The Good War

by inwardtransience

Despite her best efforts, Elizabeth Potter is repeatedly drawn into situations she wants absolutely nothing to do with. People just refuse to leave her the hell alone. (fem!Harry, dark!independent!Harry, mentor!Snape, F/F, playing with tropes for fun and profit)

30. Third Year — Holidays at the Greenwood I

Liz had no idea how they were getting to the Greenwood. She wasn't sure where the Greenwood was — almost certainly somewhere in Wales, probably in the north, but she couldn't be more specific than that — but it wasn't as though distance truly mattered to mages. There were a few different transportation methods mages used, but she didn't think any of them Liz was familiar with would do the job. Most often, Daphne was simply apparated home by her father, but of course they couldn't do that. Flying would take longer but would be doable — though they'd need to use a flying carpet, which were severely restricted in Britain. Liz had heard of, like, enchanted cars and stuff, which might work, but they'd probably need a few of the things and she had no idea if the Greengrasses had even one (it didn't seem like their thing, honestly), and they had too many people who'd never used the floo before for that to be a good idea.

Not to mention muggles and small children — the Greengrasses had invited a sort of ridiculous number of people over for the winter holidays. Hermione and Dorea and Tracey — along with their parents, plus Dorea's baby brothers — and Lily and Lisa, along with their parents — Lily lived in Hogsmeade, she normally just walked home for the holidays, but this time she took the train to London with them, and her parents would be apparating there with her younger brother and sister. (Apparently Lisa had an older brother, but much older, he had his own things and wouldn't be coming.) Susan and Hannah were coming, plus Hannah's mother, but not her father, who'd died in the war. Also, she'd invited Millie Bulstrode for some reason — Liz had had no idea they knew each other, she wasn't certain she'd ever seen Millie speak to Daphne even once — and her father but not her mother (apparently her parents were divorced). And then there were Sophie, Justin, and Sally-Anne, along with their families — and they were all muggleborns, so their parents would have no experience with magical transportation whatsoever. Daphne's little sister had also invited a handful of people, but Liz knew hardly any of the new first-years' names, she wasn't even certain how many Astoria was bringing along.

And also Liz and Severus, obviously. Severus had some things to wrap up at the school, he'd be apparating down to meet them at the train station when they arrived.

Because they were taking the train down to London first. Liz was pretty sure Daphne's parents could get them to the Greenwood from anywhere, but it was the most convenient place for all the families to meet up. Especially the muggles — they could get through the barrier just fine, as long as a mage was holding their hand to guide them through the aversion wards, but they definitely couldn't get to Hogsmeade. The Greengrasses must have a plan to get everyone to their place, no matter how difficult of a problem it sounded, Liz tried not to worry about it.

(Liz never had been very good at not worrying.)

This was the first time Liz left the castle for winter break, and she didn't really know what she was doing with herself. She meant, she didn't need to pack up all of her things, they'd keep just fine in her dorm room, but she didn't know what to bring with her to the Greenwood either. They'd be staying for a few weeks, but Liz had never lived somewhere for that long without carrying literally everything she owned on her. Clothes, definitely — she didn't know what she'd be expected to wear there, so she just brought everything — her homework, some extra books not related to her classes in case she got bored, and... Well, she thought that was all she would need?

Her trunk was emptier than it'd been possibly ever (while going somewhere, that is), which was making Liz faintly nervous, though she couldn't put her finger on why. She knew her things would be perfectly safe in Slytherin, and if she needed something she could always call Nilanse, didn't know what the fuck was wrong with her...

Anyway, the train ride was rather tedious, but not that much worse than normal. Much like the ride back in the summer, there was a powerful sense of excitement on the air, people eager to get home, intense enough Liz could feel it as tingles shivering down the back of her neck. It wasn't unpleasant, necessarily, but it did put her a little on-edge, made it hard to focus on reading. And, of course, children could be terribly noisy, there was a lot of shouting and laughing and shite, too much for the spells on the compartment door to entirely muffle. At least they were in a compartment, some of the younger students were so keyed up they were practically bouncing off the walls...

Though their compartment was rather full. They couldn't fit everyone Daphne had invited in one compartment, so instead they'd spread across two (and a third for Astoria and her friends), but that still ended up being more people than Liz liked being crammed in a small space with. Hermione and Dorea and Daphne and Tracey, Millie looming quietly in a corner, Lily and Lisa, too many people. There were technically eight seats in their compartment, but they were crammed too closely together to be comfortable — even as squeezed into a corner as she could get, her knee kept bumping Hermione's thigh, Hermione occasionally elbowing her when she shifted. Just, far too tightly packed in here, loud and warm and, ugh, Liz didn't know how everyone else could breathe.

She considered moving to the Hufflepuff compartment (they hadn't done that on purpose, just worked out that way), as they only had five people, but ultimately decided to tough it out — with the help of a tiny sip from her calming potion. An hour or two in, she also opened the window a crack — the air felt too hot and tight in here, it was hard to breathe — which was a little cold, yes, but did make her feel a little better.

The slight winter breeze was making Lily, at least, uncomfortably cold, but she was too shy to say anything about it — especially to Liz in particular, for silly reasons. Liz wasn't going to close it, but she did cast Pomfrey's warming charm over that section of the compartment (she'd asked Pomfrey what spell it was last time she was hospitalised, she loved this thing), if only because Lily's misery was distracting. Oh, and apparently Dorea had been cold too, Liz hadn't noticed, she hadn't been explicitly thinking about it, Liz didn't even notice until she relaxed under the warming charm...could have said something...

The train ride was uneventful, if unpleasant, Liz spent as much of it as she could reading, only occasionally drawn out into one conversation or another. (Not too often, they'd all learned by now that Liz was flat awful with smalltalk.)

When the train arrived in London, hours later — though it didn't feel quite as long as the trip at the beginning and end of the year, Liz might by imagining that — they didn't leave the compartment right away, waiting for the platform to empty out. They were on the wrong side of the train, but the Hufflepuffs were facing the platform, so. As the students filed out of the train, they opened the doors between their compartments, some of them standing up and milling around. Liz stayed in her seat, didn't want to bump into people more than necessary.

She noticed Millie was doing the same, the other girl shooting her a sympathetic sort of look — Liz thought that might have been the single most friendly interaction they'd ever had, Millie didn't hang out with them much.

Nearly a half hour after their arrival, the Hufflepuffs called out that the platform had mostly emptied, there'd be room for everyone down there now. Liz got her trunk down from the overhead — she was still too bloody short to reach, she used a charm — shrunk it and put it in her pocket before following. (She got a couple surprised glances at the shrinking, not something most third-years could do, but her friends were also used to her being good at magic.) She and Millie were the last out, silently following the rest of the kids excitedly chattering ahead of them.

The platform was indeed mostly empty, only the workers at the stand and the bloke keeping an eye on the gap in the wards and a few adults lingering behind — by how the adults approached the group with greetings and hugs, those most be the parents. They all clumped together in the middle of the platform, the muggleborns dropped their things nearby and made for the barrier, going to track down their families and bring them through.

Liz kind of wished Dorea and Hermione hadn't left her alone — they were only gone for a few seconds before Liz was being wrangled into introductions to people's families. Hannah was first, her mum — very tall and blonde, apparently Hannah got it from her mother — at least quieter and less grabby than Hannah herself. Lily's parents were irritatingly pleased to meet her (Liz's mother had saved their lives once), but at least they were polite about it, and Lisa's weren't so bad. Millie's father was even taller than her, big and broad-shouldered, his hair flaming red, perhaps the most stereotypically Scottish-looking person Liz had ever seen, though the impression was broken the instant he opened his mouth, voice soft with a southern English accent. (Apparently the Bulstrodes lived somewhere in the Chiltern Hills.) One of Astoria's friends even got in on it, but Liz didn't mind that one so much — the Monroes were polite, at least, and Liz couldn't help a tingle of curiosity, thinking of the famous Ciardha Monroe. They must be related somehow, right?

