Welcome back, dear readers, to "Partial Knowledge Sucks".

Chapter 1 was almost entirely reworked, so get back to it or you'll be completely lost.

Many thanks to DALucifer, Kayefta, MysticNinj, Ryan1016, and all the other beta-readers.

If you want to discuss with me and your fellow readers, or simply keep up to date with the story, feel free to join us on the Discord at /Q5aWwdR.

"Reality is brutal."

World Serpent

Severus Snape was content, which certainly wasn't an everyday occurrence.

It was November 1st, 1992, and the entire population of Hogwarts, student body and staff alike, had been gathered in the Great Hall. Firstly, for breakfast, as was customary, but secondly, to reveal the existence of an elusive figure, going by the ridiculous name of Azra Nightwielder - with such poor naming sense, it had to be a Gryffindor - that Filius had caught sneaking around Ravenclaw tower.

This mysterious individual was apparently intent on righting wrongs around the school by acting like a common thief, making him a sort of discount Robin Hood wannabe. A most ridiculous idea, but one that had already borne fruit. His unknown objectives, morals, abilities and lineage had sent the Board of Governors into a full blown panic and made them authorize Albus to tighten up security. Similarly, the DMLE was informed and a team of Aurors was to be dispatched to the school later that day.

But clearly, none of that was responsible for Severus' current mood.

The source of his satisfaction was in fact one of his charges, second year Slytherin Leah Campbell, the infamous muggleborn snake.

When she'd joined his House last year, he'd been… disappointed, was a good word. Not at the girl, but at what she'd been condemned to. The Dark Lord's persistent efforts all those years ago had sent Slytherin House drifting further and further away from its true values, turning it into a cesspool of vanity, bigotry and resentment. Very few of his students nowadays were truly cunning or properly ambitious, and the young witch had to be both, or the Hat would have never sent her their way.

But with the House in its current state, she would never be able to express those traits. Her housemates would either ignore, belittle, or downright bully her because of her lineage. The other students would equally judge her, simply for wearing green and silver, and she would be pushed aside. Condemned to be alone, truly alone, for the remainder of her school years. And the Slytherin within would forevermore stay under the surface, losing any chance of shedding out of its skin.

At least, that had been true up until now.

Because at this exact moment, Leah Campbell was playing a verbal tennis match with the Headmaster. And sure, he'd tried to help her twice and she was still losing, but the girl was facing Albus Dumbledore, so it was acceptable. She was actually holding her ground quite admirably, letting her buried Slytherin self shine through.

It was for rare moments like these that Severus endured his job.

Although, he could have done without the thief, or Ms Campbell impossibly knowing things that she had no business knowing.

Albus had just finished explaining how keeping silent wouldn't help her any once the DMLE put their hands on her, and the Potion Master could see in her eyes that the twelve year old had been backed into a corner. Her secrets would come out, whether she liked it or not. Here, or at the hands of Law Enforcement.

But she was one of his, and if he couldn't prevent this situation, he could at least present her with an alternative. The Ministry certainly didn't look any more appealing to him than it did to her.

"Albus, may I remind you that I have Veritaserum in my stocks?" he interjected, hoping Ms Campbell would recognize his intervention for what it was. "Involving the DMLE isn't necessary."

His employer sent him an unimpressed look, clearly seeing through his maneuver. The young witch's eyes, in comparison, looked more calculating.

"... I have conditions." she finally relented.

Seriously, she was still trying to negotiate?! The rest of their House had better be paying attention.

"Let's hear them then." acquiesced Albus Dumbledore, smiling.

"First, let me be perfectly clear; I don't want to die. But if Nocturnal wants me dead, nobody in this room will be able to stop her, or her Nightingale. I'm quite literally putting my life in your hands with this, Headmaster, so if I tell you to back off from a sensitive topic, don't be stupid and back off."

