Chapter Thirty-Nine

Consultations

When Aunt Viviane requested an appointment for afternoon tea, Severus was neither surprised nor unsurprised. He pondered the timing but shrugged it off when he realized that he had absolutely no way of knowing how she chose her own path. The conversation was unlikely to be about her anyway, Severus mused, wondering if she finally felt it was time to confront him over what he had been doing lately.

The trays were set up, Maisy was dismissed for the day, and the teapot appeared just as she stepped through the doors. One look from the Lady told Severus that perhaps now was the right time after all, and he nodded to himself in confirmation.

"Good afternoon, Aunt Viviane," Severus greeted. "Have a seat if you like."

"First, I have something to say," Viviane declared sternly. "As the Apprentice of Free Will, you have no business in tampering in my affairs. It is not your place."

"Yes, I'm aware," Severus replied easily. "And I haven't been, Aunt Viviane."

"Haven't you? Do think I'm blind to what you've been doing?" Viviane asked crisply.

"I haven't been interfering," Severus said resolutely.

"You have been acting in Merlin's stead when he is not here..."

"Now that, Aunt Viviane, is my prerogative, and my duty. I have his permission to act in his interests in lieu of his absence, and he has seen fit to give me instructions on occasion... like during the auction, purchasing that book I had to pay too much for," Severus said.

"Too much? I think otherwise," Viviane said coolly. "He had no right trying to even up my donation when it wasn't his business in the first place! I am in charge right now, and I want you to acknowledge it at once! I want no more interference from him on this matter!"

"Yes, Aunt Viviane, I agree. You are in charge at the moment and you should be," Severus replied without hesitation.

"And you will tell him that you acknowledged it!" Viviane snapped, pointing at the covered painting.

"Yes, I will tell him," Severus agreed solemnly. Gazing at him searchingly, Viviane finally sat down. "I do want one concession, however... two, really," he added.

Viviane glared at him for not having stated that when she was on her feet. Severus sat down as well, pouring the tea.

"The first concession being that Quintin is my affair, and while I appreciate any help you've given in the past and perhaps even the future when it suits your business to interfere in the matter, Quintin's progress and training is ultimately my business."

"Are you going to tell Merlin that as well?" Viviane asked primly.

"I shall, at the right Time," Severus said evenly. "You know as well as I do that I cannot tell him until after a certain point. If I do, things are going to unravel in an unpleasant heap. If the Tapestry of this Universe becomes completely unstitched, I'd rather not be the one to blame for it, thank you."

"Merlin will be to blame for it, regardless of your own choices in the matter," Viviane informed him evenly. "I will acknowledge that Quintin is ultimately your business, but I reserve the right to interfere on occasion due to my own obligations."

"Which brings me to my second point; I acknowledge that you are ultimately in charge at this Time, as you should be, but I also reserve the right to interfere on occasion due to my own sworn obligations," Severus said. Viviane squinted at that.

"How will I know you won't take that right too far? You have so many obligations that if I were to acknowledge them, you'd interfere as much as you like!" Viviane snapped. "Including an obligation to Merlin, might I add..."

"Oh come now, Aunt Viviane. We both know that's not what this is about, and you are only worried about one of my obligations out of all of them," Severus said bluntly. "As such, I'll simply have to prove it to you. Let us have a probationary period to this Agreement. I will stay out of your business as much as I can, and I will only personally get involved when there is no other solution... like a king on the chessboard..."

"No, not king," Viviane immediately interrupted. "You are a pawn."

"Yes, all right. To be fair, Aunt Viviane, I have already been playing the pawn this year," Severus pointed out.

"And you will continue to do so for the remainder of the probationary period," she said firmly.

"Which is how long?" Severus said.

"Ten years should suffice," Viviane decided. Severus stared at her. "Including this year," she added reassuringly when she saw his reaction.

"Aunt Viviane, Quintin will be out of school by then," Severus pointed out.

"True, but I doubt he'll need your interference for a few years after. Besides, I already acknowledged he was your business anyway, so I'll look the other way as far as that is concerned," Viviane reminded him.