Then when the muggleborns came back through, Liz was subjected to another round of introductions. She already knew Dorea's family — her stepfather Richard was blond and rather plain-looking, and maybe a little quirky, but he seemed like a good bloke, Liz didn't mind him. (Apparently he was an engineer somewhere that made speakers, like the big ones in stadiums and dance clubs and the like, which was kind of funny, he was so quiet.) She'd only briefly met Hermione's parents before, they were reintroduced just in case, both once again insisting she use their first names. Emma was right around Hermione's height (meaning she'd soon be shorter), and had equally curly hair, though tinted more blonde, age lines showing more on one cheek than the other, probably from smirking too much, her voice drawling and teasing. Daniel was taller, thin and lanky, similarly curly hair kept short — though it was darker than the other two, brown so deep it was almost black — thick-looking glasses perched on his somewhat overlarge nose.

He was a few shades darker than Emma and Hermione, which wasn't by chance: apparently his grandfather was from Algeria. (Liz didn't know if that meant he'd been black or Arab, or whether it was appropriate to ask.) Hermione didn't know much about her great-grandfather, but she had heard stories about her half-Algerian grandfather — apparently he'd been in the actual French Resistance, it was a whole thing. She thought he sounded fascinating, and was disappointed she never got to meet him. Even Daniel himself didn't remember him — he'd been in bad health by the end of the War, he'd died when Daniel had been three or four — they only knew anything about him from stories passed along by relatives.

(When she thought about it, Liz thought it was kind of absurd how many people she knew had parents who'd died young. Was that normal?)

Daniel was also the chattiest of the Grangers, cheerfully babbling away with the other parents, which wasn't really a surprise — he'd been in England long enough he didn't have much of an accent anymore, but he was still French. (The faint trace of an accent made the way he pronounced his own name sound like Danielle, which was kind of funny.) At least he was nice enough not to keep trying to talk to Liz when she got uncomfortable, so.

Liz wasn't particularly close with Justin, Sophie, or Sally-Anne, so while she payed enough attention in those conversations to be polite, she didn't really expect to remember their parents at all. Justin's were very posh, and kind of annoying — Liz thought they'd expected her, rich and famous and everything, to be their people, and of course she was actually a creepy devil child, so. All of them had siblings, at least some of whom they knew now were also muggleborns, would be starting in the next couple years. Sophie had younger brothers who were obviously bonded twins, like the Carrows or Weasleys, practically screamed magic, Liz didn't know how the family hadn't noticed that before McGonagall showed up.

Eventually, the introductions were over, and Liz was able to escape to the fringes where she could read in peace. There were a couple comments from people wondering if she was okay, but she was just fine, thank you, just go on and leave her here. Liz was viscerally reminded of when she'd been in primary, and a few of the nicer teacher ladies had tried to get some of the other kids to play nice with her (before everyone had given her up for an unfixable problem child), but thankfully they seemed to accept that she didn't want to participate — as uncomfortably huge as the group was, it could have been worse.

(Honestly, this was an insane number of people to invite over for the holidays, the Greengrasses were weird...)

Sitting off to the side as she was, she saw a man appear inside the hole in the wards in the corner, looked around blinkingly for a moment before starting toward the group. Tall, with long, straight blond hair, wearing what Liz recognised (entirely from listening to the other girls talk at Malkin's) as house robes — worn loose, the cloth thin and breathable, belted in with a sash at the waist (beaded dangly bits hanging off from the ends), sleeves baggy enough to show his forearms as he moved, the bottoms of his trousers sticking out below the hem, all in vibrant green and yellow. He was carrying a plain leather bag over one shoulder, as he got nearer Liz noticed scuffs and nicks along the surface, well-used.

"Good afternoon, everyone!" he called, startling Liz hard enough she nearly dropped her book — his voice was a lot louder than it should be, he must be using an amplification charm of some kind. "I apologise for my tardiness, I didn't realise the train would—"

That was as far as he got. Astoria shot out of the crowd of people, long blonde hair trailing behind her, lept at him with a shout of, "Pappi!" The man caught her with a harsh oof — his voice was still amplified — his bag dropping to the floor with a heavy metallic clang. They talked a little, but not in English — the amplification charm was still going, so Liz could definitely tell that much. It wasn't Cambrian either, must be that Scandinavian language his side of the family spoke. The Greengrasses knew far too many languages, it was slightly ridiculous.

"As I was saying, before this one interrupted..." he drawled, giving Astoria a little jiggle. The girl was clinging onto him, her arms around his neck, his arm hugged under her bum to support her weight — Astoria was a little big to be carrying around, that couldn't be comfortable. "...my name is Víðir Hallbjörnsson of the House of Greengrass, pleasure to meet you all." He gave a little bow, Liz could faintly hear Astoria giggling. There was more muttering in whatever language that was, Astoria finally letting him go. "I am sorry I'm late, the train did not take so long as I guessed.

"Let's get going right away, shall we?" clapping his hands. "It will take me some minutes to set up the gate, but I'll be able to talk, if you all want to introduce yourselves while I work that'd be splendid."

While Liz unshrunk her trunk, putting her book back before shrinking it again, Víðir — odd name, but not hard to pronounce — sank to his knees, folding open his bag. Inside were these odd bars of metal, didn't know what that was about. The group kind of split apart in the next minutes, the kids off in one bunch while their parents formed a loose ring around Víðir. Liz was left sitting on one of the benches on her own, wondering how long this was going to take and whether she should have bothered putting her book away, until eventually Daphne peeled away from the adults toward her. "Come meet my father, Liz."

Oh, well, she guessed she should do that, she was going to be living in this bloke's house for a few weeks. Speaking of living in some bloke's house, where was Severus? They must be leaving soon, he should have been here by now...

Daphne led her into the small crowd, slipping through a gap between the Grangers on one side and the Ropers on the other. Whatever this thing Víðir was putting together was, it was starting to take shape — maybe a doorway? It wasn't complete yet — a base held upright by a few smooth lengths running along the floor out from the corners, extending upward from either end two metal poles about a hand wide. The metal was mostly plain, though there was a furrow going down the middle, curved on the inside edge and square corners on the outside — though as Liz got closer she realised that furrow was absolutely covered in columns of tiny glyphs. As large as this thing was — wide enough for two people to step through shoulder to shoulder (though adults might have to squeeze a little), even incomplete the posts as high as Liz's shoulder — to need that many glyphs this must be one hell of an enchantment.

Víðir glanced up at Daphne's introduction — tinkering with another segment of post, not sure what he was doing with it — he shot Liz a bright smile. "Ah yes, Liz Potter! Daphne and Tracey have spoken of you often, it's a pleasure to finally meet you."

Okay, Víðir got points for immediately calling her "Liz" without any of the silly Girl-Who-Lived or my lady crap. "Hello." Liz had no idea what the fuck else she was supposed to say, so she nodded at the partially-assembled device. "What's this?"

"A gate spell, it's called," Hermione's dad said, "he was just telling us about it when you came over."

Smirking some more, Emma drawled, "We didn't get very far — Daniel led us on a long diversion due to a minor terminological confusion."

"I still insist I'm right that spells and enchantments are distinct categories. It's not my fault mages use inconsistent terminology."

"You can hardly blame me for this, Daniel, I am as frustrated as you. English is not a mainstream academic language in our world — French or Latin are preferred — so these things were never properly standardised." Víðir popped back up to his feet, and then onto a step-stool — conjured, Liz assumed. Gesturing idly with the length of post in his hand, "I sounded silly trying to explain it to you, because the language is silly. If we were speaking French now, the terms would be more consistent." Víðir lined the segment up with the left-side post, something clicked as it slid home, and he pulled out... Was that a muggle screwdriver? Huh.

"That's a little peculiar," one of the muggle parents said, Liz didn't see which. "English is a common enough language in universities around the world."

"And so it is in your world, but not in ours. Historically, academia used Latin; in recent centuries, it is French. And that is only in Europe, institutions elsewhere in the world use their own languages — as greater in numbers as you are, magical communities tend to be quite inward-facing, we are less well-connected than you are in the modern day." The screwdriver disappearing again, Víðir hopped back down to the floor, reached into his bag to pull out another length of metal.

"Yes yes, but how does this work, exactly?"

