Chapter 48: Sarajevo 12/24

Outside the warded study, the not-tiger-thing was not happy. Vivianne could hear it growling and throwing itself at the door, bouncing back with howls of pain whenever the wards activated against it.

Inside the warded study, Vivianne and Ben had a pile of scrolls and books lain before them. Zach was looking at the pile with no small amount of frustration. "What can I do to help?"

Vivianne flashed him a quick smile. "Keep the lights on, and make sure that thing," she gestured to the door, "doesn't get in."

Zach glanced at the door with a raised eyebrow. "I think Morgan has the latter all set."

"Well, we still gotta worry about the lights, buddy," Ben added.

"Preferably without blowing us up."

"I didn't blow us up."

Vivianne snorted but said nothing.

Morgan's handwriting – even in runes – was clear and even, if somewhat rushed. It wasn't taking long to toss aside things that they didn't need – experimental notes, financial records, even a couple solidified wax tablets that looked suspiciously like shopping lists.

What could be useful, however, was going to take more sorting through.

There were sketches and maps. Lists of passwords. A series of short, cryptic notes that could be about just about anything. Vivianne squinted, trying to make sense of everything before her, and trying to do it quickly. She was good at Ancient Runes, but this—

"What the bloody hell is she on about?" Vivianne snapped, tossing one of the parchments on the table. "There's—I can see something about a blood protection—but that's going to do us a fat lot of good—Merlin!"

The not-a-tiger outside the door roared. "Oh, you shut up!" Vivianne shouted.

Meanwhile, Ben had his head tilted to one side, staring at the parchment. "What's this about a sword?"

"A—what?" Vivianne asked.

"This." Ben pointed to the rune. "Sword, weapon—but in this context? It's lookin' like sword to me."

"A … sword …" Vivianne murmured. She looked again at the parchment. Maybe it was because she refused to be shown up by a Gryffindork, but the runes seemed a bit clearer this time around. There was the sword rune – and a rune of shielding right next to it, almost certainly armor in this context – and right before the pair of them—

Vivianne gasped.

"What?" Zach asked.

"That," her finger jabbed the parchment, "that's Arthur's sigil. It's—it's in a few places in Caer Tintagel—"

"Arthur's sigil?" Zach asked. "And—a sword? Caliburn?"

"More or less," Vivianne answered, because getting into the fact that the sword wasn't named in the Gorlois family records – or at least, not in any records she had ever seen – would take too long. "And …" She continued to scan the parchment. "Oh—shit."

"What?" asked Zach.

"That," Ben said, "that's a blood lock, isn't it?" He pointed. "An' …" He squinted. "A love lock? The hell?"

"Blood," Vivianne said, "blood protection – spells that prevent the sword from being touched by anyone who doesn't have Morgan's – or, well, Arthur's too I suppose – blood. Love, however—if someone with Morgan's blood presents the sword to her true love—then the blood protection is null. He—or she, really—can handle it without … well, dying."

Ben blinked. "This must be one helluva sword."

Vivianne wasn't so sure. Scribbled on the side of the parchment in a hand that was definitely Morgan's was a series of runes that translated to, as far as she could determine, Too complicated – it's a sword – should have tossed it in the lake.

If they hadn't been locked in a study, with Rowan Merlin-knew-where and a big cat with a nasty temper right outside, she would have laughed.

Then, she blinked.

Love protection …

I was dosed with love potion …

"Fuck," Vivianne muttered under her breath and kept reading. As she'd hoped, there was a description not just of what protected the sword, but where it was protected. Vivianne reached for one of the maps and the list of passwords, scanning both, looking from parchment to notes to—

It couldn't be.

Vivianne looked across the room, at one of the only portions of the interior wall that wasn't covered by a bookshelf. True, that seemed to be because it had a mosaic of the Garden of the Hesperides on it – or some tree bearing golden apples, because it wasn't like there was a shortage of those in mythology – but unless she was very wrong …

"Vivianne?" asked Zach.

"Care to share what's goin' through your mind?" echoed Ben.

"I think I know where Rowan is!" She started grabbing parchments and stuffing them into her bag – starting with the description of the sword.

