This chapter contains several references to chapter 1 of Behind and Between. If you haven't read that, I recommend doing so. Also, I have a poll on my profile regarding Neville's Animagus form. Please vote or PM me with another suggestion. Thanks.
And it must follow, as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man. Hamlet 1.3.79-80
Back in February, the goblins had fulfilled their promise to the Lady of the Chamber to meet with the Lightning Speaker. Being goblins, though, they had used the opportunity to bargain for Saysa's memories and venom, two priceless commodities that could benefit their race immensely. In return, the Speaker and his comrades had received tutoring in Mermish and Gobblededook (or rather, they would, once they forced the goblins to uphold that part of the deal. It hadn't happened yet. At this rate, they wouldn't receive the promised teacher until next January) and access to the goblins' illegal Pensieve.
Saysa had been to the bank several times to try and acquire the tutor, to donate poison and memory, and to speak with Director Ragnok. She had never before asked for the Pensieve, but now that Sisith was back from the Ministry, they needed its powers.
The serpent-woman had her own Portkey to the goblins' secret chambers, but it was enchanted to carry only one person. That wouldn't have stopped her, had she wished to visit them alone, but Hermione and Daphne were coming with her. The goblins had been ignoring the prophesied five's existence, their importance, and Saysa was determined to remind them that, Lady or not, she was but an agent for these five human youths.
Besides, it would hopefully keep them off-balance enough to make them give her the Pensieve. They had been so reticent about the tutor that she no longer trusted them. And so, her eyes glamored green and her hair brown as bark, she and her two companions walked into Gringotts Bank.
It was a Saturday, so they had to wait in line a few minutes before being assisted. The goblin, a bored-looking middle-aged woman, scowled at them, "Name and business," she snapped.
"Pallas Dhar, Bianca Frost, and Lady Saysa of the Chamber," Daphne said coolly. The goblin's eyes bulged. "We need to borrow your Pensieve."
Their teller nodded, trying not to gape but failing miserably. It wasn't every day that three women out of legend walk up to you in the middle of your shift. "Right away. I'll, er, escort you to a waiting room." She walked off, glanced behind to see if they were following, and collided with a pillar. The room's other occupants chortled. Red-faced to the tips of her pointed ears, the goblin continued her march. She fled as soon as her clients had settled themselves.
Hermione pulled out her wand to de-glamor the serpent-woman. Saysa sighed with relief. "Do those spells still hurt your eyes?" the Ravenclaw asked sympathetically.
Her friend nodded. "The glamor is no longer quite so unpleasant, but it will be a long time before I grow accustomed to it."
Goblins were a proud, haughty people, so it was several minutes before Ragnok deigned to visit his most important clients. He wanted them to know exactly who was in charge- or at least, exactly whom he thought was in charge.
"You wish for Pensieve, my Lady?" he asked, ignoring the two humans.
Saysa nodded. "We believe we have found the location of the cure for lycanthropy," she explained.
The director froze. Very slowly, he straightened his spectacles.
Saysa took that as permission to continue. "Our agent, Tyr Ulfhednar, tracked the Chalice of the Moon to the Department of Mysteries. Four days ago, the Lightning Speaker sent a serpent to find its exact location within the Ministry. The serpent returned today, and he desires to show us what he has discovered."
Ragnok nodded. His shoulders relaxed fractionally. With a start, Hermione realized that he didn't want them to find the cure- not if it meant that the goblins had to fulfill their promise and assist the Speaker. Well, she thought, gritting her teeth, it's your own fault you promised that, isn't it. You'll just have to deal with the consequences. Besides, how else could we change the world? Nothing comes of nothing, and you can hardly expect to reap these benefits without putting in an effort.
"We did promise you access to our Pensieve," the goblin acknowledged. "However, I will come along with you. I desire to see this Chalice as well."
The hairs on Hermione's neck stiffened. Her muscles tightened. He wouldn't- couldn't- sabotage them, could he?
Satisfaction glittered in Saysa's eyes. Hermione wished she could speak Parseltongue in addition to merely understanding it. She wanted to warn the serpent-woman against Ragnok, to make her see what she, Hermione, had seen.
"Axshaft, go fetch the Pensieve," the goblin ordered. One of the guards trotted off obediently. Hermione remembered him; he had been there during her first meeting with the goblins.