Nocturnal. Ms Campbell had never used that name before, but if the thief, the Nightingale was hers, then it had to be the chaos goddess mentioned earlier. Maybe a spirit of sorts? An elemental? Probably something of that sort.

"Now, before I say anything, I'm gonna need two things." continued the girl, clearly not taking no for an answer on those. "Wait, no, three. First off, you said that Amelia Bones was lending you Aurors, so I assume she's the current Head of DMLE? If so, you need to send Fawkes to retrieve her. Otherwise, have him retrieve her and whoever holds the position."

What the heck was she doing? She'd spent fifteen minutes trying to avoid the DMLE, and not she asked for the Department Head?!

"Madame Bones does, in fact, lead the DMLE. May I know why I would be unceremoniously removing her from her post?"

"To serve as an impartial, non-corrupt Ministry official, give legal advice when it's needed and act on some of the things we'll be discussing."

So, she'd been trying to avoid corruption? Not Law Enforcement, but the Ministry as a whole. It certainly made sense, but how was a twelve-year old muggleborn even aware of the current state of the Ministry?

"Regarding the second thing, I'm going to need two teachers to run a quick errand in the castle. Professor McGonagall, for her Transfiguration expertise, and another."

Minerva threw a glance at Albus, received a nod and asked 'What is it you'd have me do, Ms. Campbell?'

"One sec." the girl stopped her, addressing him instead. "Professor, could you put up a muffliato around Professor McGonagall?"

The Head of House inhaled sharply.

"How…?"

did she know? How did she know the incantation to a custom spell he'd designed over a decade ago, in the margins of his old Advanced Potion-Making textbook? A textbook now locked away in his classroom's potion closet, and that no second year should have been able to procure.

"Not important right now. The spell, please?"

He frowned, less pleased at this piece of Slytherin attitude, but complied nonetheless. His wand moved and the anti-eavesdropping charm settled down around his colleague.

His student thanked him, dropping into a slight bow before going straight to the Deputy-Headmistress. A moment of muted conversation and she moved away, repeating her bow toward the woman before retreating to her seat.

Severus cancelled his spell.

"Minerva? Is something wrong?"

"I… I cannot say, Albus." admitted the Head of Gryffindor, looking quite concerned indeed. "But if Ms Campbell is right, then I certainly have an errand to run."

"I'll trust your judgment on this." acknowledged the Headmaster. "Ms Campbell, do you have a preference for the second teacher?"

"I could -" started Gilderoy Lockhart.

"Not happening." the Slytherin instantly shut him down. "Send Professor Flitwick or Professor Snape, either work."

The two of them shared a look and silently reviewed their options. Reaching a consensus, Filius rose from his seat as Severus announced 'I shall remain with my students.'

'Including Ms Campbell.' went unsaid.

"Very well." nodded Albus, turning back to the girl. "And your third demand?"

"That no questions be asked or measures taken for what I'm about to solemnly swear."

About to what?

Turning around in her seat, the young witch looked at the Gryffindor table and loudly called out two students.

"Messrs Fred and George Weasley, I have some mischief to manage and I'm going to need that thing. Do you have it on you or is it in your dorms?"

Of course she had to bring those two in on whatever she was planning. And judging by their expressions, they seemed to understand what she was talking about. Severus assuredly didn't, but he knew he wouldn't like it one bit.

"Hey, you can't just-" started to protest one of the twins.

"You want me to spill secrets, get ready to have your secrets spilled." she cut off the angry teenager. "Where is it?"

"... not cool, Campbell." complained the other redhead. "It's in the dorm."

"Professors, take them with you, they have something that should help you."

"A busy morning for everyone, unquestionably." calmly observed Albus. "Minerva, Filius, Messrs Weasley, perform your assigned tasks and return at once. In the meantime, I will write Madame Bones a note and send Fawkes to her. And Ms Campbell, I sincerely hope for you that you have acceptable answers after this whole charade."

"I have answers." shrugged "Whether or not you'll accept them is out of my hands."

"... we shall see."

