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The first ripple of the new management was felt not as a tidal wave, but as a quiet, chilling shift in pressure. Marius, his hand still bandaged from the "unfortunate accident with a faulty lighter," delivered Kaelen's first directive. The tax on the Ravens was doubled, effective immediately.
Rhys, who had been trying to piece his shattered authority back together, balked. He postured, he threatened, he called Marius an old coward. Marius, remembering the searing heat on his finger and the cold, smiling eyes of his new master, simply passed the message along.
The response came that night. Rhys woke up in the dormitory to find his tongue had swollen to the size of a large plum, rendering him incapable of speech. A single, perfectly calligraphed note lay on his chest. It read: A leader who cannot speak is a leader who cannot command. Consider this a warning about the importance of clear communication. - The Management.
Panic erupted. It was a silent, bloodless coup. Kaelen, lying in his bed a few feet away, watched the chaos through slitted eyes, a slow, deep, and utterly satisfying joy spreading through him. He hadn't even used his wand. A simple, non-verbal Engorgement Charm, applied with focused will from across the room, was all it had taken. The terror was far more effective than any physical beating.
By the end of the week, the Ravens were broken. Their income was crippled, their leader was a terrified, mute brute, and their members scattered, unwilling to cross the unseen, unknown power that had so effortlessly dismantled them. Kaelen had decapitated the hostel's power structure without throwing a single punch.
The rest of the summer was a masterclass in ruthless efficiency. Kaelen became the ghost in Marius's machine. He spent his days in the dusty back room of a pawn shop that served as their headquarters, a place that smelled of mothballs and desperation. He poured over Marius's messy, disorganized ledgers, his sharp mind instantly seeing the patterns, the inefficiencies, the wasted potential.
"Your protection rackets are inefficient," Kaelen explained one afternoon, his tone that of a patient teacher instructing a particularly slow student. Marius, now a perpetually nervous man who flinched at sudden movements, listened intently. "You are applying uniform pressure. A bakery with a low profit margin should not be paying the same as a gambling den. We need a tiered system. We are not thugs, Marius. We are a service provider. And our clients will pay for the quality of the security we offer."
Under Kaelen's direction, the operation was transformed. He created new revenue streams, expanding from simple protection to illicit information brokering and the acquisition of specific, high-demand goods. He used Marius as the face, the grizzled veteran, but every order, every strategic decision, originated from the quiet, smiling twelve-year-old in the back room.
He rewarded competence. A young pickpocket who provided a detailed map of a rival's territory was given a bonus and a better coat. A shopkeeper who paid his dues on time found his establishment was suddenly immune to vandalism. This was the Spenta aspect of his rule: a benevolent god of order and logic.
But it was his role as the Angra that truly cemented his power. When a rival gang from a neighboring borough tried to move in, Marius came to him, trembling.
"They're called the Butchers," Marius stammered. "They're… violent. They put three of my men in the hospital last night."
Kaelen looked up from a book on Muggle economics, a slow, delighted smile spreading across his face. "How wonderful," he said. "An opportunity to set a precedent."
He did not send Marius's thugs. He went himself. He found the Butchers in their den, a grimy, derelict pub. He walked in alone, a small, unassuming boy in a clean, dark coat. The laughter that greeted him died the moment he started to speak.
He didn't use curses. He used their own minds as weapons. He had Marius procure their names, and he had spent an afternoon in the local library's archives. He spoke of the gang leader's secret, crippling fear of drowning, a trauma from a childhood accident. He used his Metamorphmagus ability to make his shadow on the wall briefly take the shape of the man's abusive father. He used a non-verbal confusion charm to make another member believe his own hands were covered in spiders.
He dismantled them psychologically, with a surgeon's precision and a predator's joy. He left them not dead, but broken, their minds a ruin of their own worst fears. The story that spread through the London underworld was not of a wizard, but of a demon in a child's skin, a smiling boy who knew your soul and could unmake it with a whisper. His empire was now secure.
His connection to the wizarding world was maintained through a series of discreet owl posts. Nott sent the requested information on soul magic, his notes now meticulously organized, his tone one of absolute, fearful subservience.
Daphne's correspondence was different. It was a dialogue between equals. She sent him updates on the political machinations of the pure-blood families. He, in turn, used his newfound Muggle funds to acquire a rare, first-edition copy of a Muggle book on psychoanalysis and had it delivered to Greengrass Manor.
An owl returned a week later with her response.
An interesting perspective. The author's theories on trauma response are crude, but not without merit. He fails, however, to account for the use of such trauma as a motivational tool. You would enjoy the chapter on sociopathy. I did. - D
Kaelen smiled. Theirs was a courtship of intellectual weaponry.
The end of the summer arrived too quickly. On the last day of August, Kaelen stood in a high-end Muggle clothing store, being fitted for a new wardrobe. He was no longer the waif in cheap, ill-fitting clothes. He wore a perfectly tailored black coat over a crisp, dark shirt. The money, laundered through Marius's network, was untraceable. He had severed his last tie of dependency.
The next morning, he stood on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, a stark contrast to the boy who had arrived a year ago. His face held a new, unshakable confidence. His smile was a constant, polite, and utterly chilling mask. He was a king, returning from a profitable summer of conquest, ready to resume his training.
He saw the Weasley family in a chaotic scrum nearby and spotted Hermione Granger, her parents looking on proudly. He felt a flicker of intellectual interest. Granger, the asset. And Greengrass, the partner. All pieces to be cultivated in the coming year.
A voice cut through his thoughts. "Kaelen."
He turned. Daphne Greengrass stood there, elegant and composed in dark, tasteful robes. Beside her, looking nervous but resolute, was Theodore Nott. They had found him, his two lieutenants, ready to fall into formation.
"Greengrass. Nott," Kaelen said, his smile widening slightly. "An efficient start to the term. Excellent."
They boarded the train, securing a private compartment. The war for the soul of the wizarding world was a distant storm. For now, the new management of Slytherin house was back in session. And this year, the game would be played on his terms.
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