Title: A Question of Lineage
Author: Grevola
Rating/Word Count: PG, 852
Notes: Part of the Sorting Hat Arc. Don't own HP or GW. Year two: Not even the Christmas Feast will distract Duo from trying to figure out who the Heir of Slytherin is.
-_-_-_-
After the Christmas feast, Quatre watched Duo pacing up and down the Slytherin common room. The braided boy had been mysteriously absent most of the afternoon, and had been writing lots of owls during the entire first week of break. Right before they'd gone down to dinner, he'd gotten a reply and he'd been surly ever since. Even the huge feast hadn't done much to cheer him up.
"Knock it off Duo," he said at last, "you're giving me a headache with the way you're stomping around."
Duo threw himself into one of the high backed chairs. "Sorry Quatre. I'm just so... urgh! Pomfrey won't let me up there again and that beast is still out there strutting around, and G won't tell me a damned thing about it and urgh!"
Duo's noise of disgust just about covered the sound of Crabbe and Goyle stumbling through the opening in the wall. The twins dim, as Duo called them, were following Malfoy in and looking around like they'd never seen the room before. Quatre wondered who'd been stupid enough to give them wine, and then decided it must have been the idiot Dumbledor. He snorted and turned his attention back to Duo. "I still don't know why you're so friendly with that Yui kid."
"He's my friend," Duo growled. "And I don't care what you think about it."
Quatre shrugged, "He's still strange, I mean, I'm sure you heard how he was found. But then again, you're pretty strange yourself. Maybe that's why you hang out with him."
"Except we're not hanging out at all thanks to the Heir of Slytherin and his Magical Monster Chamber! The whole thing stinks like a bad movie."
This brought something like a snicker to Trowa's lips, but left the pure-blooded Slytherins confused.
"Careful with talk like that," Malfoy drawled from his corner, "It makes you sound like a Mudblood, and then you'll be next on the Heir's list."
"Are you going to go crying to the Heir about it?" Duo snarled, his fists bunching, "'Cause I'll give you something to cry about."
Malfoy looked a bit nervous, but he made an effort to sound nonchalant, "I've told you Maxwell, I don't know who the Heir is. Are you sure it's not Winner? He's never been that supportive of your pet Gryffindor."
It was a testament of how upset the whole situation had made Duo that he turned his attention on Quatre, "He's got a point. Was being the Winner Heir not enough for you any more?"
Quatre gave Duo a small, serene smile. "Let's check, shall we? Malfoy, you say the school was founded roughly a thousand years ago, and the Heir would have to be a blood descendant of Salazar Slytherin?"
"Everyone knows that Winner."
"Well then, we'll just consult the Winner family tree, shall we?" Then Quatre took his wand from his pocket and pointed at the floor, "Arboro vitae" he said.
Suddenly what looked like a drawing of a tree shot up from the floor. It grew branches and leaves in one direction, and a shallow collection of roots in the other. The whole thing was made up of a flowing silver script that seemed to draw the tree as much as the words themselves. It unfolded for nearly a minute, reaching to the common room ceiling, before it stopped.
"Destacio Slytheirn" Quatre said, and little gem like pulses of light started at the center of the trunk and quickly traced over every branch and root, dividing into more specks of light when they reached a fork. A few seconds later the red lights reached the edges of the tree and winked out.
"As you can see," Quatre said, "there is no one by the name of Slytherin anywhere in my ancestry for the past fourteen hundred years. I doubt I'm the Slytherin Cousin, much less the Heir."
"Does that spell work for anybody?" Duo asked.
"Only if they have a record of their lineage," Quatre shrugged, "It merely displays the known ancestry, it doesn't generate anything. But you'll agree it's quite handy."
Duo threw his hands up. "I'm not the Heir, Quatre isn't the Heir, Trowa's not the Heir because he'd set the creature on the Ministry, not Muggle-borns" the tall boy nodded at this, "hell Malfoy isn't even the Heir. Somewhere out there is the Heir to Slytherin, and they're probably a Hufflepuff."
This brought a round of laughter from most of the room, but Quatre frowned at Duo, "You think it's Dorothy Catalonia then?"
"Argh! No! You're totally missing the point-"
With most of the common room distracted by watching Quatre wind Duo up, it was only Trowa who noticed Crabbe and Goyle making a hasty retreat back to the school halls. As such he was the only one to notice Crabbe's hair going orange at the tips, but he decided to keep that secret to himself. At least for the moment.
END