She sat, bored, for the holidays had so far produces nothing for her to spend her time n. She had come here, to NDE headquaters, but she had better excuses than anyone else, this was the home of her father, surely she was welcome to visit.

She played with a strand of black hair, staring across the room, void of all people, wandering where her father was.

He appeared in curls of black flame, a tall majestic wizard - grey hair unkempt on his head, dragonesque features and lines of hardwork and pain across his forehead. He held his wand in hand, it was caressed several times by his NDE uniform.

He turned to his daughter and immediately invoked his mind control over her to read her current thoughts (I shell let you say how they stream etc...).

He moved to the window and looked outside then down at his NDE uniform. "I sometimes wonder whether I am doing the right thing, you know." He turned to her, his eyes soft and low. "Is this hatred worth it? Do I really believe in the purity of Wizards? Or did I invent it in order to regain power. But do I need power? Why do I?" It was strange for Harshing to question his psychology in front of anyone else.

"You know Flame, what you see in front of the others is all a front. A mask. Very few people have truly known me. those who did have died now. Egbert Wittle - I killed him. Alexis, my wife I killed her. And lastly my first wife Bella and her children. They were everything to me when I was a young man, all that life was worth. And they were taken from me Flame. Do you think that is right?"

Harshing smiled, not a cruel sneer like normal but a soft and knowing smile. He sat down and crossed over his legs and looked at his daughter. "And when I look at you, I sometimes think if you also could know me. I have missed years of your childhood, but as we spend more and more time together I know that you are mine."

He laughed out loud. "But listen to me, mumbling like an old man." He fell silent again.

----------------
Listening to: Coldplay - Violet Hill

She saw him and smiled, though it was more courtesy, the twohardly knew each other, had not spent more than a few minutes alone together in her whole life. She had grown without him, had only learnt of his blood relationship with her fairly recently and though she cared, she loved a little, she did not have a bond with her father as she should.

She lost herself in a line of thought, and she was happy to sit in it, not knowing her father had anything to do with it.

Ryder, her sexy Ryder, astrology professor, member of the Neo Death Eaters, sat in his office smiling and Flame and him truly bonded, kissed, they spoke of love, how they felt about one another, the begining of what she hoped would e a long relationship.

Fox Canning, heir, sat in a room of gold, though it had never really happened- it was what he would one day inherit. He flirted with Flame and she back, prospects.

Finn Tatupa, how he ignored her very existance as she fancied him.

Her friend, Craven, how he had been in the family with her, how she trusted him more than most.

The tournament contestants and how she had, with all but one, found a reason t dislike them (and that one she had never spoke to)

Her father, how she hardly knew him yet he seemed to care at least a little.

Her duel with Teagan, how she'd resisted killing her but also things she didn't want her father to know- murders, torture, kidnap of her own.

Her son, her beautiful baby boy, and how she cared of him, how she wanted to hold him, to raise him, and how her father had taken him.

She came out of the thoughts and looked at her father accusingly, not knowing he had seen all of those things, but feeling that he should know why she looked at him so.

"The muggles should not try to rule us, father, we should not be forced to hide. And, for me at least, I was brought up with the hatred, I would not be able to go without it- I wouldn't be me. Maybe the purity of wizards will never happen, but I don't think you did it for power, I think you did it because you miss having a cause. I know I do." she watched him, confused, he had never questioned himself so, not before her at least.

"It is not right to have those you care for taken from you, and I don't think it is fair it happened to you father" she walked over to him and looked up. "It changed you, I am sure, and you killing people who knew you- it's because you don't want people to know you actually have a weakness." she found excuses for her father, why she did not know.

She sat with him and tilted her head, showing that she was listening intently. "I myself have found that it can only be true I am yours, even though at first it scared me, I didn't know what to think, I am glad of it now. You are a great ma, and I'd love to get to know you, but I won't push, I won't make you." she stared at her father with the intelligence which went beyond her years, gathered from spending so much time with those older than herself.

"You are not mumbling like an old man, father, please don't put yourself down."

Harshing read these thoughts in an instant but did not comment on any of them. The relationship with Ryder was unhinging. He would deal with him later... heads would roll for not consulting him about his own daughter. Ryder would have to realise that he, Coldstone was the alpha male in the pack... He tapped his wand in his hands.

"Of course the cause does not matter really, as long as there is one. There has to be a cause to keep us at the top and them at the bottom. A cause which will allow us and our brethren to live in comfort while the mutants drive the country's engine. The cause," he laughed, "Is not important, as long as there is one. And these stupid revolutionary zealots follow my words to the T. Even Lycs, he has the energy but cannot see the overriding plan which is not in fact the destruction of mudbloods, but is of course to keep the name of Harshing supreme above all others."

He was testing Flame, he was sharing knowledge with her, entrusting her with his sacred information. Of course they were only tidbits from the enormity and vastness of his genius but he was allowing her to taste his grand plan for the world.

"When I was 11 there was a man who taught me that one day I would become a great sorcerer. He was your grandfather, John James Harshing. He left for the arctic and never came back, presumed dead. I think he would have liked you Flame. He himself was a great wizard. But, in honour of him I have superseded any wizard of our family."

He sat beside her. "And I am telling you the same. You should supersede me. When I die it will be your turn to become a master witch. And then JJ Junior will rise to be even greater than either of us."

And that was as close as Harshing ever got to telling Flame he loved her.


----------------
Listening to: Coldplay - Speed Of Sound

Flame stared at her father intently, listening to his words, absorbing them. "Father, remember it is how they are brought up. I had an odd upbringing when compared to most purebloods. Most, like Lycs, are brought up only to see one side where I see all. They are undermined by what families deem as right, but I brought myself up- remember that. They didn't want me." She sounded sour at the last stag of her speech, she hated not feeling loved, not feeling cared for. She looked at him. "The name Harshing still lives, father, and it always will- I'll ensure it in my lifetime, and teach John-James to do the same." she told him.

