Risk it All || OPEN

If he'd never returned to Hogwarts, it would have been too soon. Most people had nothing but nostalgia for their schooldays. How carefree the world had seemed inside these hallowed halls! Yeah right. Tiernach had know nothing but hardship here, and it was bitter indeed to be back. He stood in the middle of the Entrance Hall, cigarette in one hand, the other jammed inside his pocket. His body language was clearly hostile – taut muscles, lowered head, and squared shoulders. Tier watched a gangly Slytherin boy with curtains of black hair cross close by and disappear up the grand staircase. He flexed his shoulders. Just seeing that uniform again made him furious. His old uniform, the House of Snakes, and what little vipers they all were.

Of course, Tier was one of them at heart; no less scaly than his former peers. He reflected that the time might soon come when he'd shed his skin and rise up as the serpent. He was already beginning it. He was no idiot, Mannequin knew that a war was coming, but he alone of his kind seemed to be making preparations. He was compiling the list of names, gathering intel, and baiting the snares for the days ahead.  He would do more than his fair share in the fight. It was no accident that his human-skinned cover identity worked for the Prophet. He vowed to force open the eyes of the public with his printed words. He would stir up hate for the Pureblood agenda by exposing atrocity and venting the anger of the unheard Mudblood creature. Let them try to stop him. He had been building towards all of this his whole adult life. He had blackmail over his superior at the paper; he would threaten it so that he could push his cause in the days ahead. Meanwhile, one by one, the names on that list of his would get crossed off. And none would be the wiser to his vigilante actions. Being a Metamorphamus was God's way of telling him this was his purpose, and his alone.

Today, however, he was here to work on the slow, insignificant things that must fill his biding time. It did not leave him in a good mood. Tiernach felt eyes on his back. He turned to discover himself glaring at someone who looked just as out-of-place here as he did. A grown man, wearing very strange clothing, stood framed in the doorway. Tier took a long drag, then dropped his cigarette and stamped it out on the floor. Releasing the smoke, slowly, he sized up the other guy. A stranger's face, older than him by several years. Handsome, and wearing a focused, searching expression. Not a professor here; he was sure of that. The man moved further inside, closer to him. Tier called out in his thick brogue, as though he had every right to the question, "Who're you, then?"