"Oh, it's very old magic, like drawing to like..."

And so Víðir fielded curious questions from the muggle parents as he worked — mostly Daniel and Emma, it was obvious where Hermione'd gotten it from — Liz lingering to listen. It was rather interesting. It was sympathetic magic, basically — so long as the frames were perfectly identical, they could be easily linked together, essentially tricking the universe into thinking the plane of space inside of them was the same space. As long as the enchantment was active, they could just walk through it as they would any other doorway, instantly and seamlessly teleported to the paired gateway in the Greenwood. It was pretty simple magic, even — the larger part of the glyphs along the rim were to stabilise the ambient magic in the immediate environment, so interference didn't create rifts in the fabric of the gate. Walking through an unstable gate could be terribly dangerous, like instantly shredding people into pieces dangerous, part of why it was taking so long to put together was because Víðir was checking each glyph one by one to make sure none had been nicked when he'd dropped the bag catching Astoria.

One of the muggle parents asked if it was safe, Víðir assured them that he'd carefully test it before sending any of them through, and he was an expert in this sort of magic, not to worry. They shouldn't feel a thing when they made the trip, like walking from one room to another.

That sounded brilliant, but Liz guessed she did understand why they weren't more common. There was how catastrophically a faulty one could fuck people up, yes, but also they only worked one to one — the magic worked in pairs and pairs only, you needed to make a separate gate for each destination. The floo was far more unpleasant of an experience than this sounded like, but it was lower maintenance and far more versatile, so.

The gate was fully put together, making a doorway about two metres tall, Víðir giving all of the joints a last check over, when Liz felt a mind appear behind her inside the hole in the wards, a very familiar mind. It seemed Severus had finally shown up. She looked that way, leaning around Emma so she could see. Severus had changed out of his usual I am a scary dark wizard, see how my cloak swishes robes into something rather less dramatic — still robes (he could hardly be seen by mages in muggle clothes), and still mostly in black, but rather lighter, plain professional robes like a potioneer might be expected to wear. He'd also tied his hair back, as he often did when outside Hogwarts, making how thin and pale his face was rather more obvious. There was a leather bag (also black) slung over his shoulder that Liz had never seen before, but she hadn't seen him pack to return to school either, so.

...Now that she thought about it, he probably didn't pack to move back and forth for the summer — it seemed more likely that he simply kept everything he needed in both his house and his rooms at school at all times. She wondered whether he'd even had this bag before, or if he'd had to go buy one.

Severus was halfway to the group of adults when one of the kids suddenly shouted, "Hey, it's Professor Snape!" There were a couple shushes from the girl's neighbours, a few others glancing around — looking for Liz, they probably didn't realise she was with the adults.

Severus shot a flat look in their direction, and for a second Liz thought he was about to take five points from...whichever house that kid was in (though she was probably in Slytherin, so maybe not), but then he simply looked away without a word, continuing on toward the group. He stopped at the space between Emma and Mr Roper, nodded down at Liz. "Elizabeth. Lord Greengrass, I presume. I see I wasn't delayed too long — locking down the potions labs for the summer required more work than I'd anticipated."

"Not at all, you're right on time." There was a little bit of muttering going on between the muggle parents — it seemed Víðir had failed to mention introducing himself that he was fancy magical noble lord — but Víðir entirely ignored it, leaning down to tap at the bottom corner of the frame with his wand. There was a pulse of magic, sharp and clear, like the ringing of a bell. "And none of this Lord Greengrass nonsense — Lord Greengrass was my father-in-law," he said with a sort of exasperated but good-natured sigh, to amused tittering from some of the parents. "It's Víðir, please." Another tap of his wand in the middle of the frame, creating another ringing of magic, he hopped up onto his footstool to get the top corner. Stepping down again, he slid the stool across the floor with a foot, presumably so he could reach the other top corner.

There was another round of introductions among the adults, which was kind of funny to listen to — few of them had ever actually met him before, but all of them knew of him. Liz hadn't realised this until recently, but Severus was actually relatively well-known in the magical world, literally the only person known to have defected from the Death Eaters. And it was common knowledge that he'd done so, since there'd been a trial and everything, the stupidly-famous idiot Albus Dumbledore personally vouching as to his usefulness for the war effort. (And also his character, but his spying work was more relevant to the proceedings.) Even the muggles had heard of him before — judging by the dislike and confusion, their kids had complained to them about their Potions Professor. Of course, Severus might be weird and awkward, but he wasn't really that scary (at least when he wasn't trying to be scary), hence the confusion. Liz even caught a couple thoughts that how bad he was must have been exaggerated, or maybe it was just a hard class and he had high standards, because he seemed perfectly ordinary.

Of course, Potions was one of the harder classes, and Severus did have high standards, but most of Liz's classmates also found him legitimately intimidating. (Even the Slytherins, sometimes, though they tended not to attach as much importance to it, just one of those things.) Liz didn't get it — the scary dark wizard act was just so silly, she had no idea how anyone could take it seriously — but she didn't get other kids most of the time, so.

Daniel and a couple of the other parents were asking Severus about...not potions, actually, that Severus was also a healer must have come up at some point — the muggles were asking about magical medicine now. Anyway, Víðir had finished up whatever he was doing, the portal finally activated. It didn't look much different than it had before, but there was a sort of shimmer inside the frame, like heat haze. Liz tilted her head a little to get a better angle, and she thought she could see the room on the other side, but she couldn't make it out very well from here.

"Excuse me," Severus said, interrupting a ramble from Daniel about something very technical-sounding — Hermione's parents were both muggle doctors, they obviously found the idea of healing magic fascinating (if they were anything like Hermione, they'd be monopolising Severus's attention for at least a few days) — then raised his voice a little. "Víðir, did you design a mobile gate?"

"Indeed I did!" It came in a cheerful chirp, but a little distracted, Víðir's eyes on the gate and wand twitching as he cast one spell and then another. Probably analysis charms, to make sure it was working correctly. "I've been working on the project for some years now, I think it's almost ready for a write-up."

...Wait, was he implying this wasn't something people did all the time? Liz hadn't realised this was unusual, none of the parents had said anything. Though, she guessed some of the magical ones had been watching very closely...

"You have thoroughly tested it, of course."

"Of course, I wouldn't risk using it now if I weren't certain it's safe. You may check my work yourself, if you like."

Severus eyed the gate for a moment, thoughts methodically turning over in his head. "You are the same Víðir Greengrass who wrote Effects of Mediated Interplanar Interactions on Local Free Reservoirs?"

"Oh, you've read that old thing? Yes, that was one of my projects back in my apprenticeship days, and how long ago that was..." It couldn't be that long, Víðir really didn't look that old. She knew Lily and Ailbhe's time at Hogwarts overlapped, and she thought Daphne's parents must be pretty close in age, so he could only be a few years older than Severus.

...Also, if he'd published that paper under the name Greengrass, he must have already been married to Ailbhe, and Liz thought they'd had Daphne pretty soon after (as mages supposedly did). He was probably just being silly and dramatic.

Severus nodded, giving the gate a last lingering look before shrugging it off. "Then I'm certain your testing was thorough. I appreciate the offer, but it won't be necessary."

Liz blinked — this was probably the first time she'd ever heard him just assume the work of someone else was good enough. Except Pomfrey's healing, she guessed, but they've been working together for a decade now, so that didn't count. He'd even strongly suggested she never buy potions from apothecaries, and learning to do as much of her own enchanting as possible was ideal, it was a whole thing with him. That must have been one hell of a paper.

Or perhaps he expected pureblood nobles were too paranoid to trust their children to something as potentially dangerous as a gate if they weren't certain it was safe, Liz guessed it could go either way.

A couple last charms from Víðir, he held up a finger for them to wait, and then walked through the doorway — he didn't come out the other side, just abruptly vanishing. He was gone maybe for only a second or two before he hopped back through, grinning at his audience. "And so there we are! I'm afraid my wife is away at the moment — business came up at the Wizengamot, it seems — but Heli Babbling, a friend of ours, will greet you on the other side. Please reverse any shrinking charms you have active, they don't interact well with planar crossings.

