Chapter Four
She was dreaming. For the first time in nearly a month and a half, her sleeping mind hadn't brought forth the image of—who she now knew to be—Salazar Slytherin, moving about in the darkness before coming to look over her. Yet, unlike those times, now she was perfectly aware she was dreaming, perfectly able to consider that this was the first time in all those long days since the War that her mind was conjuring something new.
It was that very same awareness that allowed her to realize . . . . The way he looked at her in those dreams—or memories, if Thorfinn Rowle's take on things was to be believed—she'd thought of in a particular way, hadn't she? Yes. She'd thought he was looking at her with a familiar, fatherly, affection.
Oh, dear God.
Her skin iced over and her stomach roiled, only not with that horrid queasiness she'd experienced while she'd still been conscious. More of an unpleasant coil of apprehension, like when she just knew she was about to be in trouble over something and was waiting on tenterhooks for the consequences.
She sat down, only belatedly realizing the stone floor was cold and damp. It was, however, only a dream, so she supposed it didn't much matter if her bum got a bit wet. Turning her attention to her surroundings, she realized she knew exactly where she was. The mossy stone with the fanciful and intimidating carvings, the blue-green light that seemed to illuminate the otherwise dull cavern, the gentle sound of water rushing in the distance, and lapping around her as it pooled here and there across the pitted floor.
The Chamber of Secrets.
In the distance, she spied a girl. Not more than 7 years old, perhaps? Maybe a small for her age 8-year-old? Clad in those robes that so resembled some medieval princess' gown, and—in medieval princess fashion, as well—her . . . her wild, tumbling locks of golden-brown were held back, out of her face, by an intricate network of tiny braids atop her head. She could picture some poor, put upon handmaid spending hours just to manage that gargantuan task.
Or a house-elf managing it with a snap of her long, spindly fingers.
Hermione gave herself a shake, disliking how easily that second imagining had come to her. It suited, she thought, given that this was clearly a child of the Wizarding world, and in that time period, house-elves were likely even more common place than they were now.
She tried to avoid noting the familiarity of the girl's face. Of the large, chestnut-colored eyes, and hair that seemed to nearly have a life of its own, even artfully restrained as it currently was.
Tried to avoid that she'd seen that same face staring back at her from within the pages of her family photo albums, from vacations and events in her own childhood. Maybe just . . . the chill in her skin deepened, though she couldn't seem to move even to fold her arms around herself for some measure of warmth. Maybe just in the childhood she could recall.
The child appeared to be waiting for something. She stood on her toes, peering down one of the massive stone passageways.
In that odd way of dreams, Hermione realized she wasn't simply observing the girl. She was seeing through her eyes. Feeling with her skin. Somehow observing the dream while also being the center of it.
A bit like . . . like watching a memory in a pensieve, she realized with another twist of apprehension in her gut.
"There you are," a man's voice broke the silence of the Chamber and the girl spun in place.
"I have to say goodbye!" There was a defiance in the little girl's words that almost made Hermione laugh . . . or would have, if not that she knew the sound of her own voice, the sound of her own defiant tone, when she heard it.
"I would expect nothing less," he said, finally stepping into view. Salazar Slytherin.
There was a rumbling then, a deep dragging sound that poured through the cavern. Both Salazar and the child glanced toward the noise before averting their gazes.
Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin—though she felt foolish for that, after all, this was the Chamber of Secrets, the bloody thing lived here—when the Basilisk exploded out into the main body of the Chamber. Even more foolish, for a moment she thought to avert her gaze as well. Dream or memory, the creature's gaze couldn't do a bloody thing to her here.
Steeling her nerves, she kept her attention on the scene. The massive snake came to a halt before the pair and settled its chin on the ground beside the girl.
Hermione's heart was in her throat as the child lifted a hand, petting the beast in gentle strokes. After a moment, she moved closer, bracing her arms against it in as much of a hug as her small form could manage. The Basilisk, much to Hermione's disbelief, actually closed its eyes at the little girl's gesture.
"You promise?" she asked, turning her head to look at Salazar. "He will be here when I wake?"
Salazar knelt down before her, those green eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled. "I do. I will be putting him into slumber, too." There was a tone in his voice then, a catch in his throat as he continued, "You will not wake alone, I promise. You will have your pet, and you will have your betrothed."
Her little face scrunched up in disgust. "What need have I of that awful boy? I do not even like him."