"Great," Ben pointed out, "but there's still a big kitty sittin' outside the door – an' I don't know about you, but to me, it doesn't sound too happy."

"Doesn't matter. We're not using that door. Moore? That's a pocket panel," she pointed to the mosaic, "I'm going to need you to move it. If you just press down on the third apple from the left …"

Ben raised an eyebrow at her, waved his wand, and the mosaic tiles making up the named apple depressed. The mosaic moved a few inches into the wall and slid soundlessly to the right, revealing a long, marbled passage.

"… Bloody show-off," Vivianne muttered. "Come on, then. This way."

She strode down the corridor, head high, not waiting for the boys to catch up.

"And I hope you brought your climbing boots," she continued, "because we'll be heading a long way up."


"So, any ideas why Morgan went through something this elaborate when she obviously wanted to dump the stuff in the lake? She should've; could you just imagine the Giant Squid wielding a sword and a one of those leather-skirted Roman get-ups?" Ben asked as they made yet another turn on the seemingly unending stairwell up. The stairs were narrow and switchback, stuffed into a shaft that was narrow enough that Zach could hear Ben's leather jacket sleeve rasp against the walls if he did anything more than let his arms hang at his side.

"Are you trying to be annoying, or are you just naturally so?" Vivianne looked over her shoulder.

"Little a' Column A, little a' Column B," Ben said. "It's still a valid question, despite the framing."

"I don't know. My grandmother never really had time to get into a lot of this. We—thought we'd have more time. I suppose you wouldn't understand that," she said sharply.

Zach glanced back at Ben, whose eyebrows knitted together before one sprang toward his hairline. Half a heartbeat later, all expression left his face and Vivianne turned back toward the stairwell. "Being left holding a bag of questions that will never be answered because the only person who could answer them is dead? Not getting to do all of the things you'd have wanted to do with someone you loved because their life was cut short? Knowing you'll spend the rest of your life having your memories of someone colored by how other people interpreted them because you didn't have a chance to fully form your own opinion of them?" Ben asked quietly. "Yeah, I don't know nothin' bout that."

"The questions themselves say otherwise, so lay it on me, Moore: what's your 'how I've got it worse than you' sob story?"

"I don't have it worse than you, Vivianne. I have parents, two of them," something about the emphasis told Zach that Ben knew somehow that Vivianne's father was not around, "who love and care for me, who've done their best to teach me right from wrong and green from red so to speak."

Vivianne snorted.

"They're just not my parents, Vivianne," Ben added. Vivianne actually whirled around and faced Ben, a complicated stew of something on her face. "My parents are dead."

"So the parents you mentioned?" she asked, her voice harsh.

"My aunt and uncle. My father's sister and her husband." Ben shook his head and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "And it's true; I don't really know what your circumstances are like. My parents died when I was only a few months old."

"Oh." She frowned slightly. "For what it's worth – which is very little, I'm sure – I am sorry to hear about your parents."

"It's okay; it only hurts when I'm breathin'. An'—I really do wish, for true, you'da had more time with your grandmother. If nothin' else, havin' someone who actually has a fuckin' clue what we might find at the top of these stairs …" Ben said with an emotive shrug. "But we might want to get up in there while we might be of some use to Rowan. Just sayin'."

"Point, Moore."

"And not even on my head this time." Ben smirked. Vivianne turned, the heels of her boots clicking on the marble stairs, the swish of her cloak doing little to minimize the sway of her strut. Zach would admit it to no one, but he might've focused a little on those swaying hips and not on how much protracted battles with giant muddy tigers followed by endless stair climbing was no way to prepare for a coming battle.

Finally, a door appeared on a small platform, signaling the top of the stairs. Like the study door, it was warded. Unlike the study door, the wards were not activated. Whoever had Rowan couldn't activate them, apparently, and – he swallowed hard, hoping this didn't say something about the state that his friend was in – she hadn't been able to activate them either.

"Here goes nothin'," Ben muttered as the purple light flickered on above them. Vivianne more or less kicked the door open, exposing a mostly empty antechamber.

But only mostly. There was—someone …

The candles in the chamber lit themselves in a great whoosh, falling on somber, expensive linen robes and a familiar set of shoulders. He turned.

