Chapter 9
The contingent of fey that turned up at the castle were reduced in number; and they came during the evening rather than late at night. They milled around the outer defences; apparently the solemnity of the vow sworn over the game of quidditch bound them as thoroughly as the other safeguards.
Severus went out to see what they wanted; having set Beloc to collect up Gabrielle, Bethan and Teague who were the ones at risk.
Krait hovered, ready to change into a basilisk if need be.
The apparently richly dressed man came forward; having once used the ointment Severus found he could see the man's true ragged appearance.
"I am the King of the Sidhe!"the fey declared grandly.
"You are the Chieftain of the Scottish Unseelie Court" said Severus
The chieftain glowered at him.
"I hold great power" he said loftily.
Severus gave him a look.
"So do I if it comes to that; and power that the likes of you can never understand. But unless you're after a duel, how about cutting to the chase and telling me what it is you want? We don't scare easily at Hogwarts, you are better to express yourself plainly and without engaging in waving your ego at me."
The Chieftain was plainly furious; but he looked at the scar blazing on Severus' forehead and forced himself to smile.
"Why it is no big thing!" he said "I merely thought that to foster better relations I would place my son here, who is ten, in your care as a hostage, that he might go to Hogwarts school and be a fellow to humans and any other kind that you have there."
Severus regarded him thoughtfully; and looked at the mutinous eyed little boy. He was a pale child, skinny and half naked with fine blonde hair – probably; with the dirt it was hard to tell – and big grey eyes. He appeared with glamour to be every inch a princeling in fine satin and velvet. Severus felt a pang of pity for him.
"Well now" he said "I don't think we need any hostages, oh chieftain; but I will personally be glad to accept your son under my roof as my guest until he is of an age to begin at Hogwarts, where he will be a guest of the school – as all are indeed" and he smiled brightly.
Mixed emotions chased themselves over the chief's face; predominantly frustrated anger. As Severus knew, a hostage was not bound by the laws of hospitality.
"How generous of you" said the chief. He did not sound as if he meant it.
"Why not at all; we are always glad to foster interracial harmony" smiled Severus "And if he is invited in, he is exempt from the vow that holds you all distant; though of course he is equally bound by the vow not to cause any harm to the school or its inhabitants. Which does of course cover basilisks" he smiled again. "He looks so eager to participate in the wonders of modern education" he added with deep sarcasm.
The boy pulled a face.
"Laddie, if you don't want to come, we'll not force it on you, you know" said Severus "I know fine well you've orders to betray your hosts, but you cannot if you try, nor can you find and kill a basilisk if that was a secondary order to take advantage of you being half human, as you appear to be. You cannot serve your father as he wishes; so you shall choose to be my guest or return freely."
The boy shot a quick look of fear at his father, and one of speculation at Severus.
"I'll stay with you" he said sullenly.
"You give the boy into my care then?" said Severus.
"I do" said the Chief "He shall stay in your household and when he is old enough he shall be as a guest in Hogwarts school." Plainly he sought to extract all he could from the situation and hope his son could do as much damage as possible until he was an official guest of the school.
Severus grinned suddenly.
"You have surrendered a half human into the wardship of a full human which gives me all rights of fatherhood to him, that you have abrogated; that he shall obey me in all things not you, and be my fosterling and a sibling to my children bound by your word as loyal to me. He is mine for seven years. You can't find a way to creep around the conditions, chief; so leave the boy and get out. What's your name, laddie?"
"Seaghsron" said the boy.
"Hawknose, eh? A bit like mine" said Severus.
"I answer to Seagh".
"Good; it shouts better. And easier in Gaelic since we already have a Hawke in the school. Now my lad, let's get you to my quarters and see about a hot bath and some decent clothes for you; those rags are most disreputable."
That even more than being foiled sent the self-styled king howling into his strange form of wizarding space in frustration. What could one do against wizards so powerful that they could see through glamour and twist one's own words?
Seagh did not enjoy being bathed; but he enjoyed even less being told not to make the sort of fuss that would disgrace small Lilith.
"Is the wee one no a Basilisk?" he asked.
"She's descended from Salazar Slytherin; and she's an animagus" said Krait "As am I. She is not a Basilisk but there is that in the very blood that resonates with the king of snakes. You need not fear her."
"I dinnae fear a wee lassie."
"Adults of your kin did….but then people always fear what they do not understand. Hold still, how can I detangle your elf-locks if you will wriggle so?"
Seagh had to admit – if only to himself – that a clean skin and scalp and clothes softer and finer than any he dreamed could exist outside of glamour was a lot more comfortable.