Shaking his head, Salazar answered, "I hope that when you wake, you will have the luxury of time that you might someday think differently."
Frowning, she returned her attention to her pet—Hermione thought for certain her mind just might break—and rested her forehead against the creature's scaly cheek. "I will miss you."
Hermione realized with a shock as the Basilisk pushed sideways, rubbing itself against the girl's outstretched form, exactly as a cat or a dog might do when returning affection, that the girl hadn't just spoken English. That was Parseltongue!
That was Parseltongue and there was no way she should be able to understand what that impossible, younger version of herself had just said! She remembered the swell of sickness in the pit of her stomach when she'd heard Harry speak it, the same swell that had passed through her when Ron had repeated Harry's nocturnal mumblings to access the Chamber during the Battle of Hogwarts.
The same swell, though not nearly so severe, as had been rocking through her since Thorfinn Rowle had brought her to Malfoy Manor.
Slipping his hand around the little girl's wrist, Salazar gently pried her from her pet's side. With his free hand, he held out his wand—the very same wand Hermione had clutched so desperately a short time ago—and muttered something under his breath. The weapon moved in a wide circle, and then he made a series of intricate maneuvers, as though drawing something in the air, before moving into the more common wand movements she knew.
In front of her eyes, the Basilisk grew sleepy. Curling itself up, just as one might imagine a snake of perfectly normal size would do when laying down to rest, the creature closed its eyes, its breathing evening out into short, shallow huffs.
After yet another moment, the creature stilled and a bronze sheen crept over its scales, until the metallic hue consumed it entirely.
A shuddering gasp escaped Hermione at the sight. She'd never witnessed anything like it. If she didn't know for a fact that the creature had survived sleeping a thousand years, that it had awakened during Tom Riddle's years at Hogwarts, she'd have thought it dead, certainly. It looked every bit a perfect bronze statue.
The little girl shook a bit as she stood there, her visibly watery gaze on her pet.
Turning her head to look at him, Salazar reached around her neck. God, Hermione'd been so stupid. Only then, as he unclasped the chain and removed it did she notice the necklace the girl had been wearing the entire time. Salazar Slytherin's locket. It hadn't been his, it had belonged to that child. She'd already known the reason it had been such a burden for them when they'd been Horcrux hunting was because of the vile bit of Voldemort's soul that had been crammed inside it, but she never considered that before his abuse of the item, it had only been a simple piece of heirloom jewelry.
Now that she thought on it, during the Horcrux Hunt, she'd been the one least affected by the locket's influence, hadn't she? Harry and Ron had each gotten angry, and dark, and surly when they'd had their turns wearing it, yet she hadn't really felt anything quite so much—as though she had some immunity to it. Why had it never occurred to her to question that before?
There he went sounding a bit sad again as he slipped the chain around his own neck and secured the clasp. "I know you love this locket, but that is why I need it. I am afraid. I am afraid that if I do not have something of yours to keep with me, I will not be able to go through with this."
"I understand." Sniffling, the little girl came very close to letting the mature and poised veneer she had been playing at come crumbling down as she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. "I am afraid, too."
"You, my brave girl, will be fine. I have seen to it. Now we must go." He wrapped his arms around the child, lifting her easily onto his hip as he turned and started toward the Chamber's exit. "The Jarl and his son await us."
"The Jarl's son," she said with a sneer, her voice echoing back through the cavern to Hermione as they disappeared from sight. "I will not like him any more in a thousand years than I do today, Father."
A few jangling heartbeats passed before Hermione could force herself to stand. Hearing that girl, that tiny Dark Ages version of herself, actually call Salazar Slytherin father had knocked the wind out of her. She knew it shouldn't surprise her—if the conversation she'd just overheard was to be believed, and was not merely some work of her imagination trying to cobble together a reasonable idea of how the things she'd heard before she'd fallen asleep could be at all possible—but the knowledge did absolutely nothing to stymy the feeling.
With a last glance at the bronzed Basilisk, she hurried to follow the pair out of the Chamber.
To her relief, and her surprise, she found they hadn't gone far. She'd never seen this section of the Chamber's tunnels before. Swallowing hard, she popped her head through the wide, arched entryway before actually setting foot inside.
An ornate altar dominated the center of the room, tipped at all four corners with equally ornate, spiraling candleholders. A perfect, color-dusted circle ringed the altar, symbols she did not recognize crammed between the circle's edge and the altar. It could not be a coincidence that those candlelit corners pointed precisely North, South, East, and West. With a start, she realized what she was looking at. This was how he'd done what he just had to the serpent—those intricate maneuvers had been an air-drawing of the same ritual markings around the altar.
