Arius marched up one of the many sets of stairs in the Ilvermorny stairway.
Unlike Hogwarts, the staircases here never seemed to move or change, but the stairs themselves seemed to disappear once every fifty steps or so. Arius was careful to double-step over the vacant space each time one of the stairways attempted to prank him on his journey upstairs.
Once he reached the top of the main tower—just down the corridor from where the headmaster's office was—he stopped at the room that resided perfectly at the end of the hall, with elegant rounded doors of rich mahogany. This room—the one given to him for the year—was where he planned to set up the family tree, though he knew it would take some time for the project to flourish at all.
He pushed the thick wooden doors open and stepped inside, halting instantly—and seeing another person in his room.
This room, once an office, had a spectacular view of the grounds from above, a long, tall window positioned across from the door, and a new bed had been placed right underneath it for his stay. To the right was a cabinet for his belongings and a stand for his hat and coat, and in the left corner was the door to his own lavatory—but the entire left wall was covered by an enormous sheet of paper now, pinned to the wall with an old clay bowl sitting on the floor in front of it, the clay bowl large and wide, filled with shiny black liquid. The room was lit by lanterns, oil lamps hanging from every corner—and Raven stood over the giant sheet of paper and the bowl, glimpsing over at him with folded arms.
"Oh… I see you already… started," Arius murmured, slinking inside and gently easing the double-doors shut behind him. "Ahm… am I meant to get the ingredients, or…?"
Raven's mouth curled into a subtle half-smile. "Already done."
"Oh. Okay. Good." Arius nodded, glimpsing down at the bowl of ink, then back at her. "And… I'm sorry, have you left anything for me to do?"
"Mmm… no. Not really. I thought it should get done correctly," Raven snarked.
"Hah… heheh…" Arius laughed faintly. "Yes, well, that's… that's actually very mean."
"Oh… come on," Raven snickered. "You really got soft if you think that's me being mean."
"I have not," Arius grumped. "I have someone like you berating me on a disturbingly regular basis, I'll have you know."
"Mhm. Yeah… Crowley," Raven murmured, glimpsing down in thought for a second. "Y'know, I have to be honest. Seeing the way he talks to you is… familiar."
Arius stared at her from behind his dark lenses, saying nothing.
"Weird familiar," Raven clarified, eyeing him intently.
Arius remained silent, still merely gazing at her expressionlessly.
"You and me familiar, smart one," Raven said pointedly clear. "Good Lord…"
"What? Oh," Arius breathed, making a shake of the head. "Oh, well—that's to be expected. You know better than anyone that all of my friends tend to be borderline sociopathic."
"Oh my God… I am actually going to have to spell this out for you," Raven sighed down at the floor, pinching the bridge of her nose for a moment before meeting his eyes again. "Emmett. Is Crowley your wife?"
Once more, Arius stared at her with a vacant visage, saying nothing for several seconds longer.
"Why does everyone think that I court men?" he mumbled softly moments later. "Quite honestly, I can actually see how some might make that mistake—but you? I daresay you know better, Raven."
Raven made a shrugging motion, tilting her head and smirking as she looked away. "Ehh. I don't know. A lot can change in all these years…"
She snickered at her own little joke, but when she turned to him again, her smile faded, reading his expression and seeing a hint of dismay amidst it now.
Arius let out a deep, heavy sigh.
"Trocar was a friend to me a very long time ago, when no one else was," he said softly. "During a time… when he was powerful, and beloved, and praised beyond all measure. One of the best in Slytherin… and one of the best in Hogwarts, with a promising auror career ahead of him. Genuinely, I was a nobody by comparison, and I certainly didn't get treated well the way he did… but, he saw me through quite a lot of hardships back then. And… when the time came, and we marched into adulthood… his streak of good fortune ran dry. So… rather than him being my protector… I somehow became his instead. It's all a very long story… but it's a friendship that I cherish very much… and that… well… that's all it is."
Raven stared for a moment, sighing and nodding at him, then revealing a smirk again.
"You always have to have some dark brooding lunatic protecting you," she said.
Arius breathed out a laugh. "Naturally."
Raven smiled and brushed her bangs back, then surveyed the giant paper up and down.
"So, who's this for?" she asked. "Did you get the hairs you need for it?"
"Oh… yes," Arius uttered, reaching into his overcoat and pulling out the strands of Alice's hair, holding it between his fingers. "I've got it right here."
"Well… everything else has been done, and the hairs go last," Raven informed, swatting down at the ink bowl. "So… go for it."
Arius strolled over to her side, hunching slightly and sprinkling the hairs into the ink bowl.