She knew her father was trusting her, something he had never done, something she'd never expected of him. He was giving her information about his plan, the plan she wished to help him achieve. The Harshing name, her name, would one day be at the top, she'd ensure it for him. "If I survive long enough, father, I'll ensure you wish comes true, you know." she told him, and she ment it.

She looked at her father as he spoke of her grandfather- someone she had never and would never meet. Her eyes locked his, dared him to push on, and she felt a connection to him like never before, as if they really had bonded.

He told her she'd supersede him and she shook her head. "I'm not that good, father, I'm not strong enough- I will never supersede you." she told him, sure it was true.

Harshing smiled knowingly, "When I am as old as Dumbledore was you shall supersede me, I will be old and decrepit, unable to react like now in my prime. I shall be a feeble shell, a shadow of my powers that I have in the present. It is the cycle of young and old. Voldemort tries to break the cycle and failed." Harshing's eyes flickered.

"Voldemort was a fool, an ego larger than he ever had magic. His only use was to create a cause that I could later manipulate. We both know that mudbloods and purebloods are no different..." He paused, "But we create an enemy for all to unite against. Eventually we may believe in the cause, eventually we may become the cause..."

Harshing was speaking very abstractly now, he was applying his years of study of mind magic, extremely complex and elaborate. "The human mind loves to think it has a greater purpose than existing, growing old and dying. But the cruel thing is flame there is no other point to life. We live to die. We are but a mistake between dust and more dust. There is no such thing as good and evil only power, and those too weak to seek it - If life is nothing more than a pathetic gap between black space then why not embrace it for dark and light? Why not kill, rape and torture just to push your mistake of a life to its boundaries? Why not try to rule the pointless beatitude that is life during your stupid existence? Carpe Diem. Seize the Day. We live every moment, and we conquer those who are too degenerate to realise this Flame."

He stood up once again and paced the room. After several minutes. "It is obvious we cannot skim over these details. You shall have lessons with me, if you so wish. In my theory - not the things the NDE lap up but the real plan. And also - some stronger magic.."

Flame watched her father, the insight to the real him a shock, what she had always seen had been but a mask, and she was seeing what really lay beneath. It was a shock to the system, but she liked it- showing her this showed trust, and she'd always wished he would trust her.

"Father, even then I will not be as strong as you, especially not you in your prime, I will never live up to what you have achieved- it is impossible." The truth of what she believed revealed, she thought little of herself. "I am weak, father, and I always will be."

"The fool started this cause, but now someone who is not so foolish runs it, father. Perhaps, one day, it may suceed, but do you really believe it will?" A question she expected to be punished for. "Uniting against mudbloods seems an odd cause these days, when all were willing to fight against the creatures which we now use as allies. They fear us, but they hold no respect for us." Honest truths.

She watched her father, eyes shining. "I understand there is no point to life, I gave up searching, father. I thought perhaps I would find one, but what is the point when it is destroyed so easily? Like the fire which burns with no purpose, life drags on. Perhaps we may push it, but it is still the same. Each fire is a little different, some burn brighter, but in the end they all burn out." She decided not to tell her father the reason she no longer had the emerald necklace she had once been so proud of, it would look foolish now, when it seemed a good thing then, to have a horcrux hidden away.

"I'll sieze the day when it comes father, I'll grab the chance and make the most of it, should it ever come my way." she didn't believe she was good enough.

Eyes followed her father as he paced. "You wish for lessons father? I was not expecting such, but of course I shall jump at the oppurtunity. Do you know how many people have longed for you to share your knowledge, father? I am proud to be the one you choose."

A flash of brilliance crossed his eyes and made his dark pupil's shimmer. "It will succeed. Maybe the NDE will fall but one day I shall be the puppeteer of all people." Harshing noticed the respect Flame was showing to him, the compliments, the flattery, the obedience. He smiled and sat next to her once more.

"I shall show you magic that even the dark lord could not have dreamed of. And not Magic like Sentinus - that was fake, useless magic. This magic is shared only by a few in the world. Flame..." He stammered not knowing whether to tell her or not.

"I belong to another organisation. It is a group of powerful Wizards in the world called "The Order of Mensmages." " He paused, "My mind magic is no ordinary legilimency, it took me decades to unlock the true power of the human mind and how to enslave it completely. I was approached soon after I had learned the secret by a conclave of Wizards. Their were five of them, all of whom had also discovered this secret magic."

He smiled and sealed all windows and doors.

"The Order of Mensmages want to bring about a new World Doctrine, where we, the gifted Wizards rule all others. And that is where we shall begin our lessons."

He would not say anymore until they were in a more secure training environment.

((Sorry, been away for ages... Can we pick this back up?))

Flame watched her father in awe, respectful, careful of him, prepared to give her life for him at that second. If she had known he was dieing she would probably have done anything she could to save him,to have begged him to tell her how, but she had no clue, instead she was left unknowing of her father's condition. She believed he would be there for her for a long time, believed she would have him to turn to for years, and yet his life was going to end much before she expected at that time, one of the only times he and she had ever bonded.

"The puppetteer of all... That would be an amazing thing father. Why how much better this pathetic world would be if any even listened to your knowledge as I do father. I wish to do whatever I may to help you, though I expect there is little I could do." Once again she fell into a deep silence, thinking, deep within her own mind, pushing it's boundaries.

Then something her father said made her snap back to reality. Mensmage, magic beyond the dark lord's talents, words of power and domination over the world. Her eyes sparkled in anticipation, she was about to enter a new world, a new way of thinking- she just knew it.

"I will do whatever it takes, my father." she promised him.