This was true ancient magick—a melding of the ritualistic magic even modern Wizarding kind seemed to think was the stuff of fairy tales, and magic as they recognized it today.
Hermione hadn't ever heard of something like this being down here. Perhaps that made sense, though. If Salazar was as intelligent as Lucius Malfoy claimed—and she knew he very probably was—then it stood to reason that hiding or even destroying this room after the magic he was about to perform was only another means of protecting the children.
She thought it more than an astute assumption that protection was his goal. It seemed the only reason behind all this that made sense.
Moving inside, she found her tiny self and Salazar in an alcove, nearly entirely hidden from view of the entryway. The walls of the alcove were lined with etchings of the very same symbols that filled the circle on the floor, and between the father and daughter and those carved walls stood an impossibly tall, imposing man wearing robes made of fur-trimmed leather. He had a long beard bound neatly by thick gold bands, and his light-brown hair was woven in a braided style that left the mass of his wavy locks loose around a set of massive shoulders.
Well, he certainly looked like a Jarl—Hermione had read a few obscure references to some Norse spell-casters who'd defected to the British Isles ahead of the Viking invasions, but she'd never imagined one of them might've been someone of so high-ranking a station. Then again, the young boy standing next to him, who looked like a small, blond copy of him, sans beard, she already recognized as Thorfinn before anyone even said his name. Perhaps, being an Ancient and Noble pure-blood line, it made sense that this was how the Rowle name came to eventually be included when Cantankerus Nott would pen the Sacred Twenty-Eight list centuries from now.
Tiny, medieval Hermione had her arms folded across her chest as she stubbornly refused to look at Thorfinn. In fact, she made a perfect show of pointedly looking everywhere but at him. Meanwhile, he at all of 10 years old, perhaps, watched her with a perfectly obvious scowl marring his features.
"He is ready," the Jarl said, his voice gravelly, as though he'd screamed himself hoarse only seconds before this conversation, yet Hermione had the sense that this was the way he naturally sounded.
He clapped his hands over his son's shoulders and, walking beside Salazar, moved toward the altar.
"Do not die in your sleep," little Hermione warned him, her words low and abrupt, as her gaze skittered up to meet his for a moment. "I will never forgive you if you do."
Young Thorfinn looked genuinely startled before he managed to cover it over with another scowl. "Try not to be such a brat when we wake, or I will regret not dying in my sleep."
The Jarl nudged his son's shoulder.
Thorfinn's brows drew upward as he looked at his father. "I will not apologize. She kicked me in the bollocks just this morning!"
Completely forgetting the seriousness of the moment, she dropped her arms to her sides, her hands balled into little, trembling fists as she stomped her foot. "You called my Basilisk a lizard!"
"It is a lizard!"
Dreamer-Hermione covered her mouth with her hand as she watched that tiny her storm up to Thorfinn to glare directly up into his face. Bloody hell, even then he towered over her. "He. He! And he is not a lizard, he is a serpent!"
The little Viking prince shrugged dismissively. "Same thing."
"It is not," she shrieked. She opened her mouth to rail at him some more, but he stopped her with a single action—the quick, unexpected dropping of a kiss on her forehead.
The girl froze, her eyes shooting wide as she simply stared at him.
His brows pinching together in a puzzled look over how effective his tactic had proved, he smirked. "You are not allowed to die in your sleep, either. I am to be your husband, whatever rules apply to me apply to you, too."
Snapped back to reality, she clenched her teeth, her eyes narrowing lethally. "Fine." She whirled on her heel, putting her back to him and folding her arms once more. "At least we will have a peaceful thousand years before we have to see one another again."
Hermione knew what they were doing. Her younger self—God, when had she become sold on the idea that this was truly her? That this had truly happened?—and Thorfinn were making themselves angry so they wouldn't have to acknowledge how scared they were. They knew they would wake in a world without their parents. Without their friends or anyone they knew besides one another.
In spite of herself, her throat clogged with tears and she curled her fist against her chin. There was something so sharp, so cutting in knowing how brave these children were being.
Thorfinn gave one last glance in her direction before following his father's urging to stand before the altar. Just as Salazar lifted his wand, the Jarl's hand on his shoulder stopped him from starting the spell.
The dark-haired wizard met the other man's eyes.