If she had to truly summarize the present situation, Amelia Bones would have to settle for 'What?'.

She'd been at work, leafing through team reports, when Albus Dumbledore's phoenix had erupted in the middle of her office with a note on its leg. It was short and basically amounted to 'we need you at Hogwarts yesterday'. It didn't speak of any danger, but remained urgent in its wording, so it had to be pretty important. Probably something to do with this thief they'd reported, then. The witch had taken a minute to warn her department that she would be out and momentarily unavailable, before allowing the fiery bird to take her away.

Flaming back to reality in the school's Great Hall, she'd found herself amongst the entire population of the castle, staff and students. The Headmaster had welcomed her and introduced her to one specific second year Slytherin girl - Leah Campbell, who'd apparently requested her presence for something - before directing her to an empty seat at the head table. They were to be waiting for the return of Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick and two of Arthur Weasley's children, that were conducting some kind of job and should arrive shortly, so the Department Head had had enough time to ask a few questions of the neighboring professors.

Hence, 'what?'.

Because from what they were telling her, that girl she'd just met apparently 'knew things'. Things she shouldn't know, according to the Headmaster.

And? That was it? She'd seriously been called for something as simple as a seer? She had three of those working in the secretarial service alone. Was Dumbledore going senile or something?

The great doors were pushed open and the four stray magicals entered the room, all looking quite grave. The Professors, unknown parcel covered by a sheet levitating at their side, reclaimed their seats with a somewhat eager nod of greeting in her direction. The twin Gryffindors similarly seemed quite satisfied as they made for the Slytherin table and gave a piece of parchment to the witch that this entire thing seemed to revolve around.

"I trust that you were successful, Minerva, Filius?" asked the Headmaster, eyes shifting between his colleagues and the mysterious package they'd returned with.

"We were." confirmed the Transfiguration Professor, eyeing the covered box with distaste. "Ms Campbell was correct, but I believe I should let her explain."

All eyes fell on the young witch and she sighed softly.

"Alright, but quick disclaimer. I know things, that must have been pretty clear. But I'm not a seer. I'm not omniscient. The only thing I have is second hand information and already, some of it has been rendered moot. I'm not going to tell you the future, so much as a future. Don't be surprised if some things are off." she began. "And please, try to keep the existential crisis to a minimum."

The hall as a whole universally agreed that this was a pretty weird disclaimer.

She knew the future, or a possible future, but wasn't a seer? How did one get second hand information? Did she know someone with the gift? Had she overheard a vision? And why would they be having an existential crisis? Visions and prophecies weren't common, but they certainly weren't rare.

"Can someone conjure up a blackboard, please? And chalk? I'm going to need visual aid. Also, it'd be better if the staff and Madame Bones could relocate to the House tables."

They proceeded to do just that, a flick of McGonagall's wand simultaneously conjuring the requested items.

"Thank you, Professor." smiled the Slytherin, already sketching on the board. "Now, I could do this is a number of ways, but I'm the 'go big or go home' sort of gal, so I apologize in advance for the shock. The multiverse is real, this isn't my first life, the wizarding world was a work of fiction in that one, so was the universe where our Nightingale friend is coming from and the two are not supposed to interact. Digest that while I'm working."

You could have heard a pin drop.

Apart from the knocks and scratches her piece of chalk was creating, the room was dead silent, mostly out of shock or disbelief. Had this girl seriously said what they thought she'd said? No, they had to have misheard her somehow, because it was… impossible, just plain impossible.

'And exactly the sort of knowledge that would warrant an existential crisis.' whispered a small, treacherous part of her brain. 'Think about it.'

But…the multiverse… another life? Their world as… a work of fiction?

… wouldn't… wouldn't that mean…?

