The afternoon of the disastrous Legilimency class was meant to be Wandlore and Herbology again but the teachers had turned the classes over to wandwood harvesting to resupply the recently burnt stock. Erebus had dutifully spent several hours trudging around the wood, bundling up sticks while many of the other students skipped the session. After an exhausting few days, physically and emotionally, he had an early night.
Erebus's forth day at Durmstang was a Saturday, as he had joined the school mid-week. Saturday mornings were given over to the physical aspects of Duelling. The Uncallow Hall was stocked with gymnasium equipment, and students of all divisions took part in a series of gruelling exercises. Professor Kjerring cackled as she commanded students to run, jump, lift, climb and squat for what felt to Erebus like an eternity but was in truth only a few hours of the morning.
He was soon sat recovering in the Tin common room, eating a cabbage leaves stuffed with some kind of potato dish that he still couldn't pronounce even with the translation spell. Tables had been laid out along one wall and he was sat next to Cassiopeia, who was studying her perpetually revised copy of Nature's Nobility.
She had unfurled a rather cumbersome foldout family tree that now took over half the dinner table. It was an accounting of the Tripe family, going back twenty generations. There were numerous intermarriages with the Flint family, but the one Erebus was drawn to was right at the bottom: Puce Tripe (deceased) and Unknown Mother, with their only offspring, Magenta Tripe, who married Marcus Flint, with Erebus the only child. All the other lines were also dead. It was clear Magenta was the last Tripe.
"There are rather an awful lot of unknowns on your mother's side," said Cassiopeia. "One wonders if you truly are pure-blood after all!"
Erebus stared into his lunch. "I don't think my family would have approved the match if she wasn't," he grumbled. "Not that it actually matters."
"Well of course it matters! If we don't control the bloodlines, we cannot uphold Wizarding Secrecy. Not in the long run. Every intermixing with Muggles is just another loose variable. We pure-bloods are the only ones holding the line."
Erebus resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He'd heard all these talking points a thousand times before from his own father, and the other men he drank with who were on the losing side of the last Wizarding War.
Cassiopeia continued, "Unknowns aside, the really rather curious thing is that your mother appears to be 101 years old."
"Lots of witches live longer than that," Erebus said. He knew that the current Headmistress of Hogwarts had been born some time in the 1800s.
"Yes but I can't think of any that would be able to give birth in their mid-80s," Cassiopeia insisted. "Magical vitality doesn't extend the period of youth, just the period of senescence. Ask the Little Tutor if you don't believe me."
Erebus thought 'senescence' was the name of a Muggle music band, but he wasn't going to ask Cassiopeia to clarify. He was beginning to look about for a way to exit the conversation gracefully, but he hadn't got the excuse of having another class to get to.
As their conversation was carrying on in English, he was pretty sure that the other students around the lunch table probably weren't following, though they couldn't help but notice the huge family tree covering the salad bowl and bread rolls.
Cassiopeia continued on, "There is something fishy about this, Mr Flint, and I intend to find out! There's almost sixty years between your parents… don't you think that's a bit strange?"
"Why do you even care how old my mum is?" Erebus asked, exasperated. "What are you getting out of this?"
"I think there's a whiff of scandal here." Cassiopeia said, folding up the paper back into the genealogy book. "It would be a terrible shame if you were secretly a half-blood. I can't take our association further if you're not pure for at least two generations."
"Well don't then!" Erebus snapped, standing up sharply and walking out of the common room. He immediately regretted being short with her, after all, she was the only person from back in England he knew here. Still, he thought, perhaps it was best to be free of the bigot.
As Erebus hadn't anywhere he needed to be, and he didn't want to return to the common room for some time, he decided he'd try to find the library. He needed to read up on the correspondence of planets with precious metals for both astronomy and alchemy and he figured the library was the place to be.
The library was a huge, multi-storey (and, indeed, multi-story) complex filled with books, scrolls, parchments, and even vials of memories for viewing though a Pensieve. In one damp sub-basement, there were stone pillars carved with glowing runes that apparently predated the written word. Erebus wasn't entirely sure how one was meant to check out an obelisk from the library, and was pleased to find his book of alchemical correspondences was much more portable. Hogwarts' own library had its own forbidden books section, and Erebus was not surprised to discover that no books were forbidden to any students, although some books had to be chained down to prevent them wandering off on their own accord.
At last he found a book on correspondences, Norfolk Babbage's Hermetic Conjoinings & Heirophantic Divergences, a huge tome bound in red leather, smelling an unpleasant mix of sulphur and rosewater. As he slid it from the shelf, the unwieldly book tumbled out of his grasp and he scrambled to grab it before it hit the floor.
"You'll want to be careful with that," hissed a voice from behind him. It was a boy of 17 years old, wearing Mercury colours on his robes. He was pushing a trolley stacked with books, but otherwise looked the part of the imposing and muscular Durmstranger that Erebus had expected from hearing his father's recollections of the 'obviously rigged' Triwizard Tournament. "I lost an early edition of Bertrand de Pensées-Profondes's study into death reversal last year and now I have to work here full time until its paid off."
"Thanks," whispered Erebus. "I'm usually pretty good with books."
"You're the new boy aren't you? From Hogwarts?" the librarian assistant asked.
"That's right, it's Erebus Flint."