"You are certain? Your spell will spare them the illness?"
"Completely certain, Dagfinn. Godric's curse will not last a millennium. By the time our children wake, they will be free to pursue the legacy we have set before them without his treachery."
"Godric's curse?" Dreamer-Hermione echoed in a whisper. What on earth was he talking about?
Salazar went on, clearly obvious to the older witch's presence. "As I said, they will be suspended, entirely. The metal is special—breathable, but impervious. Nothing will be able to harm them." He looked toward his daughter, a sad smile curving his lips a moment. "When they wake, their memories will be locked as an added measure of protection and their caregivers will provide them new memories to guard them; if the world they wake to is truly safe for them, those locks will fall away and those new, false memories will give way to their real ones. He will not forget you."
Jarl Dagfinn Rowle seemed set at ease by Salazar's assurance. Nodding, he knelt before Thorfinn. She couldn't understand whatever words were exchanged as she thought perhaps they were speaking Old Norse, but she believed she recognized the gist of their discussion from the tones they used, and a few words that weren't wholly dissimilar to modern English. There was something about pride in there, and bravery. And guarding his lady.
She figured maybe it was good little Hermione didn't appear to understand them, either, because she likely would've taken another opportunity for a row with the boy. Maybe arguing was their comfort zone?
Dagfinn climbed to his feet and stepped back from his son. Thorfinn drew a deep breath and let it out slow before he nodded at Salazar and closed his eyes. Hermione tried not to watch her younger self as Salazar lifted his wand once more and began reciting his bronze-sleep spell in a low, muttering voice, making it impossible for her to catch the words.
Thorfinn's eyes had trailed in the girl's direction as his lids drooped. Though he didn't make sleepy movements as the Basilisk had, he appeared to nod off standing up. Unable to help herself, she did look to the girl, then, too. Young Hermione was fidgeting in place, her fingers toying restlessly with the elbows of her sleeves as she held her arms tightly crossed. Her lower lip was poked outward and her eyes were wide as she kept them fixed on the floor.
She didn't want to watch the bronze creeping over Thorfinn's skin and sealing him whole, as it had her pet. Older Hermione wasn't sure she blamed her.
In fact, she wasn't certain she could watch anymore. Yet, as the bronze held, she could not seem to tear her gaze from the way the Jarl bowed his head, speaking in hushed tones to his frozen son.
"Your family knows what to do. Keep him, guard him. Simple."
The Jarl's voice tumbled out low and a bit hollow. "The Rowle line is bound by word and by blood. They will do no less. What of your daughter?"
"Plans have been made. As my heir, she is in more danger than Thorfinn." Salazar looked at her once more. "Sabina?"
Hermione's brows shot up as she mouthed the name, Sabina? "Do I look like a bloody 'Sabina' to you?"
The girl turned to meet her father's gaze. Sabina—ugh, of all names, why something like Sabina? Sabina Slytherin? What was with this era and alliterative names?!—was ashen as her attention swept over Thorfinn's still, metallic form. Her brown eyes filled with tears and her lower lip trembled.
"I . . . . Father, please do not make me do this."
Hermione folded her arms around herself and clapped a hand over her mouth. The utter fear in the girl's voice was heart wrenching. The minute wavering of her bravery and maturity were painful to watch.
His face closed in on itself as he walked over, lowering to his knees before her. Resting gentle hands over her tiny shoulders, he heaved a weighted sigh. "There are enemies everywhere, my fierce future queen. If we are to outwit them, that means you must outlast them."
"But—"
"Shh," Salazar murmured the sound, that caring light coming into his eyes again. "That man unleashed a sickness unlike any we have ever seen just to keep me from my goal. I cannot risk that he will stop there. I cannot risk that he would harm you to get to me. The illness took your mother, I will not let it have you. Now." He lifted his chin in a defiant look, even as he held her gaze. "What are you going to do?"
Forcing a gulp down her throat, Sabina mirrored his expression and nodded, her voice wavering a little as she said, "Outwit them by outlasting them."
"Good. Now, will you stand, or will you be at rest?"
Her attention once more shot to Thorfinn, standing there, frozen in bronze for the next thousand years. She wasn't certain she could do that. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped up to the altar. "At rest."
Nodding, he gestured toward the Jarl. "Dagfinn, kindly assist my daughter, if you would."
