Apologies for the unintended week off. I had the dreaded Adulting to handle, once again (as those in the States know, it's the beginning of Tax Season, and I had my appointment for filing Thursday, and a house insurance hoopla the day before, and Friday, well, I have work I need to get finished on revising my first novel so I can re-release it and since I've been putting that off, I have now decided I can't work on any fanfic unless the novel chapter I need to rewrite that day is finished), my 8 year old was home sick with what was either a stomach virus or mild food poisoning, and I came down with a head cold. :/
Chapter Twenty-Five
Narcissa swallowed bitterly as she trailed Lucius and Minerva through the Chamber of Secrets . . . . Honestly, it was wretched enough that they had to go through the unseemly entrance to this place, but now they traversed the moss-slicked stone tiles. She imagined the place hadn't looked much better a thousand years ago. The ghastly green light washing the walls with its rippling bursts of white illumination could almost be pretty if not for the constant, nauseating watery motion. She knew precisely why this place had gone undiscovered for so long, or at least she thought she did, as she looked up at the high ceiling with its natural, alternating formations of deep pocks and dripping stalactites.
Simply put? The legend said the Chamber of Secrets was a room Salazar Slytherin had built somewhere in the castle. She might not be incredibly well versed in matters of masonry or architecture, but looking about this place—this place that apparently those who spun and carried on the legend had never actually seen with their own eyes—it seemed obvious the Chamber had been here eons before the castle had been erected. As a cavern, at least. The careful, grand stonework built into it afterward was clearly the work of Slytherin, but Hogwarts had long been known to have been built over a network of tunnels . . . . Why did everyone, then, seem to take it for granted that the Chamber was part of that network, and not some separate, nefariously-purposed, structure built by an elitist mad man?
Oh, it was enough to make her head hurt.
"What, exactly, are we doing down here?" Lucius asked after what seemed an insufferable amount of time listening to nothing but lapping water, distant drippings, and their own footfalls echoing off the wet stone.
Minerva did not bother to so much as glance back over her shoulder at the couple. "You asked what it was that really 'sold me' on the truth behind the story Helena told me?" In all honesty, she'd had no reason to doubt Helena Ravenclaw's word, but the tale the Grey Lady had shared with her seemed so . . . fantastic, and not in the positive sense of the term, that Minerva could not, in good conscience, take any of it at face value. Especially not when she considered that the entire story revolved around Hermione Granger, of all witches, being the living, breathing daughter of a wizard from a thousand years ago who—according to everything she had known about him—would despise her very existence.
It also didn't quite help matters that Helena had a rather infamous temper, and the timing of her revelation was not lost on the new Headmistress. For all she was aware, Miss Granger had somehow managed to cross the specter and the wild tale was a ludicrous attempt to get back at her. Though that theory seemed ludicrous, in itself, Minerva knew she needed just a single shred of proof that supported any part of Helena's story before she could accept it.
That had led her down here.
"Helena told me of a ritual room her step-father, Salazar, had favored using for crafting spells. She said she found it strange that no one ever mentioned that room, because who wouldn't want to find a secret magic nook used by one of the Founders? For centuries, people have only spoken of the Chamber, which she recognized as the cavern where Sabina had kept her pet serpent, of course." Minerva waved her illuminated wand in a dismissive gesture as she began leading them through one of the damp, grey-green tunnels that branched off the main body of the Chamber. "I realized, as I listened to her, that if the Chamber was something known about, a rumor that held true and which had withstood a thousand years, then why was the ritual room not just as much part of Salazar's legend?"
"Everyone loves a mystery," Narcissa said in a thoughtful tone. "And what could possibly be more mysterious than a room specifically made for ancient rituals attached to a so-called secret chamber?"
"Precisely. On the face of it, the omission makes little sense."
Lucius' expression of curiosity soured a little as he eyed the ceiling of the steadily narrowing natural stone corridor . . . . The witches seemed to not take into account that he was quite a bit taller than they were, and if this nonsense kept up, he'd soon have to stoop. Utterly undignified. "I'd always assumed Salazar sealed off the room after he put the children into their bronze sleep. I know for a fact that the altar he used for his rituals was removed for safe keeping, as he felt the stone from which it was made contained special properties."
Minerva turned sharply to face the wizard then, and Narcissa cursed softly under her breath. Perhaps Helena Ravenclaw didn't quite know as much of the story as she believed she did—even with the combination of her own witness and whatever blanks Miss Granger might've filled in. "What do you mean you 'know for a fact?'" The elder witch arched a brow in a severe expression. "How?"
