December 1069

Come morning, it looked like most of the people in the main hall had written off the bear, the darkness, and the screams as the product of one giant alcoholic bender. The only ones that were aware that hadn't happened and that a giant demon-bear had actually attacked were us, that is the wizards and witches and vampires, and separately from us, Robert and his brother.

Shortly after I'd woken up, and before I could have breakfast, Helga had dragged me, Salazar, and Rowena into a side room, locked the door, warded the room, and sat us all down for an explanation as to what the hell had happened last night.

Being voiceless, I had to borrow parchment and quill from Rowena.

"Now, again, Salazar, what did you do?" Helga insisted.

"I handled Ursiel," he replied. "His host is dead and his coin is secure."

"But how did you do that?" she pressed.

I scratched something out on parchment and then passed it to Rowena to read. She glanced at it, blinked, then read it over two more times before clearing her throat.

"My guess is he had his basilisk eat Ursiel," Rowena quoted. "Though I want to know where the coin is."

Helga and Salazar both turned to look at me, the former in bewilderment, the latter in surprise and annoyance.

"Why do you think I have a basilisk?" Salazar asked.

I scratched out another chicken scratch response and passed it to Rowena.

"Oh, please, that's twice now you've gotten everyone to break eye contact before doing something basilisk-y. Freezing the draugr and killing Ursiel, then getting rid of its corpse," Rowena quoted. "Though something doesn't add up to me. How did your basilisk freeze the draugr, yet eat Ursiel? Shouldn't it have eaten both, or frozen both?"

Salazar sighed, rubbed his temple, and glared at me. "How do you think I could have used a basilisk against the draugr?"

Another response, this time accompanied by a snort from Rowena before she quoted me. "I just assumed you pulled it out of your robe and thrust it towards the draugr like a tiny noodly wand."

Helga's eyes bulged and she let out a half-choked giggle, while Salazar's glare just intensified.

I scratched out another response. "Okay, so not that. But I'm right about Ursiel. And I still want to know about the coin, and how you know about the Denarians."

Salazar continued glaring at me for a good ten, twelve seconds before he finally sighed and looked away. "Sixty years ago, give or take a year or so, I was caught up in a Denarian plot and encountered one of the Knights of the Cross. The resulting… mess prompted me to look into both groups, and learn of the White Council's history with them."

Some more scratching. "Which is?"

"Centuries ago, there was a prolonged series of conflicts, not quite a war, between the Order and the Council. Neither side truly won, and the Order has, I think, since preferred to avoid drawing the full attention of the Council," Salazar replied. "Individually, Denarians are dangerous. Collectively, they are a force to be reckoned with. But in terms of numbers, experience, and ultimate collective power, it seems the Council can beat them, if that power can be brought to bear."

I nodded, and wrote another response. "The basilisk, question mark question mark question mark?" Rowena quoted.

Salazar let out a deep, aggrieved sigh. "Fine. Yes, I have a full-grown basilisk. I brought him with me when I heard about Ursiel. He killed and ate the demon. I pulled the coin out of his stomach last night and it's currently sitting in a triply-layered warded box for delivery to the Vatican as soon as I can manage it. I did not touch, bond with, or otherwise contact Ursiel. Are you satisfied?"

I nodded. Helga, though, didn't seem satisfied by that response.

"You have a basilisk," she said slowly. "A full-grown basilisk. And this is the first I'm hearing of it." She took a deep breath. "Why?!"

"Because of precisely this response," Salazar replied. "And it really wasn't any of your business."

"You have one of the most dangerous, venomous, and hard to control magical beasts in the entire world as a pet!" Helga cried.

"As a familiar," Salazar corrected.

Helga just stopped and stared at him.

"And I do not employ him lightly," Salazar continued. "In fact, yesterday was the first time I have truly used him. Before then, I have only ever used him to travel through the Nevernever. You'd be surprised at how much safer it is to navigate Faerie atop a basilisk."

Helga let out this choked, half-formed cry.

Rowena took my latest note. "So how did you pin the draugr?"

Salazar sighed and gave me a withering look. "I have been experimenting with shapeshifting to assume some of the characteristics of a basilisk. Like its gaze. So far, I haven't progressed past a degree of petrification."

"Okay, okay, just stop!" Helga yelled. "Harry here apparently knows how to convincingly fake being a damned Fallen and you have a basilisk for a familiar." She turned to look at Rowena, wide-eyed. "Do you have some deep dark secret I'm not aware of?"

Rowena blinked. "No."

Salazar, meanwhile, had fixed me with a very firm stare. "What was that about a Fallen?" he asked calmly.

I sighed, and wrote out my next response as carefully as possible. "I have personal knowledge of the Order and the Knights of the Cross, and had both a Knight of the Cross and a former Denarian explain a number of things to me in great detail." She frowned. "I don't think I'm supposed to say this next part."

I nodded, pulled off my left glove, and slid my hand in front of Salazar.

"Oh, that makes sense. Ahem. 'You can confirm I'm not a Denarian if you want'," Rowena continued.