"You!"


It was dark. And Rowan was cold.

Her thoughts were muzzy—not clear, not distinct. She was—somewhere. Where? She didn't know. Somewhere hard and cold and dark. Somewhere—somewhere she …

The thoughts refused to come. Rowan groaned and opened her eyes.

Oh. So that's why it was dark.

But opening her eyes did little good. She couldn't see much of anything – just a bright blur.

Something that was stranger, thought, was that none of this struck her as being particularly worrying. Merely curious. And perhaps not even that.

Rowan slowly tried to sit up – she was laying down, sprawling, really – and she noticed something else.

Her arms ran across the smooth wooden floor. Her bare arms. And—Rowan slowly brought her free hand up and down her body—her legs were bare too. All she was wearing was something—Rowan squinted—something that looked and felt like a lacy black babydoll dress, very short.

Huh. I guess that's why I'm cold.

Her arms protested vaguely as she hauled herself up. She was stiff and achy all over. How long had she been lying—wherever she was?

And where were her glasses?

"Are you awake, ma petite?"

That voice—she knew that voice—it made her stomach clench in something like fear—

"It is good you are awake," the voice said. It was accompanied by a – blur – moving toward her. Rowan squinted. "Here," the voice said, holding something out toward her, "your spectacles. Though I will say, your eyes are much prettier without them."

Rowan winced, even if she wasn't quite sure why.

"But do not worry. I do not judge." The glasses were slipped onto her face, and suddenly the word snapped into focus.

Mr. Bellerose was smiling at her. It was the same unctuous smile that used to make Rowan's hackles rise and her heart start pounding. Now, there was still a tendril of alarm, but it felt like it was coming from a long way off.

"I am sure you would be much less pretty covered in bruises," Mr. Bellerose went on, still wearing that smile. "As would happen—if you were not wearing your spectacles—oui?"

Rowan found herself nodding, because she wasn't sure what else to do. She couldn't think. Where was she? Why was Mr. Bellerose here?

And why on earth was there a large table in the center of the room, with what looked like a sword and armor of some kind lying on top?

"But as I was saying," he went on, "it is good that you are awake. We are just about to begin this night's main event. But first—a little drink?"

He held out a mug. Some kind of instinct that hadn't been completely deadened made Rowan jerk away.

"Come now," he said, holding it closer. "It will help you feel better. And make you warmer."

Warmer? Rowan blinked. There was a spiral of steam coming off the mug. And now that Mr. Bellerose mentioned it, she wasn't feeling well at all.

"W-w-what—" Rowan started to ask, because it seemed like a good thing to ask, but that was as far as she got.

"You will feel better once you drink," said Mr. Bellerose. He slipped his hand behind Rowan's head, cupping it gently, and coaxed her up to drink.

Before the liquid ran down her throat, Rowan saw that it had a beautiful mother-of-pearl sheen. And it smelled – well, wonderful. There was the smell of leather and old books, of the Darjeeling tea her father always brewed when she came home from school, and a third smell: a woodsy smell of sandalwood and cedar, with a spicy undertone of ginger, nutmeg, and just a hint of leather.

Rowan almost gasped. But she couldn't, because Mr. Bellerose was pouring the liquid down, and once that happened—

It didn't taste like much of anything. It was more a feeling. A warmth bloomed deep in her belly. A bubble of giddiness bloomed in her. And—

Julien!

The thought crashed over her like a warm, soapy wave. Julien, with his slim shoulders and lean build. Julien smiling at her during archaeology class. Julien touching her arm or resting a hand on her shoulder. Julien—

Julien was here now!

He was smiling at her!

The realization caused the butterflies to explode in her stomach with a sensation was that just shy of—no—it was painful.

But Rowan didn't care. Because if Julien was smiling—

She didn't care.

But it did hurt.

And there was something—

Julien was stroking her cheek. His touch felt smooth, oily even. "Better, ma petite?"

