Sky is looking for the chamber of secrets, and Silva reflects on the nature of the basilisk.
Here comes the second part of the series. It's a bit more angsty and a bit more Saul-focused this time. I hope you enjoy it :)
"Silva?" Sky tosses his backpack into a corner and leaps onto a stool in the corner of their tiny kitchen.
"Hmm?" Saul glances at him over his shoulder, afraid to let the pan out of his eyes, lest he burn the bacon again. Farah has said numerous times that they could both eat in the school cafeteria, but taking Sky into his care, Saul decided he would be the best father possible, and to him, home-made dinners are an integral part of that. The fact that he never had much of them himself as a kid is only an additional motivator. Besides, it's not that Saul cannot cook. After all, he has already had enough time to learn. Headmaster Silva is now capable of preparing quite a number of dishes, except that he burns them notoriously. Ben Harvery sometimes mocks that it's a by-product of the years Saul spent fighting the Burned Ones. However, the Harveys, since Rose left them, have been eating dinners mostly at Alfea's cafeteria, so Ben has no voice in the matter.
"Are there any hidden chambers underneath Mrs. Dowling's office?"
Saul drops the spatula from his hand, and it hits the pan with a metallic thump, splashing oil over the stove, a few drops of it painfully burning his hand.
"Why?" he finally replies in a slightly choked voice, trying to control his heartbeat, while pretending to be only trying to control the chaos on the stove.
"Well, not under the office then," Sky adds, apparently unaware that he nearly gave his foster father a heart attack. "Under one of the classrooms, for example. Or even under a bathroom."
Only then does Saul realize what the boy is alluding to.
"Have you been reading Harry Potter again?"
Sky shrugs and reaches over Silva's hand to grab a piece of bacon the man has just removed from the pan.
"No, Terra hasn't finished the third book yet. But Sam's lend me the first two films. If you want to see them, it's fine, I can watch them again. The basilisk is cool!"
According to some new unwritten rule, Saul is now not allowed to see any film on his own. After catching the kid trying to watch these films Saul deemed not suitable for his age by peeking secretly through a crack in the door, Saul has finally given up and learned to draw his own amusements from cartoons, superhero movies and shows about dinosaurs. At least they would spend these moments together, and considering how fast Sky is growing up, Saul knows he has to celebrate each of these moments while he still can.
"So are there any secrets hidden under Alfea, Silva?"
If you only knew, Silva thinks sarcastically, glad that the boy can only see his back. He can lie, he is even better at lying than he would like to, because what other choice does he have? But that doesn't mean he hates it any less.
"Well, there's the East Wing," he replies after a moment of consideration, deciding on the good old strategy of distracting his opponent by giving him another, equally tempting but safer target.
"Nobody has used it for years, it probably hides more than one secret."
He looks over his shoulder again, just in time to see the mischievous gleam in Sky's eyes. He knows that at least in the open-access part of the East Wing, Sky is unlikely to find anything he shouldn't see — Saul, Farah and Ben have made sure of it a long time ago, knowing they wouldn't always be able to keep the most nosy students out of that part of the school. Yet he feels an irrational fear that Sky will find something there after all, something that could potentially lead him to the truth — the truth about Andreas and about what kind of man his foster father really is.
"We can go over there together and do some exploring." The idea came to him all of a sudden, but putting it into words, Saul decides that it sounds quite smart. While he is there, he can make sure that Sky doesn't look where he shouldn't, and can minimize any possible risks. It's safer than leaving the kid alone with the idea, because while Sky is a really well-mannered boy, he's still a boy, and boys love adventures. Besides, this way Sky at least might forget about his original question. Not that there is any risk of him finding a secret passage in Farah Dowling's office, let alone getting through the magical barrier that protects it. No, their secret, their basilisk, is safe deep under the school. But Saul has read 'The Chamber of Secrests' too, after all; it's only natural that even against his better judgment, he can't help fearing that one day someone will eventually find and open their own chamber of secrets. Besides, it is his responsibility to protect Alfea and its students from the monster trapped there. So maybe Saul Silva is really a bit like Dumbledore? At this ridiculous thought, Saul smiles to himself and finally feels the tension ebbing away from him.
"Did you wash your hands?" He tosses over his shoulder to gain some more time.
Sky mutters something and walks out of the kitchen, and Saul exhales in relief.
During dinner, they chat about some insignificant little things and Silva almost forgets about the earlier conversation, but over the dessert (from the supermarket — Saul hasn't got the skill to bake a cake himself yet; maybe it will be another decade before he does) Sky returns to the subject.
"So when are we going to the East Wing, Silva?"