"Before anyone starts freaking out -" casually called out Campbell, still focused on the board. "- it doesn't make anything any less real. It's just multiverse theory, taken to the extreme. Anything that can happen, no matter how ridiculous or unlikely, ultimately has a one-hundred percent chance of happening in the context of an endless multiverse. Meaning that every work of fiction, every story that has, is, or will ever be written, is sure to be real somewhere, somewhen. You could imagine a completely nonsensical dialogue between a german soldier from World War One, an aztec priest and a sentient, talking piece of bacon turning into a werelocomotive on New Moon nights, and it'd still be factual in some corner of existence. Already is, actually, since I just mentioned it. Bleeding effect or something, authors are just catching glimpses across infinity. Well, that or reality's just that random."

Abruptly, her hand stilled in midair.

"... glimpses." she whispered, before adopting a tone oscillating between jovial and absolutely pissed. "Aaaand I just remembered the alternate pensieve in the ceiling… great job Leah, you're a fecking moron! Bloody hell, where's this stupid thing even coming from?! It's canon-adjacent at best! It shouldn't be a thing, it shouldn't be in the freaking Great Hall, and… ahum. Anyway, I'm almost done and you're all patiently listening to me monologuing, so just let me finish this real quick… and no comments on the moron part if you don't want to get hexed, thanks."

The chalk noises started again, a bit more frantric, and the hall slowly came back to life, hushed whispers drifting from most mouths.

Amelia remained silent, focusing on the board. It had been separated in three parts, respectively labelled NM-Earth, WW-Earth and Nirn. The first one had the labels '1st life', 'non-magical', 'HP books/films' and 'TES games' attached, along with the dates 1996-2019. Listed under WW-Earth were the words 'Fantastic Beasts', 'Harry Potter' and seven incomplete sentences like 'and the Philosopher's Stone' or 'and the Goblet of Fire', this time with dates ranging from 1991 to 1998. As for Nirn, the board shown the crude drawing of a snake, with a zoom on one scale further splitted into three parts labeled 'Aetherius - Aedra', 'Oblivion - Daedra' and 'Mundus - mortals'. Following the established pattern, the '2E583 - Online', '3E427 - Morrowind', '3E433 - Oblivion' and '4E201 - Skyrim' that were being added must have been dates, but certainly not any she recognized.

"Done." smiled the Slytherin, dusting her hands. "So, memories. Do I need to learn the spell or can someone else do the extraction?"

"I can do it for you, Ms Campbell." assured Dumbledore, approaching the student. "Just focus on what you want to show us."

She nodded and closed her eyes, letting his wand brush her temple. A frown passed her face when a slip of silver was drawn out of her head, she probably hadn't expected the pain. The Headmaster didn't comment on it and flicked the memory strand at the ceiling, the same viewing device installed in the Ministry's courts dropping down and playing the girl's supposed proof.

Hands turning the pages of a book titled 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'. A bookshelf, with seven tomes bearing the name of that same wizard, followed by each of the incomplete sentences on the board. A television showing his Sorting from multiple perspectives, although the room seemed ridiculously small, as did the number of students. Muggles, some wearing the occasional Hogwarts robe or scarf, animatedly waiting before a cinema for the projection of 'Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them'. People posing and false-dueling on a stage, dressed up as witches and wizards, some of their models standing in this very room. Countless drawings of the school, creatures, and individuals. Photos, even, some showing known magicals in muggle and wizarding clothing, with the occasional message from either persona.

Most of the hall choked on air.

Alright, so those certainly counted as proof, but it still didn't explain why she'd been brought into this mess.

"Ms Campbell?" the Head of DMLE authoritatively called out over the noise brewing up by the second. "What exactly am I doing here, aside from losing my mind at what you're telling us?"

"Oh, right." said the certified dimensional traveler, passing behind the board to retrieve the package left to wait on the main table, delivering it to her. "There you go, one Death Eater animagus to question under veritaserum. You're welcome."

"Excuse me?!" Amelia exclaimed herself, echoed by a good part of the room.