Rowan found herself nodding, because if she nodded he might smile, even though the butterflies were very painful indeed—

Julien frowned and Rowan's face fell. "A bit more, perhaps?" He held the mug under her nose. The three wonderful scents hit her again, only this time, the third one – of wood and spice and leather – seemed stronger—

She took a deep breath—

Snuggling in a study lounge, an arm around her shoulders, breathing deep and letting the smell of cedar and spice and leather surround her—

A hand held tightly in hers in Professor Lipskit's office—

Standing on tiptoe to drop a kiss on a cheek—

Her arm through another's on a walk through a winter woods, staying close even though her heart beat fast, because—because—

"So what oozed out of the skunk?" a voice murmuring in her ear. "Other than cheese and stale game, a'course."

That voice …

Ben!

But—Julien was right here—and he looked worried—and Rowan couldn't let him worry, that would be—would be—

"I think," Julien said, "you need a bit more. Here—"

"The point still stands—just because Mister 'I'm so French I piss Chardonnay and crap out Jerry Lewis movies' is creeping on you like Michael Myers does his sister—only with hopefully less butcher knives—doesn't mean that he's the only guy who has any interest in you. Don't sell yourself short."

"Actually, I think you look a lot like Taylor Swift—if shorter—and nobody'd say she wasn't pretty."

"I'll see you after you get back. Don't fall for any handsome Muggle doctors or anything if you do go back to London."

"No!"

Rowan didn't know how she got the idea—or the wherewithal—but her hand shot out and batted the mug from Julien's—Mr. Bellerose's—hand.

The mug shattered when it hit the floor, spilling a mother-of-pearl liquid that pooled on the floorboards.

For a moment both Rowan and Mr. Bellerose stared at the liquid.

He turned back to Rowan. And Rowan knew—not felt, her brain was still too muzzy for feeling—but by the way her heart pounded and her stomach clenched, she knew she was afraid.

"Is that how it is?" he asked. "Well. We will have to find another way of … persuading you, Mademoiselle O'Blake."

His hand came up and tangled—painfully—in her hair.

"And this way—you may not like so much."


The ruins Leo approached that night were not the ruins he had been coming out to for months. They were alive – dangerous – there was definitely something, something that felt like a thunderstorm boiling up. He guessed he was seeing the gates as they were once upon a time, even if the planks of wood were replaced with ghostly energy flickering with electricity.

"These are the ruins?" Dr. O'Blake asked, sounding horrified.

"They—weren't like this," Zanetti reassured him. He didn't look very reassured. But if anything could ever sit up and scream "The kids are here—and in trouble!" – it was this, right here.

"So did our Dark wizard turn them on—or did one of the kids?" Leo asked Ms. O'Blake.

"I don't know that a Dark wizard could have turned them on—so many of the Gorlois protections are tied to blood. I'd guess it was Vivianne, though I don't know that she'd have known how. That doesn't seem like the sort of thing my mother would have schooled her in." Ms. O'Blake looked at the book – which seemed to be a lot less helpful than it had been for the little first-year, Miri – as if trying to figure out how to parse a question to it.

"I swear this thing liked Miri better," the Auror muttered at the seemingly unhelpful book.

"It's a book; can it like someone?" Dr. O'Blake asked, his blonde brow shooting skyward.

"Would you—no, I can't give you the long answer—the short answer? With this book? Yes, yes, it can." Ms. O'Blake smiled ruefully.

"I don't suppose—as you're blood—that you can turn them off?" Longbottom choked up his grip on his wand with one hand and held a cord around his neck in the other. Leo had no idea what was on the cord – he didn't think anyone knew what was on it, but it was something given to Longbottom by his wife. "For luck," is all he'd ever say about it. "Hannah gave it to me for luck."

"Someone disowned turning off something the matriarch herself turned on? At more than one point in our history, Neville, disowned Gorloises were precisely what the matriarch needed to protect herself from," Ms. O'Blake scoffed.

"I was afraid of something like that," Longbottom sighed.

"It's not easy being what we—what Gorloises are. Like them or not, they've done much to be admired." Ms. O'Blake looked down at the book in her hands.

"So how do we get past them?" Zanetti asked, chaffing her wrists for warmth.

"There's a hole in the wall—right by that secret passage," Leo offered.

Ms. O'Blake considered it. "As I don't know that Vivianne actively turned them on—she might not have gotten everything—let's see about that hole."

