Chapter Twelve
Thorfinn scowled, his eyes narrowing at the sound of feminine snickering. As Hermione led the way down the cellar staircase, he let out a sigh. He stopped, holding the illuminated point of his wand lower, taking her meager stature into account.
"What?"
Halting, she glanced from the corner of her eye at Antonin—who still looked ready to murder someone over his interrupted sleep—before turning on her heel to face the Viking of a wizard. "Well, I just find it humorous that you're so very . . . massive, but the idea of going into the cellar has you so obviously bothered."
His mouth twitched side-to-side as held her gaze. "I think I was raised in a family with a bit more of a respect for spirits than other wizards."
She frowned thoughtfully. Perhaps that was something do with his Norse heritage, she'd have to read up on that when she had some time—provided the library here had any volumes of the sort.
Antonin just barely held in a tired chuckle as he said, "Respect, or fear?"
"Sometimes, they're one and the same." Thorfinn glowered at the other man as he nodded down the staircase. "Shall we continue on, unless you'd like to comment on how you're surprised I can step lightly given my shoe size?"
Biting her lip—she doubted Antonin would be pleased if she spent time talking about Thorfinn's, ahem, shoe size—Hermione held in a laugh as she turned and started down the steps, once more. She understood perfectly well they were all trying to lighten the mood a little, given that the cellar of Selwyn Hall wasn't a place anyone wanted to be in the middle of the night.
She tried not to focus on how very much their surroundings made her wish for a wand of her own. There was nothing scary down here, she knew that, but that didn't stop the chill that coursed up her spine as she set her feet on the floor.
Squaring her shoulders and holding her head high—though, it didn't feel much like the effort was worth it, with how her husbands naturally towered over her—she reminded herself, once again, that her feelings were based solely on their environment. She gave herself a shake and continued toward the portrait.
As she drew nearer, the accompanying wandlight slowly illuminating the painting within the gilded frame, she kept her attention on it. The closer they got, the more of Augustin she could see, until her gaze locked with his.
He swallowed hard, those expressive blue eyes of his wide as he looked from her to her husbands, in turn, and back.
"It can't be . . . ." Antonin said in a whisper, shock in his tone.
A look of realization flickered across Augustin's face. He waved his hands frantically as he clearly mouthed the word No several times.
Thorfinn shook his head, a mix of surprise and anger coloring his features. ". . . Corvus?"
Hermione's eyes shot wide, an icy thrill rippling in the pit of her stomach. "Corvus? Corvus Selwyn?" she asked, glancing toward the man in the portrait, once more.
No, Augustin said, again, but there was something strangely apologetic in his eyes as he shook his head.
Swallowing hard, she started to backpedal away from the portrait.
"Convenient that you're silenced isn't it?" the golden-haired wizard boomed. "Probably just some game you're playing to keep her from figuring you out!"
She didn't want to think that was possible. "I . . . I can't believe . . . ."
"Stop this."
Hermione started, looking about for the sound of the voice. A voice that wasn't Augustin's, but wasn't wholly dissimilar, either. Antonin and Thorfinn turned away from the portrait, as well, holding their wands at the ready.
"You can lower your wands, they won't do any good."
The wizards exchanged a glance. They didn't lower their weapons, though . . . not until the colorless, translucent form of Corvus Selwyn stepped into their line of sight.
Though the face and stature were very similar to the being she'd come to so care for, his appearance was nothing like that of Augustin Selwyn. He looked like the ghosts she remembered from Hogwarts.
"You're Corvus Selwyn?"
Meeting her gaze, he nodded. "And you two fools can stop yelling at Augustin. He's not done anything wrong."
The witch frowned, stepping up to Corvus. "Oh, don't you worry about them yelling at Augustin. You're going to have your ears full of me yelling at you!" His brows shot up and his jaw fell, but she was thundering on before he could say anything more. "What the bloody hell is going on?!"
Corvus looked at Thorfinn and Antonin. They both appeared confused, shaking their heads at him as they glanced from the ghost to the painting, and back.
The ghost's shoulders drooped as he walked around them, making his way across the floor to stand beside Augustin's portrait. "Whatever it is any of you are thinking, that's not what's going on."
Augustin, for his part, let out a visible sigh. Shaking his head, he wandered over to a plush arm chair in the background of his frame and took a seat. If not for the tension of the moment, the way he propped his elbow on his knee and dropped his forehead down against his hand would've been comical.
"You died on the battlefield," Antonin said, giving the ghost a once-over. "How the hell did you end up here?"
Corvus cut the wizard a harsh look. "Your question will wait. I owe Hermione an apology, first."
The witch recoiled a step. She honestly had no idea how she felt. She knew there was something about this that she hadn't understood from the beginning, but she'd never expected that Augustin might not be Augustin.
At her reaction to him, Corvus winced, his entire body seeming to slump. "Please, just listen?"
"Fine," she said with a shrug.
He nodded, dropping his gaze to the floor as he clasped his hands before him. "Everything we told you was true. It—"
"We?" Her brows shot up with the question.
Snapping his attention up to her face, he dropped his mouth open in a little O. "I suppose I'd better start at the beginning and work my way up to the apology."
Hermione could feel the weight of her husbands' stares on her as she cleared her throat. "Yes, I think you'd better had."
Nodding, the ghost folded his arms across his chest, once more dropping his gaze from hers. "As a child growing up here, Augustin's crying each night largely went ignored. His story was known, the noise he made just accepted as part-and-parcel of living in Selwyn Hall. But I could never sleep through it. One night, after hearing—like you—that this was where Augustin stayed, I came down here."