Seconds later, the ink began to shift, the reflective shine of the lanterns dancing on the quivering surface of the black liquid. Then, several long, winding streaks of black began climbing out of the bowl, slithering onto the wall and crawling up onto the paper, weaving and intertwining with one another at the bottom, slowly beginning to form shapes that appeared to be tree roots.
"Like I said… gonna take a while," Raven said, crossing her arms again and glancing over at him. "Who is this for?"
"Ah… a student of mine," Arius mumbled distractedly, still staring at the bottom of the huge paper, where the roots of the tree were steadily drawing themselves with more clarity. "I think she…"
He paused, running a hand down his face and letting it hover there, covering his mouth and releasing a deep cloud of breath.
"Well… it's a long story," he exhaled.
Raven studied him, then made a sideways nod.
"Okay… I've got another hard one for you," she said. "How long has Crowley been a vampire?"
Arius's hand left his face, and he turned to her, ogling her from behind his goggles as his mouth drifted agape.
"I'm a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher," Raven laughed. "I can see it clear as day, even when he's hiding behind some mismatched contact lenses that he stole off of some poor no-maj."
Arius gaped at her for a second, then turned back to the paper, where the roots were inking themselves in fantastic detail.
"That's another long story," he sighed.
"Are you gonna tell me any of these stories?" Raven inquired. "Because you did say you wanted to catch up… and I remember you ranting for hours on end about your 'best friend back home' when you went to school here. But, in all your stories about Trocar Crowley, you never once mentioned him being a vampire. That had to have happened later. So lemme hear it."
"Well…" Arius huffed out a breath, intertwining his fingers atop his cane. "It happened… just after I'd been accepted as the next headmaster of Hogwarts. I was in the office, tending to Zeus and organizing my belongings before the school year would start… oh, Zeus is my dragon, by the way, but I couldn't bring him on the trip with me here… anyway, it was nighttime, and I was setting up in the office, excitedly preparing for my first year there. But, school wasn't meant to start for another six days, so I went back to my cottage home for a short while after I'd gotten everything settled… and, when I did, I… accidentally… packed the sorting hat into my bag before I left."
Raven squinted strangely at him.
"That's relevant to the story," Arius assured. "I remember going back home that night, and it was considerably late… but I popped my bag open, getting ready to double-check that I had my necessities in it before I turned in for the night… and then came a loud, rapid knock at the door."
Raven's eyebrows raised.
"I opened the door… and Trocar was there," Arius said distantly, gazing forward as he pondered on the past. "Leaning on the door's frame, looking pale and exhausted… clothes torn up, blood spotted across his face. He opened his mouth, as if he was about to tell me what had happened… but then he just keeled over."
"Oh God," Raven breathed.
"Well… I brought him inside, laid him on the couch, and… waited," Arius explained. "I simply waited for him to wake up for a few minutes, thinking he'd tell me what he'd been through… but… then came another rapping at the door. A lot harder and louder now."
Raven listened attentively.
Arius sighed once more, tapping two fingers along his knuckles as he relived the memory.
"Opening the door was a mistake," he remembered. "So many people standing there… but looming there, hunched forward, teeth bared, smiles wide, and all with the same black eyes, like stones. The vampires that attacked him had hunted him down to my door. But, I remember… simply stating… that I do not grant them entry. And then…"
Arius cracked the faintest hint of a smirk.
"Out of the corner of my eye," he chuckled breathlessly. "Something sparkled from inside by open bag… from just under the brim of the sorting hat."
Raven stared, her mouth drifting open.
"The Staff of Helga Hufflepuff came to me that day," Arius told her, turning and widening his smile. "And I used it to banish them all from my doorstep."
Raven stood speechless for several seconds after, blowing a raspberry and nodding in response.
"Okay… wow," she exhaled. "I didn't know you summoned one of those things from the Hogwarts founders once. That's a big deal…"
"Oh yes," Arius breathed, grinning at the inking roots again. "And it felt fantastic. After all that time he'd spent protecting me in our youth—I could finally return the favor."
Raven surveyed him, flashing another smile, a warmer one now.
"Loyalty is all people like you care about," she said with a sigh. "I hope you know… to most other people… that's as rare as it is mindboggling. But… that's also how you somehow lock in solid loyalty from the most cold and skeptical people in the world. Lots of other people try to get some kind of loyalty out of people like me and Crowley, and they just can't do it… but you? You don't even have to try. You just have our loyalty because you earn it… not even by trying… just by being you."
"Well… now you sound like him," Arius smirked.
