She'd evidently been upgraded – this time, Malfoy came to meet her at the entrance door.
'Madam Weasley.' He shook her hand. 'It is a pleasure.'
Hermione merely bowed her head and followed him – yes! The library again. She had to suppress a squeal of delight.
He was dressed more formally than the last time they'd met, probably because he'd been prepared to receive her. With an inward sigh, Hermione acknowledged that he didn't look half bad. She still hadn't completely let go of her Muggle way of thinking – sixty-five wasn't old for a wizard. The man was still in his prime. He was bloody handsome, and he knew it. Conceited bastard.
He was also completely calm and unperturbed, the arrogant prick. As if he hadn't propositioned her in the bluntest terms imaginable (that this wasn't entirely his fault wasn't really relevant, was it?). But he didn't mention the incident. If she'd expected him to apologize, she'd been mistaken.
'How is Severus?' he asked when they'd taken their seats.
'Fine, I think. He chose to remain at home yesterday, and I daresay he enjoyed himself. To judge by the number of empty bottles. Harry's coming over today, to have a talk.'
'He ought to have saved the bottles for afterwards.'
'We've still enough left, but I think they'll get along well. They've both changed, you know?'
'I am sure you know Potter better than I do. But how, pray tell, has Severus changed?'
'He seems nicer. But that may be due to me being older now, seeing him in a different light and all that. I'm not sure.'
'What a relief. A nice Severus would be… incongruous. A shock to the system.'
'Would you like to see him?'
He looked up, evidently surprised. 'Of course I would. But such a meeting would have to take place at your home, for obvious reasons, and I don't mean to intrude.'
'You can drop by any time you like. I'm sure Severus would be delighted.' Now that had been a wholly unintentional gaffe. She chose to leave it at that, though. Let him think she wouldn't be delighted to see him. It was the truth after all, wasn't it?
'That's very kind of you,' he said without batting an eyelid. 'Speaking of your home, Madam Weasley – I don't mean to be indiscreet, but with your children there for the duration of the holidays, is there no danger of the news of Severus's return getting around?'
'They're still at Godric's Hollow, visiting with Harry and Ginny. But you're right, with the children around the risk would be considerable.'
The tea the elf – the same as last time, although sans tinsel wreath – had set out for them was even more lavish than a few days ago. There was, among other things, an assortment of miniature short crust pastries filled with a deadly-looking cream and topped with fruit, which particularly attracted Hermione. She'd have to work her way towards them slowly, because such pleasures had to be duly prepared, and besides the canapés weren't too bad-looking, either. She selected a few and paused briefly to appreciate the gaudy arrangement on her plate.
'I was thinking of asking a favour of you,' she said.
'If it is in my power to grant it…'
'I think it is. It's more a question of wanting than being able to grant it.'
'In that case,' he said with a sweeping gesture, 'consider it done.'
She couldn't resist the urge to smile – he was putting it on with a trowel, but his eyes were alight with irony. Self-irony was something Hermione greatly appreciated.
'I meant to ask you whether you'd be willing to provide housing for Severus, for the week from New Year's Eve till school starts again. The manor is such a large house, I guess he would also enjoy having a bit more room to himself.'
'With the greatest pleasure. He could of course stay here longer than a week, if he wanted to.'
'Y-yes. But I… He's being rather sensitive about the whole issue. I wouldn't want him to get the impression of being unwelcome at my house. We had a, well, an argument two days ago. He thinks I took him in like a stray dog.'
Malfoy smiled thinly. 'Oh, Severus could sulk for England when it comes to accepting help. Or rather, when the acceptance is one-sided. If he were able to reciprocate in some way or other, I suppose he'd be a lot less difficult.'
Hermione nodded, pondering the information. 'That kind of fits, yes. Doesn't surprise me, either, considering how everybody used to exploit him. It's probably become something of a reflex, expecting that he'll have to repay every little kindness tenfold. At least it isn't just because of me.'
'Well, if I may venture an educated guess, I daresay it has a lot to do with you. Severus is quite old-fashioned, you know?'
