Chapter 12

"You are sweet on my mother, aren't you, Saxdred?" asked Sigismund, directly.

Saxdred coloured.

"There's no point lying about it. Yes, I am," he said. "I suppose you want me to take another job elsewhere?"

"Not at all!" said Sigismund, indignantly. "The others and I were plotting as to how to get her to come off her high horse and admit that she's sweet on you too, and get you together. She worries too much about the parents," he added, "though with that nasty piece of gossip based on nothing being sent to the governors, I should think she'd be more willing to enter into a relationship with you out of perversity. Only that's a bad reason to do it."

"I agree," said Saxdred.

"Oh, well, so long as your intentions to her are long term, I'm quite happy to have a third dad," said Sigismund. "You were aware it means being my third dad, weren't you?"

"No, but if you were ready to look at it that way, I would be more than delighted," said Saxdred.

"Good. And then I can have even more siblings," said Sigismund.

"Now I wouldn't go that far," said Saxdred. "The head…"

"If she accepts that she wants to marry you, she'll accept the whole boiling of what that means," said Sigismund. "I expect she'd have to give up the headship, though, at that point, but I'm pretty certain they'll need a school in Hungary for those not eligible for Durmstrang. Would you be up to relocating, for her?"

"I'd go to the ends of the earth for her," said Saxdred.

"Good, that's fine then," said Sigismund. "We'll just have to go to work on her."

Saxdred opened his mouth and shut it again. The Musical Marauders were very managing, and what they managed usually went very well indeed. He hoped the lovely Agata would not be too irritated by their efforts.

oOo

"Well, how are we going to arrange to get them together without fear of interruption AND without them deciding to not do anything?" asked Bronislava. "A lady likes certain courtesies, and unless he gets around to them…"

"He will, if he sees it's inevitable," said Sigismund. "Aunt Agata isn't being entirely sensible about this; she's not a Marauder, and she isn't realising that they are perfect for each other."

Bronislava went pink.

"And you think Marauders do?" she said.

"Well, I think some needed help, but you and I know we're meant for each other, don't we?" said Sigismund.

"That was a trifle unromantic," said Bronislava tartly.

"I think romantic is for people who've finished their ZPs," said Sigismund, "and acknowledge that we're going to want to get romantic one day, so it doesn't interfere with being good friends before we're ready to settle down to being grown up."

"Oh." said Bronislava. "I suppose that makes sense."

"It might make sense, but can you be quietly icky on your own time?" said Beremud. "And let us know what you planned."

"Well, to stop them being interrupted, I thought we could put a classroom under the fidelius charm overnight," said Sigismund, "and the secret keeper have it written to show them."

"A classroom? That's so far off romantic that they'll never get it on together," said Lindhard.

"Wait! That's where chanting some complex transfigurations comes in," said Sigismund. "We transfigure the desks into a bed, and we use the detention room so they have a toilet, and we leave a carafe of water, and a bottle of wine, and glasses and a big box of chocolates and stuff, and we make it look all romantic and… and baroque."

"All pink velvet and gilt twiddly bits?" said Zoltan. "That's going a bit too far."

"Well, I'm sure we can come up with something if we look in the lifestyle magazines some of the big girls take," said Sigismund. "Sort of icky enough but not too much."

"And they walk out," said Beryx.

"We're going to lock them in, aren't we?" said Corneliu.

"Exactly," said Sigismund, "or rather, we're going to place a one-way lock on the door that disappears at about six in the morning so they can creep back to their own rooms then if they want. "

"And if they're frightfully waxy with us?" said Bronislava.

"Well, I can't see that they would be," said Sigismund. "They both want each other, so why not get on with it?"

oOo

"Your son asked if I was sweet on you," said Saxdred.

"Did you give him an answer or did you box his ears for cheek?" asked Agata.

"I admitted that I was," said Saxdred. "He said he would be pleased for me to be his third father."

