new Beaters for the team: Andrew Kirke and Jack Sloper...."

Although there was no enthusiasm or pride in her voice regarding the new names, she still continued her layout. "They aren’t brilliant flyers by any stretch of the imagination, but they were better than anyone else who actually bothered to show up for the trials. And obviously, because Umbridge is still targeting you Harry, Lucifer has taken over the position of starting Seeker for upcoming matches."

"But I still maintain my terms, I am only going to show up for practices three times a week," Lucifer immediately interrupted before Harry or Angelina could gather the wrong strategic signal from his promotion. "If I wasn’t currently burning through my free hours handling Prefect duties as a fifth-year, it would be no problem to fly every day of the week, but my time is booked."

"Okay, I get it," Harry said, his green eyes clashing with a mix of relief and lingering bitterness. His ban was lifted, and the Weasley twins’ brooms were safely out of Umbridge’s office; that was already more than he had hoped after the post-match brawl. He stepped up to center of the room as the rest of thirty-five students filed past the threshold. "So, I discussed the curriculum with Lucifer earlier, and he agreed that since this is our very last meeting before Christmas break, we should just refresh our muscle memory on the jinxes we’ve already learned instead of attempting to cast something new today."

"We’ll be practicing the movements in pairs," Lucifer announced, his voice commanding the floor as he tilted his wand tip to demonstrate the stance. "We will do ten minutes of rapid-fire ’Impediment Jinxes,’ then break out cushions to master our Stunning Spells."

Within seconds, the spacious room was completely full of intermittent, echoing cries of "Impedimenta!"

Teenagers across every house table were instantly frozen solid for a minute or so by the white light, during which their chosen partners would stare aimlessly around the room, watching the other pairs flourish their casting before the hex dissolved, allowing them to take their turn at the jinx.

Neville Longbottom had significantly, improved his velocity with Lucifer’s direct help, although he was still, for some bizarre historical reason, struggling to find the proper wrist snap for the basic ’Disarming Charm.’

After the ten minutes on Impediment Jinx concluded, the students quickly laid out plush silk cushions all over the floor and began practicing Stunning Spell. Because the physical space was far too confined to safely allow thirty-five teenagers to cast a ’Stupefy’ simultaneously, the group stood back in a large circle, watching intently as individual partners alternated in demonstration duels.

Lucifer found himself standing near the back shelves alongside Fred, George, and Ginny Weasley when Ron and Hermione stepped out into the dead center of the cleared circle; it was their turn to practice their speed.

Knowing the potential and probable outcome of the matchup, a wide, thoroughly wicked smirk spread across Lucifer’s handsome lips.

He enhanced his hearing, easily catching the low, frantic conversation whispering between them across the short distance.

"Seriously, Hermione... when did your casting get this good?" Ron whispered through his teeth, his face twisting into a pained, anxious expression as he readied his wand.

"I’ve had lasting, painful experiences of Lucifer rubbing my nose into the dirt during our private training," Hermione grimaced back, shaking her head slightly at her own memories of his discipline.

As Ron and Hermione took their dueling positions, their wands raised in front of their faces on either side of the cleared floor, Lucifer suddenly felt a sharp nudge on his upper shoulder. He turned his head to see Fred Weasley leaning in close.

"Oi," Fred whispered, a highly amused, wicked smile curling on his lips as he held out a single silver coin. "I’ve got exactly one silver Sickle riding on Ron staying on his feet."

"You’re on, Weasley," Lucifer said calmly, a predatory glint in his dark eyes as he reached out to shake Fred’s hand without hesitation.

Affirming the financial deal, both Fred and Lucifer turned their faces back to the center of the room, waiting in anticipation as Harry raised his wand to count Ron and Hermione down.

"Three... two... one... GO!"

Before Ron’s vocal cords could even form the first syllable of his incantation, Hermione’s wand tip flashed with a blinding, non-verbal streak of brilliant red light. The ’Stupefy’ hit him square in the chest with the force of a roaring Bludger, violently launching his body backward through the air. He crashed spectacularly onto his designated plush cushion, his limbs instantly going limp as his eyes rolled back, unconscious before his brain could even process the duel.