"Oh, are any of you carrying expanded luggage?" There were a few nods and muttered assents, Víðir nodded back. "I will need to check those before you pass through. Some enchanters don't quite isolate expanded space properly — unsealed altered space and portal spells do not mix."

"What happens if you bring a bad one through?" one of the muggle parents asked.

"Most likely? The expanded space will shatter, messily. It won't injure the person carrying it, but it will throw their belongings around in random directions, and likely do some damage to them as well. There's a paling I can put around unsealed luggage to temporarily isolate them, but I'll need to know which things need it. So, let's get going, then! Unshrink your luggage and have it out to be analysed, and then walk on through. One by one, but you can line up at both sids, if you want..."

There was a little bit of chaos as everyone scattered around, adults tracking down their children, bags and trunks pulled out of pockets and unshrunk. After a brief discussion, Víðir agreed that Mrs Monroe knew the proper spells to examine and protect people's luggage, so two clumps of people formed, one to either side of the gate. They started to approach, muggles rather more tentatively than the mages, nervous about the unfamiliar magic.

Liz stayed still in all the mess, not wanting to end up in the middle of one of the clumps — Severus didn't move either, probably for similar reasons. She unshrunk her trunk while she waited, though she didn't think it would be a problem, she had gotten a rather expensive one.

While Víðir and Mrs Monroe checked the luggage of the families first in line to either side, Severus spoke in a mutter, startling her a little. "Elizabeth, are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Why?"

"You weren't standing with your friends when I arrived. It may be my imagination, but you also seem more withdrawn than usual."

"Oh." She paused to watch the first few people step through — it was kind of freaky to watch, people just vanishing into nothing when they should be running right into each other. Magic was so neat sometimes. "Maybe I am a little, I guess. The train was noisy, and there are a lot of people here."

"If you feel you need to leave early, tell me so and I will make our excuses."

He couldn't see her face from this angle, so she let herself roll her eyes. "I know, Severus." Honestly, he'd only said as much at least five times since they'd been invited...

Once they got into a rhythm, the people further back in the clump realising nothing bad had happened to the first couple families, they got going at a much better pace. It helped that most of their luggage was fine to go through — only a couple of the muggleborns were stopped so palings could be put over their things, and that took an extra moment. Since all it took was walking through the doorway, the clumps quickly evaporated. Liz bent down to grab the handle of her trunk and walked over to the back of the smaller clump, her trunk rolling silently behind her. Along the way, Severus moved at an angle such that he was ahead of her — he probably meant to make sure the portal was safe before letting her through, which was slightly paranoid, but fine.

Looking at it straight on, she could see the other side of the portal. It was in an open courtyard, the floor greyish stone, flashes of green in the distance, trees gently swaying in a breeze. Liz couldn't see clearly, too many people milling about in the way, so she couldn't make out much. Though she could see well enough to tell there were leaves on those trees — how the fuck were they still green? It was December...

Before long, the clump on this side was entirely gone — the other side still had a couple families left, Liz thought Mrs Monroe was a little slower at this, or perhaps had gotten more people with faulty luggage — and Liz was standing only a few steps away from the gate. She could feel the magic from this close, a constant pressure against her skin, almost like the heat from a fire but not really hot or cold, a smooth almost floral tingle in her nose. Severus walked through without pause, Liz could see him on the other side, though the colours were a little washed out, his form slightly blurry.

Víðir leaned down a little, his wand dancing over her trunk. "Ah ha! Now that is quite thorough work. Where did you get this?"

"Um, Charing. I don't remember which shop, it was ages ago."

"Mm, I'll have to walk around some day, I didn't know anyone there was selling anything like this. Multiple compartments, the bubbled space is perfectly isolated and anchored, and all the compartments are themselves isolated inside the bubble, yes, this is very good work. This should make it through the crossing just fine. You'll need to pick it up and carry it, those wheels won't get over the rim."

Well, good to know a purchase she'd made as an ignorant ten-year-old had been a good one, she guessed. Liz heaved the trunk up off the floor, hugging it to her chest, and followed Severus through the portal.

She could feel the magic of the portal itself, something cool and smooth running over her skin, like stepping into running water, crossing over her in a thin line sweeping front to back. And that was it, a single step and she was on the other side — no noises or spinning, no disorientation, not even the slightest sense of movement. Portal spells were definitely her favourite form of magical transportation so far, no contest.

They were in a courtyard, the greyish stone under Liz's feet ancient and craggy from erosion. The square was, in fact, lined with trees, and they were green, despite the season. Liz spotted a few pillars among them, some shorter than others, having collapsed long ago — by the look of the place, likely hundreds and hundreds of years back — suggesting there once would have been a roof here, but there certainly wasn't now, open to the cloudy winter sky. Also, weirdly, it was warm — not uncomfortably so, but like spring in Surrey, the breeze a little cool (and heavy and fragrant with rain) but pleasant, far too warm for it to be December.

The Greengrasses must have environmental wards over their property. That was slightly absurd when Liz thought about it. From what she'd read, controlling the environment in a space was possible, sure, like within the fence around a house, but it was prohibitively difficult on a large scale — the Greengrasses supposedly had fields and orchards and shite. The number of factors involved in such a thing quickly grew insane, and the power required was far more than most domestic ward systems were crafted to handle. Considering Liz knew they were growing shite here year round, she was pretty sure it was just impossible.

Using modern methods, that is. As old as the Greenwood was, the original wards had almost certainly been set with ritual sacrifice. Liz didn't know nearly as much about that sort of magic, there weren't many books on it, but given that it definitely didn't feel like winter here they must have known what they were doing.

The courtyard wasn't huge, but big enough for people to all clump to one side without getting crammed together too much — there was a gap in the trees on that end of the courtyard, a stone walkpath leading away, shaded by branches criss-crossing overhead. Liz lingered toward the back of the crowd, waiting, as the last couple families came through, followed at last by Mrs Monroe. The shimmering image of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters inside the frame abruptly winked out, Víðir still on the other side. Liz wondered for a moment if something had gone wrong, before remembering, duh, Víðir would have to dismantle the gate and take it back with him, idiot...

"Is that everyone, then?" There was a bit of shouting and shuffling around as everyone did a headcount, Liz trying not to openly grimace at the noise. "Good, let's get moving!" A blonde woman leapt up onto a large block of stone sitting just to the side of the walkpath out, so she could see over the crowd — hair darker than the Greengrasses and curling in tight ringlets, that was Heli Babbling. Though she looked a little different: Liz noticed glints of metal in her face here and there, piercings, those hadn't been there when she'd come to Hogwarts.

Liz still didn't know what the deal was with her. The Greengrass sisters obviously knew her well — Astoria had practically been snuggled up against her at the duelling tournament — and she was apparently trusted enough for the Greengrasses to have her welcome guests into their home and show them around. Liz suspected she'd lived in the Greenwood for a long time, and was close to the Greengrasses somehow, but she didn't know what was going on with that.

"To the parents here, apparation is impossible in most of the Greenwood, but this courtyard marks a hole in the wards — as long as you are within the pillars, you can freely apparate in and out. If you need to leave for any reason, this is where you would do it, and you may return whenever you like. Anyone you try to bring with you who was not welcomed here by a member of the family will be bounced.

"The guest hall on the main road has been opened up for you, only a short walk from here. I think Ailbhe and Víðir intend to have a dinner in the evening, so you'll have a few hours to settle in. If you'll all follow me..."

The path out was laid with paving stones, a bit longer than her foot on either side and old, grey and weathered. They walked for at least a couple minutes along, both sides of the path lined with trees, brush lining the path to either side. Liz wasn't exactly an expert with plants (at least, not anything Petunia hadn't grown in their garden), but she thought it wasn't all the same kind of tree, several different leaf shapes and the texture of the bark varied, lots of different kinds. And it wasn't just one layer along the path either, Liz couldn't see anything on the other side, just trees and trees and trees.

Apparently, "Greenwood" was meant to be literal.