'You're one to talk.' She shot him a withering glare. 'You mean, because I'm a woman and he's playing the part of Damsel in Distress?'
Malfoy nodded. 'Exactly. That certainly doesn't make it any easier for him to accept your help.'
'Erm…' Hermione chewed her lip, as always when she wasn't quite sure how to proceed. 'Do you think… You said you'd like to see him. If you really came to visit at Tinworth, do you think iyou /imight propose that he come to stay here with you?'
'To sweeten the pill?'
'Uh-huh. You're welcome to utter a few choice observations on the appalling state of my household and the size of the house.'
'I think,' he said, 'there will be no need for me to resort to such extreme measures. I can manage without casting aspersions on your family home.' He refilled his cup. 'I would like to ask you a question concerning our last interview.'
'To quote you, if it is in my power to answer it, consider it answered.'
'Hmm. Let us see. You mentioned something called the Resurrection Stone. Was that how Severus was brought back?'
Hermione sighed. 'I thought long and hard whether to ask you that question. Because, yes, that's what brought Severus back. On the other hand, the existence of the stone isn't exactly public knowledge, and…' She fell silent, due to her inability to find a polite way of expressing "I'm not going to tell a power-crazed hyena like you more about an artefact you might use for your own unsavoury ends".
He seemed to have understood the part she'd left unsaid, though. 'Madam Weasley, I would like to make one thing very clear: There is nobody, I repeat nobody, whom I'd wish to bring back to life. My interest was awakened for a different reason. You may or may not know that History of Magic is some kind of a hobby of mine. There is more than enough here' – he gestured at the rows of books – 'to keep me busy for a lifetime. Now, I never heard anything about a Resurrection Stone, but… You'll understand that our conversation left me intrigued, to put it mildly – your question stirred something in my mind, and I spent the best part of the night trying to get hold of it.'
'And have you?' He had her full attention now. 'Got hold of it, I mean.'
'I think I may have.'
Hermione felt as if she was going to burst with curiosity. 'So tell me, come on, tell me!'
'Such impatience.' He smirked. 'It's a long story, though.'
'I don't have to leave anytime soon, so if you don't have any pressing engagements…'
'I'm yours for the whole afternoon.' Balancing his cup and saucer in his left hand, he leaned back. 'Tell me, Madam Weasley, have you ever heard the name Peverell?'
'But… but…' Hermione nearly choked on her canapé. 'But I bloody asked you about the Deathly Hallows! You were under Veritaserum, how could you-'
Malfoy held up his hand. 'I assure you, I have never heard of anything called the Deathly Hallows. Although, after having pursued my idée fixe, I think I have an inkling of what you're talking about. But let me tell my story.'
Feeling equal parts enraged and enthralled, Hermione shrugged. 'Go on then.'
'Thank you. Since you seem to have some knowledge of the Peverell brothers, I shall start a little earlier. Are you familiar with the story of King Arthur?'
'Mr Malfoy, I don't mean to be rude, but is this a quiz, or are you going to tell me something useful?'
'You must forgive my little mannerisms, dear lady. Believe me, you shall have your story. So, are you familiar with the story of King Arthur?'
'Well…' She frowned. 'A little, yes. Welsh poetry, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chrétien de Troyes – I'd have to read up on it, I admit. It's something every British child learns at school, but I obviously missed out on the Muggle curriculum.'
'Interesting. I had no idea Muggles knew so much about such an arcane subject.'
'Arcane? You mean – well yes, now you mention it… I don't think I ever heard anything much about it in History of Magic. There was Merlin of course, but King Arthur wasn't much more than a footnote.'
'Yes, that sums it up nicely. You mentioned Geoffrey of Monmouth.'
'Was he a wizard?'
'He was a monk, Madam Weasley.'
'Ah.' Hermione, who still tended to feel out of her depth whenever confronted with knowledge superior to her own, bit her lip. Usually she switched to aggressive mode in such situations (and the fact that this was Lucius Malfoy lecturing her on wizarding history certainly made her feel even more antagonistic), but her enthralment with the matter quickly won over. 'Well, he might have come from a wizarding family.'