"Yes, thank you, Viviane, but even if you don't anticipate any problems, things can change. Free Will does exist in this world, whether Fate currently needs the upper hand or not," Severus pointed out. "Couldn't we make it seven? Just for the probationary period, of course, I'm not suggesting we don't continue this agreement after that, obviously, it'll extend for however long it take for the balance between Fate and Free Will to even up, and who knows how long that will be..."

"A very, very long time, thanks to everything Merlin's done so far and will do in the future," Viviane said bluntly. "As far as I'm concerned, the delays are his doing, not mine."

"I'm sorry, but I've already acknowledged that you're in charge right now, what more do you want? I've acknowledged everything you've said since you came in my study. Sweetmeats?" Severus offered, holding out the plate. "I know you have no reason to trust me in this, but I am sincere. After all, we both have a vested interest in restoring Fate to its proper balance, do we not? It's just as much for my sake as it is for yours. I promise you, Aunt Viviane, that I will do everything in my power to help you to restore the balance, including allowing Fate to take the upper hand until that balance is restored," he vowed seriously. Viviane gazed at him searchingly, accepting the offered sweetmeat and putting it on her own plate.

"Very well, there will be seven years of probation to this Agreement. Including this current year," she added for good measure.

"Of course, Aunt Viviane," Severus replied, getting something off the tray for himself.

In the dungeon, Jennifer was having an early dinner with Quintin, getting caught up what he had learned at his grandfather's house, and also what he had learned about what Jeremy, Jack, and Jay had been doing. After hearing the story, Jennifer took out the Gem of Light for an inspection, running a few quick checks on it.

"Well, there aren't any memory charms on this, not that I'm surprised. Being a Craw, I'm certain I would have stumbled onto it ages ago if there had been one imbedded in it," Jennifer decided.

"Do you suppose he was lying about leaving memory charms?" Quintin asked.

"I highly doubt it. It was quite common in that time period to preserve memories by tucking them in items, and they can be easily hidden under regular charms... rather like background noise on the Wireless. You see, memory strands on their own don't really put out much magical energy. It's a storage device, so it has to be triggered in some way. If an item has any magic at all, it effectively hides it being there. The only way to detect the memory is if you are specifically looking for it," she explained. "I ran basic tests on this Gem a long time ago, though, because when I opened the box that the four items were hidden in, it was memory sealed. I saw the memory of the Four Apprentices as they put these items in the box for their descendants," Jennifer explained before gazing at Quintin. "In fact, I suppose that in and of itself might have been meant as a hint that there were more memories hidden in the castle, really. But things at that time were so hectic that we never went looking for them. Instead, we used the clues that Bedivere O'Laren gave to sort out who the items went to and what they did. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if they're are a great deal of memories hidden about in items, waiting for the right person to go looking for them. Most memories hidden in items won't trigger on their own without those two things; someone needs to actively be looking for them, and it has to be the right person."

"The right person?" Quintin repeated questioningly.

"Well, memories are quite personal, after all, so when a memory strand is put in an item, you typically put conditions with them. The person may need to be related, or be a student of a certain school of magic, such as Dark Magic, or even something like 'you can't be related to such and such a person.'"

"So it's rather like the charms placed on the door to the Research Library or the Potion Vault," Quintin suggested.

"Yes, very much so," Jennifer confirmed. "Back in the founder's days, it was quite common to put memories in items because the spell for turning a memory into a strand was common place, but Pensieves hadn't been invented yet. It's rather like how tin cans were invented years before the tin opener, isn't it? It's a bit messy to get the contents out without one," she said. Quintin nodded with a grin. "Let me speak to Janus this evening and I'll back to you. Right now we'd best finish our dinner, since I know you have Astrology tonight."

"Yes, Mum," Quintin replied, turning his attention to his mashed pumpkin.

Upstairs, Jeremy was waiting for him to arrive, following him to his room so that the nosy paintings in the Common Room couldn't overhear them.

"So what did you find out?" Jeremy asked.