There was talking going on, people chatting with each other, toward the front of the group Liz thought they were asking Heli questions, but she was too far away to hear any of it, she and Severus silently following along at the rear. Liz would expect Hermione to be as curious as anyone else, so was surprised when a minute or two in Hermione came back to walk with them, her parents nowhere to be seen. She seemed inexplicably exasperated and...embarrassed?

It only took a quick glance in Hermione's head, Liz let out a little huff of amusement before she could stop it — Hermione's parents were kind of interrogating Heli, wanting to know everything about the magic that made everything grow in winter, and about the Greenwood, and whatever came to mind. They were being a bit overbearing about it, which wasn't unusual, apparently they did that kind of thing a lot, Hermione had just hoped they'd be able to restrain themselves this time, even if only for a few minutes.

But of course they hadn't, Liz would have been able to tell Hermione something like this would happen. They were Hermione's parents, and she had to have gotten it from somewhere.

Hermione shot her a little glare. "It's not funny."

"It's kind of funny."

Hermione let out a huff, her hair frizzing up a little more than usual with her frustration, but didn't try to argue. Because her parents acting like this was completely expected, and also kind of funny, and Hermione would be able to see that if she weren't so embarrassed about it.

Liz picked up a tingle of curiosity from Severus, watching them — that must have seemed like it came out of nowhere from the outside, he probably guessed they were referring to something she'd gotten out of Hermione's head. But whatever he thought about it, Severus didn't say anything, the three of them just kept walking in silence.

After a couple minutes, the path widened a little, the line of brush to either side coming to an end, a gap opening up just on the other side of the first layer of trees — at first in that gap Liz only saw what were clearly gardens, greenery kept in gently curving rows, but soon there were buildings. Hardly ordinary buildings, no, and... Well, they were unusual even by magical standards. In Liz's (admittedly rather limited) experience, magical architecture tended to have a lot of odd shapes, sprouting off in seemingly random directions, even leaning at what would be very unstable angles if they didn't have magic to prop them up. But, as oddly shaped as they tended to be, if she ignored that they were mostly perfectly ordinary. The same materials as she might expect — though dated, without more modern plaster and siding or whatever, and a lot of stone but not much wood (stone held enchantments better), but perfectly mundane-looking materials at least — and while they might be painted or have signs or little accents here and there in unexpectedly bright and clashing colours, that wasn't so weird. Back when she'd lived with the Dursleys, they'd driven through streets in London or Guildford that were nearly as colourful, if not so...crooked.

These were different. They were made mostly of wood, with some bricks that Liz guessed were some kind of clay or fired mud or something. They weren't the nice even rectangles muggles liked, but neither were they the crooked rectangles mages went with — Liz couldn't see perfectly well through the row of trees along the path, but she saw a lot of curved lines. From this angle, Liz couldn't guess at the shape of the floorplan, but it looked like they were maybe shaped kind of like the petals of a flower, you know, rooms bulging out from a middle point, walls curved and smooth. The closer she looked, Liz realised they weren't just wood and brick, there was also glass, but not used as windows — Liz spotted one window frame she was certain didn't have anything in it, just open to the air — instead used for decoration, dyed all kinds of colours and formed into twisting shapes, lining door and window frames, sometimes little tiles set into the walls, making colourful mosaics, glinting in...the sunlight?

Liz glanced up, feeling inexplicable warmth on her face. The sky was still cloudy, but overhead, halfway up the sky, the sun was still clearly visible. She hadn't noticed at first, the sun was at an angle few shadows were thrown across the path, but... How the fuck did that work? It was a cloudy day, the wards must be doing that somehow...

Anyway, some of the buildings she saw definitely had what were living plants on them. Some of the walls had vines growing along the surface, some dotted with bright white flowers — berries of some kind, if she had to guess. Which was kind of convenient, when she thought about it, if you were a little peckish you could just pick a couple berries off of your house as you walked by. Weird, yes, but not really a bad idea. And the roofs, some of them were covered in grass, a few colourful wildflowers sprouting up here and there, which, she had no idea how they managed that...

Abruptly, somehow with Liz hardly realising it, they were in what was definitely a town. There were more of the odd little buildings to either side, multiple rows of them now, narrow curving alleys splitting off the path to weave between them. There were still plenty of trees, sprouting out of the gaps between the buildings, patches of shade scattered all around, and also gardens all over the place, each house seemed to have a lot of gardens thick with various plants all around. Liz was sure they had to have fields and orchards somewhere, but clearly they didn't think where they lived and where they grew things should be entirely separate, homes and greenery all mixed up — so, it ended up looking kind of like the suburbs, almost, houses separated from each other with green patches, except of course the houses looked nothing alike, and also instead of just grass and little rows of flowers Liz was pretty sure these were mostly vegetables and fruits and stuff. Again, not a plant expert, but those looked like peas, and those sprawling bushes in a patch of shade just there were definitely strawberries, speckled with bright red fruits wildly out of season...

And there were people around — not nearly so dense as in, say, the residential neighbourhood Liz had found in Charing, but. Gathered in clumps here and there chatting, though almost all of them were doing something with their hands as they talked. There was a lot of weaving going on, though Liz didn't see any looms or anything, threads seemingly held up with magic somehow, other groups stringing colourful glass beads, people chattering and laughing with each other while they worked. There were a couple different groups working in the gardens, pruning and weeding and picking, though not with any urgency, half of their attention on their conversation, very casual about it. One bloke Liz spotted sitting on a wall somewhere by himself looked to be practising with a stringed instrument of some kind (didn't recognise it). And there were plenty of kids about, all different ages, some of the older ones working alongside the adults, younger ones helping with the beadwork, though a bunch were playing instead, running around shouting and giggling. One group in a larger clearing over there were kicking around what was definitely a football — they might be mages, and in a weird isolated subgroup of mages at that, but they were still British.

Though they looked about as weird as the buildings around. Blond hair dominated, the precise shade widely varying — which wasn't a surprise, given how very blonde the Greengrass sisters were — broken with flashes of black or red here and there. They were all recognisably human, of course, they didn't look odd in that way, but their clothing definitely wasn't normal, by muggle or magical standards. After a bit looking around, Liz decided their clothes were mostly made out of single lengths of cloth, draped over and wrapped around them, pinned in place with these metal hoop things, strands of colourful glass beads dangling from them. There were a lot of beads in general, really, around wrists or necks or ankles (nobody seemed to be wearing shoes), embroidered into clothing or plaited into hair, set into earrings...and also piercings in lips and noses, which, Liz had never seen that sort of thing on mages before. As relatively simple as their clothes were, just a single bit of cloth — which, looking at the people weaving over there, that did make sense: they could only make strips so wide by hand, and they probably tied it off when they'd gotten it long enough and just wore that and called it good enough — the cloth itself wasn't simple at all, thread dyed in a wide variety of vibrant colours in intricate patterns, no two exactly alike. Which, that they were all at least slightly different also made sense, since apparently they'd all been woven by hand. There was a lot of variety in how they were worn too, draped over them and wrapped around in different orientations — Liz couldn't tell for sure how that all worked, but that there was variety was easy enough to tell at a glance, their profiles differing.

They were kind of pretty, Liz guessed, very bright and colourful...though it did get a little uncomfortable at times. That they were just a single bit of cloth wrapped around people meant they weren't closed all the way around. It was pretty easy to get glimpses of large parts of people's middles, sides and backs and stomachs, some shoulders left completely uncovered. The skirts (for lack of a better word) also tended to be pretty short, hems often uneven, reaching further down one side than the other. One woman Liz spotted, all of the important bits were covered, but the "skirt" was at a sharp angle, one leg covered down to the knee but the other wasn't really covered at all, from her foot all the way up to where a length of cloth hugged around her waist, just, nothing, which was very distracting.

And the important bits weren't always covered — apparently they made their cloth strips in two lengths, one meant to cover most of their body (except for their limbs and the gaps in the folds, obviously) and the other just their lower half. A lot of people were basically just walking around in (weird, crooked) skirts, without a shirt of any kind at all. And it wasn't just men, either, but the women too — there didn't seem to be any difference in how men and women dressed in general, though the women did tend to have more beads and shite worked into their hair, some flowers here and there — which that was just...kind of odd, wasn't it? Liz wasn't complaining, exactly (she did catch a few scandalised thoughts and whispers from some of the muggle parents), in fact she stared more than she probably should, but... Well, she'd already realised the Mistwalkers were rather different from normal mages, and normal mages could already be a little cavalier about nudity sometimes (though only behind closed doors, with family and friends and teammates and stuff, they were prudes in public), she guessed this was just one of those things.