"Yeah… you know why?" Raven laughed. "Because people like us know we can't trust anyone else… except for people like you. People who can honestly be trusted are like a precious gem in an ocean of question marks… and that's why you end up surrounded by borderline sociopathic protectors all the time, because people like us never take people like you for granted."
Arius chuckled and nodded. "That's quite a nice arrangement. I like it."
"Yeah—that's easy for you to say," Raven quipped, smacking his arm. "You get the easy job. You just get to be the loveable airhead while the rest of us stress about keeping the monsters at bay for you."
"Oh… be fair," Arius muttered with a laugh, gazing down at the inking roots again. "I am doing a bit more than that now."
Raven's smile waned, her eyes following his down to the roots on the paper, which had flourished into incredible detail, only just beginning to draw the foundation of the tree.
"Emmett… tell me," she said seriously, turning and gazing into him. "What is this for? What does this have to do with the Seal of Shadows?"
Arius stared into the roots on the paper, sighing stressfully and falling expressionless once more.
"Hopefully… nothing," he said with a darkening tone. "Hopefully."
The next day—Alice and Zander set off to the castle early in the morning, fully prepared to begin their final year of school.
After a lively breakfast with their friends, all of them set off together, and Jeremiah gladly led them all to their first class of the day, which was Potions. Even though the classroom was shaped fairly differently than the Hogwarts one, the class carried on much the same as they were accustomed to, and they finished the first day's lesson by creating several dangerous cauldrons of Liquid Death, save for Alice and Tobias—Alice having accidentally set her Liquid Death ablaze, and Tobias creating a lively mystery brew of silvery goo instead.
After lunch ended, and the afternoon came, Jeremiah led them off to Defense Against the Dark Arts—and Tobias beamed with joy the moment they all entered the room, seeing that Sakura was seated by the windows at a far table, brushing her bangs back and offering him a kind smile.
Everyone in Alice and Zander's group ended up sitting around the same area—the far table in the front, where Sakura was seated—and the classroom soon became flooded with students of Hogwarts, Ilvermorny, and Mahoutokoro, all of them barely managing to seat themselves comfortable around every table. But as they did, and as everyone finally managed to claim a seat, all of their heads were upturned, and everyone was staring up at the same thing—the cages that hung suspended from the ceiling all around the front of the classroom, all of them covered with white sheets, and a few of them were shaking around.
Alice, Zander, Tobias, and Sakura all exchanged wary glances from the front table by the window. James, Rose, and Lorcan—seated at the table just behind them—did much the same, though Jeremiah and Theo were smirking knowingly at each other.
Before long, Raven Knightingale sauntered into the room, making a graceful wave with her wand and easing the classroom door shut. Then, she gazed upon the class, her eyes traveling across the room until every student fell silent.
"Okay," Raven started. "Any questions?"
Many students across the room traded looks.
"We haven't started any lessons yet," Kenji remarked from the back of the class.
"No… but I know you have questions," Raven replied with a smirk.
"I do." Theo's hand jutted into the air. "Miss Knightingale—isn't this a bit heavy-handed for a first-day lesson?"
"For a bunch of seventh years? I don't think so," Raven laughed, scoffing as if he'd said something ridiculous. "If you haven't had any heavy-handed lessons by now, then I'm afraid you'll never be able to defend yourselves out in the world."
"She's as no-nonsense as Crowley is," Zander murmured to Alice, and she nodded in agreement.
"I have a question," a blonde Ilvermorny girl spoke up from the center of the room. "What actually is the lesson? What's in the cages?"
"There it is," Raven said coyly, gently motioning at the girl with her wand. "This lesson… falls in a gray area. Some of you might think it falls into the 'magical creatures' category… but, since this lesson is about defending yourselves against them… I say it falls under my juristiction all the same. Besides, we have a whole chapter in our textbooks about these hairy fellas. It certainly fits into one of my lesson plans. I'm not just being cruel for the fun of it."
She snickered at saying this, making many of the students swap glances again, silently wondering just how true her statement was.
"Now, let's say… horror of horrors… you actually end up in the Triwizard Tournament," Raven began, slowly striding to and fro at the front of the class. "And, let's say… amid your very first task, wherein you're totally blind-sighted, not allowed to prepare at all, not even given a hint about what kind of danger you're about to face… suddenly you're fighting off these."
She made a flick of the wrist with her wand upright—and the sheets all flew off of the cages overhead, revealing the large, girthy spiders stuffed inside each one, their long and hairy legs poking and prodding at the metal bars, all of them so big, they could barely fit inside the confines of their cages.
All the students gazed up at the twenty-or-so Acromantulas, saying nothing.
"So," Raven said simply, raising her eyebrows at them all. "What do you do?"