Lucifer felt himself positively swelling with pride as he watched Ron get lifted off his feet and flown backwards, landing hard on his backside with a loud, indignantly squeal.

There were sharp gasps of surprise and stunned murmurs of awe cascading through the circle, but nothing was as satisfactory to Lucifer as the sight of Fred Weasley reaching grumpily into his scarlet pockets to pull out a silver coin.

Fred huffed as he placed the single Sickle flat into Lucifer’s waiting hand, muttering under his breath, "Bloody hell, mate, I don’t want to owe anything."

"Thank you," Lucifer drawled, his long fingers closing tightly around the cold silver coin. As the majority of the girls in D.A. rapidly moved over to enthusiastically congratulate Hermione on her flawless, instantaneous takedown, he smiled proudly from the shadows; his magnificent girlfriend was a badass.

Turning his head slightly, he caught Ginny Weasley staring directly at him and Fred with a thoroughly confused, deadpan look.

"You two did not just seriously place a bet on who’d win this match..." She said slowly, her mouth falling agape slightly in disbelief.

Lucifer laughed lightly, a relaxed shrug of his broad shoulders as he gestured with chin toward her twin brother, whispering close to her ear, "Entirely his fault for underestimating my girl."

Ginny shook her head, trying her best to conceal a sudden smile. "You’re a prat, Morningstar."

Instead of offering a rebuttal, he simply smirked, adjusted his robes, and walked over in Hermione’s direction. His gorgeous girlfriend saw him approaching, of course, and quickly bid a brief farewell to Parvati and Padma Patil, who had been endlessly praising her over her easy, dominant duel.

"I must say," Lucifer began, reaching his girlfriend’s side and facing her stance, his voice rich, "I think you performed excellently out there, pet."

"Did you think so?" Hermione teased in a low, breathless whisper, unmindful of remaining students packing up their bags around them. "Well, that was nothing, Lucifer. In fact... there are plenty of other things I am good at... perhaps tonight I could show you the extent of my skills?"

Lucifer’s grin widened into a dangerous line as he managed to smirk right back into her amber eyes. "I would like that very much."

"Oh, I bet you would," She giggled softly, a wicked, amused smirk curling onto her soft lips; she thoroughly loved the immediate, intense physical effect she always had on him.

"When?" he asked lowly, his eyes fiercely resisting a powerful urge to look straight down at her lips.

"Tonight during rounds," She murmured, and with that promise, Hermione moved away quickly to gather her parchment list.

xxxxxx

When the final minutes of the session neared, Harry stepped back onto the center to address the group. "That was good, everyone, very, very good," he said, a look of profound pride on his face. "When we all safely get back from the Christmas holidays, we can officially move onto much bigger, advanced stuff... maybe even attempting the Patronus Charm!"

"Does Lucifer know about that as well?" Dean Thomas asked curiously from the back row of cushions.

"Yeah, he does," Harry said with a big, knowing smile, remembering how his friend’s power had masterfully saved his godfather, Sirius Black, by the lake shore during their third year.

Every head in the room turned to lock their eyes onto Lucifer. His handsome face remained unchanged, his expression unreadable. "Why didn’t you say about knowing it when we first met at the pub?" Susan Bones asked him, her brow furrowing.

"Because me being able to cast a Patronus is not impressive," he answered flatly.

"Nonsense!" Fred and George said excitedly in perfect unison.

"Can you produce a Corporeal one like Harry’s stag?" Katie Bell asked him, her eyes wide.

"Lucifer could actually before I ever managed it," Harry admitted freely to the crowd, clearing the air.

"Go on, Lucifer, cast it for us right now, please?" Hannah Abbott asked eagerly from the front row.

Lucifer let out a slow sigh, his fingers slipping deep into his robes to pull his black wand out. He wouldn’t require any specific, happy memory for the spell, but he did briefly drift back to the intense moment when he and Hermione had rekindled their love for each other after their fight over her badmouthing Luna. He raised it sharply. "Expecto Patronum."

This was the first time anyone other than Hermione would be physically seeing his true Corporeal Patronus on this earth; the last time he had unleashed it was when a hundred Dementors had crashed the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff two years ago.

His voice rang out with an unnatural clarity through the vaulted ceiling of the room.