She looked from the portrait to the wispy figure, and back. "You must've been startled by the family resemblance," she said, her soft voice reasonable.
He breathed a laugh, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smirk. "You could certainly say that. I was perhaps thirteen? So we didn't look as much alike as we do, now, but still, it was there. He was so genuinely surprised to see someone come down here, that for the first few moments, I thought he'd lost his voice from the shock. I realized that he was silenced, but I knew from his crying that it wasn't always so." Corvus bit his lip, shrugging. "So I waited until nightfall and saw him slip out of the portrait. He'd have the strength to do so, now, had we not been so jarred by someone barging into your room."
"Oy," Thorfinn said with a frown. "That is my wife's room, after all."
Hermione shook her head, holding back a laugh despite the situation.
Corvus' brows crept upward as he met Thorfinn's gaze. "Do we really want to discuss that I've been in your wife's bedroom more than either of you have?"
"Oy," Thorfinn said again, taking a step as Antonin raised his wand, a murderous look in his eyes.
"Stop it, all of you!" The witch stamped her foot, placing herself between her husbands and the . . . well, her ghost, she supposed. Not as though she expected many spells to do him any lasting harm, but they all needed to calm down. "I don't know what sort of dynamic you three had while Corvus was alive, but right now, he owes me this story, and that apology."
Antonin lowered his wand. Thorfinn rolled his shoulders, though he nodded.
"Corvus, if you would go on?"
Returning his attention to her, Corvus nodded. "When he appeared outside his portrait that night, we talked. He said it was the first time anyone had come to speak with him. No one . . . no one cared. He was so lonely."
Sympathy pinching her expression, Hermione looked back to the portrait. Augustin's gaze was fixed on the floor inside the painting, his face pained.
Corvus shrugged, noting her glance with a sad smile. "It was the whimsy of a child, but I let him possess me so he could interact with the physical world, again. Became a bit of a nightly ritual. I was hoping that would sate his loneliness. And it did, for a time."
"But then?"
"Then I was called away from here to serve the Dark Lord." He chewed on the inside of his lower lip as he shook his head. "Oh, by the way, sorry about that whole snatching you from the Lovegood house thing. Just doing my job."
Hermione choked out a scoffing sound, taking a murderous step of her own toward him, then. "I thought you looked familiar!"
In hindsight, they both felt ridiculous a moment later—she'd made a threatening move, and he'd held up his hands and backpedaled. As though she could physically hurt him. She avoided wondering if they'd both honestly forgotten that because of their nightly interactions.
"I said I was sorry. I was only doing what I was ordered to." Clearing his throat, he dropped his hands. "As I was saying, I was called away to serve. And then I . . . I died. But somehow, I guess because of those willing possessions, I was drawn back here after my death. The connection we'd established saw to it that at night, when he slipped from his portrait, we were forced together."
Hermione's compassionate nature won out over her anger. "That must've been uncomfortable for you, both."
"At first," he said with a nod. But then, he sighed. "We got used to it. The house was empty at the time, so it didn't matter. We knew we would need to hide once we heard the Dark Lord had granted Selwyn Hall to new owners, because when we're joined, we may as well be flesh and blood in certain aspects. No one would understand."
Again, she looked to the portrait—Augustin had raised his head, but did not stand, merely watching her for her reaction—and then to the ghost. "Then why did you two come to me? What changed your minds?"
That lopsided grin she now realized he and his ancestor shared curving his lips, Corvus again nodded. "You did."
At the way she pouted, her shoulders slumping, both her husbands rolled their eyes. It was all they could do to keep from uttering sounds of disgust.
"These two acted like everyone else when they first heard Augustin sobbing—they were irritated, upset their sleep had been interrupted. But you." He let out a sad laugh and shook his head. "You felt sympathy for him; we could sense it. And, the next thing I knew, Augustin was moving us upstairs to find you. I'm sorry I didn't let him tell you what we were. He was worried that when you realized we were something that probably shouldn't exist . . . ."
Corvus dropped his gaze again, his face falling. "He was afraid you'd turn us away. I am the one who made the decision to avoid your attempts to figure out what we are. I wasn't prepared to let him suffer through that. You're the only friend we've had."
Hermione clamped her hand across her mouth, covering a cooing sound. This time, she noticed the facial reactions of her husbands—she'd not seen eye-rolls so exaggerated since that argument in sixth year with Lavender Brown—but she chose to ignore them.
"I'd have understood. I might've had trouble, at first, with something I've never known was possible, before, but I would've gotten there, if you two had only been patient."
"Yes, well, we couldn't be sure of that. You're . . . ." He chuckled, raking his teeth against his bottom lip. "You're not quite like anyone else, you know."
She laughed. "Oh, believe me, I know. What about everything else?"
Corvus' brows shot up. "Everything else?"
"I've been researching how to free him—well, both of you, I guess—from Selwyn Hall." She clarified when his face fell. "So you don't have to be stuck here. I . . . I thought you'd be happy."
The ghost gave a half-hearted nod. "Oh, that?"
Hermione frowned, shaking her head. "What is it? Do you not want me to? Does he not want me to?"
Corvus looked toward the portrait at that. Augustin stood up from his chair and crossed to the foreground. He exchanged a glance with Corvus before they both returned their gazes to her.
"No," Corvus finally said, his expression serious.
"No?" she echoed, confused.
"No. He doesn't . . . we don't want you to release us from this house." Smiling sadly, he said, "We want to stay with you."
She gaped back at the pair of them, certain her heart might just burst from the way they were looking at her.