Salazar glanced at my hand only briefly before looking back at me. His eyes took on an… indescribable not-hue, and I assumed he was looking at me with the Sight. He stared at me like that for a little while, before closing his eyes and sighing.

"You are not," he allowed.

I put my glove back on.

At the same time, Helga sighed, put her face in her hands, and took a number of slow, deep breaths. "I… ugh." She sighed again, slid her hands off her face, and looked at me. "Harry, I know you said you were lying, but… what you said to Ursiel, about the king, about the earl, about Hogwarts… it didn't sound like a lie. It sounded terrifying."

"What did he say?" Salazar asked.

"How he could use his position as an advisor close to King William to convince him to allow for the founding of Hogwarts, from where a hypothetical Denarian could greatly influence the development and education of English practitioners," Rowena summarized.

Salazar furrowed his brow and looked at Helga. "What about that is concerning?"

"It made it sound like we're… going to be telling people how to think, making our own personal cult," she replied.

Salazar frowned. "And you… haven't considered this?"

Helga blinked, and Salazar sighed. "I sometimes forget how young you are. Helga, your plan, as you proposed it, is to take in everyone with magical potential, bring them together in one central location, and educate and guide them about magic. By its very nature, the school will be a place where we propagate our ideals and beliefs. The Senior Council probably sees the project as having the potential of forming a rival organization to the White Council. Have you truly not realized this, not tried to address this in negotiations?"

Helga didn't have a response to that.

I wrote some more and passed it to Rowena. "People don't see intentions. They often just see the worst case scenario."

Helga let out a long, despairing sigh and set her head down against the table. "That's… that's just…" She took a deep breath and looked at all of us. "Is it just inevitable that wizards go insane with age? See monsters in every shadow?"

"It's a valuable survival trait," Salazar replied.

I frowned at Helga's question, and penned a response. "How old do you think I am?" Rowena asked for me.

Helga blinked and looked at me. "Uhm. A hundred years old, give or take ten in either direction?"

That made me blink and quickly count out the years in my head. In turn, my written response made Rowena blink and stare at me. "Really?" she asked.

I nodded.

"What?" Helga asked.

"He's thirty-nine," she said.

Everyone in the room turned to look at me. I made a "what?" expression back at them.

I scratched out a quick question and passed it over to Rowena. "How old are all of you?" she asked for me, before looking my way. "Eighty or ninety… something, I stopped counting decades ago."

"A hundred and thirty-two," Salazar replied.

"Thirty-three," Helga said, looking at me. "Thirty-nine? Really?"

I nodded.

"But… you… what? How?"

I scratched out some more. "I've had a very crazy life," Rowena quoted.

Helga sighed, then started looking back and forth between me and Salazar. Then her eyes narrowed. "You're not related, are you?"

"No," Salazar said instantly, and I would have too if my voice had still worked.

"But you look– "

"Pure. Coincidence," Salazar ground out.

"And you're both equally crazy," she added.

We both shook our heads vehemently.

"I can see it," Rowena said idly.

I gave her a look of betrayal.

"Moving the subject back to more practical topics," Rowena said. "I'm interested about something Ursiel said after it started trying to kill you."

I'd been hoping Helga and Rowena would've forgotten about that, honestly.

"Tainting the fires of creation with your mortal soul?" she asked, turning to look at me.

I let out a long sigh, and got out a new scrap of parchment, the old one being completely full now. It took me a minute to figure out what to say, longer to put it down.

"Hmm. Hmm. That's… hmm," Rowena hummed idly, reading over my response. "Ursiel was being annoyed and possessive and envious. Fallen Angels, as a product of their Fall, can wield Hellfire, the fires of destruction, and can grant Hellfire to mortal practitioners to use. Angels, conversely, use soulfire, the fires of creation. And no, I am not an angel. Nor did I kill one for soulfire, like Ursiel thought. I don't even know how someone could even begin to try that. One just gave me soulfire."

Helga was already sat across from me, so she just continued to stare at me. Salazar, meanwhile, slowly turned his head to look at me.

"You had an angel… give you angel-stuff," Helga summarized.

I shrugged.

Helga started sputtering.

Salazar asked the pertinent questions. "How? Why?"

My response was brief. "The circumstances behind that are very personal, and not ones I am willing to share," Rowena quoted.

Helga was still sputtering. Her cycling between "I-", "ju-", "wha-" and so on was pretty amusing to watch.

I took the parchment back, wrote some more, and passed it back to Rowena. She read it over and looked at Salazar. "Can you look after Helga and then handle things with the king, if you haven't already?"

He sighed and glanced at me. "Fine," he said a moment later. "Where are you going?"

"To help Harry sort out how he's getting home. I think."

I nodded, and carefully wrote out a set of instructions regarding who to find – Robert – what to say to him – that I wanted two horses and supplies for the road – and what not to say to him – anything at all about Lucille.