He also stared at the meal that was set and his own portion.
"A' for me?" he asked.
"A growing boy needs plenty."
"Aye weel, if ye eat sa' fine ivry day ah'm no surprised ye have the strength tae plae quidditch like ye're possesed" he said.
"Do you mean you'd not expect any more than this in any one day?" asked Krait sharply "Then it's no wonder you're so skinny! We eat as well as this three times a day my boy, as any decent folk do."
"Ye dinnae say!"
Seagh was amazed.
Soft beds; soft clothes, and changes of clothes at that, plenty of food, no clouts about the head from his new foster father – though he'd watch warily for that for a while – a female who had scared his real father speechless when she played quidditch yet who did menial tasks of bathing children; and who cuddled one as though one was a baby until one had to pull away before it made one cry for some reason; all this.
And they seemed to think this was normal.
Go back? Not him!
"Am Ah human the noo?" he asked Severus.
"You are what you are; which is half fey. You can choose when you grow up to live as a human or return to the Rath" said Severus "You are ten; you have seven years in which to decide, until you are an adult at seventeen years old."
"Havers! D'ye think Ah'd want tae live in rags on a sleepit we bit o' blankie and mah stomach nivver fu'? it's a human life fer me frae this day forth, mah fayther!"
"Then you are welcome as my full son if you wish adoption" said Severus "But think on it hard; you will see that I expect more from my own children than from others."
"Och aye, and they rin tae ye fer caresses; Ah'd no' despise that kind o' hardness!"
"Then when the time is right we shall also do a ceremony to make you of my blood" said Severus.
It would take time to learn to love this hardboiled, hurt little scrap; but it would come. What was there in a name perhaps – for was not Hawke Erskine, now Hawke Malfoy, just as hard on the outside to hide all the hurt?
Seagh was no fool. Prepared at first to sneer at house elves for their state of slavery he was quickly aware that the relationship between the humans and the elves in this household was closer and with more mutual respect than between highfey and feyelves. That these elves too wore clothes and were therefore free – and yet still stayed and willingly did most of the menial chores – was a revelation. As was the gradually dawning idea that one of them slept with his new father, willingly and by choice, and her children called him daddy and were given no difference in status to his human children. The girl Jade was asked to help him settle in; and he was not happy, for what could girls know?
When, trailing behind her in a bit of a sulk, he saw her come upon some scarily large boys bullying a smaller one and without resort to wand or words send the big boys howling on their way with bats crawling clawing out of their noses he was mightily impressed.
"Ye're awfu guid" he said.
Jade shrugged.
"It was get good enough to fight Voldemort or die I guess" she said "Dad made us learn to be well hard so we could have some chance if he and mum died. They were some of the principle fighters you know; of the five that stood in most danger they were two. And at first, before they adopted Grace and Romulus and Erich I was the oldest. And in some ways I'm still the protector, 'cos Grace is gentle, though she will fight as hard as any if she has to and Erich is a quiet dreamy type who hates ugliness and violence – he saw his mum murdered like Lydia and me saw our real mum murdered only he was older and felt it more, 'cos Krait has been our mum since we were in the orphanage together. Romulus is dead hard of course, but he's a marauder so the safety of the school is his responsibility more than us. I'm a junior marauder but I'm not in school yet, so I can still keep an eye on the little ones you see."
He didn't see; not fully; but he was starting to see enough to realise that protecting the weak not picking on them was the way his new family did things.
It would take time to adapt.
And if his real father's way was so right, why did they live in squalor in a rath not stand tall as rulers of humans?
Seaghsron knew which side his bread was buttered; and he would live by the rules of his new kin if he might continue to live that way!
And he was learning too to really admire Romulus, though he saw little of his new brother, who seemed to be spoken of, like his friends, with a degree of awe by such of the school children he overheard!
Romulus was a little unsure what to make of having a half-fey new brother, but as Jade described him as a 'prickly package a bit like our Hawke writ smaller' he shrugged and smiled kindly on the lad when he saw him.
Rom, like the other Marauders bar Abrax, was feeling at a bit of a loose end.
Abraxus had been given permission to spend a weekend with Myrtle's parents then take her up to Diagon Alley to get her kitted out properly; and his fellow cohorts missed him sorely. They visited the Snapes for tea on Friday, ruffled the hair of the new Snapeling, as they dubbed Seagh, and taught him how to cast the jelly legs jinx.