"Greedy," said Agata, irritated that her voice shook.

Saxdred laughed.

"He loves you very much," he said. "He wants you to be happy; and bless the child, I don't think he even notices that I'm a goblin."

"I can't say I do, either, not any more," said Agata.

He took her hands.

"Then… may I…."

"I've learned many things, Saxdred; and one is that racism is futile. And another is that one should take happiness where one might. And I intend to do so. And in time I shall have to leave Durmstrang, you know. I'm thinking of taking over the dire orphanages in Hungary where the Czerny child was, that Kreacher told me about."

"I should be glad to help."

"You are a good man, and a true partner, I think," said Agata. "You may kiss me."

Saxdred needed no second invitation.

Things proceeded from that point in a satisfactory direction, and Agata woke up to find Saxdred propped up on one shoulder regarding her.

"Do I still have a job?" he asked.

"Well if you're ready for round two…." said Agata.

He flushed.

"I didn't mean…. I wondered if you were embarrassed and regretted…"

Agata started exploring, and Saxdred took that to mean that she still required her handyman in a variety of roles. He proceeded to take charge of matters, because a man should let his woman know she is valued and that he is able to be in charge.

Roles shifted from time to time in the next few hours and it all seemed good to Saxdred.

oOoOo

Valda was to have her own Valentine's Day treat as Adelard had petitioned to take her and Wennie out for a slap up kaffee und kuchen, and any other friends she cared to bring along.

"Please, would you Marauders like to come out with me?" asked Valda. "I'd like to be able to include you in a treat, and I suppose I ought to ask Simone as well," she added without enthusiasm.

"Poor Simone, it would be nice of you," said Daffodil. "I must say, now you've settled down I prefer you as a friend to Simone."

Valda flushed in pleasure.

"I wish I had known what it was like to be more like you years ago," she said. "I'll go and ask her."

Simone looked up at Valda's approach without any great enthusiasm. Though Simone had made friends with Renate Dunkelschwann, she still resented Daffodil being friends with other people, and why Daffodil would waste time with someone who had been so racist escaped Simone.

"Will you like to come out for a Valentine's kaffee und kuchen, Simone?" asked Valda. "Adelard said I might invite others in the class."

Simone tossed her neat dark head.

"And because the Marauders are too busy, you come to me as second best? I do not think I want to come to your silly treat with your silly boyfriend," said Simone.

Valda shrugged.

"Suit yourself," she said, trying not to feel pleased that Simone had assumed that the Marauders would not be going.

It may be said that Simone cried tears of chagrin and outrage when Adelard turned up and swept off all the Marauders as well as Valda and Wennie.

"Well, I wasn't expecting all these pests, but there are worse pests in the world," said Adelard. "My sister-in-law and her family are involved in Marauding, and so I've learned a bit more about it."

Ilarion exchanged glances with the others.

"In that case, Adelard, we had been discussing something," he said. "We had wondered whether to bring in Valda and Wennie, as much for their own protection as to mark what good eggs they've turned out to be, but it wouldn't be fair to join Valda to a blood pact if you weren't a part of it too, because the Blooded only marry the Blooded."

"Bless my soul!" said Adelard. "Blood magic, eh? I read Professor Snape's book, and I understood almost half of it."

"It ought to open up a heap of divination things you didn't have the chance to develop when you were younger, too," said Xanthos. "It's helped me with my blind spots about transfigurations. And it brought on Cherrytree to become a true seer."

"Well, that might be a bit uncomfortable," said Adelard, "but if it happens, I wonder if it's my duty to do so, in order to have the potential to save lives?"

"It might well be," said Daffodil. "And once you become a Marauder, you won't be bound by life debts, only the one you already have."

"Oh, now that is attractive," laughed Adelard, "Though I'm more than reconciled to the one I do have."

"Oh Adelard, I was afraid there for a minute I'd lose you!" cried Valda. "But… you mean… you would ask me to Maraud? And Wennie too?"