'No, no. Of course not. He did, however, have some knowledge of our kind. He's the first author who ever mentioned Merlin in connection with Arthur – later on, linking the two became a literary tradition, Muggle of course, but the Historia Regum Britanniae is the first source that puts the two together.
'Now, Geoffrey seems to have been in a bit of a dilemma. As I said, he had some knowledge of our kind. I'd even go farther than that, actually. The source I'm referring to strongly suggests that he was a friend of our kind. But wizards weren't looked upon too kindly in those days. There was a first version of the Historia Regum, full of allusions to the wizarding world, its legends and traditions… Or maybe it wasn't a first version, which he later purged of all those bits. Maybe he knowingly wrote two versions, leaving to fate the decision which of them was going to survive.'
Feeling as if she were standing in front of a door to a part of the world, her world, the existence of which she'd never suspected, Hermione listened, transfixed, cheeks hot and eyes burning. 'So the purged one survived?'
'Yes. It does refer to wizards – Arthur's magicians, for example, and of course Merlin, but except for Merlin the wizards aren't exactly portrayed in a flattering manner. Geoffrey paints an extremely negative picture of them. A bunch of lying, ignorant, sycophantic hypocrites, more or less. Merlin is represented in a positive light only because of his contribution to the ascent of a Christian king, Aurelius Ambrosius, who re-established the Christian faith. The other, more wizard-friendly version, however, is believed to be lost.'
'And is it?'
Malfoy's eyelids drooped, and he smiled. 'Lost to the world maybe.'
'But you have it? iHere/i?'
'I do. I'll let you see it when I've finished. If you're interested, of course.'
'Am I… Well of course I'm interested, I'm… But go on with your story.'
'In this… let us call it the pagan version of the Historia, there is a short chapter about Merlin's provenance. While relatively insignificant in itself, it becomes immensely interesting in combination with other, much older texts. Those, too, are very rare, but fortunately my ancestors were avid collectors of the arcane. I do possess a few of those texts, and this is the story they tell:
'In those early times, there weren't many wizards and witches in the British Isles. A couple of hundreds, I think, not more, a big tribe rather than anything else. And a strongly matriarchal tribe at that. Yes,' he said, seeing Hermione's beatific smile, 'I thought you'd like that.'
Their eyes met, and for the first time there was genuine warmth in his look.
'This, let us say, tribe held a traditional meeting at winter solstice, every year. The purpose of the meeting was this: The head of the tribe, always a very powerful witch, was to choose two equally powerful wizards – I have no idea how the choice was made, maybe there was a competition, or duels. During this longest night of the year, this witch was to have intercourse with both wizards. The child born from this union was believed to be an extraordinarily powerful wizard or witch, even more so if the night was clear and the Milky Way, well, witnessed the, erm, proceedings. Merlin – and this brings us back to Geoffrey – was believed to have sprung from such a ritual.'
'Wait a second…' Words read a long a time ago and believed forgotten were suddenly leaping into her conscious mind. 'I'm sure I remember something about… Wasn't there a bit about dragons lurking at the bottom of a pond?' She massaged her forehead, as if to stimulate the flow of memories. 'And Merlin – I'm sure he was fatherless, wasn't he?'
'You never cease to surprise me, Madam Weasley. Your memory must be extraordinary. Yes, that is the story Geoffrey tells in the purged version. Merlin's mother is called to Vortigern's court, and Vortigern asks her about Merlin's father. She tells a rather, erm, absurd story – to put it politely – about a person in the shape of a most beautiful young man, who often "embraced her eagerly in his arms". An educated euphemism for having sex. He also talked to her sometimes, without making himself visible. She claims that he is Merlin's father.'
'And they did, of course believe her,' Hermione muttered.
'Of course,' Malfoy said, mouth twitching.
'Those were the days, indeed. If you told such a load of bullshit today, you'd end up in the Janus Thickey ward in no time.'
'Probably. What makes both versions of the chapter so interesting, however, is the fact that Geoffrey never mentions the woman's name.'
'He probably didn't know it.'
'Maybe, but I tend towards another explanation: Either the witch performing the ritual didn't have a name, or, if she did, it was protected by powerful spells.'