They spent Saturday, which started windy and became rapidly filled with sleet and hail, wandering rather disconsolately around the castle; or at least Kinat, Hawke and Romulus did. Willow was spending the weekend doing what she called 'working on Sirius' defences' which the boys decided not to enquire too closely into. Willow was growing a little away from the boys as she matured; and though they regretted it they accepted it as part of the natural order of things. Besides, girls always had a distressing habit of scolding; and if there weren't any there, there were more things to be done that didn't require being told off over.
Their aimlessness brought unexpected results.
They were playing a mindless jumping game on a short flight of five steps running down towards the Slytherin common room when Kinat froze.
Then he jumped again, in a particular pattern, up and down.
"Thought so" he said.
"Thought what?" said Romulus
"Has got what to think with?" asked Hawke, rudely. Kinat stuck out a tongue.
"Goblin made secret door" he said "If we can find how to open it this whole flight ought to fold away and reveal a cavity; it moves, but barely, with jumping around on it. Only a goblin would be subtle enough to detect it."
The other two mostly ignored this piece of racial superiority.
"Is this goblin subtle enough to discover how it works are do we just have to take your word for it that there's a secret door somewhere?" demanded Romulus.
"Gimme a minute; It's not going to be something that some beef-witted blundering human can find in a hurry" said Kinat, airily.
"So more likely to be this finger-sized hole at the top than something to twist, jiggle or pull?" asked Hawke.
Kinat made it to the top of the steps in one leap in case Hawke activated anything while he was still on them.
Hawke inserted a finger.
There was a loud CLICK and the stairs swung silently out of the way. A flight of stairs led down into a chamber.
Naturally they climbed down, illuminating the tips of their wands, and looking for a mechanism to both close – and re-open –the stairs.
Not only was there a fine piece of goblin made machinery, but there was a small scrying plate that showed a view of the stairs.
"That'll be out of the gargoyle over the archway at the door into the corridor" said Hawke "And the angle is set too so you can see the door opening I think…what planning!"
"Goblins can generally be anticipated to produce precision in all their works or hast thou forgotten that boy?" said a thin pedantic voice.
They jumped.
A quick look around revealed stood against a wall a painting of a wiry looking wizard with black eyes dressed in the academic fashions of the time of Henry VIII.
He stared at them as they stared at him.
"Odd's life, a goblin in robes like unto his fellows? What strange development is this I pray thee, young goblin?"
Kinat blinked; then bowed formally.
"An it please you good master, I have the honour to be the first full blood goblin pupil at Hogwarts" he said.
The wizard grunted.
"Gryffindor I wager" he said.
"You'd win" said Kinat "But many of Gryffindor and Slytherin house have put aside their er, old despites to work in harmony for the good of the school and of wizarding kind. My companions here are of Slytherin House, though Hawke's twin is with me in Gryffindor."
"That one looks remarkably like a Malfoy."
Hawke made a beautiful leg.
"Hawke Malfoy at your service, twin of Abraxus, and both of us from a cadet branch" he said "My friend Romulus, of the line Prince."
"Hmmph" said the portrait. "It behoves me perchance to introduce myself an you be not familiar with mine identity?" they shook their heads and he sighed. "I feared as much…. My name is Cornelius Slytherin, last of my name; for I sired but one child, a daughter, whose name is now Gaunt, for her husband was a contumelious fellow who would not change his name to that of a better line."
"They died out too" said Hawke "But my cousin Krait is Slytherin's line; she's Rom's stepmother and busy breeding."
ssss aha you proud Gaunts, that ye fell too!sssss exulted the painting in Parseltongue.
Ssss It got a little murky; they were so inbred they went insane. The line only survived with muggle blood to revive it ssssss said Hawke.
The painting started.
"You know the tongue?"
"We all do….us four, our family….we made a bloodpact to defeat Slytherin's false heir. It's a long story" shrugged Romulus.
"A goblin too?"
"I spilled my blood and took the danger alongside everyone else; race is less important than intent, good Master Cornelius" said Kinat.
"Hmm well, that's as may be….looking for your ancestor's passages I take it?" he waved at an archway to a long passage that led towards the lake.
"Looking for any passages that seem right to get into trouble in really" said Kinat "we like to prowl. May I ask wherefore you find yourself in this rather noisome spot instead of displayed proudly within the house of Slytherin?"
"It is not a tale that is edifying" said the wizard huffily.
"Prithee even so, enlighten our ignorance, for we have no knowledge of the time in which your visage was removed from its rightful place" said Kinat.
"He's very good at it isn't he?" muttered Hawke.
"Comes of mucking around with Draco and his silly voices as much as studying history" opined Romulus.
The Painting struggled with himself then said,
"Does the painting of Ebeneezer Malfoy still hang to the left of the common room fireplace, the one with the secret passage behind it?"