In fact, Liz had a feeling they just didn't give a shite about nudity much at all. She didn't spot any adults walking about completely naked (though some weren't far from it, honestly), but she noticed some of the little kids running about actually were. After a bit looking around, Liz put together it was disproportionately the younger kids — maybe once you were old enough for puberty to start being a thing you were expected to at least wear something all the time? Huh. That made a kind of sense, when she thought about it — nudity couldn't be misread as sexual if you were just too young for it — but it was a fucking weird kind. Not her business, she guessed...

Since a lot of people were walking about topless, Liz noticed it wasn't just ears and noses and lips and eyebrows (never seen that before) that people had piercings in — there were glints of metal and beads mirroring collarbones, some thick enough they formed a line of them from shoulder to shoulder, and many people had a line of them all down their spine (universal enough Liz suspected it must be a cultural thing), some of them the waists of their skirts were low enough to spot more along their hips, and naval and nipple piercings were very common... Huh. Weird. And also a little distracting, Liz kept catching herself staring...

(It was definitely a cultural thing, and not one that was shared with mainstream magical society, since Heli Babbling had taken out her facial piercings or somehow hidden them when she visited Hogwarts for the duelling tournament. Liz made a mental note to ask about that at some point.)

Walking next to her, there was a bit of simmering discomfort in Hermione's head — Hermione was nearly as uncomfortable with the mages' bathing habits as Liz was (though Liz didn't have to deal with her roommates just shamelessly changing out in the open) — but there was something else, an almost numb sort of...amusement, maybe? Slipping a little closer to Liz, she muttered, "I feel like we just walked into Rivendell."

That was obviously a reference to something, but Liz didn't get it.

Hermione smiled a little, shook her head. "Remind me to let you borrow my copies of Lord of the Rings. If you're anything like me, you'll find them equal parts brilliant and frustrating."

...Okay, then.

But anyway, the place was bloody weird, yes, but weird didn't mean bad. In fact, she thought she sort of liked it. It was very colourful, and bright and open — Liz didn't like tight spaces much — and there were people around, but not a tonne of people, like in a city, just like a small town, and they weren't paying Liz any particular attention, and that wasn't so bad. She might expect the minds of so many people around to be overwhelming anyway, but... She didn't know how to describe it. There was something about the magic here, she thought — she could feel the minds around her, yes, but they didn't seem quite as loud as usual, almost muffled, as though the medium they had to travel through to reach her was thicker than usual. And, sometimes magic being too thick around her could be unpleasant — standing right on the wardline of Severus's house was plain suffocating — but this wasn't bad at all, cool and smooth and...just pleasant. As odd as it sounded even in her own head that the magic here felt nice, she thought she liked it.

It was still early — she'd have to see what the room she'd be put up in looked like, and whether the locals were going to start being annoying as soon as they realised the Girl Who Lived was visiting — but so far so good.

Liz was distracted from her thoughts when she spotted something bloody weird — apparently the locals weren't all human. "What are they?" she blurted out, pointing at the odd-looking people picking through one of the gardens, alongside a couple ordinary humans.

With a slight flicker of exasperation, Severus drawled, "It's rude to point, Elizabeth." Oh, right, oops. "I believe those are nymphs. I've never met one before, though I have seen drawings and photographs."

"...Huh." Liz had read of nymphs, but she'd never actually seen one before. They were generally human-shaped, though slender and long-limbed — not in a way a human might be slender and long-limbed, enough they were noticeably out of proportion, actually a little creepy if she looked too closely. Their different proportions made their gait a little odd, but they moved smoothly, no faster or slower than the humans next to them but something about them seeming weirdly graceful. They had a darker skin tone than the humans around them, an odd shade kind of like a dark olive but not quite right, warm brown but with a tinge of green to it? Which was bloody weird, that did not look like a colour human skin was supposed to be, unnatural. Their hair was plaited with beads and shite like the other locals, but it was a soft white, almost glowing where the sunlight hit it.

A lot of what Liz had read about nymphs was, well, she wasn't sure what to think about it. Really old stuff used the term interchangeably with elf and fairy and the like, since, you know, they were weird magical people who were visibly inhuman...but that kind of implied they were from that same other world that bloody elves and fairies which were actually a real thing were from, which they definitely weren't. It wasn't hard to tell: all the different races from the other world were sensitive to certain kinds of metal, like iron and nickel and shite, but nymphs weren't. Some more modern things she'd read still talked about them like they were a kind of fairy, but Liz thought the theory that they were native to this world, having split off from humans sometime before recorded history started being a thing — like giants, or veela and lilin, or vampires, merpeople and so on — seemed much more likely. They'd probably even done it the same way, altering themselves with primitive ritual magic millennia ago but, unlike veela and lilin and more like giants or selkies, they didn't still have oral history about it, so nobody knew for sure. Seemed like a reasonable guess, though.

There were supposedly a few different kinds of them, mountain nymphs and river nymphs and sea nymphs, but Liz didn't know what the difference was. Presumably just different races, like how humans had, and maybe the different groups also had different magic, like veela and lilin? She didn't know, most British authors she'd read seemed remarkably incurious about them — and also very racist, because this was Britain. The general consensus seemed to be that they weren't unpleasant, gentle and non-violent, with an odd, delicate, inhuman beauty about them — it was known for a fact that nymphs and humans couldn't interbreed, which she assumed meant someone had tested that theory at some point — but also that they were unintelligent, primitive savages.

They could pick up language, sure, and had some skill with witchcraft, but they didn't do any wizardry or enchanting at all, or even really build or make anything, seemingly content to while away their lives lazing about naked in a forest somewhere, living off of berries and nuts and mushrooms. While they didn't tend to do shite on their own, they could be made to — they were particularly suited to working with plants, apparently a lot of the workers on mage-owned farms and orchards and the like were nymphs (the rest wilderfolk, and squibs, and just poor people in general). In fact, they were comfortable enough with this kind of work, and easy enough to keep content (so less likely to revolt), that they were preferred by most land-holders for it...so the nymphs of the British Isles had mostly been enslaved to do agricultural labour — the word wasn't "slave" in British law, but that's what they were. They did have excuses about the Statute of Secrecy, not wanting muggles to stumble across them out in the wild, but...

The books she'd read had claimed nymphs couldn't really be taught anything too complex, tending farmland about all they were capable of, and while they could learn language resisted being civilised beyond that at all, even stubbornly refusing to so much as wear clothing. Which, that part was obviously untrue — the nymphs Liz was looking at right now with her own two eyes were dressed no different from the humans around them. She had no idea how much of what she'd read was accurate, but it probably wasn't very much. Especially since the claim was that they were savages who couldn't be taught to read and write or do pretty much anything, that they were incapable of using wands at all, but Liz knew for a fact (from what little research she'd done on the topic in the last week to prepare for her transfer after OWLs) that certain other magical schools accepted nymphs as students. Beauxbatons supposedly had a fair number of them, they had their own dorms specially tailored for their comfort and everything. So.

Yeah, it was probably all shite, stupidly racist shite. She made a mental note to try to talk to one while she was here, just out of curiosity, but she had no idea whether or not she'd get to it. Seemed like walking up to someone and saying hey, I've only read racist shite about people like you, and I was wondering what you're really like would be even worse than openly pointing at them.

Eventually, their group was led to the largest building Liz could see around, and in some ways the most ordinary-looking of them — it was rectangular, three storeys, windows spaced evenly enough to suggest a relatively regular internal floor plan. That must be the guest hall Heli had mentioned, higher density because people weren't meant to live there permanently, and also not so thoroughly foreign, so non-Mistwalker guests would be more comfortable. It wasn't a huge building by any means, Liz had definitely seen larger hotel buildings in London, but depending on how big the individual rooms were they could probably fit a couple hundred people in there if they really had to...which seemed like way more room for guests than they would ever need, especially since there were fewer mages just in general, but what did Liz know.