Thus, Saul keeps his word, and one Saturday he takes Sky on a little sightseeing tour. Initially, everything goes well, and Silva begins to regret even having the idea of sneaking up there earlier and planting some potentially interesting items for the kid to find. He didn't do it, of course — he does not intend to lie to his adopted son any more than necessary, but the memory of the idea makes him feel even more guilty than usual.
Sky runs around the empty rooms, peering into every corner and enthusiastically investigating every item he finds. Watching him, Saul feels the tension slowly draining away from him. He still feels a bit strange here — it's a place that has too many memories he'd like to bury as deep as possible — but after a while he's ready to laugh at his earlier nervousness. It's just a long-abandoned wing of his school. A child's vivid imagination might see a basilisk lurking around the corner, but the real evil is elsewhere, and there are probably no traces of it left here. Nothing to worry about, Saul thinks, and then — as if fate could actually hear his thoughts and wanted to make fun of him — Sky digs up the bloody picture that Saul barely even remembered up till now.
"Silva, look, it's you!"
Saul doesn't have to look, he knows very well who is in the photo, but Sky runs up to him excitedly and practically presses a dusty frame into his hand.
There are five people in the picture, so why does Silva's gaze linger on Andreas' face first? Damn subconsciousness, Saul thinks bitterly, forcing himself to shift his gaze to Farah. Dowling from the photo looks different than the one he saw this morning, but she doesn't seem much younger, and Silva thinks that it's not the matter of age, but how carefree they all look here, how... innocent? He can't put a name to it, none of the five were carefree and innocent at the time of taking this photo. But they weren't murderers yet...
"Silva?"
Saul shakes his head. Maybe the difference is just their uniforms; after all, it's been years since he last saw Farah wearing one...
"It's Dad, isn't it?"
Silva swallows and tries to force himself to come back to reality.
"Yes." His voice sounds hollow and unnatural, but Sky doesn't seem to notice, he's too excited.
"This one is you, here's Mrs. Dowling and Professor Harvey," the boy enumerates, tapping each person in the photo with the tip of his fingernail, until his finger stops and hangs over Rosalind's head, and Saul feels his throat suddenly getting dry.
He shrugs hastily, and in the most indifferent tone he can muster, he answers the yet-unasked question:
"She was a member of our unit."
Fortunately, Sky doesn't inquire further. He's too interested in the man standing behind her.
"Do I look like him?" takes the photo from Saul and holds it up to his face.
Silva grimaces.
"You've seen a lot of his photos. Yes, you do look like him," he replies reluctantly, and then mentally rebukes himself for his tone and forces himself to reach back for the picture and try again. "We took it here in Alfea before going on a mission. There was some celebration at the school the day before, that's why we look a bit… tired," he finishes hastily, realizing in time that Sky is still too young to talk to him about hangover.
"What mission? Please, Silva, tell me more! What were you doing there? What was my Dad doing?" Sky's eyes shine with excitement and Saul already knows he made a mistake.
There is nothing for him to do but to keep going.
"We were hunting the Burned Ones, of course." At least he's lucky that this is a story where he doesn't have to lie, just skip the more brutal parts. He briefly tells Sky the whole story, with special focus, as always, on Andreas' heroic deeds, and the boy listens with eyes open wide, absorbing his every word. Fortunately, there are no Burned Ones roaming the forests anymore, so at least Silva doesn't have to worry that the kid would want to follow in his footsteps... or rather, in his father's footsteps.
"Silva, do you think Dad would defeat the basilisk?" the boy suddenly asks, as if reading his mind.
Saul grimaces as he realizes that he has already got so caught up in these metaphors that he now involuntarily glances at Rosalind's face in the photo the moment he hears the word 'basilisk'.
"Someone would have to bring him an enchanted sword first," he replies after a moment, trying to sound amused.
"You could give him the sword!" Sky suggests enthusiastically.
Saul's heart begins to race again. Sky doesn't know, can't know, he tells himself, trying to calm down the thoughts and emotions swirling inside him. The fact that these two situations are not even similar to each other doesn't change anything at the moment. Andreas and a sword mentioned one after the other will always remind him of one thing only. Saul clenches his free hand into a fist and tries to laugh as if Sky has just said something very funny. Keep up appearances, at all costs pretend that everything is fine, he reminds himself, as he's standing there motionless, petrified, feeling as if his heart has been poisoned by a real basilisk (do basilisks even use venom or do they just make people go blind with their stare? he should have read that damn book more carefully). Or maybe, he suddenly realizes in horror, it's not Rosalind, maybe it's him, Saul Silva, who is the basilisk. The one doing everything to keep Sky blind to the truth. And even if he tells himself another million times that he is doing it all for the boy, not for himself, what does it really change?
