"The visions are coming back, Uncle." Rose's hands snuck to the sloppy table as she spoke, desperate for a wand to flick the dust from the numerous baubles collected, forgotten, and yet still made priceless by Jonas. Her life as a noble woman had done little to curb some instinct for cleaning, and she had always felt a certain responsibility for her uncle.
"Back?" Jonas' voice lilted, innocence thick. He settled back in his chair, blue eyes snapping to Rose. He was a small man, a feature due to age rather than nature, and seemed but another eccentric attribute shrinking into the cluttered chamber. "I'm not sure what you mean."
She wasn't fooled. With a patient smile she set down a tarnished mirror, varnished surface thick with dust. "Three times in the past month it has come. The same thing as before."
Jonas gave a nod behind his ragged beard and an ambiguous mutter. Hardly helpful.
The mirror was in need of a good cleaning. Though how dare she be concerned with such a trivial matter–that wasn't the reason she had come to visit her uncle. And she knew her uncle far too well to be put off by seeming boredom. The man was sharp in his age, his mind quicker than most. "I'm sure you remember the original. I've told you before." She sighed, remembering the headaches of then, a knife on an unsuspecting psyche. Panic had been the first excuse, the strain of all that had been then. And when the vision had stopped, had faded into nothing, she had shrugged all consideration away. There had been other things to worry about. "I had forgotten them. But you must remember, though. Yet it has been––"
"Fifteen years," he said quickly. The fingers of his gnarled hand stroked absentminded the curved wood of the chair's arm. "Fifteen years ago, and I still remember you running in here in tears like a chimera was after you!"
"You do remember?" She couldn't imagine what he remember. Herself, young. . . something else she had put out of mind. And yet it was flattering to think herself still her uncle's pet.
He smiled. "Of course I do. One doesn't easily forget such dramatics."
"I'd hardly call them such!" She smacked the table top. "Uncle, how dare you change the subject!"
"I dare many things." He gave a deep laugh, too deep for his withered frame. "Why do you worry? This vision–is it the same as before? Exactly?"
The positive reply rose, stopped only by her bitten lip. Before. . . how could she be sure? She shook she her head, wondering. "I . . I paid it no mind before. Other than telling you, of course. And Gavin. But he had no advice. I had a life to live. But. .. . I remember the girl. She was familiar."
"The girl by the lake."
How did the memory come so clear to him? "Yes, the girl. The lake I haven't seen." She closed her eyes, cringing. The fair girl with the yellow hair, soaked, blood streaming from her breast. The girl crying, screaming a name Rose couldn't understand but yet knew it a name. Even now she could hear the terrible sound.
"The same as before." Jonas' voice softened, a solemn speech misplaced in the strange room. "Rosie. . ."
"Why fifteen years?" she asked, abandoning the messy table. "Why now? There is nothing. . . wrong in my life now." Wrong. She wished too late to take the word back, the complaint of a spoilt child making wishes to invisible faeries.
"I can't imagine what you might mean by wrong." The faintest touch of the patronizing, but something she had slowly learned over the years to take. "You're a mother, a lady. I know how you feel about Gavin's family. . ."
"They still seek to take away what belongs to Ricky," she muttered, flinging hersel finto a chair opposite Jonas. Her parents had failed to fill the rest of their manor with the outlandish furniture so common to Jonas' chambers. The oddities were refreshing.
Jonas' nails clicked at the wood, imitating a tune evidently familiar only to him. "One or two hexes. . ."
The laugh was out of her before she understood. "How relishing that would be."
"I have plenty of suggestions." Jonas always did.
"One would hardly know you a Squib to hear you speak so." She laughed again and straightened up. "But that would hardly be proper."
"You and your propiety!" Jonas spat, waving a hand. "Tell me honestly you've done nothing."
"That I can't do."
"How good to hear you admit that."
She wrestled back a smile. "Just don't tell Ricky. I won't have that example before my son. He already has little respect for his father's kin." She tugged at a red curl with studiously before slipping it behind her ear. "Where is that boy?"
"Boy?"
She froze. "Jonas. . . "
Her uncle's face was bitter rock beneath his beard. "He's hardly a boy anymore, Rose. He's fourteen."
Fourteen already? Did all mothers hate children's aging? "That's hardly an adult."
"But close. And if I understand correctly he has progressed further in his studies to a point beyond what many wizards in these parts have achieved."
"I know." She didn't bother to hide the pride in her voice. Ricky had a gift for magic. "I haven't told him so."
Jonas nodded, thoughtful. "That is good. He'll forget himself if he knows his skill. And yet. . . ."
Rose's heart shuddered. "I will not have any son of mine joining the Fighters!"
Jonas stared at her before allowing himself a laugh.
He hadn't led her on, she realized. But he then took advantage of it. How Jonas-like. "Well, I won't!"
"And you best keep it that way. The Fighters are forgetting themselves and their Order." He sighed, laughter fading from his eyes. "Fate doesn't bode well for many of them. But it's not them I speak of. I believe Godric needs further training beyond what you have given him."
She nestled back into her chair, pacified. "I know. I've been meaning to speak to Father. Or Caspian. But Caspian is still in search of a bride.. . ."