Out from the tip of his wand erupted a blinding, torrential stream of silver mist. The magic coalesced with a terrifying, rapid speed into a breathtakingly form. Shaped flawlessly into the likeness of a colossal ’Ouroboros’ snake, the luminous creature glided forward through the air, coming to a slow, hovering stop directly beside his shoulder, floating just a few inches off the ground.

Because they were currently indoors under a low ceiling, the radiant serpent looked even more colossally vast, muscular, and prehistoric than it had on the stormy Quidditch pitch.

The silver serpent hissed silently into the quiet room, its radiant, blank white eyes locking onto its caster. Then, with a sudden, breathtaking shift in movement, the colossal beast surged upward toward the rafters. The air inside the ’Room of Requirement’ grew instantly crisp and freezing, smelling sharply of rich ozone and crackling primeval magic as the silver light flared brilliantly.

The Patronus expanded spectacularly, its ethereal weight pressing heavily against the atmospheric pressure of the closed room.

The serpent did not merely circle him; it entirely enveloped the boy. The glowing entity spiraled wildly around Lucifer’s body from his boots up to his shoulders, forming a towering, spinning vortex of blinding silver light. It constricted gracefully, drawing closer and closer until the figure began to merge directly with his skin. The silver light sank into his flesh, clothes, and his pupils, perfectly representing the ’primordial serpent’ he truly was underneath his fragile mortal guise.

"I want you to remember his form," Lucifer’s tongue came out between his teeth with a visible, snake-like cut, and he let out a low hiss to the stunned, petrified onlookers. His voice carried an unnatural, resonant weight that seemed to echo directly from the mouth of the snake itself. "The great serpent who poisoned the Creator, Lucifer Morningstar."

For a fleeting, terrifying second, the sheer intensity of the silver glare played tricks on human eyes. Hermione blinked hard, her breath catching as she genuinely believed she saw Lucifer’s physical form shift into an entirely different, ancient, and otherworldly celestial being, before the magnificent illusion vanished just as quickly as it had arrived.

An immediate, collective wave of whispered "holy shit" and breathless awes rippled instantly through the thirty-five students. The irrefutable proof was right in front of their faces: Lucifer Morningstar could cast a flawless Corporeal Patronus.

Hermione looked across the room at him, a proud, brilliant smile breaking across her face; she was relieved to see him getting recognition he deserved from the other houses.

"Wait a second," Zacharias Smith muttered loudly from the back, squinting through the fading silver glare. "He’s a Gryffindor. Why is his Patronus a giant snake? That’s a textbook Slytherin trait if I’ve ever seen one."

"Does a school house banner dictate an eternal soul, Smith?" Lucifer asked smoothly, his eyes rolling at the Hufflepuff, pupils still faintly glittering with residual silver starlight. "A serpent is not merely an emblem for green-clad schoolboys. Look closer...."

Even as magic merged into his skin, the glowing serpent held its own tail firmly within its jaws, creating an unbroken, infinite loop of silver light before completely fading away. It was the perfect mirror of Lucifer himself, an ancient, primordial entity trapped in a cycle of endless rebirth, existing long before the ’foundations’ of the universe were ever laid, and destined to outlast its final end. It represented a soul that was eternal, self sustaining, and infinitely complex, far beyond the understanding of mortal teenagers.

"Go on, Potter, cast yours too," Lucifer insisted, turning his attention to the Gryffindor beside him.

Harry blinked, suddenly looking like he would rather be locked inside a dungeon cell than put on the spot. "I, I don’t think I need to—"

"Go on," Lucifer said, his tone growing even more forcefully commanding, though a smirk played on his lips. "I don’t want to be the only one putting on a theatrical show tonight, especially since I know for a fact I am not the only one here who can."

Harry fumbled nervously in his pockets for a moment before firmly gripping his wand. Taking a steadying breath, he slashed the wood through the air. The spell flew from his tip with absolute precision, and a magnificent silver stag burst forth from the mist, trotting proudly and gracefully across the floorboards. Even more excited ’oohs’ and ’awes’ erupted from the gathered students, their eyes darting rapidly between the residual warmth vibrating around Lucifer and the newly formed, elegant stag.