'Why shouldn't she have had a name?'
'Because, my dear Madam Weasley, this witch, this extremely powerful woman, who was destined to bear another powerful wizard or witch, was a living symbol. A receptacle, the main purpose of whose life was to guard and ensure the continuity of the gene of outstanding magical power. Her identity as such wasn't important.'
'Hmm. That's…' Hermione felt revulsion at the mere thought of being an anonymous receptacle of power. 'Individuality wasn't exactly important in those times, was it?' she finally said.
'Not in her case, no.'
Suppressing a shudder, Hermione tried for a bit of lightness. 'But it wasn't all bad. I mean, having a threesome once every year must've been a perk of some kind.'
'I wouldn't be so sure. If she was unlucky, she got pregnant the first time, and then was condemned to leading a life of chastity. The meeting at winter solstice still took place, but she was the only one not allowed to have sex that night.'
'Oh. Well, yes, that makes it seem a lot less interesting.'
'I agree. Besides, I don't think that there's much fun to be had, being a virgin assaulted by two wizards who, though admittedly powerful, probably lacked the necessary technique.'
'Erm, no. I suppose not.' Frowning, Hermione tried to process the information. 'But two men? That's highly unusual – animal behaviour shows us clearly that it's always the strongest male who mates with more than one female, in order to spread his superior genes as widely as possible.'
'You ought to give the human race more credit than that. There were – and still are, if memory serves me – matriarchal societies, where women have more than one husband or companion.'
'Hmm… Yes, that's true. And I guess the wizards' grasp of the fundamental principles of biology was as poor as the Muggles' back then.'
'Much as it pains me to admit it, our grasp of biology is still a lot poorer than the Muggles'. Of course we don't believe anymore that two different men's sperm can fecundate one and the same egg. As for the rest…' He made a gesture of resignation.
Some part of Hermione's mind had been itching for some time to tell her something important, but she didn't heed the urge, impatient to hear more. 'Anyway, what does all this have to do with the Peverell brothers?'
'I'll arrive there shortly, Madam Weasley. Bear with me.
'The deeper meaning of this ritual was known only to two people: The head of the tribe and her daughter or, if she'd given birth to a son, she told it to a witch of her confidence. It was a secret revealed on the deathbed, never divulged any further.
'Then, of course, came Christianity. Wizards had to withdraw, coming together became more difficult – most of this is my own theory, by the way, but it fits very well with the historical facts. The ritual couldn't always be performed, times became more dangerous. In the end, the secret had to be entrusted to more than one person, because the danger of it perishing together with its keeper was too great. It was disclosed to more people and, as is the way of secrets handed down from ear to ear, became a little distorted.
'With time, the wizarding society emulated the Muggle world: Men began to dominate it, women were gradually being marginalized. Still, the secret was known to but a few, but it was… you might say virilized. The creation of life, so essentially feminine, became victory over death. Winter solstice, previously regarded as the point where the cycle of nature both ended and started afresh, became death. The Milky Way, unhooked from the night sky like a piece of useless decoration, became a mere river. 'And, most importantly, the triad consisting of one woman and two men was turned into a brotherhood of three men.
'Even the sacred symbol of this fertility ritual was altered, if only slightly.'
Malfoy summoned a piece of parchment and a quill and drew an equilateral triangle, bisected by a vertical line that protruded slightly further than the triangle's base. On that end of the line, opposite the triangle's apex, he drew a large dot.
'But that's not quite right,' Hermione breathed, 'I know that symbol – heavens, ido /iI know it! But it looks slightly different, the line stops at the base, and the dot is at the centre of the triangle!'
'As I said, the symbol changed as the legend changed. What you see here' – he tapped the figure he'd drawn – 'is the original symbol, or at least as close as we can come nowadays. Traces of it can still be found, if you know where to look. The sign symbolizes the female element' – the tip of his quill followed the shape of the triangle – 'the enclosing womb maybe, the protection it affords. The line and dot, some more ancient versions also have two dots, are the penis and testicles. Penis and testicles are always slightly apart, probably to indicate that two men had to participate in the ritual.
