(yay, ch 2 is up. I actaully updated. Please R&R. )

He had aged in the five years since the building, Tynan noticed. It was as if time had sped up after that one event was finished, eager to send him to his grave. There were grey streaks in the Lord Slytherin's hair where there had been none five years ago. Harsh lines creased his face, though he was far from being old.

It was bizarre seeing him deep in discussion with the figure opposite him. The two men were nearly mirror images of one another, two aquiline noses, black hair, piercing deep brown eyes. Only the age marring the face of the one kept them from being perfectly alike. But Tynan knew Salazar's son better. For all that he shared his father's darkly good looks; Viridian had none of his sire's drive, or brilliance. Salazar was well aware of his son's; her husband's, shortcomings. Part of the reason he had them married, she mused, were Viridian's many faults. Perhaps Salazar hoped Slytherin's heirs would inherit her will, and her gift of Sight. If all Salazar's descendants were like Viridian, she reasoned grimly, then there was really no hope for the future.

Salazar gave a hacking cough, reminding Tynan of the weakness that had begun to shadow her lord's steps. It was the building that had aged him so, she fiercely thought, sipping her cognac. All who had worked on that room had slept next to nothing during that hellish, dream-like month. She had spent half her time in a dream-trance, Seeing directions for the room to be made, and was so exhausted when she wasn't in a trance that she couldn't tell the difference between sleeping and waking. The work force had been small, because of the necessary secrecy in keeping the students, and the other three founders unawares. Illusion charms had clouded the halls of that branch of the castle during that long month. Spells to muffle sound, spells to avoid cave-ins, glamours on some of the workers to disguise them; they were everywhere. Spells and enchantments hung thick enough that you could feel them in the air, dusting the back of your neck like cobwebs.

She had watched Salazar and Jules wasting of the effort of so much spellcasting, mining, planning in each day. They had looked like ghosts, and the circles under their eyes had grown deeper with every moment that drew them closer to the deadline. To the day when she had foretold they would be thrown out. Ironically, her lords' red-rimmed eyes, and haggard appearance had perfectly abetted the story they'd circulated, to excuse Tynan's absence from classes: that she was sick. A particularly virulent strain of dragon pox, they'd said.

On that final night, they'd stood on the walkway. The serpent statues were like silent sentinels, and they had just stood and stared down the expanse of stone pathway and still, dark water to the statue. They'd done it. They were finally finished, and no one the wiser. She had stood back, as Salazar nodded to her, and made her way back out the door, which Salazar deftly locked behind her. She'd imagined that the workers had looked around in confusion at her departure, but she couldn't see them. But even the thick metal hadn't stopped her from hearing their screams as Salazar had deftly cast Avada Kedavra on every last one of them. Secrets had to be kept, after all.

Finally, he'd unlocked the door and let her back in. She was still too valuable for him to kill, but the others hadn't been so lucky. If you were expendable, you could be replaced. Even Jules lay dead. Tynan thanked the gods that her betrothal to his son had been made final the week before, and so she was spared.

Yes, Tynan mused, plucking at the ivory silk of her wedding gown, the building aged us all. She felt millennia older than her actual eighteen years. That chamber was paid for in blood and toil. She could only hope it was enough.

Tynan's dark reflections were not apparent in her smile, however, when she lifted her glass to some proposed toast. She'd forgotten how many times she'd raised her glass to some sentimental spew tonight. The gathering of Salazar's closest friends, enemies, and allies had gone through a good bit of alcohol.

Her bridesmaids, a silly herd of girls from school who could be called friends for social purposes squealed over something idiotic. Their earlier attempts of the evening to follow her had been solved with a few snarled insults and hexes. Now they had settled in a distant corner, a bright coterie of ribbons, lace, and fashionably coiled hair.

"I like weddings," hissed Azyra, the snake clinging to her arm.

"How do you know? This is the only one you've been to."

"They're like funerals. Only more alcohol, and drunk people."

Viridian's parseltongue bride laughed and laughed until she cried.