Without a word, the Viking scooped up the child as if she weighed nothing—and to him, she probably seemed to weigh less than nothing—and seated her on upon the stone surface. While she lay herself back, Sabina's eyes followed her father as he moved around the circle, ensuring nothing had been smudged or damaged following Thorfinn's suspension.
He looked up, noticing his daughter's still-worried gaze on him. His shoulders sloping, he drew closer to her. Hermione couldn't help but notice that in the otherwise dark chamber, the candlelight seemed to catch and reflect in his eyes, making the green glow. Just like in her dream.
He perched on the side of the altar, as though it were a bed. Just like in her dream, he reached out, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that kind look as he brushed a few wayward strands behind her ear. "I would tear the world asunder to keep you safe. Sleep now."
Hermione bit hard into her bottom lip as she watched Salazar step back and aim his wand at his daughter. Her throat constricted and her heart hammered so hard inside her chest it actually hurt as Sabina grew sleepy. Her breath seemed trapped in her lungs as that impervious, breathable metal welled over her. Sealing and protecting her.
For a thousand years, Hermione thought, swallowing hard.
She stepped toward the bronze girl—she hadn't gotten to hear anything about who was to guard and keep her—when she felt a stabbing in the back of her skull. Stumbling at the unexpected pain, she fell to one knee.
By the time Hermione struggled back to her feet, she found herself in her Muggle parents' home. Looking about in confusion, she saw Dumbledore conversing with her parents. But . . . the image of younger self, seated so patiently on the living room sofa, a huge book open in her lap, who was not yet attending Hogwarts? She didn't remember this. Why didn't she remember it?
She watched as Dumbledore sat down near the young her. Her parents looked on grudgingly as the wizard smiled, his eyes full of sympathy, even as he touched the tip of his wand to her temple.
Another shock of pain and she found herself in the Hogwarts library. The Basilisk had come up behind her. As it had done in the Chamber a thousand years ago, it had tried to lean into her, apparently expecting an embrace. But she hadn't known, she didn't remember, and the proximity terrified her. She accidentally met the creature's gaze in the sliver of mirror she held. Another pain and she was in the school hospital wing, her petrification cured. There, again, was Albus Dumbledore with that sad, sympathetic smile as he pressed his wand to her temple.
A sick churning in her stomach and she was on the floor of Malfoy Manor, Bellatrix Lestrange torturing her and screaming in her face. She could see it now, the Malfoys looked stricken. Afraid to step in but horrified at that scene. Had Bellatrix figured it out, too?
Had she been so ferocious because she thought someone raised among Muggles might dethrone her precious Dark Lord? Had she worried that if Voldemort had learned the truth, he might want Sabina Slytherin by his side and have even less use for Bellatrix's simpering, mad-eyed devotion than he'd already had? Or had she simply been hoping to torture the younger witch to death, so those question would never arise, never need to be answered?
In their escape that had cost sweet Dobby his life, she noticed something she hadn't seen before. The Malfoys had put up a good show during the fight, but when the Golden Trio was being pulled away from Malfoy Manor, they lowered their wands sooner than they should've if they were truly trying to stop their quarry from fleeing.
A crunching mix of pain and nausea swept through her and she tumbled onto the battlefield that Hogwarts had become. Voldemort was falling. Somewhere nearby a scream rent the air unexpectedly, somehow different from those of the Dark Lord's other surviving followers. This was not a scream of anger or disappointment, no. This was agony.
Looking about, she saw Thorfinn Rowle. Clutching at his head with both hands, he sank to his knees. After several heartbeats of appearing as though he was fighting with himself, he lifted his head and cast his attention around the battlefield in a daze.
She noticed his gaze fell on her—not her, but the version of her that fought the last battle of the Second Wizarding War that day. His blue eyes narrowed as he shook his head. She saw as he mouthed that dreaded name, Sabina? But that version of her . . . she'd only shaken her head to get her bearings. Yes, she remembered now. There had been a momentary flash of pain and that swell of sickness when Voldemort had fallen, that same moment that she felt eyes on her.
But the eyes she felt hadn't been Thorfinn's. They'd been the whispered memory of her father, edging around her subconscious, seeking a way through all those locks Dumbledore had fortified.
She had shaken her head and looked about, but that was it. She did not react as he had. She didn't even seem to recognize him. Even older, she should've recognized him as easily as he'd recognized her.
Hermione watched as he gritted his teeth, taking note of the change happening around them—the Light coming for his brethren and those who'd aligned with them. He flicked his attention toward her one more time before he Apparated.