"It's Count Frederick von Rantzau," said the boy, with a deliberate nonchalant air. "But unless you're a peasant, you can call me Rick."
"Pleased to meet you Rick," said Erebus, who tended to be more polite than his upbringing in a troll yard would suggest. "Do you still have to do challenges if you're working here?"
"Oh yes! Let's just say I don't think I'm going up this term. Hopefully won't go down though." A dark shape swooped overhead and Rick immediately lowered his voice. "I should get back to it. Good luck out there, maybe see you in Mercury next term!"
Having got what he came for, and after exploring the stacks idly for an hour or so, Erebus spied Ditte studying at a table in the divination section. The light from the tall windows lit up her pale blonde hair. Erebus took a deep breath and approached her. The first word she said to him since their parting at the Legilimency class was "go", followed shortly by "away".
"I'm not scheming against you or anything," Erebus whispered loudly. "I mean… I can explain."
"Then explain," Ditte said, a bit too loudly for Erebus, who expected a librarian to swoop in on them at the slighted of sounds. "Why make a blood pact almost immediately on arrival?"
"I mean, well, we had to, freeing the erklings was dangerous and um…" he faltered. He was unable to explain why he had to protect Zornitsa's secrets or that they both had secrets to keep.
"And um?" Ditte prompted.
"Look, it's complicated, but it doesn't affect you," Erebus said.
"Of course it does," Ditte said. "There are only going to be two Tin promoted this term. If you've allied with that girl, then you're not allying with me. I thought we had an understanding, but obviously I was mistaken!"
With that Ditte slammed her books shut and strode off. Erebus sat at her table, the hard wooden chair still warm, and he considered his next move. Ditte clearly thought he wanted to rise through the divisions without her, but other than a vague sense of wanting to prove himself, he didn't think that he needed to go up. That is, until he started to consider the matter some more…
If he did rise to the Mercury division with Zornitsa, he could leave behind having to sleep in the same room as Aladár Dankó who clearly resented him; he could leave behind Cassiopeia Rosier who intent on snooping into his unusual family; and he could leave behind the ruin of the friendship he had hoped to build with Ditte Blodmane. The more he thought about, the more appealing it seemed…
And so when he left the library he did so with the intention of finding Zornitsa. He strode purposefully down one of the stone corridors of the castle, not exactly knowing where he was going, but at least sure of why he was going. As he came to a corner he saw something blur in the peripheral vision. He turned and there was nothing there but when he stepped around the corner, there Zornitsa stood before him.
"We should talk," he said.
"I know a place," she said, leading the way. The pair of them hurried back to the Tin tower. At the top of the stairs, instead of heading into the common room, Zornitsa pushed open the wooden shutters of a thin window. On the ledge outside, a rope ladder dangled.
Erebus peered out of the window. It was a very long way down onto a hard parapet below. He could already feel his palms begin to sweat.
"I… uh… up there?" he fumbled with his words.
Zornitsa pushed past him and pointed her wand at the ladder. "Glutino!" she cried, charming the ladder with a gloopy green spell. Without further ado, she grabbed the end of the ladder and clambered up with ease.
Not wishing to be shown up by the small girl, Erebus put one tentative hand on the ladder. He felt the rope adhere perfectly to his hand. So long as he wished to stick to it, stuck he would be. With that sense of assurance, he clambered steadily up the ladder, determinedly not looking down.
The roof was mostly conical and tiled, interspersed with skylights. However, on one end where the ladder dangled down, was a large makeshift platform covered in circular bands of metal inscribed with runes. The waxy remains of dozens of red candles littered the flat space and in the centre of it all was Himmel Drom's Void Egg.
The great castle spread out below them. The other six towers flew flags each showing their respective division symbols. Beyond the forest bristled with firs, the mountains rose up on all sides and far below the vast lake of the caldera gleamed in the sunlight.
As soon they were settled in the lee of the Void Egg, Zornitsa said, "So what are you?"
Erebus took a deep breath. He had never told anyone this before. It had taken a blood pact, but now finally there was someone he could open up to about his family's darkest secret.
"My grandmother is a troll. That makes me part-troll." There. He said it. A weight started to lift from him. "Every few generations the Flint family intermixes with a troll so they listen to our commands. Our family business is raising them, for security, mostly." Erebus shuddered. "I hate it."
"But you're…"
"Short?" he said.
"…not stupid," she said. "And you don't stink like a troll either."
Erebus gazed off at the forest below. "Well that's one thing going for me. I think the erklings could smell it. And I'm not strong like a troll either, in case you're wondering."
"I honestly thought you were half-goblin!" Zornitsa laughed. "You're not tall and that goblin painting likes you!"
"I wish!" said Erebus. "No it's just troll. The only thing it's given me is the ability to talk to them. And let me tell you, trolls are not very good conversationalists."
Zornitsa smiled. "I'm pleased in a way, that it's not something… civilised. Can you guess what I am?"
Erebus considered it. She was always appearing out of nowhere, she was much stronger than she looked, her eyes had a faint glow to them… "A part-vampire? Like Lorcan d'Eath?"
"No, no, it's nothing so exciting. Let me tell you about the Old Country. It's a good story, lots of blood, death and betrayal."
The ladder back down was starting to flap in the wind that was buffeting the platform. Erebus wasn't in any hurry to go back down.
"Tell me the whole story," he said.