"Fucking run—are you kidding me?!" Theo barked, making several others laugh.
Raven smiled curtly at him. "Yeah… except this is a whole young family of Acromantulas, and you can bet they'll have web all over the place. Not to mention, they're faster than you. You think running is gonna cut it? Because I don't. I think they'll catch you and eat you alive."
"She's a cheery one," James mumbled, Lorcan and Jeremiah both snickering in response.
"I'd just use fire," Alice shrugged.
"You'd better make sure you're protected from that fire," Raven said straightly, pointing her wand once at her. "Because Acromantulas tend to set up in forests, and with all the trees and web everywhere, the whole place will go up in flames in no time."
"I think the most prudent part of that scenario is assessing what not to do first," Zander stated. "Namely—don't go anywhere near the pincers. Acromantula venom is deadly, and if you're bitten, you only have a few hours to get treatment before you die."
"A very good point—what was your name?" Raven inquired.
"Zander."
"Ah—well, very good point, Zander. Anyone else have any insight?"
She glanced around the room, and everyone stayed quiet for a moment.
"Honestly," Alice spoke up again. "If it's a whole swarm like that… I really would just use fire. Using some form of overkill would do the job well… and, for me personally… I'm a decent flyer, so I'd just summon my broom and hightail it away straight after."
Raven nodded. "That's a solid plan for you, so long as you don't end up burning down any homes or businesses that happen to be nearby."
Alice squinted at her. "I can't imagine there'd be anyone thick enough to build their home or business so close to a place infested with Acromantulas."
Several others sniggered at this, Raven shrugging and nodding sideways.
"Baka-ne," Kenji grumbled, rolling his eyes.
Raven raised her eyebrows, eyeing him from across the class. "What was that?"
Kenji huffed at her, slowly standing and leaning on his table.
"Overkill is an insufficient and reckless plan of action," he said flatly. "You can very well get yourself killed in the process of utilizing a form of magic overkill."
"Only if you're incompetent at what you're trying to do," Alice argued.
Kenji turned his head, his eyes locking onto her. "Do you think you're not incompetent?"
Alice nearly rocketed up from her seat—Zander clasping her arm and holding her still.
"All right—sit down," Raven ordered, nodding at Kenji. "Anyone else have any input?"
Kenji sank back into his seat, and everyone paused in silence again.
"Are you sure?" Raven asked them all. "Because you'd better get a good idea of how to fight one of these things fairly soon."
The class remained quiet, though a few of the students were staring up at the cages with expressions of concern now.
Then, Alice felt a tapping on her shoulder. She turned, seeing that Jeremiah had leaned forward from his seat behind her, grasping the back of her chair and whispering into her ear.
"She had us help with settin' them up yesterday," he uttered in a hushed tone. "But she had our Care of Magic Creatures teacher come in here and remove their venom this morning."
Alice turned partly around, giving him a curious look. "What're you telling me that for?"
"'Cause," Jeremiah replied, cracking a smirk. "I don't want you to freak out too hard here in a sec. Just watch."
Zander turned his head, only just noticing the two of them whispering to each other, narrowing his eyes at them.
Raven took a few steps back, raising her wand directly beneath one of the cages.
"Really…?" she said, glimpsing around at everyone again. "No ideas at all…?"
She held the wand higher.
Sakura frowned, grasping Tobias's sleeve and clutching it tight. Rose tensed up in her seat, James and Lorcan stiffening in their chairs and trading perturbed looks with each other, Jeremiah and Theo both leaning comfortably back in their seats, smirking with folded arms.
"Okay," Raven shrugged, her smile widening. "Let's see what ideas you come up with when you have to."
She flicked the wand at the cage above her—and the cage door flew open.
Many of the students gasped and yelled, reeling back in alarm—and the Acromantula above Raven's head began squirming and clamoring forward, squeezing out of the cage that was now loudly rocking and shaking.
Suddenly—the giant spider flopped out of the cage and landed on the floor with a thud.
The nearest students screamed—Zander scooting his chair back and reaching for his wand.
The Acromantula landed on its back, flailing rapidly until it found itself on all eight. Then—it scurried forward and climbed on the middle table of the front row, all the girls at this table shrieking in a panic and falling out of their seats as they desperately scrambled to get away.
Raven simply watched, crossing her arms and chuckling as the massive spider thundered awkwardly across the room, knocking over chairs and sending students running in terror everywhere it went.
Zander and Alice were both standing now, as were the rest of their friends—except for Jeremiah and Theo, who remained seated and laughed as they watched the giant spider thunder across the middle of the room.