"I could teach him. Even as a Squib I know far more than is good for me, I'm proud to say."
"May you never become a full wizard," she replied with a smirk. "But I couldn't put that burden on you."
"Clearwater," he said, as if the name were all the answer necessary.
"Clearwater? Your old friend? You want him to teach Ricky?"
"He already has a student or two, if his claims can be trusted."
Rose had heard many stories of Terminus Clearwater from both her father and Jonas. A great wizard, intent to live and die in the ancient castle near the marshlands. She even remembered visiting him on occasion. "Well, Ricky can Apparate. . ."
"Wonderful!" Jonas clapped his hands. "I'm glad you're making this easy for me."
"But I haven't agreed to--
He cut her off with a quick snake of his head. "Don't worry. Nothing is permanent. But I believe this will be the best choice for Godric. You do trust me, Rosie?"
She stared at him, her mother's uncle, the man who had always been her fountain of knowledge despite his lack of magical skill. She had trusted him with too many secrets to lie now. "Of course I do."
"Good." He settled back, smiling.
She forgot the reason she had come.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Salazar had always hated the Clearwater castle. Supposedly it was of the water, the ice-blue lake that stretched just before the foundations mirroring the tumbling turrets. But that wasn't water. Not truly. It was exposed, naked and weak and ready for any attack. The true water. . . that was invisible, lying in waiting beneath the dusky plants and the trees that stretched like so many bridges over the fen. Hidden. That was wisdom to Salazar. Even inside the castle was the bareness, far too large and cold. As he had done countless times before, he marched down the stone halls, shrugging away the cool flame of the torches. He missed the warmth of the cabin, a fire his father had just built. A place that didn't echo with each footstep.
He stopped before a silver door, all iron down to the carved doorknob. He had permission to enter any time he pleased, but that held nothing over the apprehension he felt. It wasn't his. If he waited long enough, one of the house elves would appear and open the door for him with much apology. He smiled at that thought. That had only happened a few times. . .
But there wasn't time. Lord Clearwater had expected him long ago. Normally Salazar wouldn't care about such trivial things, but when one was dealing with a great wizard like Clearwater. . . Salazar had already devoured too much knowledge to offend such a giver. He put his hand to the cold knob and turned.
A squeal erupted from a corner of the room. "Heather, you didn't tell me it was a boy!"
Salazar nearly fell back as a small figure burst into view, black curls more visible than anything else. "Lord Clearwater!"
The familiar laugh came. Lord Clearwater stood up from his chair, height imposing, and exchanged a grin with a dark-haired woman Jonas had never seen before. "Good of you to join us, Slytherin."
Slytherin. A title normally reserved for his father. Except during studying.
"I had errands for my father." Lying came easy. The little girl gave a shrill giggle.
Clearwater nodded, visibly believing. "Of course, of course. It just gave me more time to become acquainted with this. . ." He paused. "Charming child." He gestured at the little girl, who beamed up at Salazar. "May I introduce Rowena Ravenclaw. And her cousin, Heather Woodkeep."
The woman in the corner bowed. "Terminus has told me much about you, Salazar Slytherin. He thought that you and my cousin must meet."
For what? He stared Rowena. The child could hardly be older than seven or eight.
"I've been showing Lord Clearwater tricks!" she said eloquently with the little sincerity she could evidently muster.
"Tricks?"
Terminus shook his head. "Now, I mean no offense to your own skills. They are still. . . greater than many. But this girl...she can already summon a patronus."
"A patronus?" Salazar stepped back from the girl, who was still grinning at him. "So. . she's not a Muggle?" He hated the word.
"Muggle?" Terminus shook his head while Heather laughed. "I could hardly school a Muggle child."
The realization came quick. "You've taken her as apprentice as well?"
"Yes."
He considered this. Another student. A pesky little girl. For years the training had always been for him alone, and yet. . . yet he found he didn't mind. "Will she listen?"
"She's smarter than she seems," Heather said.
Salazar gazed at Heather for a moment. She was a pretty woman, hardly more than a girl herself. Very pretty. He turned his eyes. Of all things, he was blushing.
She laughed again. "Her parents will do anything to keep her from that Order."
"The Fighters?" he asked. He felt the disproving glare from Terminus, but the slang had become common to many of the more distinguished wizards. At least those against the branch.
"The Order of the Phoenix," Terminus corrected. "Time passes, as it does, and brings with it many changes."
Salazar sighed. The speech was certainly for the benefit of Heather and Rowena. He had heard it far too often, rhetoric that he had come to accept. Yet he had tired of hearing it long ago.
"And one of these changes is these Muggles and their ways. Their Church has grown strong, be that for good and bad for many."
"But our world has always been separate and always will be, so we must keep concern to ourselves." Salazar repeated the last part with Terminus. He agreed, of course. As much as Muggles disinterested him, he still had too little against them to feel much of anything but indifference. The Fighters, like the entire Order, were fools. They'd bring destruction upon themselves.
"Rowena will not be trained to be a fighter," Terminus finished. "Not with her talent."
Salazar looked at the little girl again, who had lost interest in him and was now peering over scrolls near Terminus' chair. He had never had a little brother. Or sister.
But she had better be able to keep up with her training.