Though, it didn't look completely ordinary: the trim around the edges and the window-frames looked like a lot of older buildings in London had, carved into complicated curling shapes and everything, but instead of stone done all in colourfully-dyed glass, and there were vines crawling across the surface, in some places completely hiding the wall beneath. Because Liz suspected Mistwalkers weren't capable of making anything completely ordinary.

They went inside, but not through a door, instead a two-storey high archway cut into the face of the building — the inside surface entirely covered with vibrantly colourful tiles, a mosaic of a forest scene, glass glinting in light that seemingly came from nowhere — on the other side walking out into an open courtyard (meaning the guest hall had rather fewer rooms in it than Liz had assumed). There was a narrow stream running down the middle, tumbling quietly over smooth stones placed here and there...which seemed to just sprout out of the ground on one side of the rectangular space and slip back under it on the other side, okay. (Was that a circuit, circling back to make a closed loop, or was there a stream going underground here and they'd just brought it up top for a little bit?) Strangely, it seemed to be autumn in here, the trees occupying large patches of the courtyard turned yellow and orange and red, leaves scattered over the grass here and there. There was plenty of space left open though, benches and tables scattered about, room for people to hang around talking. Seemingly all the rooms around the courtyard had balconies looking over it, the wooden railings around them thick with more vines — these had turned too, their leaves mostly red but spotted with orange and even purple, all together making this inside space extremely colourful.

There were people already in the courtyard when they arrived, locals with their weird clothes and beaded jewellery and too many piercings. By the time Liz and Hermione and Severus walked in, a good half of the group had already dissolved away — the locals were splitting the guests up and leading families to rooms, chattering away as they went. There was a call of Hermione's name as she walked in, her father waving at her, Hermione squeaked and darted off to catch back up. (Hermione hated being late to things, and it seemed like her parents had probably been waiting for her for a little bit.) She and Severus were at the back of the group, so they silently waited their turn, Liz watching the activity going on around them. There were the Walkers, she spotted them in time to see Dorea snatch the older of her baby brothers (Liz knew they were Ben and Sam, but forgot which was which) by the shoulder, stopping him from grabbing the skirt of one of the people leading them off — the hem was lined with polished glass beads, glittering in the light, very eye-catching. Though Liz would guess she found it distracting for different reasons than the little boy did.

"Lady Elizabeth, Master Severus?" She twitched at the voice, feminine and faintly accented, zeroed in on the source (first with mind magic and a second later with her eyes). They'd been approached by two women while Liz hadn't been paying attention — well, a woman and a girl, really, one was old enough to be out of school but the other one could be a fourth- or fifth-year — the elder blonde and the younger with bright reddish-orange hair, and their weird dress things were wrapped the same exact way, the colourful pattern in the cloth (in red and white and blue and orange) the same, even their jewellery was similar, Liz assumed they were sisters.

...She wasn't entirely sure how that followed. They didn't look that alike, physically, maybe cousins would have been a more reasonable guess, but Liz felt weirdly certain they were sisters. Probably a Seer thing.

Like seemingly all the locals, they also had piercings all over their faces, a few along their collars, Liz spotted a glint of colour the elder had on the patch of skin showing on her side near her hip — Liz tried and probably failed to not stare. Severus gave a maybe two syllable acknowledgement they had the right people, not commenting on the use of Master Severus (it was technically the appropriate address for someone with a Mastery, Liz knew, but very old-fashioned, Master or Professor Snape was more common), startling Liz a little. "Oh, er, 'Liz' is fine." Severus was literally the only person who called her Elizabeth, and all that Lady shite was just fucking uncomfortable.

Warm smile unwavering, the elder nodded. "Of course. I am called Sylvestra Snowalder, this is my sister Febia Snowsherry." Liz blinked at the names, somehow managed not to blurt out a what the fuck. "She doesn't speak English very well, I'm afraid."

A little sheepishly, Febia twiddled her fingers in a little wave. "Hello."

"Yes, welcome to the Greenwood. We're to lead you up to your room — we can take your things if you like?"

Liz and Severus both elected to carry their things themselves, which should have been a surprise to no one. (Besides, Liz had re-shrunk her trunk and put it in a pocket anyway.) The Snow-sisters led them into a door — the inside brightly lit, yellow light setting warm wood to glow, more glass accents glinting here and there — and up a flight of stairs, idly chatting along the way. Liz didn't really give a damn about the building or when it'd been built or who stayed here or any of that, she was far more curious about...well, a lot of things, actually. The piercings, all the glass everywhere, what the hell was up with their names...

She ended up blurting out a question about the names before she could stop herself — there was a little shiver of exasperation from Severus, but Sylvestra seemed more amused than anything. Apparently, people here didn't technically have surnames — which was complicated for legal reasons, with how the Ministry works, Sylvestra just brushed over that — and they had their own system they used instead. She'd said them as one thing, but Liz thought technically they should be thought of as hyphenated, Snow-Alder and Snow-Cherry — the Snow was from their mother, and the trees from their fathers. (They were half-sisters, actually, which explained why they didn't look that similar.) It was a whole complicated thing, there were different lineages, originating from what had been titles a long time ago back when they were still a cult, and everyone had two, one from their mother and one from their father, their mother's passed to a daughter and their father's to a son, and they had their own special incest rules that was made really obvious by their names — for an easy example, if it was possible for a Snow-Snow to happen, that wasn't allowed — and all the different lineages were kind of considered family groups internally (though the Ministry didn't recognise them), and their local government worked by...

Well, it was all very complicated, and not really important, Liz had already gotten her answer. It sounded like weird hippie shite because it was weird hippie shite, because they used to be a pagan cult centuries ago (and still kind of were?). That's all she'd needed to know.

Sylvestra was still babbling off about something to do with the Greenwood's local government when she opened a door on the hall, leading them into a sitting room. The walls and floor and such were all wood, the furniture — a coffee table, a few sofas and armchairs — wooden frames shrouded with cloth where they were supposed to be sat on, the upholstery woven in patterns as complicated and colourful as their clothing. There was something peculiar about the quality of the light — they were indoors, but it felt almost like they were outside, something about the light seeming very...sunny. Lighting enchantments were normally designed to imitate firelight, but Liz assumed the Greenwood had gone with sunlight instead. Though, it wasn't just the right colour, it also felt like sunlight, even if Liz couldn't quite articulate even in her own head how or why.

She was guessing they'd made a point of imitating sunlight because that made it way easier to keep plants indoors — and there were plants in here, rather more than she'd expected, one corner lined with brush and one wall entirely covered with vines crawling across a wooden trellis, several pots of herbs or flowers here and there, a couple even hanging from the bloody ceiling. Not enough that the space felt crowded — though it wasn't a large space, that it didn't feel crowded might have more to do with the sunlight, and there was even a very light breeze in here, subtle enough Liz hadn't noticed until she spotted some of the leaves wiggling. There were even dark berries on the vines, though she wasn't close enough to tell what kind, which, okay...

Sylvestra explained that the sitting room was for guests to socialise with each other, all of the suites (not the word she used) had one, they could just gather wherever they liked — and yes, the berries were edible, they could go ahead and take some if they liked, or pick from the herbs if they were brewing something. (For potions that were sensitive to the time of year ingredients were picked, it was considered summer in this room, despite being December...also, she was pretty sure those flowers bloomed in spring, and the berries ripened in the fall, what the fuck.) Still babbling, Sylvestra showed them the bathroom, which was more or less ordinary by magical standards, the toilet and the bathing area separated from each other by a wall (also crawling with vines) for semi-superstitious sanitary reasons. There was a (rather large) bathtub and no shower, but Liz had kind of expected that, she'd deal with that problem when she came to it. It was a little odd that the tiling was all done in glass instead of stone, a layer of fine sand mixed into the top layer before it cooled for friction, and there were more bloody plants in here, but it was fine.