'Later on, the dot migrated to the centre, and the triangle and dot were probably interpreted as a stylized eye, the eye of death maybe. Cutting it in two with this line may have been a symbol of conquering death.'
'Oh my god,' Hermione muttered, 'I think I can see where this is going.'
'I'm sure you can, Madam Weasley.' Malfoy smiled briefly, then continued, 'The legend and the distorted symbol lived on. Then, about three hundred years after Geoffrey, when the original, secret ritual was long forgotten, the Peverell brothers enter the scene.
'The Peverells are a family even older than the Malfoys – though now extinct, they were able to trace their origins back to the times before the Christianization of Britain. Somehow, the brothers came across the legend. And somehow they found out more about it – this is another theory, though a rather valid one, but I believe they might have had access to some manuscripts. Obviously not the real thing – the written sources for the real thing were well hidden at that time and only discovered later – but something closer to genuine than the little-known legend. Or maybe one of their ancestors had been a keeper of the secret and left notes. I'm afraid we will never discover how exactly the Peverell brothers acquired their knowledge.
'However, they discovered that the winter solstice was somehow involved. They found out that it was some kind of ritual to do with life and death. They were sure the ritual had to be performed in some special place, maybe somewhere near a river. And, since the three were wizards of amazing power – who can say, perhaps one of their forefathers had even been born from exactly that ritual – they managed to produce three artefacts: A wand that supposedly was stronger than any other that had ever been or would ever be made, a substance that they thought would bring people back from the dead, and some kind of protection to make one inaccessible to death.
'They almost died in the process, maybe merely because of the cold and the effort involved, or maybe because of the magical energy they released during their endeavour. In any case, they managed to create these truly stunning artefacts.
'Unfortunately, the three Peverell brothers, although powerful, weren't clever enough to keep their achievement a secret. I daresay they also quarrelled amongst each other, and soon the damage was done: Too many people wanted those artefacts, and the three brothers didn't have an easy life. Or an easy death, come to think of it.
'Later on, their story was turned into a children's tale by-'
'Beedle the Bard,' Hermione interrupted him tonelessly. 'To teach children a lesson in morals. And the original symbol acquired a new meaning.'
'Er, yes. Exactly. And what had previously been a powerful ritual, to be later turned into an alluring tale, finally became a mere bedtime story to be told to wizarding children. Ironic, don't you think?'
Covering her eyes with her hands, Hermione shook her head. 'I don't know what to think anymore. I believed…' She slowly lowered her hands and looked at Malfoy. 'I believed that we had reached the bottom, but that there should be so much more…'
He leaned forward, elbows propped on the armrests of his chair, fingertips forming a steeple. 'It seems that what I told you has more to do than I thought with those Deathly Hallows you mentioned. And you appear to have more than a passing acquaintance with the legend.'
'I… Oh, shit,' she said with feeling. 'I honestly don't know what to do. You've shared knowledge which I guess only very few wizards possess…'
'Trust me, there can't be many. This lore is well hidden in ancient texts that are so difficult to come by – no, I don't think many know about it. I probably am the only one in England.'
'Yes…' Hermione meant to rake her fingers through her hair but ended up with her hand stuck in the frizzy nest. 'I'll have to discuss this with Harry. If it were up to me, I'd choose to trust you, tell you everything, and to hell with it. But this is his decision. I don't have the right to take it from him. I'll talk to him about it as soon as possible – maybe we can discuss this whole issue together… When do you think you'd like to visit?'
'What about the day after tomorrow?'
She mentally went over Ron's work schedule. 'Would seven p.m. be okay? We can have dinner, I'll invite Harry over too. It's going to be interesting.'
'A perfectly ambiguous word for a perfectly unpredictable situation.'
'Yes, I know. But if we're all on our best behaviour…'
'Being on one's best behaviour can be very dangerous.' A flick of his wand lit the candles – they'd been sitting in the dark for almost half an hour. 'But let us leave the matter for now. Unless of course' – he smiled wickedly – 'you'd like to have a look at Geoffrey's manuscript?'
o