While the guard was off on his mission, Saysa explained the circumstances in more detail. She told the stone-faced goblin not to worry about Sirius Black or Tyr Ulfhednar's statuses as criminals, promising that both were innocent allies. She did, however, mention that the latter was a bit skeptical about the prophecies.
That was when Hermione understood. Saysa knew that Ragnok didn't want to follow the Speaker and his companions- of course she did; that much was obvious- but she didn't believe their self-invited guest could sabotage them. He would hardly destroy his own Pensieve, and better yet, his very presence would help convince Tyr that they weren't all barmy. Why would goblins, famously independent and stubborn as rocks, go along with such a wild tale of basilisks and prophecies unless it was true?
Sometimes, she really thought she should have gone into her many-times-great-grandfather's House. Then she remembered that Slytherins did this every day and decided that Ravenclaw was perfectly fine, thank you very much.
When Axshaft returned with the bowl of silvery liquid, his master had been brought up to speed. He accepted Saysa's Portkey (Harry had loaned her his ouroboros ring and gone to the island with Neville) and transported away, leaving the basilisk behind. Her lips thinned, but she said nothing as Hermione wordlessly held out her ivory key.
The other humans and werewolves were waiting in Tyr's cottage. Dudley (who had been told everything by Sirius and used Pollux's Horcrux status as further proof that he was still not to be trusted) stared at the first goblin he'd seen in his life; Ragnok watched him with blank, beady eyes. What he thought of the Muggle child no one could tell.
Tyr, too, was observing the newcomer, but his expression was more closed than Ragnok's. Hermione could practically hear his thoughts churning: if the head of Gringotts, the most important goblin in Britain, believes in this lunacy, does that mean it's true? He turned away, face lined and pensive.
"'Lo, Pallas, Bianca, Saysa." Blaise refused to even glance at the goblin, ignoring him as steadfastly as he had ignored the rest of the humans. "We decided to show you my dreams. Perhaps you can see something I missed."
"Dreams?" Ragnok growled. "I am on a busy schedule, Peverell. I have no time to watch your dreams."
The Seer ignored him and dumped a silvery memory into the rune-inscribed bowl. The liquid thought swirled enchantingly, making Hermione want to dunk her head in and never take it out.
"Ladies first," the Smoking Mirror joked, gesturing at the bowl. Saysa smiled softly, dipped her hand into the flowing fluid.
Hermione smiled at the infuriated Ragnok. "You did say that we could access the Pensieve," the witch informed him. "You didn't say we could only use it for viewing Sisith's memories." She ducked into the bowl before he could retort.
Everyone else followed. Even Dudley, who had been raised to hate magic; Even Ragnok, who was still seething at being ignored, even Tyr, who was skeptical of the dreams' worth.
Hermione would later learn that Harry had already seen this dream, which he'd gone ahead to make sure no Blaise-shaped phantom lurked in the shadows to reveal Apollo Peverell's true identity. He hadn't found one. In the dreams, the young Slytherin had been bodiless. No image of Blaise stood in the clearing to watch the werewolves' interactions.
The young Seer had wisely chosen to show his dreams out of order. He wanted to show them the Chalice in action before going back to the first vision, which didn't make a great deal of sense without the context of the second.
Hermione squinted at the delicate silver cup, trying to make out as much detail as she could, shadows on starlight, night's darkness and night's queen in the same vessel. She blinked, squinted harder. There were shapes around the cup's rim. They were… moons. Starting with a black circle that rose ever-so-slightly out of the cup and growing larger, waxing until only a sliver of darkness remained. She stepped to the left, and the raised white circle of the full moon appeared.
Then the dream was over, and they were forced out of Blaise's memory. "Did anyone see any details on the Chalice?" he asked without aplomb.
Tyr nodded. Remus described the tiny lunar phases along the rim.
Ragnok scowled. "Now that that is over, I would like to see if your pet has discovered this moon-marked goblet."
Sisith bristled at being called a pet. He and Harry indulged in a short argument about whether the snobbish goblin should be allowed into the snake's memory or not. Harry won by pointing out that it was Ragnok's Pensieve and that Sisith could always "accidentally" bite him later.
The snake's memory looked almost like a silvery clone, a white copy of himself. It was longer than Blaise's dream, the summary of four days instead of a few minutes.
The first two or three minutes were fragmented. Sisith would slither into a room, then the memory would blur, skipping over the fruitless time he'd spent in that area. When the blur faded, he moved into the next chamber and began the process again.