"Professors Flitwick and McGonagall acted on future knowledge and apprehended him. I assume, after checking his identity with this nifty little thing here." explained the girl, showing her the piece of parchment she'd been given earlier, putting her wand to it. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good. Now, as you can see, this is a map of the castle. It's real nice, because it shows people in real time, with their names labeled on top. Obviously, it's unreadable right now, with so many of us in one place, but if you'd looked at it an hour ago, you would have found a name that would have had no business being on it. This person is supposed to be dead, you see. Except that the map never lies. Mischief managed. Professor McGonagall, care to share with the class?"

The addressed Transfiguration Mistress growled a low, threatening 'Peter Pettigrew!'

"What?! But…how?!"

"As I said, Death Eater animagus." repeated the Slytherin, as if that was the most sensible thing in the world. "Sirius Black stupidly convinced the Potters to switch the Fidelius over to their good friend Peter, and the man ran up straight to Voldy. He then committed all the things typically blamed on Black, framed him, and escaped through the sewers as a rat. At least, that's what happened in the story I'm familiar with. Things could be different, so I'd advise you to check with Veritaserum and not just chuck him into Azkaban, like Crouch probably did with Black."

'This… this is a mess.' mused the Bones Matriarch, eyes fixated on the innocent-looking box she was holding. They'd barely even started with the girl's unnatural knowledge and already, this sort of thing was happening. It made her fear what was to come.

"Anyway, the rat's stunned and, I assume, secured efficiently, so now that we've got that particular ball rolling, let's get back to the main event." smiled the twice-born witch, returning to the conjured board. "On the left, you have my old universe, objectively the most boring of the three but arguably the safest too. Middle's this one, that we called Potter-verse. Yes, Harry's the main character, but please don't harass the guy, he never asked for this. Then right panel is the Elder Scrolls universe, named for lore reasons, which I'm not going to go into because it's an absolute mess."

The discussions had ceased, everyone was paying attention. Which wasn't all that surprising, considering that the girl was basically displaying the secrets of the universe. Three universes, if you wanted to be technical.

"In my old world, I was born January 24th, 1996, in Lyon, France, and died at the venerable age of twenty-three. Ce dont j'pourrais sûrement vous convaincre en changeant de langue et en vous recrachant des évènements majeurs, sauf que vous auriez aucun moyen d'vérifier quoi que ce soit, que la plupart d'entre vous ne biteront pas un broc de c'que j'pourrais bien raconter de toute façon, et que tout le monde s'en tape. Donc je vais m'calmer et retomber sur notre langue maternelle commune right now."

The time traveler from the future was grinning widely by this point, earning herself a soft snort from Flitwick and scattered laughs from the few students who apparently did speak french. Amelia herself was far from fluent, but had gotten the gist of it, despite not recognizing a few words.

Frankly, she was more worried about the girl casually admitting her own death and dismissing it in the same breath. Even if she'd had twelve years to come to terms with it, it didn't seem healthy.

"No magic for old me." carried on the Campbell girl, pointing at the list she'd made under NM-Earth. "The world simply didn't have any, as far as I'm aware and because people love escapism, the Harry Potter series became an international phenomenon. The first book came out when I was around one and the story concluded ten years later, with the seventh book. It was also made into eight films, from 2001 to 2011, plus two more movies on Newt Scamander in 2016 and 2018. Meanwhile, the Elder Scrolls universe was mainly portrayed in a series of role-playing video games. Starting with Arena and Daggerfall, that I never played, then Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim and Online, that I did play. There's also a handful of smaller titles that weren't all that interesting, mostly because the graphics sucked, the gameplay sucked, the plot sucked, or all of those at once. The setting is classic heroic-fantasy, with continent-spanning empires, medieval weaponry, magic, sentient races by the dozen, dragons, gods, demons, alternate planes of existence and the occasional time-traveling robot from the future blowing up elves with a blaster, the works."

The witch then grabbed the discarded piece of chalk and draw a vertical line in front of every half-title in the WW-Earth section.