"Come'ere," Zander breathed, tugging Alice's sleeve and trying to squeeze past her. "Get behind me."
"No—I think it's harmless," Alice muttered back to him, her eyes still following the Acromantula. "No venom. It's not a threat to us."
Zander shot her a look from behind. "How d'you know that?"
"Jeremiah told me," Alice replied, still watching the spider.
Tobias nudged past Zander, gazing across the room alongside Alice—just when the young Acromantula scuttled onto the table in the back corner, its hairy pincers hovering unsettlingly close to Kenji's face.
"Onii-chan!" Sakura gasped, grabbing Tobias's arm and staring across the room in fear.
Kenji merely sat there, leaned back in his chair and staring up at the beast unfazed.
Everything fell still as all of the students watched—and seconds later, Kenji slowly slid his wand out from within his golden robes.
"Kyūjōshō suru!" he hissed—whipping his wand at the spider and sending it flying into the air.
The beast soared across the room—startled screams echoing across the class—and Alice and Zander both ducked to either side as the Acromantula smashed into Tobias with great force.
Sakura screamed—and Tobias crashed down in front of her, his glasses lopsided as he landed on the floor, his arms wrapped around the huge hairy spider. He winced, his head propped against the back leg of the table, and the creature's legs began flailing madly again, as Tobias was now holding it upside-down.
Everyone rushed closer, surveying the situation—and Tobias blinked his vision straight, glancing down and gently adjusting his grasp on the Acromantula. Slowly and carefully, he slid his hand onto its back, then began to coast his fingers up and down, gingerly stroking its back and making its legs slow their movements, until the giant spider finally fell still in his hold.
Many of the students stared down at him in surprise, a couple of them muttering and looking impressed. Raven wandered over to him, examining him closely and watching as he ran his fingers along the creature's back, which appeared to be keeping it rather calm now.
"Wow," Raven smirked. "Look at you… didn't need a spell or anything. Well done."
Tobias smiled, embracing the Acromantula and simply continuing to stroke it.
Kenji remained in his seat in the back of the room, scowling at Tobias from afar.
Sakura, however, gazed down at him with a grin. "How did you… do that?"
Tobias made a shrug, still coasting his fingers up and down the spider. "He's scared. He needs to be comforted… so not to be scared anymore."
"Well… they are just babies," Jeremiah remarked, glancing at the other cages. "All of 'em are."
"Okay… moving on," Raven sighed, laughing and shaking her head as she moved back to the front of the room.
Thankfully, she didn't release the rest of the spiders for the rest of the class, and Tobias remained sitting on the floor until the class was over, stroking the young Acromantula and keeping it calm the whole time. After class was over, he reluctantly relinquished it back to Raven, and he politely asked her to set them all free sometime soon, to which she gracefully agreed, as she had planned to remove them from the classroom fairly soon regardless.
Once the gang were all strolling down the corridors to the main hall for dinner, Alice smiled over at Tobias, feeling delighted.
"Sakura was impressed by you, y'know," she commented, smacking him once on the arm.
Tobias flushed and adjusted his glasses while they walked.
"Knightingale purposefully didn't tell anyone she'd removed the venom from the Acromantulas," Zander mumbled. "Then she let one of them loose in the classroom. That's a dangerous game to play…"
"Well… it definitely makes people react faster," James cackled.
"And tests our magical creature knowledge," Lorcan added.
"And gives people heart attacks," Rose sighed.
"Hah… I like this school," Alice laughed.
All of them strolled into the main hall, seating themselves at the end of their usual table and starting to fashion their plates. Once Alice had a full plate of something called chicken-fried steak, she glanced up, squinting across the crowd at the teachers' table, seeing that Fontaine, Akamine, and the rest of the Ilvermorny teachers were seating themselves for dinner—though her own headmaster was nowhere in sight.
"Where's Arius…?" she murmured.
Her friends didn't seem to hear her, all of them immersed in a conversation of what-if scenarios regarding Acromantulas now. She simply shrugged, beginning to eat her dinner and joining the fun conversation before long.
And as dinner carried on in the main hall of Ilvermorny—Arius stood alone in his room, his arms folded, his expression intense, and his goggle-covered eyes fixated on the family tree that was slowly inking itself along the huge paper posted on his wall.
So far—three branches had managed to form, showing Samuel O'Heiden, Melody Callihan, and all of Alice's grandparents, as well as a few distant cousins from either side of the family, but the higher and farther parts of the tree had yet to be formed, and he wasn't able to see any of her distant lineage just yet. He couldn't know what he might find when the rest of the branches were formed, and when tree finally reached its completion.
Only time would tell now.