"Because it was entrusted to the Malfoy line," he said, nonplussed by her sudden—if not wholly unexpected—spike in temper. "Had you come to the Manor for tea rather than insisting we meet here, we could be showing you that very artifact right now. Miss Granger and Mr. Rowle are both very aware of its existence already."
"Well, then we shall have to take tea at your home soon, as I am most curious to see it for myself." Apparently satisfied that nothing was being intentionally withheld from her, Minerva spun on her heel and started along the passageway once more. "And I made the same assumption; expected, given the environment, I suppose, as well as the time period. Wish to do away with a room? Simply brick up the entrance. As I was saying, I began searching for what could be sealed rooms down here. Now, it's perfectly natural for any cavern to have tunnels which finish at a dead end. So that was not enough."
She fell silent and the three of them continued onward, each of them pensive. The atmosphere of the Chamber didn't seem to lend to conversation very much, anyway. More so in the tunnels, they were danker, damper, darker . . . and they weren't simply quiet. No. They felt muffled, as though sound was not meant to trespass here.
After several unnerving minutes of nothing save for hush and footfalls, Minerva drew to what seemed like an abrupt halt. Abrupt, until Lucius stepped up near enough that he could see the end of the cavern by the light of the witch's wand.
"But this was enough to make me believe," she said, her murmured voice cryptic in the dense air of the passage. Circling her arm, she followed a perfect archway of carved stones, only half-hidden by the magic that had been used to fill in the long-forgotten entrance.
Just as Lucius was about to question if this was really the place she thought it was, the old woman raised her arm high over her head. In the center-most stone, there were two intricately etched S's linked by a serpent that seemed, by its style—by the difference of depth in the darkly grey-green surface—to have been added slightly after the letters.
"When I first happened upon this, I was strangely relieved, though quite confused," she said with an airy, mirthless laugh. "It told me Helena's story was truthful. But then the longer I looked at that inscription, the more certain I became of something that, well, began to break my heart."
Narcissa and Lucius both turned their attention away from the etching to watch Minerva's expression in the wand light. "What do you mean?" the younger witch asked.
Minerva blinked suspiciously damp eyes and shrugged. "At first, I believed the S's simply signified Salazar Slytherin. However, the snake is an afterthought, and the second S is small, seemingly for no reason . . . ."
Narcissa's pale blue eyes widened as she returned her gaze to the letters. "Oh . . . . Oh, it doesn't stand for Salazar. It's for Sabina."
Nodding, Minerva went on. "He created this chamber, all of it, including the ritual room, for her." Swallowing hard, she gesture between the letters with her wand. "A gift from a father to his daughter."
Lucius felt nearly as though the wind had been knocked from his lungs. He'd known ever since he'd learned the truth how very wronged the Slytherin line had been, but grasping that Salazar had felt forced to use the magic space he'd created for his child to remove her from his life for her own safety?
Staring up at the inscription, he near-automatically began the work of clearing out the magically filled room. Part of him wanted nothing more just now than to go find his son and hug him.
And neither of them even liked hugs.
"Why the bloody hell would anyone want to look like me?" Aberforth asked in a mystified tone. "I don't even want to look like me."
The elder wizard was nursing a brand new bottle by the time they got back—the first empty and tipped over on the floor by his feet—though now his wounds had mostly been mended by Mr. Henry's healing magic. He still looked like he could do with a nap . . . for a year.
Hermione's brows shot up and her mouth puckered. She glanced over at Draco and her increasingly disgruntled feline betrothed seated at the bar. At least for the moment Thorfinn's unhappiness appeared stymied by another saucer of Fire Whiskey, and Draco was sipping from a pint of pumpkin ale. Oh, she hated that they had left her here to quietly try to get information out of Aberforth Dumbledore, but seeing as she was the only one among them on relatively good terms with the old man—even having dragged him from a heap in an abandoned building where he'd more than likely been left for dead hadn't really gained Draco Malfoy very much trust from the deceased Headmaster's brother—she couldn't say she did not understand their logic on the matter.
Well, Hermione supposed, the Malfoy name did bring with it a certain level of wary, malcontented suspicion now that no amount of last minute side-turning could alleviate.
Frowning at them—she'd much prefer to be sitting over there burying herself in the bottom of a deep, deep mug than here in a corner with Aberforth's whiskey-breath—she shrugged. Her sister had flitted back to the castle, a form of reconnaissance as to what the older members of this strange group involved in their 'grand secret' was up to, so she did not even have Helena's reassuring, if not currently visible, presence at her side. "Well, maybe . . . maybe it isn't about you. Not in a specific sense, anyway."