"Those are the titles of every book in the Harry Potter canon. For the illiterates who don't know what canon means, it's the official version of the story. The films further split the last book in two and changed or ignored a number of plot points, but are usually accepted as another canon. Then you have Pottermore, a website where the author expended on the lore, which is canon-debatable but don't get me started on this or we'll be here for hours. And because the series was a planetary success, you also had inspired fans the world over that would write their own stories, ranging from fluff to grimdark and everything in between. And the shipping… so much shipping. Trust me, you don't want to know. This mess would make perfect fanfiction material, by the way. Reincarnated with metaknowledge in the canon, that turns out to be an Alternate Universe, that's actually a crossover with another franchise. Just need to avoid the overused tropes like Lord-of-Everything, Inheritance Laws or MOD!Harry and it has some serious potential for shenanigans. Anyway, back to the books. They're written from our resident Gryffindor's point of view, bar a few exceptions. Sidenote, I'm terribly sorry about the invasion of privacy, Potter, but I've seen what's in your head and you're a sassy little shit. Your father would be proud. Anyway, the books cover all of his Hogwarts years, one year at at time, so we're currently in 'Chamber of Secrets'. Yes, that's Salazar Slytherin's Chamber. Yes, it's real. Yes, I know where it is. And no, I'm not telling you."

People began to shout, mostly said Founder's House and Ravenclaws.

"Thousand year old slumbering basilisk." calmly added the technically-a-woman girl. "You're sure you want to go?"

"A BASILISK?!"

Amelia had shouted that, but so had almost all of the staff and older students. The younger crowd mostly looked confused.

"A sleeping one that's not going to wake up by itself. One of Voldy's old failsafes canonically does it and I was planning on preventing it, but since we're apparently in a crossover, I'm not even sure if it's still a danger. The failsafe, I mean." explained the second year, annoyance clear in her voice. "For all I know, our Nightingale resident already found the thing and chucked it into Oblivion. And if he hasn't yet, then we'd all greatly appreciate it if he could, thank you! A deadly serpent is bad for business Azra, think about it!"

"I believe he agrees." commented Dumbledore, pointing over her head.

The Slytherin girl turned around and spotted the bird perched on top of the blackboard. It appeared to be made of absolute emptiness and had just popped out from under the head table.

"Oooh, Shadow conjuration, nice."

It flapped its wings and seemed to tweet, but no sound was produced.

"Are you alive? Or just Azra's puppet? Pick at the board for the first, have it flap its wings for the second."

The wings went up again and just like that, the dialogue was opened.

"Great. You know, I'm surprised you didn't interfere faster. Trying to figure out if I was a threat? Same pattern, board for yes, wings for no. Alright, you were. Made up your mind yet? No? It depends on what I say? Welp, best I can ask for, I guess. So, about that failsafe and the basilisk, did you know about them? And, are they still an issue? Now that's good news. The book was part of a set, do you know where the others are? If I tell you, can you handle them? Yes and no? Yes but no? Sort of? Alright, sort of. You can't handle them, but Nocturnal can? Yeah, thought so. Can you see through this bird? Great, give me a minute, I'll make you a list."

The impossible girl dived behind the board to write on the opposite side, the bird joining her out of sight. Neither seemed to mind that her semi-monologue and reactions to the not-responses she'd been getting back had left their entire audience superbly dumbstruck.

So, the millenia-old basilisk had been taken care of, as had Voldemort's old failsafe - apparently a book - but he had more of those? And this Nocturnal entity could just… deal with them? As if those things hadn't been created by the most powerful dark wizard of their generation? How?! And what exactly were those failsafes, anyway? How many were there, for Campbell to describe it as a set, instead of just giving a number?