"Wennie will do anything for those who are good and kind!" said Wennie.

"Great," said Ilarion. "Let's drop an observation repelling charm on our table here and get on with it while we have coffee and sticky things to offset the tiredness."

"Observation repelling charms? At your age?" said Adelard. "I thought that was a ZH level concept."

"Library work," said Ilarion. "And Zlatko taught it to me in the first when I was his fag."

"Oh, that explains a lot," said Adelard. "I… yes, I'll do it, if Valda wishes to?"

Valda, all eyes, nodded wordlessly, and Ilarion and Nedelya produced knives. The blooding ceremony left Adelard, Valda and Wennie weak, but totally euphoric!

"Oh Adelard!" said Valda.

"I am joinded to other proud, free elves!" squeaked Wennie.

"Oh my!" said Adelard. "I say, aren't you supposed to assign ruthless Arithmancy to that level of ritual?"

"We did," said Ilarion. "It's a love day, and that negates all other Arithmancy. It's assimilative correlation by association."

"I know. Library work," said Adelard, rather than bothering to query the loose use of ZH terms.

"Library work is the works," said Daffodil.

"Well, as we are all together in this, would Valda mind if I share some news about her family?" asked Adelard.

"I want to share," said Valda.

Adelard nodded, ruffling her hair.

"You're a good kiddie," he said, "and you'll be my girl properly when you're older. But you asked about half siblings."

Valda paled, but nodded.

"You have four, by two different mothers," said Adelard. "One by your father's mistress, who has no class or status, but if you're willing, I'll clear it with the Kaiserin to have them come to Durmstrang? I told the woman that I'd protect her as her erstwhile lover is unable to do more than squawk right now. She was very happy, as he came to her, and took his pleasure in a different way by hurting her," he added grimly. "I've directed all the elves you freed to help her and the children, whom I have in a safe house. There's a girl who'll be starting next year, Dorothea, and she has brothers of five and three years old."

"And the fourth?" asked Valda.

"Konrad is three, like Sigeric," said Adelard, "and he's the child of a part goblin maid whom your father decided to use. Not that he looks very goblin, so I shall make sure he goes on the list too. About time part goblins were let in."

Marlene giggled.

"They already are and it's me," she said. "If he's only three, I can have declared my success in ZHs before he comes in and show how silly pure bredness is."

"Oh well done!" said Adelard. "My sister-in-law is married to a goblin, and I can't see there's any difference. Only trouble is, the mother of the others won't countenance taking on Konrad. I fished him out of the orphanage as his poor little mother had died, and left him in the care of your old nurse. I plan to have all the children to stay, and erode any racism their mother has instilled in them," he said, "so Konrad and Sigeric can be proper brothers."

"And I can get to know them too," said Valda.

"Exactly," said Adelard. "Not easy, I shouldn't think, being the children of a kept woman; we can teach them to be proud to be your siblings, and, er, to consider Marauding. And the two youngest are, I think, the same age as Von Frettchen's oldest so… blood and thunder, he's one of us too!"

He got grinned at.

oOoOo

Alexand was not about to quibble when the Eulenspiegels volunteered to run a Valentine's party for the younger ones, and left them to it. It was the older ones who were potentially more of a headache! The fourth and above were to have a more decorous adult party, though Alexand was not surprised when the Musical Marauders en masse opted out of his party to help with the little ones, though they did promise to play dance music once the youngest were dispatched to bed.

"And we need to fit in our jiggery pokery around Mother and Saxdred," said Sigismund.

"Delayed action charms on the room to be put into operation with a word in parseltongue," said Bronislava.

"Brilliant!" said Sigismund, and Bronislava blushed.

"NO Valentine's necking party for you two until we have the old folk sorted out," said Zoltan, firmly.

Sigismund and Bronislava both blushed.

"I don't think we're quite ready for that, anyway," said Bronislava.