Three rooms in, two lefts, one room ahead and a turn to the right; Hermione silently repeated the directions, pounding them into her brain until it was as firmly fixed in her memory as her own name. Straight, straight, straight, left, left, straight, right. She mouthed the words, determined to get the order right.
Like the others, this chamber was stacked haphazardly with random items. Even a precursory glance revealed two moldy hats, a trio of pawns, and a Viking ship in a bottle. Everything was covered in thick sheets of dust, muting colors, obscuring details, clogging the air.
"I hate dust," groused Sisith-in-the-memory. Hermione jumped, eyes widening. She'd understood that without having to think of a translation. "These stupid humans need a better cleaning service."
Remus cleared his throat. "Um… was I the only one who understood that?"
"You understood that?" Harry echoed, surprised.
"Can you understand me now?" asked real-Sisith. The werewolf nodded, eyes bulging.
"It makes sense, I suppose," Hermione commented. "Sisith obviously understands Parseltongue, and we're in his memory. Of course we understand everything he does."
"Yes!" the real serpent cackled. "Finally I can say what I want without him translating." He nodded at Pollux, who raised a brow.
"Your insults can wait. Your memory-self seems to have found something important."
"Spoilsport." But he obviously agreed, for he didn't say another word.
Sisith-in-the-memory had knocked one of the antique hats to the floor. Its perch, protected from centuries of dust by the tattered headwear, glinted silver in the room's dim light. The memory-snake grinned. "Bingo."
The cup was thicker than its name suggested, almost a goblet instead of a chalice. Its base was covered in dark spots and irregular texturing, a petite map of the moon's bright side. Its stem was formed of two back-to-back crescents, each of which was carved with leaves and flowers so tiny and shallow they were almost invisible. The bowl flared out at the bottom, sloping gently for about an inch before inclining steeply. The rim was thicker than the rest of the bowl, inscribed with the phases of the moon in obsidian and silver.
Blaise smirked triumphantly. It was the cup they'd seen in his dreams, untarnished by the march of years, proof of his visionary powers that not even Tyr could deny.
The humans crowded around it, jostling and jockeying for a better position. Hermione's gaze gravitated towards the inside of the bowl. A dark wolf's paw flared out over the area where the stem met the bowl.
The serpent sight flared again, and she fought back a shriek. White light scalded her eyes. Tendrils crawled from the paw print in its center, reaching into Tyr and Remus's cores. Dark wolf-shapes flitted around their silhouettes, straining and grasping at the moonlight. The light shone on them, through them, sparking across the wolf-shapes and forming tiny filaments between beast and man. The Ravenclaw squinted. Unlike Padfoot, whose Animagus form was clearly connected to his human self, the humans and wolves were clearly separate entities. The Chalice… all it did was form bonds between them, too weak to last, too thin to heal.
That was the problem, she realized: Werewolves were two separate entities in one body, an early form of the Animagus transformation that created animal spirits along with animal forms. The Chalice had been created to merge the two halves together.
But there were advantages to having two spirits. That had to be connected to their enmity with dementors. Perhaps the simpler wolf minds provided a barrier between the human soul and the soul-eating monsters? Something similar had occurred with Sirius; though, since he lacked a true canine spirit, the effects were diminished.
There were flaws in Hermione's theory, of course. The two-spirits hypothesis didn't explain why werewolves were so vicious or why their transformation was triggered by the moon. It didn't rationalize their method of 'reproduction.' It left out so many details, but she knew on a visceral level that it was true.
Then she blinked, and the world dulled to normal sight.
"Saysa," she whispered, "look at it."
She did. Golden eyes widened as similar thoughts and theories crossed their owner's mind.
Neville had gravitated towards the carvings on the crescent stem. "Hemp," he observed, fingering a miniscule leaf. "Aconite, parosela, adders tongue, boneset…."
The world tilted. Hermione was flung onto her back, head snapping against the ground. Dudley's knee collided with her stomach, knocking the air from her lungs. They were back in the real world, the world where memories were made.
"Guess you really are a Seer," Tyr acknowledged, nodding towards the smug Blaise.
"Guess I really am," the Slytherin replied flippantly.
"Can you obtain this cup by the deadline?" demanded Ragnok, folding his long fingers together.
"Deadline?" repeated Tyr, eyebrow arching dangerously.