As Helga continued to splutter, Rowena helped me out, took down Helga's wards, and led me out of the room. We got about two dozen feet down a hallway before Rowena blindsided me with a quiet question in Latin.

"You used to be a Denarian, didn't you?"

A dozen different responses flashed through my mind, all of them completely pointless since I couldn't speak. Not that it would've helped, as a second later Rowena stopped and turned her head to look up at me fully.

"I'll take that as a yes," she said.

I gave her a look of confusion. I'd barely had time to process the question, let alone physically react to it.

"I developed some emotional empathy… oh, some time ago, I don't remember when exactly," she said, shaking her head. "Dealing with people before that was always so… difficult." She took a deep breath. "Just now you showed shock, surprise, and disbelief. Not confusion or bewilderment, as I might expect if the question did not land."

I shifted to look at Rowena directly, wincing as my ribs complained in the process.

"I'm not reading your mind," she said quietly. "You're just not hiding your emotions."

I sighed. Then I brought up my hand and waggled it in a maybe.

Rowena glanced at it and frowned thoughtfully. "Somewhat? Maybe? Not really?"

I nodded.

"How does that work?" she asked curiously.

I pointed at my throat, and she nodded. "Yes, right, you can't really explain things right now." She tapped her foot against the floor a few times. "You're not one anymore though."

I shook my head.

"There's no angel in your head, Fallen or otherwise."

I shook my head again.

"Damn," Rowena said. "There goes that theory."

I gave her a long look. I don't know whether she thought I had somehow redeemed a Fallen or one of them had turned back to the light or something or something else entirely.

"But that's how you know so much about the Denarians."

I wobbled my hand again.

She looked at me, then nodded. "Angelic knowledge. That was you speaking from personal experience, wasn't it?"

I nodded slowly, having some inkling where this was going.

"Alright. I'll keep your secret, so long as it doesn't endanger us; it's obviously personal and unpleasant. But in return," she got up on her toes and looked at me, eyes blazing, "I want to know everything."

I leaned back from her and slowly nodded.

"Good," she said, settling back down and turning me around. "Now where's this earl of yours?"

It took her five minutes of walking and asking random guards and servants for directions to find Robert. We found him talking with a group of nicely dressed armed men that looked to be his guards or people, judging by how Tim was there. It took Robert a few seconds to spot us, but then Robert excused himself and made his way over to us.

It occurred to me then that Rowena might now know French.

"Harry, thank you. How are you?" Robert asked, his eyes flitting past Rowena as if she was beneath notice. I might've been offended, if I couldn't tell that Rowena was doing that deliberately.

Maybe I should learn that trick, become the stealth wizard ninja. Stealth ninja wizard? Whatever arrangement sounded better.

Cranky Middleaged Ninja Wizard. There.

Back in the moment, Rowena gave me a look that clearly said, "I don't know French."

I gestured to my throat with my free hand and then gestured at Rowena.

"Harry injured his voice last night," Rowena said. "I'm speaking for him right now."

I nodded.

"Ah," Robert said in slower English, giving Rowena another quick look. "Sorry. Now is… not the best time to talk, yes?"

I nodded again.

"When he can speak again, maybe," Rowena replied, figuring out that Robert didn't have the best grasp of English. "He wants your help returning to Berkhamsted."

"Mmm. I must stay with the king, but I can send a few men with you," he replied.

I shook my head, and Rowena said, "Thank you, but that won't be necessary. He just needs two horses and some supplies for the journey."

"Horses and supplies," Robert repeated slowly. "Are you leaving today?"

Rowena glanced at me for a response, and I shrugged. Today or tomorrow didn't really matter to me, and it wasn't like I had anyone to really celebrate Christmas with here in town.

"Then tomorrow morn. I will have things ready," Robert said.

I nodded my thanks to him, waited to see if he would say anything more, and then directed Rowena to take us away. Once we made some distance and were back alone in a hallway again, Rowena turned to look at me.

"Will you be fine, traveling alone with a vampire? One with ties to your earl?"

I nodded.

Rowena sighed. "I hope you know what you're doing."

So did I.

"I suppose you would like to go to your vampire now?" Rowena said in an odd tone.

I eadriced in her general direction.

"She does seem to be used to manhandling you," Rowena went on.

I eadriced harder, and very, very strongly pictured an image of Helga in my head and tried to push it in Rowena's direction. A few seconds later, she sighed.

"I told you I don't read minds," she said.

I arched an eyebrow.

"But yes, Helga suggested those lines. I don't know why," Rowena said with a sigh.

I nudged her lightly, and she got the hint and started walking. We made it out into the courtyard before Rowena stopped and looked at me. "Ah, I almost forgot," she said with rising enthusiasm.

My hackles rose in fearful suspense.

"Name alliteration. I've been thinking of possibilities for months," she said as we started walking again, her grip on my arm tightening.

Oh God please no.

"Now, my first suggestion is very much an unconventional one, but if you married Helga and took her chosen surname–"

No. Stop.

Author's Note: Rowena really wants her alliteration.