"We need to make sure it's the right time," said Sigismund.

"Good," said Corneliu. "I don't want to trip over the pair of you making out, when my head's full of music. Most offputting!"

He retrieved his ears and fingernails and got them mostly put back in the right place.

The plotters set to, in order to set up the room, and proceeded to then throw themselves into helping the Eulenspiegels to design a tortuous treasure hunt that should keep the youngsters occupied, and too, likely to be poking into the sort of corners where older ones were wont to gather for illicit love-play, ensuring some kind of kissicus interruptus, as Xanthippe put it.

"When I think how much the pair of you were always necking with Zlatko…" said Axel.

"That was different," said Xanthippe. "We were never illicit about it."

This was undeniably true, and Axel retired, bested.

It may be said that the Eulenspiegels knew how to run a good party, and the first three years were soon charging about the castle following clues, and being rewarded for being the first to any particular clue with a few sweeties, the main prize being a big box of chocolate cauldrons. As some of the sweeties were English snogging sweeties, there were a few very surprised recipients of the lesser prizes. It is probably that the volunteer helpers had more fun than many of the rest of the older ones, who played a number of traditional games before the shared feast. Nobody noticed that the Musical Marauders slipped away from the feast early, nor that Zoltan and Sigismund approached Agata and Saxdred respectively, and begged that they read a letter. They had surpassed themselves in managing to embed a compulsion to go to the room under fidelius charm, which crumbled as soon as it had been read. Neither Agata nor Saxdred noticed it crumble, and went straight to the room and in the door, which was gleefully locked.

The compulsion fell away as soon as they were both in, and they looked at each other, and at the rather baroque bedroom with which they had been provided, the wine and kuchen, and the note in Sigismund's handwriting, saying 'just get on with it.'

"Cheeky monkeys!" declared Agata, in some dudgeon.

"They mean well," said Saxdred. "And they weren't to know we had already, er, got on with it. And while we're here…."

Agata checked the locked door, which did not succumb to alohamora, and checked the other door.

The former detention room lavatory was now the sort of bathroom which would have delighted any rococo prince, and had a deep, wide bath with ever-warming charms on the water.

Agata laughed.

"Oh, well, they thought of everything for our comfort," she said. "Part of me is loath to play their games, though."

"Oh play the games," said Saxdred. "How pleased they will feel to believe that they have achieved an act of cupid; we need not tell them we were already lovers, my darling Agata. It would fill them with chagrin, and they have gone to a lot of trouble to overcome any constraints they may have thought between us."

"One of the things I love about you, Saxdred, is the way you are so very restful and easy going when there is no need to be anything else," said Agata. "I also like it that you are not afraid to say what you want or what you think."

"I believe, meine Leibling, in a partnership," said Saxdred, simply.

Agata, who secretly liked a man she could not bully, proceeded to do something that would have almost shocked most of her pupils, and snuggled at him.

Matters proceeded along most enjoyable lines thereafter, and the couple fell asleep, with only a passing thought to hope that the prefects and staff might have contained any mischief.

oOoOo

Alexand checked all of those at the dance on the school registers, with ruthless efficiency to make sure that there was no single person, or worse, couple, missing. Discovering that he was short two fifth years, he passed tea to Eve and Sofie, and divining rods to Zyrillis to find what had happened to Herwald Langbessen and Bianka Zhikova, who were generally reckoned to deserve each other, but not in too intimate a way just yet.

"We could do an engulfing charm on them and bring them right here," said Leva, hopefully.

"And what if they are, er, in flagrante delicto?" asked Alexand.

"Might embarrass them into not doing it again," said Sofie.

"A bit harsh," said Elfleda, who was waiting for a bit of a necking party with Zyrillis if she could manoeuvre him into a corner.

"Too unkind," said Kjell.