There was a series of quick little glimpses, then, of her throughout the last seven years, walking through Hogwarts. Of all her travels and adventures in the castle, she'd never gone near Ravenclaw Tower. Something . . . every time she took a path that might put her near it, she diverted her steps, changed to a different staircase or another corridor. She'd never even noticed she'd done that.
One final agony tore through her and she was back in her Muggle parents' home. In the basement, her bronze form lay on a soft cushion of velvet, like an antique sculpture on display at a museum. Was that how they'd been passed down through the generations? Bronze children handled like beloved family heirlooms?
The metallic sheen melted away from her skin as Dahlia and William Granger watched over her. "I don't know," William said in a hushed voice. "I think this was supposed to happen sooner, but there was that ridiculous You-Know-Who, whatever he called himself."
"Hmm." Dahlia nodded, settling beside the girl as she started breathing, slow and deep. "I suppose that makes sense. From everything I heard about him, he'd have killed the children just so he could go on being the 'heir of Slytherin.'"
William spat on the ground at mention. "That man was not worthy of calling himself anything 'of Slytherin.'"
"Shh, she's waking up." Dahlia turned her full attention on Sabina as the child opened her eyes. That chestnut-brown gaze darted about, wide and confused. "Do you remember anything?"
Sabina shook her head, looking on the verge of tears.
Dahlia's shoulders drooped as she exchanged a look with her husband. Hermione knew what this meant—Salazar had said it himself. The magic must've been aware of the Horcruxes, aware Voldemort was not truly gone. She and Thorfinn had still be in danger. Of course, now it made sense. He'd been passed along through his family line, Thorfinn was probably a common name among the Rowles, no need to change for the sake of protecting his locked memories. The Basilisk had awakened at the proximity of one of Salazar's bloodline who'd spoken Parseltongue, just as Thorfinn had said.
It must've thought Riddle was a link to her. Oh, dear Lord! She was actually starting to feel bad for the Basilisk.
That still begged the question of how Hermione—or Sabina—had come to be in the possession of a Muggle family? And how on earth did this Muggle family, who pretended to be so surprised when she received her Hogwarts letter, know so much about her situation?
"Your name is Hermione," Dahlia said, smiling even as William echoed the name in a questioning whisper. "We are your parents. Here." She placed a book in the child's hands.
Hermione wanted to yell at Sabina not to open the bloody thing, but this was her and a book! Of course she was going to open it!
When the girl eased back the cover, a glittering flash erupted from the pages. There and then gone in a blink, as if it had only been the work of her imagination. But Hermione knew what that was. She could recall the enchantment now. It had been a dizzying transfer of information, a preset story to replace the memories lost to her. A story meant to set her place in the current world with these people who claimed to be her parents. An enchantment that, each time she looked at old family photo albums, would fill her head with images of her younger days spent in a Muggle life.
Closing the cover, the girl looked up at Dahlia. "Mummy, I'm sleepy. Can I go to bed, now?"
To the woman's credit, Dahlia actually looked a bit sad for a moment as she nodded. "Of course, Hermione dear. Let's get you washed up and into your pyjamas."
"Goddammit, hold still!"
Hermione awoke screaming. She was aware that she was thrashing. No longer on the bed, her limbs were striking cold, hard stone. There was a sense of someone attempting to hold her. Snapping open her eyes, she saw Thorfinn over her, trying to pin her down.
"You're going to break a bloody limb on the altar at this rate," he warned in a hissing breath. She hadn't put up this much of a fight before, or that whole cozy dining room scene never would've happened, but then she figured she wasn't in as much agony at that time as she must've been as her memories had warred with each other.
"Altar?" she echoed, relaxing in his arms as she looked down. It was the same one on which Salazar had initially cast the spells. "Oh, that." Now where the hell had they been hiding this?
"It worked?" he asked, moving his head to catch her gaze.
"I bloody hell hope it worked," Lucius said in an exhausted tumble of sound as he staggered over to the pair and handed off her father's wand to her. "Because I don't believe I have it in me to do that second time."
Thorfinn pursed his lips, shaking his head as he turned his attention back to Hermione. "You remember?"
She looked from him to the snakewood wand in her hand, and back. Part of her wanted to rebel. All of this flew right in the face of everything she'd believed since entering Hogwarts. She was tempted to question the validity of what she 'remembered', but she knew. Memory charms were painless, only the breaking of them could produce the anguish she'd been forced to endure. She dreaded to think how bad it would've been if she'd been conscious. "The childhood is still a little fuzzy, but yes. I remember what . . . I remember what was done to to me. Dumbledore cast a charm to reinforce the lock on my memories every time something happened that he thought might compromise the original one my father placed."