The bedroom, however, was not fine — as should be evident from the fact that the word was singular. It was perfectly pleasant, Liz supposed, more wood and bloody plants everywhere (because "Greenwood" was obviously meant to be literal), and there were two beds, separated by a floor-to-ceiling trellis thing crawling with vines, but still, unacceptable. "No," Liz said, only a couple steps into the room, interrupting Sylvestra in mid-sentence.

While the Snow-sisters blinked at her, confused, Severus said, "We will require individual bedrooms, if at all possible."

"...Oh." Sylvestra frowned, glancing between the two of them. "I thought you— Well, no matter. Ah, I'm sorry, of course we'll be able to do that, but... There should be something open on the ground floor — come with me, please, and we'll go find out."

Back downstairs, Sylvestra tracked down a man in a little sitting room off the foyer with the stairway, had a quick muttered conversation with him — it was in Cambrian, quick and quiet enough Liz couldn't follow it, though she caught a word now and again. They went over to a framed drawing on the wall, which Liz realised after a moment was the floorplan of the building, they talked for a little bit longer before erasing Liz and Severus's names from one spot with a charm, the man then sketching them in on a different floor (using a little paint brush, weirdly). He apologised to them for the misunderstanding, which Sylvestra then translated, though Liz had actually understood the Cambrian that time.

Sylvestra led them through the courtyard, pulled open a wide sliding glass door and into another sitting room. This one was very similar to the first one she'd shown them, maybe a little bit more sitting room, the biggest difference that it had windows and a door opening straight into the central courtyard. The bathroom was the same, and there were multiple rooms with single beds — three of them, actually, apparently they didn't have any two-bedroom rooms available. Though Liz greatly preferred having an extra bedroom in the space they'd be living in for a few weeks than having to share one with Severus (or anyone, honestly), this suite was much better than the first one they'd been led to.

So yes, this would do, thank you. Sylvestra apologised again for the mix-up, explained a little bit about how the cleaning and laundry worked here — they didn't have house-elves, there were locals who handled that sort of thing when they had guests — before reminding them that "Lady Ailbhe" would be inviting them all to a welcome dinner in a couple hours, someone would come for them when it was time. In the meantime, they were welcome to wander the guest hall and the town if they liked — she did confirm first that Liz and Severus both knew enough Cambrian to ask for directions if they got lost, because few people here actually spoke English. And that was it, Sylvestra welcomed them to the Greenwood again and the Snow-sisters left them alone.

Liz picked one of the rooms at random, unshrinking her trunk and placing it at the foot of her bed. The bed was actually rather larger than she'd expected — it was clearly meant to accommodate a couple if necessary, the drawer and closet space intended for two as well. The closets weren't completely empty, she found a couple shawls, very plain by the standards of the clothing she'd seen here, didn't know what those were for, atop the dresser several candles and, weirdly, little tins filled with colourful glass beads. Didn't know what those were there for.

It was a perfectly nice room, was the point, no matter how weird it was having so many plants indoors. And she checked, there was a lock on the door, and she saw glyphs on the latch so it was even an enchanted lock, would likely resist being forced with charms — a cursebreaker could get it open easy, and the locals probably had a key, but still, neat. This would do just fine.

When Liz walked back out into the sitting room, she was entirely unsurprised to find Severus poking through the bookshelves. He spoke without turning to look at her — her boots did clunk against the floorboards a little, but he would have felt her coming anyway. "We may wish to mark the door in some fashion, so we do not forget which one is ours."

"Good idea." There were like a dozen doors coming off the courtyard, and they all looked pretty much the same. They could count down the doors, or maybe try to remember which part of the courtyard was right outside their door — the plants and chairs and shite weren't symmetrical, so that was theoretically possible — but it was slightly ridiculous that they didn't have signs with room numbers or— Oh! "Hold that thought, I'll be right back."

Liz went back to her room, fished a pen and a sheet of paper out of her trunk — she'd assumed she'd have time to do her holiday homework while they were here, since Daphne did have just as much to do as she did — wrote her name in oversized letters, tracing it over multiple times to make sure it'd be easy to see. (She didn't know how well-lit the courtyard would be at night.) She went back out into the sitting room, and offered the pen and paper to Severus. With a glance at the paper, he let out a little huff, but he played along, holding the paper against the side of the bookshelf so he could write his name. She stepped out through the sliding door — the Snow-sisters had left it open behind them, which was fine, since it was unseasonably warm here and the sitting room wasn't really private anyway — and pinned the sheet of paper to the doorframe with an overpowered sticking charm. Add an imperturbable charm to keep it from getting wet or torn, and there, that would do. She'd have to renew those charms every day or two or they'd fail, but good enough.

...Actually, she could probably ink an enchantment onto the back of the paper to do both of those — drawing the glyphs for an enchantment was much less effective than properly carving them, but these were very basic effects, and she didn't need them to be permanent. Oh well, this was good enough, she'd just tag the sign with fresh sticking and imperturbable charms every time she walked past, it'd be fine.

Walking back into the sitting room, Liz asked, "Does it feel sunny in here to you?"

"I had noticed that," Severus said, still poking through the books, like a nerd. "In place of the standard flamelight enchantments, the locals have instead designed their own exploiting elemental sunlight — it feels 'sunny' in here because it is, magically speaking. I've seen the like in greenhouses before, though I had never encountered such used in living spaces." Severus paused, a faint lurch running through his head. Turning a faint frown on her, "Is it uncomfortable? I confess, I never considered whether elemental sunlight might be unpleasant for you, given how intensely dark-aligned your magic is."

She shrugged. "No, it's not bothering me." Though hopefully there was a way to turn it down when she wanted to go to sleep, she'd forgotten to ask. "I was just checking whether you'd noticed too, or if I was imagining it."

"You are certainly not imagining it."

"Right, neat. Do you know why they were going to make us share a room?"

Severus sighed, just a little. "I cannot say for certain what they were thinking, but I suspect that, given the current state of your guardianship, they assumed that we were to be considered family — when arranging our accommodations in those terms, such would not be inappropriate."

"...Oh." She didn't know how she felt about that.

Thankfully, Liz only had a few moments to linger awkwardly silent, not sure what to say, or even if she should be sticking it out to talk to Severus at all — honestly, she'd never gone on holiday before, she didn't know what she was supposed to do. Liz was wondering if there would be any point to getting started on some of her winter homework, since dinner was going to be pretty soon, when someone knocked against the frame of the door. Poking her head inside, Hermione said, "Hello? Can we come in?"

There was little reaction from Severus, didn't feel like he was going to object, so Liz said, "Um, sure, I guess."

"That's a good idea, putting a sign on your door." Hermione walked in, immediately followed by her father — and not her mother, she must be somewhere else. (Visiting with the Walkers, probably.) Her eyes flicked to Severus for a second, but she apparently decided to ignore him as casually as he was ignoring her. "We should do that too, what did you use to pin it there?"

"Sticking charm."

Hermione's face went pink, her father chuckling a little. "Oh, right, forget I said anything."

"Sometimes the simplest solutions are the hardest to see," Daniel said, Liz guessed meant to reassure Hermione for not thinking of that while at once brushing her slip off. Walking further into the room, "Hello again, Severus. I had further questions regarding sterilisation in healing procedures, if you don't mind."

"Daniel. I would be surprised if you hadn't." Severus's voice, as usual, came flat and cold and empty, but Liz could feel the tingle of amusement in his head. "I'd had occasion to wonder, but now I see that the inexhaustible inquisitiveness is heritable."

Daniel just laughed, the pink on Hermione's cheeks darkening.

---

Oh jeez, this chapter got stupid long again, because I am incapable of brevity. I'm splitting the chapter in half, for those of you who don't have the time/energy to read the whole thing in a single sitting — I realise it's kind of a lot. There weren't any good points to cut it, since this wasn't planned, I just picked one and went with it, hopefully it won't be too awkward for those who do need to take a break.

This time, I came to the decision when the chapter was already almost done, so you won't have to wait for me to do a chapter of By Gods Forsaken and come back to it. After posting this, I'm immediately going to do a final read-through and post the other half.

Let's get to it then, weeee...