"This is what we’ll have you try to cast sometime during the next term," Lucifer announced to the room, gesturing to the twin guardians of silver light hovering before them. "Not everyone can easily cast a Patronus, and even fewer can manage a Corporeal guardian... If you possess a villainous, corrupted, or wicked heart, you simply cannot do this magic under any circumstances, not even ’Gellert Grindelwald’ could pull it off. Everyone standing in this room tonight is of pure heart... enough, at least, that you will eventually be able to do this."

Down in the front row, Neville Longbottom swallowed hard at the blunt mention of the forbidden Dark wizard, and raised his hand slightly into the air. "Wh-what happens if you try to cast the charm with a w-wicked heart, Lucifer?"

Lucifer’s expression turned utterly dark and terrifying for a fraction of a second, the shadows lengthening around his face. "You don’t want to know, Neville. Trust me on that."

"No, really, what happens?" Seamus Finnigan pressed, leaning forward with a genuine, intense curiosity. "Does the spell just fail to ignite?"

"Miles worse," Lucifer replied, the silver light of the fading Ouroboros casting sharp, angular shadows across his cheekbones. "A truly dark, corrupted wizard attempting this pure light magic will find their wand backfiring against their fingers. Instead of light, a writhing swarm of flesh-eating maggots will erupt from the tip. They will crawl over the caster’s body, consuming them alive from the outside in... The magic requires an absence of malice to manifest. A corrupted soul rots under its weight."

A horrified silence fell over the room as the teenagers processed the graphic, terrifying warning. Sensing the heavy mood shifting, Harry quickly stepped back into the center of the room as his silver stag began to dissolve back into mist. "Well, that’s all the time we have for tonight, everyone," he called out loudly to the group. "We’ll see you all next year after the break. Have a great holiday."

With a swift flick of his wrist, Lucifer fully dispelled the remaining silver warmth of his snake. As the students began rapidly gathering their cloaks and heading for the exit, Hermione immediately stepped away from the crowd to approach his side.

"A snake, Lucifer?" Ron asked, walking over with his brow furrowed in burning suspicion. "I mean... it was brilliant, powerful magic, mate, but a serpent? And the way it wrapped around your body like that... it was bloody terrifying. People are already going to talk in the corridors. You know what the whole school thinks about anyone connected to snakes right now after the Chamber."

"Let them talk their useless gossip, Ronald," Hermione interrupted sharply, her voice razor-sharp as she stood firmly by Lucifer’s side, her eyes flashing. "If they possessed any proper knowledge of Ancient Runes or Arithmancy, they would know the Ouroboros is not a symbol of malice, dark arts, or Slytherin cunning. It represents eternity, infinity, and wholeness... It is the distinct mark of a powerful soul that has successfully endured across ages."

Lucifer gave his girlfriend a quiet, appreciative nod, the remaining tension leaving his shoulders. "Precisely. The ignorant only see a predator in the grass; the wise recognize the infinite."

xxxxxxx

They walked out of the Room of Requirement ahead of Harry’s pace when they noticed Cho Chang was hanging back near the doorway as well, waiting for the raven-haired boy. "It’s quite cute, isn’t it?" Hermione asked him in a low whisper as they descended the stairs.

"I guess so," Lucifer said flatly, his dark eyes narrowed as he looked down the corridor, not wanting to think about her presence at all.

"What do you have against her?" She asked, looking up at his face curiously.

"Chang... she has a distinct agenda, pet... I just don’t know what yet..." he said, looking at the stone as he spoke, his calculations warning him.

"Are you sure about that?" Hermione asked, her brow furrowing because she couldn’t understand his cynicism. "She seems sincere about liking Harry..."

"I dunno, maybe I am just being paranoid for him." Lucifer sighed, looking down at the bushy-haired girl. They reached the Common Room and sat down together in their quiet corner by the window.

"I think you’re wrong this time. Besides, Cho... she just has grief on her mind after Cedric," Hermione murmured, having an emotional range of more than a teaspoon.

He was sure she did and wasn’t going to dispute the logic, but Lucifer’s instincts couldn’t help but feel like something was off with her. He shook his head, pushing the thought away as he focused on the beautiful girl sitting right beside him.

xxxxxxx

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