"What deadline?" Bianca asked. "You and your colleagues promised to join forces with us when we succeed in curing lycanthropy, the process of which we had already begun during our meeting. Apollo estimated we would have succeeded by the end of August, six months after our council. There is no deadline, for we undertook this task of our own accord before contacting any representatives of goblinkind." She folded her fingers together, imitating the director. "We have a Pensieve here if you wish to lessen your confusion."
Ragnok's knuckles tightened. His joints turned white. He opened his mouth to answer, but Tyr beat him to it. "I'd love to."
And so they viewed yet another memory, this one from Harry. Tyr watched expressionlessly as the prophesied five and their serpent companion spoke with Ragnok, Estella of the veela, and Baffur of the dwarves. He took everything in, dissected every word.
When the memory expelled them, he stated, "That was in February."
"Correct," Bianca confirmed. The goblin nodded grudgingly.
He nodded, turned to Ragnok. "Pollux contacted me about the cure in December, so you can quit trying to turn me against him. I will find this cure. I will use it. You will just have to keep your word and deal with the consequences."
"And do not even think of turning Master Ulfhednar or Sirius in." Saysa's voice was quiet, deadly. "Not unless you wish to relinquish all the honor of goblinkind. The Treaty of the Wood states that the leaders of the races will be honored equally. He is the alpha of Britain; he deserves as much respect as you."
More respect, if you ask me, Hermione thought.
Ragnok flushed scarlet. "I will inform my people of your progress." He hesitated. In a snarl that implied he would rather eat broken glass, he asked, "And I shall also tell the dwarves and veela."
He vanished. The Pensieve vanished with him.
Blaise scowled. "He could have let us get our memories out of that."
Sisith whined something about wanting to insult the goblin when everyone could understand Parseltongue. Harry rolled his eyes.
"Good riddance that he's gone," Tyr growled, "but he could have left the Pensieve. There's one more memory I wanted to see."
"I've told you all about my other dream," Blaise reminded him. "The chalice doesn't show up there, so it's not so important."
"Not yours," the alpha replied. He pointed at Saysa. "Hers."
She nodded, very slowly. "Are you still not convinced, Master Ulfhednar? Ragnok acknowledges my identity, as did the dwarf and veela leaders in Pollux's recollection."
The werewolf shrugged. "They also call Pallas Dhar the Heiress of Salazar Slytherin."
"Is there any reason she should not be?"
"I'm more than halfway convinced of both her identity and your claims," he admitted, "but I want to see at least one of these prophecies being made."
"Then it shall be done," she assured him. "When?"
Remus waved awkwardly. "May I make a suggestion?" Nods all around. "Maybe this viewing could wait until we've acquired the Chalice of the Moon? That way other skeptical werewolves could see evidence- that is, if you were planning on telling them about these prophecies."
"Were we?" wondered Hermione.
"I think we should," Neville mumbled. "I think… if we didn't tell them about the prophecies but still expected them to fight for us, we would be no better than Dumbledore."
"The other races know about this," Saysa agreed. "Werewolves should as well."
"But I'd prefer not telling them about my situation," Harry interjected. His jaw was set in a way Hermione recognized; he wouldn't be backing down on this.
"We have quite a while to think about it," Daphne reminded them. "The chalice is still held within the Department of Mysteries. Until we bring it to the… CC, as you call it, and use it to cure the residents, they will think us mad no matter what evidence we offer. Even if Master Ulfhednar and Remus vouched for us, we would still be seen as charlatans or lunatics."
"That might even make it worse," Remus confessed. "Tyr isn't very popular right now for running off with no warning. The Aurors have gotten worse since then, and they blame him. As for me… they say I've been 'domesticated,' that I'm a sympathizer. To them, I'm hardly a credible witness."
"But once we have the cure, and if the cure still works," murmured Tyr, "they'll want to know the entire story of how we found it." He leaned back against the wall, eyes distant. "That will be a good time to show them Saysa's memories. Perhaps we could throw in Apollo's dreams as well, or even my memories of Livonia and my… conversion, I suppose." His lips twisted wryly.
Daphne arched a pale brow at him. "What conversion, Master Ulfhednar? I was under the impression that you remain a skeptic still."
He shrugged. "You're wearing me down," he confessed dryly. "I'm not there yet, not entirely, but I'm getting there. And everyone? Call me Tyr."