The boys exchanged looks.
"Old Neezer the Wheezer is still there, but we know nothing about the passage" said Romulus.
"Neezer the Wheezer? Oh I like that; I like that a lot!" said Cornelius "His mother was a Gaunt you know; stuck up piece SHE was, verily, I believe she thought my daughter was honoured to marry her brother…and when I found that I was hung opposite her son, and his truly offensive airs and graces in MY ancestor's common room, I fear I resorted to the childish habit of making faces at him. Alas! The house became a very centre for the Malfoy family, whose power rose with their manipulation of the religious wars and dilemmas of the muggles, and one day I was taken from my hook and banished by a spell to dwell in obscurity in some goblin dungeon until freed by one of my blood invited in by a goblin; by which the one who banished me meant never…. But you say you are of my kin? Even obscurely? And this splendid goblin boy has brought you down here… I shall be hung once more on a proper wall?"
"I'll say!" said Hawke "Uh, in sooth, I promise that this shall be… but not I think to stare in eternity at the Wheezer; I think Severus would like you in his office. He's head of the house, Professor Snape, and he's married to my cousin, the one who's of your blood."
"And so are we because of the bloodgroup" said Kinat ssss We be of one blood thee and I ssss he added.
"Parselmouth goblins! Whatever next!" murmured Cornelius. He seemed willing to put aside any disapproval however to have the chance to be free.
"The odd parselmouth elf; and their blood means we can apparate a lot more easily" said Hawke, loath to go so far as to admit to apparating around Hogwarts. "Prithee tell us of the passage to behind the Wheezer."
"It starts in the narrow corridor that is the shortcut to the kitchen gardens, outside of Slytherin House itself" said Cornelius "In the big cupboard."
"Oh, I know" said Hawke "The far end is bricked up now because I think what used to be the kitchen garden is where they put in the drain improvements in the nineteenth century and built the new broom sheds over it. They didn't want students having an easy way to slide out to the broom sheds I guess; well I can imagine the uses WE'd put it to, so I can quite see why they wanted that inaccessible…..they used the cupboard for stationary up to last year, it's empty now since er, we sort of accidentally exploded all that red ink…."
"Indeed? Pray impart to me how such an incident should come about!" said Cornelius eagerly.
Hawke grinned.
"Three boys in our year liked to act the bully; we've weaned one off it" he added "And they used to try to ambush us, at least us Slythers…we've another member of our group, a girl, and they like hurting girls if they could. And they thought they'd got her alone collecting ink for class; only we'd gone along too, not that she's not a canny witch but three on one…anyway we had a splendid little wand fight and I think it was me that burst the cupboard open and there was red ink everywhere, and into what looks like a scene of gore and carnage walks Professor Slughorn" he started chuckling "Who asks 'oh my! Is that blood? What's going on here?' and Willow…." He laughed again "Willow said 'can't a girl have the monthlies rather messily without everyone else getting in on the act' and Slughorn fairly ran away…. Of course we were subsequently caught by Madam McGonagall who doesn't tease at all, let alone easily, so we had to clear it up. They keep the ink in the staff-room now and we have to go ask for it."
"Dear me! It seemeth that womankind is less modest than of yore" said Cornelius Slytherin primly.
"Yes" said Kinat. "Come, sir, let us take you to Professor Snape in whose office ye might repose in comfort."
Severus was fascinated to hear the story of Cornelius Slytherin – the marauders edited any mention of secret passages, and indeed only mentioned that they had found him somewhat concealed.
Scales was a marauder, but Professor Snape was their House Master; and there were times to make the distinction!
"I don't think we should explore the goblin passages without Abrax, but we could make him a present of the other one if we can find it" said Kinat. "We may need tools to take the shelves out."
"And that's going to give away our interest" said Romulus.
"We'll fill it with old robes and mothballs from some of the old trunks we've been looking for diaries in" said Hawke "The smell of mothballs'll keep most people out, camphor's most awfully pungent; and then they'll just assume it's being used and not see it as a challenge."
Taking out the shelves was easy; as they had just been laid in on noggins nailed to the cupboard wall. The mechanism to open it was in a knothole of wood, that depressed, and the cupboard back slid smoothly open.
The passage went predominantly downward, as well it might, leading off towards the underground Slytherin rooms; and duly ended with a wall, and a mechanism to open a door. There was a small mechanism higher up.
Hawke stood on tiptoe and cautiously worked it.
Two eyeholes slid back; and he was looking into the Slytherin common Room!