"Not much, she's going to talk to Janus," Quintin replied, sitting on his bed while Jeremy sat the wrong way around on in desk chair. "But she did think it was pretty likely there were memories hidden around the castle. Apparently it was quite common in those days to hide memories in magical devices, and they're not obvious unless you are actively looking for them and you're the right person to trigger them... like being a relative, or sharing similar beliefs to whose memory it is, or all sorts of other crazy conditions."

"So the likelihood of me ever stumbling onto anything like that is next to none," Jeremy realized. "Then why did Mr. Craw panic and shoo us out like that? Do you suppose it's because one of the others who came with me could trigger memories down there?"

"That makes sense. I mean, Jay is a Craw, after all. Maybe Janus hid some memories down there or something," Quintin conjectured, but then paused. "Or maybe it's Jack he's worried about. Being that he's a Black, so he's got a lot of old blood in him, and he's the grandson of an Aethermage. We don't have enough information to rule out either of them just yet. Maybe Mum will find out more."

"What should we do in the meantime?" Jeremy asked.

"Well, we still need to concentrate on getting the book research done for Leon Thames and Cuthbert Wuscfrea," Quitin said. "But once we're to the point we need to interview Bedivere and Caprica about them and have an excuse to bring those paintings back into the Common Room, let's confront them and see if they sealed away memory strands too. Maybe they'll give us some hints to where they might have hidden them."

"Right," Jeremy said, getting up. "I'm going out to the Common Room so you can get some sleep."

"And so you can try to chat up Virginia while I'm out of the picture," Quintin taunted.

"Give me a break," Jeremy protested, pushing him over and making Quintin laugh. "You're a walking invasion of privacy, you know that, don't you?"

"Good luck," Quintin said with a grin. "She'll make you buy her candy first, by the way..."

"Yeah, yeah," Jeremy said with a wave of protest, stepping out of the room.

It was as they were finishing up the house room bed checks that Jennifer finally breached the subject. Janus didn't miss his floating stride as they walked to the back stairs, completely unsurprised that she brought it up.

"I was just doing my job as your assistant, Jennifer. They really had no business being down there, after all," Janus replied, "especially without prior authorization."

"Of course they shouldn't have. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it was Jack's idea, considering he's been wanting to poke around down there since he was Sorted," Jennifer conjectured, and Janus nodded in agreement. "But Quintin said you didn't get defensive until they brought up hidden memories in the castle. Did you hide memories in the castle?"

"I suppose that'd depend on your point of view..." he mused.

"So they're in one of your journals," Jennifer concluded. Janus quickly hid himself from view. "Which one? No, don't tell me, I bet it's the last one, considering how badly things went at the end. You know it won't take Quintin long to figure it out, I hope."

"Quintin?" his voice repeated.

"Of course, Quintin. I lent him that journal to help him with his research," Jennifer explained.

"What?" Janus said, appearing in front of her so quickly that she had to hold the railing to keep herself steady. "You can't let him see those, Jennifer, he's just a child! I suggest you apprehend that from him and don't let him have it back!" he snapped.

"I will borrow the journal for the evening," she decided. "Quintin's going to have to get up for Astrology in a little while... I'll ask to borrow it then, so I can see the memories myself. Then I'll decide whether he's ready to handle them or not."

"They're my memories! I should get the final word on who sees them," Janus argued.

"Technically, since you're dead and that journal belongs to Severus and myself, we're the ones that get the final word on it," Jennifer said.

"Then you'll have to bring it up to Severus to use it," Janus said sternly.

"It's a joint ownership, I don't have to bring it up if I don't want to," Jennifer pointed out.

"Fine. Then I'll bring it up," Janus snapped, floating away before she could stop him.

Wondering what sort of trouble that would cause, Jennifer stepped up to the fourth floor and took the corridor towards the Guard Wing to get the journal before Severus had a chance to ask for it. As it so happened, she needn't have worried.

Severus listened to Janus' complaint intently and even made a note, promising him that he would discuss the matter with Jennifer. He glanced at the time, working until nearly midnight before Jennifer wandered in from the back room.