Aberforth's great, grey-caterpillar eyebrows pinched together. After a clear moment of thought, they separated and rose high on his wrinkled forehead. "Oh, you think this might have something to do with my brother?"
The witch offered an uncomfortable, mirthless grin and shrugged once more. "Unfortunately, I think that might be the case. You know better than anyone that he was a man who kept many secrets. We . . . well, we believe Antonin Dolohov is trying to find out something only your brother knew, or possibly something he may have hidden? And that he thinks by appearing as you, he might gain access to the location or other information about whatever it is. Sounds mad, I know, but—"
"But sometimes a mad answer is the only answer that makes sense."
Hermione straightened up a little where she sat. She never quite expected that Aberforth Dumbledore, with his clear distrust of his late brother, could sound so very much like Albus. The thoughtful tone, the cadence of the words . . . . She had to give herself a small shake, a little unsettled by the resemblance. Before just now, she'd always thought any likeness between them was limited to their blue eyes and their wiry grey-white hair.
In that moment, she was extremely aware of Draco and Thorfinn watching her—extremely aware that they had both registered her shift in posture. Flicking her gaze toward them for a split-second, she saw that Malfoy had turned fully on his stool, resting his elbows back atop the bar's edge as he openly observed her and Aberforth. Thorfinn had sat up, also watching, but, well, cat, so it wasn't as obvious, however . . . the way he placed one paw on his now-empty saucer in a gesture of impatience nearly sent her into a fit of laughter that would've not be very appropriate, at all, for the tension of her current discussion. Her struggle to not laugh—and the quickness with which she returned her attention to the old drunkard of a wizard before her—doubled when Mr. Henry arched a brow at the cat's antics and sighed, reaching over the bar to retrieve the saucer and refill it.
"Damn Irish cats," the old barkeep said, not nearly as quietly as he probably thought he had.
"I think . . . he did have a place he kept things that he didn't want anyone to find."
Hermione swallowed hard, unable to stop herself from scooting a bit closer in her seat. "He did?"
Aberforth took a long swig from his bottle and sighed. "Fucked if I would know where, though."
Her shoulders slumped. "Oh."
"But—" And just like that, the witch's form stiffened again so that she was sitting bolt-upright as Aberforth went on. "I do remember something about . . . the constant sound of the sea? Yes, yes, I do remember him talking about a private place. Small, and the sound of the sea being 'a constant companion.'"
She jumped to her feet, so thrilled at progress—actual progress—that she didn't even realize she'd moved until the old man gave a start, his blue eyes wide as they followed her buoyant motion.
"Sorry, I just . . . I think I actually know where he meant." Best not to say anything more direct in the open like this, she thought, reaching to clasp one of his soft, wrinkly hands between both of hers in a hearty shake. "Thank you so much, Mr. Dumbledore. And please, be more careful who you go snooping on in the future."
The wizard make a pfft sound and lifted his bottle back to his lips. "Please, bit more of this and I'll be right as rain. Good luck to you, and watch yourself with that Dolohov. He's one nasty bugger."
"I'm aware. I'll be cautious." She looked up at Draco and her . . . cat and nodded toward the door of the pub.
Once outside, she pulled them into the nearest alleyway. She knew the property in question probably didn't belong to Albus Dumbledore on paper, but there was every chance it was he who'd given it to the current owners. Those current owners, she knew for certain, were in France for the summer. And this was the Albus Dumbledore, there was every chance he'd managed to hide secrets in plain sight within the walls and floors of the place that even the most keen-eyed among them hadn't stumbled upon. Perhaps even . . . .
Perhaps even a secret room where one might hide a person or two?
"I know where we need to go next. Good news, it's empty right now—or should be. Chances are I can un-cat my boyfriend soon as we get there."
Thorfinn immediately perked up at that, his golden-tufted ears twitching.
"That old drunk actually had information that was useful?" Draco asked, exchanging a good-humored look with the suddenly less-irritable Viking feline.
"Not exactly, but he had a clue I was able to decipher." She withdrew her wand and scooped up the massive cat. "It's a place that's protected by a Fidelius Charm. Unplottable, secret-kept, the whole deal. No one can find it . . . at least no one who hasn't already been there."
"And you just so happen to have been there before?" He reluctantly clamped his hand around her wrist, aware that he could only accompany them if she pulled him side-along.
Hermione nodded, beaming. She wasn't thrilled about the idea of facing Dolohov, but she was hopeful of finding the Grangers, and her real familiar, unharmed. . . . A private place. Small, and the sound of the sea 'being a constant companion.' "We're going to a former Order safe house. A place called Shell Cottage."