"Now THAT's useful if you like" he whispered "To spy or check if the coast is clear."
"I wonder what Ebenezer thinks about having his eyes usurped" said Kinat.
"Probably ensorcelled with an unbreakable vow not to talk about it" said Hawke "Reckon it was done by a Malfoy so he'd agree."
"Abrax'll love this!" said Rom "Let's go sort out stuff to dress up the cupboard!"
They spent the rest of the weekend fixing a bar for coathangers and hanging up various heavy robes, heavily dosed with camphor balls; and practicing finding the knothole by feel.
"And now let's hope no small person playing hide-and-seek thinks it's a jolly place to hide and finds the catch by accident" said Romulus.
"Well if you think you could hide in that cupboard for any length of time without sneezing, you're a better man than I" said Hawke "Even Mary-Anne Green wouldn't pick that as a place!"
"We hope" added Kinat, grinning.
Severus filled Cornelius in on a lot of the history that he had missed out on, having been removed from his previous hanging place shortly before Cosmo Malfoy was born; he knew Lucastina and accounted her a remarkably polite girl for a Malfoy. His own family history he sighed over, was occasionally shocked by, and was totally horrified to the depths to which Marvolo Gaunt and his family had sunk.
"One can almost see why young Merope might prefer a muggle" he sighed "In light of the examples shown her by her own kind….poor girl, wrong of her but still, poor girl!"
The tale of Tom Marvolo Riddle, Voldemort, shocked him to the core.
He could but bury his head in his hands and moan gently over what a monstrous being could dare to call himself Slytherin's heir.
Severus moved rapidly on to Krait, her origins, and how they had formed a bloodgroup, risking the taint of dark magic to touch old, almost forgotten magic. Cornelius drank this in eagerly; Severus had assessed him correctly as being enough like himself to enjoy learning for its own sake. He was eager to meet Krait, her half siblings and her children; and was profoundly shocked to learn that one of her half siblings was half elf.
"No man lies with an elf!" he exclaimed.
"Not even a willing elf?" asked Severus with an edge.
"But they cannot refuse….they are bound to obey, there is no such thing as a willing elf!"
"What about free elves?"
"Free elves? Surely such are but lazy good-for-nothings freed for punishment and who soon dwindle from their own uselessness!"
"Here you will meet elves freed by line death, or as a reward, or from masters tricked into freeing them by other wizards because they were poor masters…we do not consider free elves unusual."
"Well if that were the case I suppose it would be different; but the size difference! It is immoral!"
Severus laughed dryly.
"The elves in our blood group transfigure readily into larger sizes if need be; though you are right to be angry about the unfortunate elf used and discarded. Medical apparation was used to remove the child, and gestation completed in a magical womb. Both survived, but I fear no thanks to Riddle…."
Cornelius made much of Krait and particularly of Salazar.
"He has a little of the look of the line, you know" he said.
"He also looks much like the muggle who sired our father, and indeed our father himself" said Krait "And I have a theory, that I would ask you to confirm or deny; did the Peverells, the Gaunts and the Slytherin have at least branches in a village called Little Hangleton?"
"In Cambridgshire? Yes" said Cornelius "We owned the large houses in the vicinity of course, and the muggles never knew, though some suspected…in sooth, .Mordaunt Gaunt didst narrowly avoid being burned for heresy by zealously religious muggles from Norwich; and then only by confunding them. Muggles of mine own time had a fondness for burning people for heresy, as though indeed it mattered by which method they undertook their fruitless rituals!"
"Well then" said Krait, refusing to be drawn into a conversation about burning "I suspect that as the families died out, or moved away – one Peverell at least fetched up in Godric's Hollow – there was still wizarding blood in the muggle community because young men will be young men and if they were the lords of the manor, that was normal enough; and I believe there was wizarding blood in the Riddle family, direct from the Slytherin line, and Merope instinctively recognised that as well as being in love with Tom senior's pretty face."
Cornelius regarded Salazar.
"Well, I don't deny there might be something in that" he said "As you say, 'tis the way in spring that a young man's thoughts turn to lusty yearnings; and to trug a village maid who expecteth not marriage from her social superior, that was not unknown" he blushed and cleared his throat "Indeed 'tis not entirely impossible mine own seed all unbeknownst might lay unrevealed within the hidden heritance of the peasants of the region."
Krait decided it might be unkind to rub it in that the muggle Riddles were by way of being the gentry and the Gaunts were the sort of people peasants would spit upon as low.
It was nice to have a family portrait of a true Slytherin; and one whom she might even quite like in a way.
There was that in him that reminded her a little of Severus after all!