"Oh well, it was a thought," said Leva. "Shall we marauders go round them up when you've discovered where they are, and by the way, why don't we use the Marauding Map?"

"What's that?" said Alexand.

"It shows where everyone in the castle is," said Leva.

"Well, you pests can sort out finding them and returning them then," said Alexand.

"WHAT you have talked us into!" said Elfleda. "I was looking forward to dancing."

"Then we'd better be quick," said Leva, unrepentantly.

The Marauder map showed the location of the errant pair, and Leva frowned.

"That's odd. The Kaiserin isn't anywhere in the castle."

"Are you sure?" asked Kjell.

"Of course I'm sure," said Leva. "Maybe she has a date elsewhere."

"Oh well, good luck to her," said Kjell, shrugging. "You don't have a bad feeling, do you?"

"No," said Leva. "And if she does have a date, I won't disturb her by asking an elf to check where she is. TOO intrusive."

"Leva achieves tact?" laughed Kjell.

The Jade Fag Marauders were a little above the childish jinxes of switching body parts or setting them flying off, but Kjell's hair stood on end, transfigured into miniature jarveys and shouted abuse at him. They went to find Herwald and Bianka, who were startled in their cleaning cupboard to be berated as no better than they should be, by the last remaining hairy jarvey.

"Come on, you know the rules," said Kjell.

"And be thankful the little pests in the lower school haven't got you taped with view-o-sneaks as we did in our pestiferous years," said Leva.

"You never grew out of pestiferous years," said Herwald, "but I am glad none of them have. If Heinrich had such an idea, he'd be blackmailing me for the rest of my school life."

"He's a useful quidditch player, but if he'd do that to his own brother, he's a tick," said Sofie.

"He is a tick," said Herwald. "At least our sister Hortensia is capable of giving as good as she gets when she comes in, next year. And I'll make sure she's my fag, or someone else's, not his."

"You're all right, Langbessen," said Sofie.

"But excuse me," said Bianka, "what is it that makes you Marauders think that you should be guarding our morals?"

"Not us, Bianka, the head boy," said Leva. "We are but the messengers, as you might say, charged straitly to bring forth those missing from the dance, and I seriously suggest you both slip into the lavatories first and sort yourselves out, you look thoroughly mussed. And covered in cobwebs," she added mendaciously, knowing that this was enough to keep Bianka out of cupboards. Bianka gave a little shriek, and Leva reached round and brushed off her ear and made as though grabbing something. "There, no more spiders," she said.

Bianka could not get out of the cupboard fast enough at that point, and treated Herwald to a brief burst of Bulgarian that was entirely lost on him.

The dance proceeded in an orderly fashion with all the participants de-cupboarded, and Zyrillis managed a shy kiss with Elfleda during the last dance, mostly out of sight behind one of the suits of armour.

oOoOo

Sigismund went to let his mother and Saxdred out first thing in the morning, and forbade the others to join him, in case they were waxy. He took coffee and rolls.

"Young Sigismund, locking people in bedrooms is not to be condoned," said Saxdred, "But bringing rolls and coffee mitigates the offence."

"I was afraid you might not get together for some silly reason without a bit of pushing," said Sigismund.

"The lot of you are very capable, and I wasn't best pleased with you last night at all," said Agata. "You realise this will mean the end of my tenure as head of Durmstrang? Once it gets out, and it will, some people will be outraged, and I should like to marry Saxdred, not keep him as a guilty secret."

"Oh that's very nice!" said Sigismund. "I rather assumed you were going to go and interfere with schools and orphanages in Hungary, and that Uncle Attila would be Headmaster. Though that means a new transfiguration professor, I suppose," he added.

"Cheeky brat," said Agata. "It's up to the governors… oh well, I expect Von Frettchen would take my recommendation, and bully the rest of them."

"That's what I thought, too," said Sigismund.

"You think too much," growled Agata.

Sigismund beamed at her; then he hugged and kissed her, and hugged Saxdred too.