"No wonder you were such a mess," Draco said around a yawn.
"I've questions, still, but I'm so tired," she said, ignoring the youngest Malfoy's quip. "But I have one thing I need to know before I can sleep."
Thorfinn nodded, already lifting her from the altar to carry her back to her borrowed bed in the Hollyhocks Room. "I'll answer if I can."
"Our fathers," she started, licking her parched lips before going on. "They talked about Godric's curse and the legacy set before us? What was that about?"
He made a face as he brought her up to the first floor from the cellar and started toward the main staircase. "You father had a plan. He wanted to organize Wizarding Britain, have it ruled as a monarchy, since the Wizard Council was a horrific mess that seemed more focused on having positions of power than actually doing anything useful for their country's people. Godric Gryffindor was so dead-set against it, so convinced your father would not see reason if he argued for a different plan, he created a sickness meant to strike at anyone from Salazar's or your mother's lines who might try to fulfill his wish. You were the only person to have both their blood, the threat of it should've began and ended with you. But without you there, the curse became a true illness, and did what all illnesses do. It branched beyond its intended victims or purpose and simply ended up a disease with no rhyme or reason."
Hermione swallowed hard, afraid to ask the next, natural question. "He created a disease with magic? Even if it might hurt a child?" It didn't seem real. Godric Gryffindor had always been looked at by Wizarding Britain as some moral pillar, a paragon of just ideals and fairness. Could all of that been a facade? No, not all of it. She'd always thought there was more to the story of Godric and Salazar's bitter historic rivalry—after all, the founders had been noted as having been friends when they'd joined together to create the school—but something like this?
She still believed Godric had been that proverbial knight in shining armor at some point, and now knew that it was at some point her father had become the bitter, hateful man in the history texts, but just as her father had not always been so hateful, it was likely, too, that Godric had not always been the shining knight.
Thorfinn frowned, his eyes closing tight for a moment. "I don't think he much had the safety or well-being of anyone in mind, Hermione. It was a time before the illness was named, or even had a known list of symptoms, but make no mistake. He created Dragon Pox."
She felt sickened all over again at this revelation. "Salazar said the illness took my mother."
"She was the foremost advocate of your father's plan. For all anyone really knows, she was probably Godric's Patient Zero, as Muggles would say."
"That man killed my mother," she whispered, feeling her eyes well up, despite that she did not yet recall the woman, herself.
"Your mother . . . your mother suffered a loss. Due to the timing, it was considered that her illness was connected with the heartbreak from that, and no one would believe Godric could stop so low, and it's strange to say, but I do think he regretted his action, that he probably even blamed your father for what he did, but it left the true cause behind her illness to be written off for all time as 'unknown.'"
Hermione shivered, aware of a thousand thoughts, a thousand reactions, ready to come screaming through her head. "How can no one know this?"
He frowned deeply. "What? The matter of pure-bloods versus Muggle-borns and who of them is 'more worthy of magic' has been an explosive topic ever since the first Squib line was revived through the unexpected birth of a witch or wizard. You think anyone was going to let anything get out that tarnished Godric Gryffindor's glorious reputation? Anything that made the whole of Slytherin House not 'bad'?" he said, confirming her suspicions from only a few seconds ago.
"And the best way to discredit someone to a mass populace is to make only their most deplorable, inhuman traits known," she mumbled the words, hating that she could see the logic in it.
Thorfinn breathed out a low, sympathetic sound, but otherwise remained silent.
Trying to put the entire mess out of her mind for the time being as he climbed the main staircase toward the guest rooms, she said, "Thank you for not calling me Sabina."
He snickered. "I figured you're used to Hermione, no point confusing things."
"Oh, and—" She lifted a hand, smacking him square in the center of his forehead.
"Oi! What was that for?"
"That's for shutting me up with a kiss."
Thorfinn barked out a laugh. "Didn't seem to mind so much at the time, Sabina."
"Oi," she ground out the word from between clenched teeth, but after moment, couldn't seem to stop a half-smile from curving her lips. This was all so much to take in.
She was too tired for much of anything, now. She had some answers; she had no real choice but to wait until after she'd gotten a bit of real sleep to learn more.