Leo led the way, crunching through the snow. The hole in the wall showed no signs of the energy that the gates had shown, but there seemed to be a darker shadow within the shadows that set the hair on the back of Leo's neck on end.

Leo threw up a hand right before the shadow climbed out of its former hiding place. Light from the lanterns Dr. O'Blake and Hagrid carried hit the stripe-like plates of the creature.

Clawspawn: that was what the book had called it. The fact that it was a construct told him why he'd never heard of it. Having read what went into creating it? It wasn't right.

Reaching the heart – the only way to kill it – wasn't going to be easy.

It lunged, and Leo cracked it over the head with his cane.

The Clawspawn stopped just for a moment, shaking its head, little globules of mud spraying the otherwise pristine snow, before raising its fiery eyes to glare directly into Leo's. When it moved again – quicker than anything that would have had to depend on blood and bone for propelling it, Leo thought – it had dashed back into the hole it had climbed out of.

"Well, shit," Leo said out loud to no one in particular.

"My kid is in there; no oversized cat is going to stop me from going after her." Ms. O'Blake's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"And I'm not suggesting that we sit out here with our thumbs up our arses, Ms. O'Blake, but you'll do your daughter very little good if you're out here being patched up by him," he gestured toward Dr. O'Blake, "when she needs you in there." He looked up at the ruins, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"What is it, Leo?"

"There's a light in that tower." He pointed up.

"And that's significant?" Dr. O'Blake asked.

"What I wouldn't give for my old Nimbus 1500 right now," Ms. O'Blake sighed. "I could go straight in the window. My current broom doesn't have that kind of maneuverability, more's the pity."

"Don't they teach you to look before you shoot in Auror training, Ms. O'Blake?" Leo asked sardonically.

"Do they teach you that sneer in crotchety old man training, Professor Lipskit?" Ms. O'Blake snapped back.

"Sure do." Leo smirked. Ms. O'Blake started to retort. "Ms. O'Blake, enough."

"Elaine—do you want to help Rowan, or do you want to get into a pissing match with Leo? He'll win, by the way," Longbottom told her.

"I might win."

"No, you won't." Both Hagrid and Longbottom said it together, and that seemed to convince her.

"All right, Professor. I assume you have a plan?"

"As it happens, yes, Ms. O'Blake, I do have one."

It was a very simple plan, but the less moving parts something had, Leo's father had often reminded him, the less chance of failure. It came down to bait and a crossbow.

"You're seriously suggesting that we send the old man with the cane to run from a dark magic construct?" Ms. O'Blake asked incredulously.

"I hope you know I am far nimbler than you might guess. I have two ex-wives, Ms. O'Blake." Leo smiled faintly. Ms. O'Blake finally chuckled as the rest of their rescue party retreated to their respective places.

"All right, old man – let's see what you have," Ms. O'Blake said, approaching the hole in the wall.

Almost immediately, the lantern caught the fiery orbs of the Clawspawn's eyes; it lunged and Leo harried it with an Incendio. When it turned on Leo, Ms. O'Blake hit its flank with another burst of fire.

When they'd drawn it far enough from the hole in the wall and into the clearing, Ms. O'Blake tossed the lantern, dousing the flames and plunging them into darkness, lit only by the glow of the Clawspawn's eyes – and the heart-gem buried in the shifting mud of its chest.

A moment later, something thunked deep into that chest.

Flame exploded out of the tiger's form, along with a soul-chilling shriek of torment Leo'd probably be hearing for years.

"The hell was that?" Ms. O'Blake asked from where she'd dived into the snow from the explosion.

"It—um—I think that might have been—" Longbottom rubbed the back of his neck. "It might have been a Horcrux."

"It …" Ms. O'Blake trailed off.

"I'd take the word of someone who destroyed one," Leo commented from his own place in the snow.

"Well, I guess the son of a bitch did like to kill people and do shit with their lives, why not a Horcrux?" Ms. O'Blake shrugged before collapsing back into the snow for a moment.

"What … is a Horcrux?" Dr. O'Blake asked finally.

"Trust me when I say you don't wish to know." Zanetti patted his shoulder.