"Are you still awake? I expected you to be in bed by now," Jennifer asked.

"Yes, well, I wanted to talk to you professionally before we turn in," Severus replied. Jennifer sighed with such exasperation that Severus could tell that she already knew what it was about. "Janus came to see me this evening, expressing concern that his last journal was in the wrong hands. Apparently there's some sort of hidden memory in it that he never disclosed to anyone, and he's afraid that Quintin might stumble onto it and 'requested' that he not be allowed to borrow it again."

"Yes, I know he feels that way, Severus. But it's not his journal anymore. It's ours, after all," Jennifer said firmly.

"Technically, I suppose," Severus said, thoughtfully watching her dig her heels in as he began to clean up for the night. "But being a ghost whose living self produced those memories, as well as what as once a private journal, I can also understand his point of view."

"That journal was never meant to be private, Severus," Jennifer pointed out. "He put all of his work in that journal for the very fact that he knew he wouldn't make it back to the island and wanted to pass his work on to his family. The whole reason he would have stored memories in that journal was to give his family some insight if anything happened to him... which it did. That he's still a ghost is beside the point, his original intention is clear. Furthermore, I'm sure that his main concern is that he thinks Quintin and his friends may be too young to comprehend it. They might be traumatized by it or, even worse in his mind, that Quintin might judge him harshly because of it," Jennifer explained. "Janus is just as attached to Quintin as much as all of the other ghosts who played with Quintin as a child," she added with a thin, gentle smile. "So I think that underneath his concern for his age, Janus is afraid that Quintin will no longer look up to him when faced with the fact that Janus Craw isn't quite as infallible as Janus Craw would like Quintin to think."

"How typical for a Craw," Severus said with such a tone in his voice that Jennifer put her hands on a hips. "They're such perfectionists that they will do anything to keep anyone from seeing them as anything other than perfect."

"I'm not like that! Father is, sure, and Maurice is maybe, but I'm not like that at all!" Jennifer declared. Severus gave her an intense stare. "Any longer," she added sheepishly. "Besides, you're one to talk! You've done the same thing yourself when you were younger," she added, flustered.

"True enough," Severus replied calmly. "I suppose after dying so young, Janus never had a chance to get out of that stage," he mused. "Either way, that journal belongs to you as far as I'm concerned, being not only a Craw but the Dark Sentinel on top of it. Since you're one of Quintin's project advisors and can also make a parental decision on whether you think he's mature enough, it's ultimately up to you. As long as you don't have any reservations on the matter, I certainly don't."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that I don't have reservations," Jennifer admitted with a sigh, sitting down and glancing at the Sorting Hat then back at Severus. "Obviously, we knew from the start that Quintin was going to be finding out details to stories that he's only heard the watered down versions of, especially when he began working on this as a formal paper. And to be perfectly honest, it doesn't altogether surprise me that there are memories still hidden of that time period in the castle. I've often wondered about it from time to time... after I broke the seal on that box... after the memory seals Mallus Craw even put on his ring... such horrible, horrible memories to witness, and I was nearly lost in them."

"I doubt any that they would stumble on any memories in the castle would be as terrible as Mallus Craw's memories, Jennifer, although I don't doubt they may be some that are difficult to behold, possibly even windows to very traumatic events," Severus replied. "Reading about such events in books is one thing, witnessing them is quite another."

"Not all of those events got into books, as you well know," Jennifer said.

"Yes, but Quintin has always been aware of them through family lore... and yes, I know. It is also not the same thing," Severus acknowledged. "We knew from the start that this project wouldn't be easy for the new house or for Quintin, but that doesn't change the fact that it has to be done, whether you choose to discourage them from going on a 'memory hunt' or not. I suppose I should warn you, though, that if you do try to discourage them, it may make it all the more likely that they do it behind your back anyway. Still, it's your call on how to handle it. I'll help you cover the fallout when it comes."

"Gee, thanks," Jennifer said sarcastically, then followed him into his sitting room.