"This one's the easiest, just get in and take it out. There's no defense whatsoever, the fucker thought it was too well hidden. This one was moved there years ago and the house may or may not be under Fidelius. Also, it will require parseltongue to open and assault you with hallucinations, so watch out for that. The parseltongue wouldn't hurt for this one either, because there's some nasty defenses on the place. Once you get past that, the ring will compel you to put it on and rot your flesh if you do, cause Tom's fucking vindictive like that. We're only in 2nd year, so this one shouldn't exist yet, but crossover, so don't quote me on that. This one's technically the hardest to reach, but it shouldn't be too much trouble for a Nightingale. Except that everything around it duplicates on contact and is spelled to charcoalize you, so that's fun. And this one… yeah, that's the tricky one. Nirnian Conjuration could work, maybe. Or just have Nocturnal extract it, if she can do so safely. There's always the canon solution, but I'm not sure if it'll work here, what's with the crossover. Anyway, you got all that? Can I erase?"

The construct must have given its consent, because it hoped back on the board and the sound of a hand wiping off chalk made itself heard, before the dimensional visitor returned to their side.

"Good news everyone, canon's fucked six ways to Sunday." she enthusiastically told them. "We're skipping six years of Voldy being a little shit and going straight to the dark idiot biting the dust, sparing hundreds of lives. All thanks to our friendly neighborhood Nightingale and Lady Nocturnal."

The girl gestured at the shadowy bird and it crowed silently, his summoner clearly appreciating the praise. The hall wasn't certain how to react at the news that Voldemort, that they'd all believe to be a thing of the past, wouldn't actually stay alive for much longer.

"By the way, Azra, two questions. One, why the name? The guy's a dimension-hopping shadow-archmage, he could totally drop by and kick your ass for impersonating him. You thought about that? And two, I've been mentioning your patron for the last hour or so and I'm probably confusing a lot of people. Can I introduce her properly? Titles and spheres? Quick description of a Daedric Prince, too?"

This Nocturnal entity had titles? And spheres apparently, whatever those were? And a Daedric Prince? Yes, an actual explanation would be most welcome, thank you.

The bird gave her permission with a pick at its perch and the girl turned to them with a bittersweet smile.

"Alright, I'm going to be blunt again because there's no easy way to say this. Hogwarts is now housing a deity."

… what?

"Really succinctly, Nocturnal is a daedra, more specifically the Daedric Prince of the Night, Darkness and Shadows. She's also known as Lady Luck or Ur-Dra, the first of her kind, although that specific title could theoretically apply to a number of others and there's a theory that she somehow stole the primogeniture, so… Anyway, daedra - its invariable - are shapeshifting, genderless beings of chaos. And I mean primordial, disorganized chaos, not kill everyone and destroy everything chaos, although some do appreciate the activity. They're also pseudo-immortal, more specifically perpetual. You can kill them, but they won't stay dead. Now, Daedric Princes, they go one step further and are essentially near-unkillable, near-omnipotent deities. Each Prince reigns over a number of spheres - their divine traits, or domains of influence, if you will - plus their own private dimensions, which are actually manifested extensions of their very being. They're also entirely unconcerned with the linear flow of time - in their home universe anyway, not sure about here - and exist so far above mortals that they're essentially unfathomable. Their true motives are unknown and none of them have anything even resembling a moral compass, although Nocturnal is usually regarded as neutral, as opposed to some of the other Princes who can range from mostly good to exceedingly evil. So… that's good? Silver lining, right?"

Right, silver lining.

No!

Neutral or not, their dimension - and her home country - catching the attention of an immortal, chaotic, all-powerful god of darkness couldn't possibly be qualified as good in any fashion or sense of the word.

Seriously, why in Merlin's name had Campbell asked for her specifically, instead of reaching out to the Unspeakables? Weird shit was their domain of expertise. Olson should be dealing with this!

"Shouldn't really change anything for most of us, anyway. At worst the DMLE will have to deal with an organized Thieves Guild coming out of the woodworks, and maybe another Nightingale or two. Sorry in advance, Madame Bones."

… she was going to strangle that kid, and it wouldn't even count as assault on a minor because time travelling dimension hopper!